The 'LaRouche Doctrine' for Southwest Asia

A Sick Nation

A Right-Wing Turn

Cheney's 'Perpetual War'

The World Depends on Us

From Volume 3, Issue Number 18 of Electronic Intelligence Weekly, Published May 4, 2004

This Week You Need To Know

LaRouche International Webcast:

The 'LaRouche Doctrine' Is the Key to Peace

Here is a transcript of Lyndon LaRouche's opening remarks to an international webcast, broadcast from Washington, D.C. on April 30. Subheads have been added.

This is going to be very hard stuff, and it has to go out. And it will go out naturally over the web network, because we're at a very serious point of crisis, and virtually no one who is in ostensibly leading positions as a candidate, or incumbent President, or so forth, in the United States, is qualified at all, even to think about what's in front of us, let alone deal with it.

Kerry, who's a guy I don't dislike, he's got certain qualifications, but he's frankly been a disaster on the issue of Southwest Asia, the Iraq crisis, and on the economy. President Bush? I don't know where he is. I don't think he knows where he is sometimes, even where he's sitting.

And we have a mess.

The problem today is, at this moment—as you probably notice some of the data coming out of Europe—the financial crisis has reached a point of maturity which I'm not surprised by, but it's happening: The system is breaking down. It is crumbling. We do not have, yet, a collapse in the full sense of the term, but we have a process of crumbling around the world, today, and yesterday, and so forth, which is extremely ominous.

There are some people who have been talking about postponing the crisis until after the November elections: That will not happen. Of that, we can be sure. The crisis is here. It can not be postponed. This is May. You're not going to postpone this crisis, until November. It's coming on. It probably is coming on, before the summer arrives. And no one in the United States, in a position of leadership—there are some people in the woodwork; there are some people who are staff people; some people in government, who would be prepared to act appropriately—but we don't have a President, or a leading candidate for President in the form of Kerry, who is qualified emotionally or intellectually to do the things that are absolutely indispensable, without compromise, to deal with, first of all the monetary-financial crisis, the economic crisis, or to deal with the situation in Iraq.

I can guarantee you, neither of them—the White House nor Kerry—as long as they're advised by the people who are advising them now, will do anything that is even approximately intelligent, about the issue in Iraq, the region generally, or about the economic situation. It's just not going to happen.

The 'LaRouche Doctrine' for Southwest Asia

I've made a proposal on this question of Southwest Asia, which will work. A number of people from various countries around the world, leading people, have proposed that I take certain things into account. Some of them will probably, in the question-and-answer session, today, pose those questions to me; and I shall respond to them. But, I can assure you, that there can be no compromises, with what I have proposed. I have not proposed too much. I've proposed a minimal approach to getting this situation in Iraq and adjoining countries under control. People think that this is a matter of negotiating a contract. People are trying to put their two cents in, in a sense: their condition, their condition, their condition. Forget it! Forget contracts! What we need for the area, there, is, we need a form of agreement which follows precisely the guidelines of the 1648 Treaty of Westphalia, which brought a long period of religious warfare to an end. We're now dealing with an area which has been reduced to religious warfare and to related conflicts in the Middle East, as it's called. You are not going to deal with that kind of situation, by making a contract agreement, like a bunch of dumb lawyers, Washington lawyers, coming in and trying to bargain points.

Don't try to do this the way that President Clinton goofed the negotiations at Camp David, on Israeli-Palestinian peace. Get that out of your mind! It is not going to work. As a matter of fact, there is going to be no solution for the crisis in Southwest Asia, unless we can adopt it as my doctrine, by name. Because nobody else has the credibility to do what has to be done—that is, no candidate, no other spokesman for the United States—has the credibility to make that proffer, and no one can be trusted to carry it through.

The same thing is true on the question of the economic crisis. No one, in the United States, in a leading position, apart from my leading position, is prepared to even consider doing the absolute minimal things, that have to be done, to prevent this nation, and many of the nations of the world, from collapsing, into a deeper depression—far deeper, far worse—than 1929-33. It's coming on now.

Now, the problem is that I am blocked out from official discussion, with whole channels of people, who should be talking to me, about precisely these questions. I have the expertise, I have the qualifications; they don't. If they're serious about saving the country and dealing with the problem, they would talk with me. Why don't they talk? Well, some of them do, in indirect ways. But they don't talk directly. We don't get into a dialogue. What does that mean?

There are people, in the system, certain financier interests in particular—people typified by Lazard Frères, typified by Felix Rohatyn, and similar types—whose approach to the world financial crisis today, is to follow the guidelines that were carried out by the man who put Hitler into power in Germany: Hjalmar Schacht. What is being proposed, as you see in the imposition of conditionalities toward Argentina—the new ones, the so-called "vulture funds"—are exactly a forecast of what these people intend to do to the people of the United States, as well as other countries, as this crisis becomes worse. Everything will be cut, except the interest payments to the bankers, as was done by Schacht and company, over the period 1929-33, in response to the onrush of what had been known to be, at that time, as an onrushing, general world depression.

People will die, if these bankers have their way. These bankers, and the interests they are associated with, control the Republican and Democratic Party election machines. They are presently controlling Senator Kerry. They control the people on whose lap President Bush sits, to take orders.

These people are determined to keep me out of the situation, because they know what my message is. My message is to follow the precedent of Franklin Roosevelt's dealing with the world depression, both in his election campaign in 1932, and in his Presidency, from March 1933 on. My commitment is to say, that the government is not efficient or morally competent, unless we're able to carry out the instruction of the Preamble of our Constitution: to defend the sovereignty of our nation, to defend the general welfare of all of our people, and to promote the security and welfare of our posterity.

Those are the three requirements of the President of the United States, above all. None of the candidates I'm dealing with in the United States, or their circles, are prepared to accept that. As a matter of fact, that means, that if I'm President, and the crash hits with full force, or has hit, I am going to do pretty much what Franklin Roosevelt did: I'm going to put the bankrupt system into bankruptcy reorganization; to keep everything functioning that must function, for our people, for our security, and for growth. And that means, the bankers are going to have to take a back seat. They're going to have to get in line, like everybody else. The people of the United States come first.

And the test of the quality of a President of the United States, for a situation like this, is to look at the people who are the poorest, who are the least privileged: And if you can't do something for them, you're not going to do something for the nation.

A Sick Nation

We have a very sick nation, politically, right now. Over the period since 1977, you will observe that there has been a decline in the physical standard of living, of people in the lower 80% of family-income brackets. Politics has, more and more, been turned over to a smaller section of the population: the upper 20%, which some call the suburban strata. The older people, who are now in their fifties and sixties, who are generally running most of the places in the country, who are controlling the Democratic Party machines, who think in terms of the interests of the Baby-Boomer generation, with their fantasy-life, with their comfort zones, and that sort of thing. Not the future. And therefore, this generation will not, of its own accord, respond, on its own initiative, appropriately to this situation.

The United States, which has the oldest Constitution surviving on this planet today—and it's the oldest because it's the best—but, if we fail that Constitution, in a time of crisis, now, we won't have a Constitution. We won't have a nation.

So, the test has come: Can we do it now?

And the decision must not lie with the upper 20% of family-income brackets. The decision must not lie with the bankers, who would like to impose the Schachtian methods used by the man who put Hitler into power, Hjalmar Schacht, against the United States and other nations, today; the people who would enforce the collection procedure against Argentina, which means mass murder; the people who are cutting the health care of senior citizens, because they think we have too many of them—and doing more and more, each time. They're reclassifying prescription drugs, as "over the counter" drugs, so the insurance companies won't have to support your prescriptions. This is the kind of thing that's going on: And nobody's doing anything in government effectively, to stop it.

So therefore, the question is: Will the people of the United States, stop waiting to be bought to vote? Will they stop waiting, until they get approval to vote? Will the people of the United States, the 80% in the lower family-income brackets, mobilize themselves to say, "We are the majority in this country! We are the ones, whose requirements have to be met. We are going to turn out to vote, whether you pay us to go to the polls, or not! We are going to vote the way we think our interests determine, the interests of our country. We're going to go, we're going to throw you bums out, who will not pay any attention to our concerns." And the people need a candidate, like Roosevelt, who will say to the "forgotten man and woman" of our country: "Have courage, come out and vote. I'm your man!"

That's the only way we're going to deal with this depression. It's the only way we're going to deal with the situation in Southwest Asia, including Iraq.

Don't believe that the United Nations will step in to save the situation in Iraq. It will not! Forget it! Don't say, "Go to the United Nations and give them the power." They can't do it, and won't do it! Kofi Annan may have the intention to do something, but he doesn't have the power to do anything. He does not have the resources to do what's required.

I do. Because I think I can have the resources of the people of Iraq, as well, to help us get out of this mess.

Don't think that somebody in Europe is going to stop this. Don't think that someone in Europe is going to come to the rescue of the international financial-monetary system. They won't. There's no one there with the guts to do it, in a leading position of power. Their culture says, "Don't do it." European culture is based on the British system of independent central banking systems: They will not overturn the principle of independent central banking systems. They're not capable of doing it constitutionally. The only way Europe could do that, is on the initiative of the United States, the United States government—as we bailed Europe out, at the end of World War II, with the Bretton Woods system, which was backed by the U.S. dollar, and backed by the design, provided by Roosevelt in the 1944 Bretton Woods agreements.

Those are the only way, that this world is going to be put in shape. No one else can do it, except the United States, because there's no authority outside the United States which is both competent and willing to do it. We have to do it. We have to mobilize our country. Don't try to find an alternative: It doesn't exist. Either we, as a nation, get back on our feet, and meet our responsibilities, or there isn't anything for this planet, except the threat of a dark age.

A Right-Wing Turn

Now, let me give you some indication of what the problem is, an historical indication—some of you are not old enough to have had the experience that I've had; there're a couple of people in the room, who do. But, that's about it. The experience is, coming out of the Depression and the Second World War; coming back from military service to the United States, and finding that the people whom we had fought against, the people behind Hitler, were coming back into power, in the United Kingdom and the United States. It was a right-wing turn, in which most of the people in my generation capitulated. They capitulated out of cowardice—even people who had fought in war, suddenly showed cowardice and capitulated, to fear of the right wing, to fear of the FBI, to fear of what the Truman Administration represented.

We were somewhat saved from the evils of Trumanism, by the Eisenhower election. And two terms of Eisenhower gave a period of relative stability and security in the country—some relief from the right-wing ravaging that was going on. This turned many people of my generation, who themselves were cowards: They fled into suburbia. They went for tech jobs, in classified employment—that is, security classified employment. They sought jobs as engineers and technicians, and so forth. They were determined to become rich in suburbia, and forget the poor behind them. They raised their children, their pretty children, through things like funny schools you saw on television.

And the children were told, "Don't tell the truth. Be careful what you say. Your father might lose his job. Don't express opinions which contradict those of your teachers. You might get the family into trouble." So, what happened is, the generation which was born in the post-war period, and came to young adulthood in the middle of the 1960s, were trained to be sophists: not to believe in truth, but to believe in being overheard saying something that was advantageous to your career.

So, then, we were hit with the Missile Crisis. Everybody found God in a beer can, for about four or five days. They were convinced we were going to all be fried. Thermonuclear weapons, the missiles were going to come in on us, on the Soviet Union, on Europe, and so forth: We were all going to fried! There was this famous novel out of Australia by Nevil Shute, called On the Beach, where the last people were dying of radioactivity, the last people on the planet, where the radioactivity finally overtook them. That was the state of affairs.

You had messes in Europe, but you had, also, the assassination of Kennedy! All of these things were done, by the right wing! A right wing, today, typified by Vice President Cheney. They did it to us! The people who were the so-called Baby-Boomers, the children who had been taught to become sophists, during the 1950s, who didn't believe in truth, who believed in what was advantageous to be overheard believing. The people who were controlled by polls: The latest poll was supposed to tell you what to believe! They'd say, "I don't know what to believe today. I haven't seen the polls, yet." This was the kind of society.

And therefore, we trained a Baby-Boomer generation to flee, from that which they didn't have the courage to remember. And the right wing took over. It really took over with the Vietnam War, the Indo-China War. They took over with Nixon. Nixon, in 1966, met with the Ku Klux Klan in Biloxi, Mississippi, and that was called the "Southern Strategy." Bit by bit, the Democrats of that Southern Strategy inclination, left the Democratic Party, and went over to the Republican Party (or who knows where).

1971-72, we destroyed the world economy. It was started by George Shultz, as an adviser, indirectly, but as an adviser nonetheless, to Nixon, who shut down the monetary system that had saved us in the post-war period. 1972, Shultz, at the Azores Conference, was the key negotiator, who set up the floating-exchange-rate system, which has plunged the world as a whole into the present financial crisis. And so forth, and so on.

Cheney's 'Perpetual War'

So, we've been in that kind of process. Now, you have—what does Cheney represent? Cheney represents what he says he represents. What he said he represented in 1989-1992, when he was Secretary of Defense, under George Bush I. He said he was for perpetual war. He said he was for preventive nuclear war, with mini-nukes: That is, low radioactive yield, but high potential bombs, missiles. He tried to get it through. At that time, people said "no." He was checked. He kept on with his program, the extreme right-wing program today.

The policy of the United States, under a Cheney Administration, which is what you have—you don't have a Bush Administration! You have a Cheney Administration! You have a dummy sitting on the knee of a Vice President Cheney, who's controlled by strings from his wife! Who is worse than Cheney is! Worse than he is: She's the clever one; he's the dumb brute, who's holding the strings on the President, the marionette.

So, what we have today, is a commitment, that if Cheney were reelected, as Vice President, we are looking at—not an Iraq War; not a mess in Afghanistan, which is getting worse by the day—we are looking at an attack on Syria, an attack on Iraq, nuclear weapons thrown at North Korea; eventually, a war against China. We're looking at that kind of world: A world which is depressed, by a great financial crisis, worse than that of the 1930s, that kind of condition.

These are the pre-conditions for a dark age. And my problem is, I'm looking at our people, our nation; I recognize the responsibility we have as a nation, for the sake of humanity as a whole. Once again, as under Roosevelt, the job has come to us. We must provide the decisive margin of leadership, to save the world from Hell, the kind of Hell that Hitler represented back then. We have to do it, again. And, as far as I can see, looking around me, among my so-called rivals for the Presidency and others, I see no one with the competence or the guts to do the job.

I also see an American people, the lower 80% of the family-income brackets of this nation, unwilling to get out, and fight for themselves. They no longer believe in voting! You get 15-20% turnout in votes, elections, in districts. What does that tell you about the American people? They have no confidence that their vote means anything. They vote, if they're paid to turn out. They turn out for local issues, not for national issues. Not for issues on which the fate of the nation depends.

Therefore, my job, and your job is to help me change that. Under Kerry, under Bush, at present—maybe we can change Kerry; I've certainly been trying to do it. If he's nominated, we got to do something with him, and I've got to do it. But, if we don't make those changes, if we don't get the average voter out, to fight for his and her own vital interests, for this nation, this nation is not going to make it, and the world is not going to make it! Oh, human beings will be around, but we're going to go through some special kind of Hell. Because the time came, when the responsibility was passed to us, and there were not enough people there to respond, to save the nation.

You know, people ask me, they say, "What chance do you have of being elected?" I say, "I have a better change of being elected, than you have of surviving if I'm not!" And that's a fact. It's not an exaggeration. Those are realities.

But, the Baby-Boomer says, "No-o-o! No! It's not like that! We have our comfort zones! Our comfort zones say that what you say, will not exist! Our comfort zones say, there will be no financial crisis! There will be difficulties—of course. But we will manage them."

"Yes, we are not going to pull out of Iraq. We're not going to announce our military operations against the Iraqi people as over, as ceased. We're not going to do that! We're gonna come up with something. We're gonna rearrange the chairs! But, this is not a real crisis, that we have to take a sudden action on. We're not going to say things that George Bush would call unpatriotic." And he's not even a patriot! He doesn't know what patriotism is! Wouldn't understand the word.

The World Depends on Us

So, that's the situation: We're faced with that kind of problem. And, if we can not mobilize enough people in this nation—not because they got permission from the polls; not because they're bought to go out to the polls; not because the Washington Post tells them it's all right to vote for me, or something like that: If they can not stand up on their own hind legs, and fight for themselves, and do the thing that can work in fighting for themselves, in making sure that they don't choose people on what the pollsters say, but they choose people on what those people are going to do, to solve the problems that this nation has.

And it's not just all the little things that count. Yes, there are many little things that need to be fixed, and I've addressed many of them in the course of this campaign. But, the essential thing: Are you willing to save the human race, from what threatens it now? What threatens it now, are not the local issues. What threatens us on the local issues: We don't have the means to deal the local issues! We don't have the willingness to deal with them. What threatens us, we lack the will at the top, to take the kind of decision, which will lead the world out of this mess. If the United States were to follow my leadership, we would have support that we need from Europe; the United Nations would play a role, which we would assist in giving it, in the matter of Iraq; we would find a way to deal with this world financial crisis—I know how to deal with it. But, these are the decisions that have to be made! And they have to be made here, in the United States, first of all, because no other part of the world is capable of making the decision on its own to do the job, if we don't do it!

The world depends upon the United States, with all of the faults we've acquired. We have the oldest constitution on this planet, and that is not an accident. It's the oldest, because it's the best. It's the Constitution that worked, when every other part of the world failed. And, if we stick to that tested Constitution, and use the Executive Branch of government, as the Executive branch was intended to be used, when this Constitution was framed; if we applied the leadership, which the Europeans who helped make us possible, intended, when they intended to create in this country, on this continent, a new nation, which would be a beacon for freedom for the rest of the world, for similar kinds of republics.

That never happened: The French Revolution and other things prevented it. There were improvements in Europe, and so forth. But, the kind of nation, which we were constituted to become, which the greatest Europeans, who supported us, intended we should become, no other nation on this planet has acquired that kind of constitutional character. We, with all our faults, still have that.

The President of the United States, if he's competent, and understands that, is capable of leading the American people, to inspire other people, in other parts of the world, not to become part of an American empire, but to cooperate with us, in finding solutions to the problems that face us, now. And there are solutions. The question is, does the willingness exist to apply those solutions? This must come from the United States. It must come from the leadership of the United States.

And, I'm saying to the world, right now, via this broadcast, this webcast, and otherwise: "You better turn to me, buddy. Because this is your last shot. If I go, you don't have anything else, that's capable of leading the United States, in a fighting position, now." And, if we don't have somebody, in a leading position in the United States, in the Presidency, who's steering this country's leading role in the world, there's no hope for Europe, there's no hope for the United Nations, or from it; and there's no hope for the world at large.

This planet is on the verge of going into a new dark age. We don't have to go there. It's not inevitable. We have a choice. But, if we don't provide the leadership, from the United States, to get the rest of the world to move in the necessary direction, there is going to be a dark age, for all humanity. And that, we could discuss.

All rights reserved © 2004 EIRNS