This Week You Need To Know
Mr. LaRouche gave this speech to a webcast conference of LaRouche PAC in Washington, D.C. on Oct. 6. It can be viewed, along with the animated graphics and the questions and answers that followed it, at www.larouchepac.com.
As I indicated, the problem which I'll address today, has to do with insanity. Not only, however, the insanity of the incumbent President, George Bush, which I shall refer to, but also the insanity of two other types: We have mass insanity, as typified by the role of religious fundamentalism in shaping the policies of the United States today; and secondly, we have cultural insanity, expressed in the form in particular, over the past 40 years, of the transformation of the United States, which had been the world's most powerful, most productive nationthe one that had rebuilt the world, or led in rebuilding the world, in the post-war period40 years ago, began to transform itself, into the junk heap, the bankrupt junk heap, we are today.
This was not done merely by bad Presidents, such as the cowardice, in a sense, of Johnson, who was frightened that maybe the three guns that shot down Kennedy might shoot him next; but also the insanity of people who supported President Nixon, a virtual fascist regime, which launched the actual wrecking of the U.S. economy in a large degree.
The mass insanity of transforming this nation from the world's greatest producer society, to today's bankrupt society, post-industrial bankrupt system, in a bankrupt world, which we have led in bringing about.
So therefore, we have three kinds of insanity: One, the insanity of the President himselfand that is a major factor in our problems: Because we, as the United States, are crucial in this planet. If the United States goes insane, there's no other part of this planet, or no combination of other parts of this planet, which is prepared to prevent a global disaster, even potentially a new dark age. So, we have to be patriots, for the sake of the world: Because only the United States, in all its rotten condition today, still has the potential, in a time of crisis like this, a time whose precedent is that of the incumbency of Franklin Roosevelt, without whom the world would have gone to hell. And Roosevelt is to be credited for that, in part, but Roosevelt is to be credited also, because he was a President of the United States, in which are embedded the potentials which no other part of this planet has, for dealing with a crisis of the type which confronted us then, in 1933, and which confronts us again, today.
And therefore, that has to be our approach.
Therefore, an insane man in the Presidency, is a crisis. It's a crisis for the world. It is not something the rest of the world can overlook. There's no hope for the rest of the world, unless the United States is able to play the role it must play, under terms of the present crisis.
There's a mass insanity, which is associated in this country with religious fundamentalism, both of the Catholic anti-Pope type, and of the Protestant fundamentalist type. Neither of which are Christians. And that, I will have something to say about, because that's an important part about this.
There's mass insanity in form of belief in free trade, which I will demonstrate today in a serious presentation of the subject, but brief, that this is a form of mass insanity. And if we don't get rid of it, we're not going to solve any of our problems.
Then, we have the cultural insanity, which is taking the form of fascism today: the fascism represented by the Bush-Cheney Administration. The support for what Bush-Cheney represents, is a form of mass insanity.
Oct. 8"The mayors and elected officials who held a press conference in Cleveland, Ohio Oct. 4, are right," said Lyndon LaRouche, founder of LaRouche PAC, today. "The Presidential debates must address the 'real problems' the American people face, starting with infrastructure and physical economy."
LaRouche was referring to a press conference by leaders from the United States Conference of Mayors, the National League of Cities, and the National Association of CountiesRepublicans and Democratswho urged President George Bush and Senator John Kerry to address domestic and economic issues that are critically affecting the citizens of this country. LaRouche's political action committee, which is actively campaigning in Ohio in support of Democrat John Kerry, is highlighting the very same issue, in a mass pamphlet entitled "It's the Physical Economy, Stupid!"
Akron Mayor Don Plusquellic, president of the U.S. Conference of Mayors, put it this way in the press conference: "What's relevant is, how are we going to address the job loss? How are we going to rebuild our economic base, especially in the urban centers? How are we going to address reinvestment in our infrastructure? ... Those are the issues that are on the agenda and should be the ones we are pushing during the debatesto force the candidates to talk about them in real terms, not just made-up phrases about how they are thinking about a program."
Added Steve Burkeholder, Republican Mayor of Lakewood, Colo., "During the past 15 months, we've heard much about the Federal investment in rebuilding the infrastructure overseas, yet we haven't heard an honest discussion about what the candidates are prepared to do to rebuild our own aging infrastructure."
In stating his agreement with the mayors, LaRouche urged that the real issues of jobs and infrastructure development, which the mayors and other officials identified, be taken up in the Presidential debate to be held in St. Louis tonightas well as at next week's debate, which is explicitly intended to be devoted to the economy.
For more information, or to see the LaRouche Physical Economy pamphlet, visit www.larouchepac.com. or call toll-free, 1-800-929-7566.
Oct. 9"The President is a liar," said leading Democrat Lyndon LaRouche in response to the Oct. 8 Presidential debate between President George W. Bush and Senator John Kerry. "Whether the President knowingly lied, or lied because of some junk that was fed to him, he lied to the American people, and we cannot afford to have a U.S. President who lies."
Some of the leading lies from the October 8 debate were:
1. Challenged on his rush to war without a plan for the peace, President Bush said, "Of course, I listened to our generals."
This is an outright lie, since General Shinseki, then Army Chief of Staff, had publicly said that several hundred thousand troops were necessary to secure Iraq, and he had been "retired" as a result.
2. Several times throughout the debate, President Bush said that his Administration had created 1.9 million jobs in the last 13 months and that "we're growing," and "small business is flourishing."
This is an outright lie or hallucination. First, over 80% of the jobs allegedly created were "computer projections," i.e. virtual jobs, imputed to new businesses assumed to have been started but which have never been surveyed by the Labor Department to know if they exist or not. Second, the overall job figures have gone down since Bush took office, by at least a net 600,000 jobs, and by many more manufacturing jobs. Senator Kerry is right that President Bush is the first President since Herbert Hoover to see a collapse in jobs during his term.
Thirdly, there is no growth in the economy, unless one counts debt as growth. Poverty has increased by at least 4.3 million people since President Bush took office, reaching 36 million people according to the ridiculously low standard upon which the government statisticians compute. Many major urban centers have a poverty rate of over 20%, due to the collapse of manufacturing jobs, with the major city of Cleveland having a rate of over 31%.
3. When confronted on the shockingly inadequate security and economic infrastructure required to protect the country against terrorism, such as hospital infrastructure, first responders, and checking of cargo at ports and airports, President Bush claimed that he had tripled spending for homeland security.
This is an outright lie according to government figures, which show that the Homeland Security Department spending went from $19.7 billion in FY 2001, to $36.5 billion in FY 2004. More importantly, of course, it was inadequate to the task, since, as Senator Kerry said, this level of spending has left the necessary infrastructure inadequate to handle day-to-day life, much less an emergency.
These three examples by no means exhaust the President's lies, which included his insistence that his "lower taxes on the rich" tax plan is necessary to protect small business; his claim that Senator Kerry's health plan would hand all decisions over to the Federal government; and his denial that he owned a timber company (which was, in fact, listed on his 2001 tax return).
For more information on President Bush and Vice-President Cheney's lies about Iraq and the economy, see larouchepac.com.
Here are excerpts from the discussion that followed Lyndon LaRouche's opening remarks to the webcast on Oct. 6.
Question (From Missouri State Rep. Juanita Walton): Mr. LaRouche, I feel that you think, to overcome election fraud, we have to get as many Democrats out to vote as possible. But, what about the computers that are being used for voting that we know can cause massive fraud? How do we address this?"
LaRouche: I think there's only one way to deal with it, and that is to have an overwhelming, mass turnout. Youth are the answer. Look, for example, we are getting a very good result in Ohio, where we've got a special emphasis, now. We've picked out Ohio as one of our concentration areas, because the Ohio-Michigan area, it touches Pennsylvania and northern Kentucky, are typical. We also have something different on the West Coast, and something different in Texas, and whatnot.
But, in this area we are getting a storming of turnout for youth and other voters. The registration turnout is massive. Now, what we are hitting, is exactly what the enemy thought would never happen, including the Democratic Party enemies. Some people in the Democratic Party wanted to limit this to the "usual" voteryou know, who voted in three out of four of the last Federal electionsignoring the lower 80% who haven't voted, because they're disgusted, and ignoring also the youth layer, 18 to 25, because they're also estranged.
Now, what we're getting, and we're getting it because of the a catalyst of our activity in Ohio and Michigan, we're getting, especially in Ohio, we're getting a massive. Our people are deployed, singing and so forth, our youth, or otherwise. They go out and they're organizing, in the way they organize. People come around and now the Democratic register teams, which are not able to do much otherwise, have gotten onto the fact that if they come around to where we're doing the organizing, they can work the crowd and get the signatures for the registration. And, we're getting a lot of that.
So, the key thing here is, we're acting as a spearhead, because we know there's a lot of gutlessness on the part of the Democratic Party. We know that the Democratic Party does not know how to deal with youth. They don't know. They parade them; they organize them, like cattle, and try to parade them into an event! That is not the way you organize youth.
What you do, is you turn them loose and hope they don't set fire to something. We do a little better than that, but, the point is, you use the youth as a catalyst, and use other groups, who will work with youth on this basis, as a catalyst. We have to turn out the vote. The number of non-voters in this country, who should vote, is disgusting.
We are getting, in some areas of the countrynow, Ohio is crucial. Ohio is the pivotal state, because it was the richest state in the country at one point, and now it is one of the poorest. Western Pennsylvania, Michiganthese areas. What we saw around Louisville: That area is a very good area, because it has some trade-union people and so forth, in that area, as a constituency. It has issues and can organize. Arkansas has a potential. You have Texas, has potential. We are running a very serious challenge to DeLay down there, with people who are opponents to DeLay, who are able to put a factor in there, with our organizing, which otherwise wouldn't occur.
For example, one of the big problems of this campaign has been Kennedy's in-law, Schwarzenegger. When Schwarzenegger came on, Clinton went in there, in a normal way to support the Democratic cause against this fascist. And, this guy is a fascist, period. His policies are fascist. His pedigree is fascist. His background is fascist. He's fascist on every question, including women and so forth. But the Democratic Party said, "No. We're not going to fight." Our youth movement, in the Bay Area and Los Angeles area, where we had forces we could concentrate, fought. We won! In every other area of the state, the Democratic Party threw the election to Schwarzenegger. And, it's that throwing of that vote to Schwarzenegger which is the curse hanging around the neck of the entire Democratic Party campaign, from that time to the present, which is the key problem here.
You have a certified idiot, George Bush. The guy's a psychopath! You saw him! Now, Justin Frank gives you some of the parameters to understand, when you think this guy's nuts; you got a good psychiatrist, who comes around and says, "Yeah, you're right, he really is nuts." Then you see Cheney, and I tell you he's a sociopath. You've had experience in politics, you know what these sociopaths are like. And, he's an extreme case! So, you have a psychopath and a sociopath running for President and Vice President.
Don't you think we could defeat those easily, under normal circumstances? You think any less competent President ever existed, as compared to this poor dummy, mean-spirited dummy in the White House now? I was thinking of putting cotton batting around the thing to suppress the screams until the election is over.
We threw it. And the Kennedys, and others, blew it! When they should have fought, they didn't fight. We came in. And, when Bill Clinton came in seriously, and convinced Kerry to be more serious about trying to win, the campaign changed. So, we're coming from way behind. We should have been at this stage we're at now, in May or June of this year.
But, I think with the crisis, we have the potential. The turnout for the debate, with a cliff-hanger, where Kerry actually did, relative to Bush, a good job. Not as good as I would have done, in terms of taking the issues; but, on the issues he did well, he did very well. And, he showed Bush up for a psychopath to an international public. I think Edwards did fairly well. I don't think it was a cliff-hanger in the sense that Kerry did a cliff-hanger against Bush, because I don't think Edwards understood, that Cheney is a sociopath. He probably has not run across that kind of thing in the courtroom in his career as a litigator. So, he didn't know how to deal with a sociopath.
You tell a sociopath he's a coward. "Why are you afraid to tell the truth, Cheney? Why are you afraid to tell the truth? Why do you keep telling lies? Why are you afraid to tell the truth?" A sociopath would blow up. And what we wanted was a blow-up. And what the Democratic Party appeared not to want is a blow-up. But, to deal with Cheney you had to cause a blow-up. To deal with Cheney the way Kerry dealt with Bush, you had to risk this explosion. And the way to risk the explosion is to make the guy unmask himself. And he didn't do it.
So, I think the key thing herewe're coming from behind. It's our own fault. It's the Democratic Party. We have to, at this point, count on trying to use the youth factor as much as possible. And trying to use also, in a state like Missouri, the spill-over factor that we can get in some states, to spill out over quickly into other states. Because the key thing we're up against, is a psychological factor. The people are more than ready-ripe to turn out to vote. They're not inspired to turn out to vote. What they need is examples of successful campaigns which they can use.
The most effective thing so far, to this effect, apart from our youth work, would be to work with others in the Michigan-Ohio area, where we had full cooperation with development Democrats, so, we were able to do what we should do with our limited forces. I think Kerry's dealing with Bush opens the case, because now, no one can deny it. We have to exploit that. But the only way we are going to win against the fraud is, right now, overwhelm the ballot by turning out the youth, and getting people to be turned out, by the youth turning out.
Question (From East Orange, N.J. City Council President Zachary Turner): I was pretty impressed last night with Senator Edwards. But, I wasn't comfortable with his international policy. So, my question to you basically will be, what would be your plan to exit out of Iraq?
LaRouche: The problem there is that, both Kerry and Edwards are trying to look like good machos. Kill, kill, kill. I don't think the President of the United States should say, we're going in there to kill anybody. Kerry obviously has a distinguished military record, of a certain type at a certain level. But, he's not really a strategic thinker. What should have been saidand I don't think Kerry or Edwards could have carried the ball on that one; we have some military people who couldhe doesn't understand the principle of strategic defense. You don't kill anybody! You may end up killing somebody, but you don't go out with the desire to kill people! That's wrong.
The modern policy of strategic defense was developed in several ways. It was developed in part by the defeat of Napoleon in Russia. The interesting thing was, the Russian generals, originally, under Czar Alexander I, intended to say, "We're going to stop Napoleon at the border." And, some Germans, Prussians, including an in-law of Friedrich Schiller, based on the studies by Schiller of the Netherlands War and the Thirty Years' War, said, "No. The way you do it is you have a staged retreat to draw Napoleon's forces into a position where they can be defeated, crushed."
Now, there were two objectives that Napoleon could have marched to, Petrograd or Moscow. Napoleon fortunately made the worst possible choice, Moscow. So the Russian troops carried out the order, accepted by Alexander I as policy, not to decisively engage Napoleon's forces, but to retreat, rearguard action, all the way to Moscow. He finally got to Moscow in the wintertime. The joint was mined. The Russian forces, which had been conserved, by not going to a decisive battle with Napoleon, were sitting outside Moscow. The city blew up. Napoleon had to retreat. The forces which had been conserved, plus an asymmetric warfare force, mobilized the Russian people, fell upon the heels of Napoleon and destroyed his army by the time he reached back to Poland.
Since that time, as in the case of MacArthur's conduct in the Pacific, our role, as in the United States, our best people, always used the policy of strategic defense. We did not go out to try to deliver an attack, a winning attack, a crushing attack. Our long-term thing is political. We have to establish our security; therefore, let us not seek war. Let us try to force a situation, in which we can bring about peace.
Now, take the Middle East, for example. It is true the United States can not cut and run from Iraq now, because, you'd just make things worse. But the question is, how would we get out? The first stage came, and the problem after the error of going in, in the first placethe first stage, was, in the time that Bremer was ordered from Washington to discharge the Iraqi army and the Ba'athist politicians from government. Had he not done that, then the Ba'athist Army, now working under U.S. occupation, and the Ba'ath bureaucrats working under U.S. occupation, would have organized and stabilized the country. And, then we could have gotten out in a peaceful way. They did the absolutely worst possible thing.
Now, the problem here is, which was not said by Kerry and was not said by EdwardsI don't think either of them understood it really, or maybe they didn't wish to understand it. The problem here was that, the intention of Cheney to go into Iraq occurred during the first Bush Administration. And, it never changed. So, that the only reason they went to a war in Iraq, was because of a policy which Cheney had supported against President Bush's advisers, such as Scowcroft, during the close of the so-called first Iraq war, Desert Storm. So, that's why we went to war.
Now, if you want to talk about this thing, you have to talk about that. You don't talk about what the issues of going to war were. And, also the problem that Kerry has, he showed gutlessness in the Senate, political gutlessnessunlike Senator Byrdhe voted for an act empowering the President. It was a blank check, a signed blank check to President Bush, which Byrd correctly denounced. It's a violation of our Constitution. It's a violation of the War Powers principle of our Constitution. Kerry supported it, along with others, who acted in a cowardly, opportunistic manner! That's the inception of the problem. Therefore, they won't tell the truth.
The truth isand where Kerry also goofed up, and where Edwards goofed up (they didn't talk to me, or they probably wouldn't have made that mistake)they said, "You've got to kill people in North Korea." You're crazy!
We had a peaceful situation, in negotiation with North Korea, on all issues under Clinton. The Bush Administration came in and cancelled it! So, now we've got ourselves into a totally unnecessary situation with North Korea. We have insisted, under Bush, in perpetuating and aggravating that situation ever since. We participated in overthrowing South Korean governments, who wanted to cooperate, opposite to the Bush policy.
So, the point is, is that Kerry and Edwards did not tell the truth about the thing. Therefore they got themselves into a bind, and said, "We're machos, we want to kill, kill, kill, kill, kill."
Well, you want to talk about Osama bin Ladenwho created Osama bin Laden? Vice President George Bush, together with Jimmy Goldsmith. They went and they recruited this guy, as an organizer for the Afghanistan war. They set him up in business, and then later, he was cut loose. But, he's still operating, and I wonder if the British are still running him.
And, why did, as Edwards emphasized, why did the United States cut and run when they had him in a box, and go into Iraq? Because the policy of the Bush Administration, under Cheney's direction, was to go to a series of nuclear armed wars, involving targets that included Jordan, Syria, Iran, North Korea, and ultimately China and Russia!
Their policy is to set up a world empire, a world Anglo-American empire, which is a deal they cut with London, with Tony Blair, by a series of wars, which would destroy nation-states; end nation-states in Europe by setting up the European Union, to end the existence of nation-states in Europe! Finish off Russia by causing it to disintegrate, by operations from the North Caucasus and similar kinds of things. That's the policy.
Well, if I'm President, I wouldn't have a problem, would I? First of all, in the Arab world, I'm probably the only American politician the Arab world would trust, right now. The only one. If Kerry wants to get out of the problems in the Middle East, he'd better come and talk to me: Because I have the credentials, he does not. And he didn't help himself, the other way around. What we do then, if they would trust me, they wouldn't trust anybody else, and they'd watch me like a hawk, because they're very suspicious.
But we could get it, because we have to get one thing, and this is where Kerry and Edwards will not bite the bullet: You have to deal with justice for the Palestinians. You can not scream that the problem Israel has, is a bunch of crazy Palestinians. You've had a war going on, between Palestinians and Israelis, for some period of time. You had a relatively sane phase under the Labor government, and I dealt with the Labor government back in the middle of the 1970s. And we had a plan for a peace plan for the Middle East. At that time, Labor government leaders, including Shimon Peres, were supporting me and praising me for what I was doing: Because what I proposed is a development program, including water development and power development for the region, so that people would have enough water and power to live and develop together. That without a constructive economic development plan, there can be no peace in the Middle East.
You have to have a broker who sort of forces it down the throats of the parties. The only effective broker would be the United States, as Clinton correctly thought. He may not have handled it perfectly. He may have been misled on some points, but he had the right idea, of going in that direction. Only the United States can bring about the condition of Middle East peace. If you can not bring about Middle East peace between the Palestinians and Israelis nowand it could be doneyou have no possibility of settling the general crisis in the Middle East today.
And with the circumstances we have now, in Iraq: You have Turkey engaged, by the threat from northern Iraq; you have the whole Transcaucasia area engaged, against Russia; you have Iran engaged; you have all the Arab countries engaged.
And the way this Darfur [Sudan] thing is being mishandled and misrepresented, including by Kerry, is part of the problem. The target is of certain people to try to destroy Egypt, by destroying Sudan. Garang is a U.S. agent. Garang's agents are part of the slaughter. That's the genocideGarang, the U.S. agent, is supporting the killing in that area. The other agent is al-Turabi, who's a British agent, of Muslim Brotherhood pedigree. A former supporter of the government of Sudan. So you say the Sudanese government is doing it; it is the United States government that's doing it, with the British. They created the situation in which this happened. There is death occurring there. Yes. It should be corrected. But who's doing it? It's the United States government, who is as guilty as anybody else in doing it. And it's holier-than-thou "we're gonna get the government there": The purpose is, they're going to grab the water and oil of the region, from Sudan. And while they grab the water, they're going to collapse Egypt. You collapse Egypt, you want peace? You want Hell on Earth?
This is the kind of problem we have. As you say, you get into this situation, where it's obvious that what they're saying doesn't really make sense. It smells. You get uncomfortable about it. When you know the facts as I do, you know what the problem is. All they have to do, is say that I'm going to negotiate in this area. Ask me as a special negotiator for the U.S. government in the area, and we'd get some results.
Question (From Yarin magazine, a Turkish journal): Mr. LaRouche, what we have heard here is that Mr. Bush is much occupied with religious philosophies. Now, with all respect to every faith, we want to know, if a President claims that he gets divine revelations from God; if he thinks that to start the Armageddon war, Israel has to be victorious over its enemies as the first step, because that's what it says in religious prophesy; and if we hear words like "Push God to start Armageddon, by fulfilling all the preconditions of the incident, i.e., by crushing Arabs and Muslims because they're Israel's enemies," how are we to claim that these are the manifestations of a sane mind, and how do you propose that we react?
LaRouche: First of all, one should never accuse Bush, unjustly of having a sane mind. He doesn't. The guy is insane, frankly.
As for his Christianity, I've dealt with it here. Bush is not a Christian. He has a better claim of being the man from Mars. Or maybe a Jovian something-or-other cult. The man's not a Christian! Why do we say, because he says he's a Christian, we have some obligation to regard him as a Christian? He's not a Christian! He's an idiot! That's his religion.
No, the guy is a basket-case. However, the religion that he pretends to adhere to, which calls itself Christian, is not Christian either. It's like the Grand Inquisitor from Dostoevsky's Brothers Karamazov, who claims he's the Grand Inquisitor, the defender of Christianity. And he reveals himself to be Satan. So that, actually, in effect, you would say that Bush is better qualified, if anything, as a Satan-worshipper, than anything else.
Priority Campaign Issue Is President Bush's Insanity
by Lyndon H. LaRouche, Jr.
Mr. LaRouche gave this speech to a webcast conference of LaRouche PAC in Washington, D.C. on Oct. 6. It can be viewed, along with the animated graphics and the questions and anwers that followed it, at www.larouchepac.com. The moderator was LaRouche's spokeswoman Debra Hanania Freeman.
Dick Cheney: The Sociopath Uncorked
by Jeffrey Steinberg
When Sen. John Edwards mentioned the forbidden 'H word''Halliburton'during the Oct. 5 Vice Presidential debate, Dick Cheney's knuckles turned white and the Vice President seethed with his now all-too-familiar sociopathological rage. While Senator Edwards failed to push Cheney's buttons to the point that the Veep might have uncorked with a barrage of his signature 'F words,' in every other respect, Cheney made it clear, in words and gestures, that his cynical disregard for the truth, and his obsession with waging war against the rest of the world, has not been tempered by a spate of highly public revelations that his Iraq war, and war on terrorism have been, to date, abysmal failures, which have isolated the United States from virtually every former ally.
New Moves To Clean Up Congress Without DeLay
by Anton Chaitkin
The Congressional enforcer for the fascist agenda of the neoconservatives, whom everyone thought could never be touched, is currently headed toward the ropes. Texas Republican Tom DeLay, the Majority Leader of the House of Representatives, was targetted for his corruption by Lyndon LaRouche's political campaigns months ago, under the slogan 'Clean Up Congress without DeLay.' Now DeLay has been admonished by the House Ethics Committee twice in the last week, and Congressional Democrats themselves are getting some guts.
As Iraq War-Lies Crumble, Bush Pushes Deeper Into the Quaqmire
by Edward Spannaus
While our delusional President and Vice President continue to insist that progress is being made in Iraq, and that freedom is on the march, a series of reports and statements have been forthcoming in the two weeks since Sept. 27, which 1) continue to devastate the Administration's fraudulent case for war, which was proclaimed mostly loudly by Vice President Cheney, and 2) portray a widening disaster in Iraq, one in which the Bush-Cheney Administration is marching forward, foolhardily, deeper into the quagmire.
Insane Rush To Push Intelligence Bills Through Congress
by Edward Spannaus
Congressional Republicans and some Democrats are trying to rush an intelligence reorganization bill through Congress before the Nov. 2 elections, which will not only make the problem of politicizing intelligence much worse, but will also result in serious infringements on civil rights and liberties.
Triple Shock: How To Think About The Global Crisis
by Jonathan Tennenbaum
Jonathan Tennenbaum, the Schiller Institute's science advisor, gave this presentation at the Institute's conference near Wiesbaden, Germany, on Sept. 26. The full title is 'The Coming Triple Shock of the Physical Economic, Financial, and Cultural Crisis.' The speech has been edited for publication, and some of the graphics used in the slide/video show have been omitted or adapted. See last week's EIR for a report on the conference, and the keynote speeches by Lyndon and Helga LaRouche.
Produce Water, or Fight Over It, Is the Real Issue in the West
by Dennis Small and Paul Gallagher
One of the incoming U.S. President's greatest economic challenges, will be to work with Mexico and Canada as friends to produce new water-supply resources for the Great American Desert and surrounding areas of the continent, to allow economic progress and defeat an unprecedented drought. It is like the task taken on by Franklin Roosevelt's great 'Four Corners' projects which still anchor production of North America's water.
Rep. Hunter Backs Water Scarcity, Not Solutions
by Marcia Merry Baker
One of the long-time U.S. Congressmen from the U.S.-Mexico border region, prominent for promoting water scarcity, in effect, by opposing new water infrastructure, is Republican Rep. Duncan Hunter of Southern California. Hunter has represented the 52nd C.D. since 1981. Until 2001, his district included the Imperial Valley Irrigation Districtthe world famous high-tech farming region in the desertas well as part of San Diego County, a leading urban center in a water-short region.
IMF Needs 'Structural Reform,' Not Argentina!
by Cynthia R. Rush
The brutal warfare against the nation of Argentina has reached fever pitch. During the weekend of Oct. 1-2, at the annual meeting of the International Monetary Fund/World Bank, leaders of the IMF, the European Union, the Group of Seven industrialized nations, and the Institute of International Finance (IIF) bankers' cartel, issued shrill warnings to President Ne´stor Kirchner: Argentina must come to a debt-restructuring agreement right away with the speculative vulture funds that pose as 'creditors'...
Can Elections Really Take Place in Iraq?
by Muriel Mirak-Weissbach
The latest fairy tale from Arabian Nights being told in Washington is the following: The U.S. military, together with its Iraqi allies, will continue their Israeli-style sweeps through the major cities of the Sunni resistance, through December, by which time, all armed opposition will be eliminated and peace established. Elections will be held in January 2005, ushering in a new, democratic Iraq, and all will be well in modern Mesopotamia.
Like most fairy tales, this one smacks of fantasy, precisely of the sort that crazy George Bush likes to nurture. The reality of the situation is far more complex, and fraught with paradoxes.
Terrorism Ravages Northeast India
by Ramtanu Maitra
On the birth anniversary-day of modern India's greatest son, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, terrorists in northeast India, particularly in two of the eight northeastern statesAssam and Nagalandwent berserk and planted bombs which killed about 70 people. The powerful bomb explosions at a packed railway station, and at a popular market in Dimapur, the commercial hub in the state of Nagaland, on the morning of Oct. 2, 2004, took 26 lives, and injured another 104.
The Bloody Truth of Gaza Disengagement
by Dean Andromidas
A death toll approaching 100 Palestinians, including woman and children, from Israel's ongoing military assault against the Gaza Strip, is a bloody testimony to the fact that Israel Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's 'disengagment plan' is a fraud whose aim is to destroy any hope for peace in the Middle East.
Bring Down Blair By Defeating Bush!
by Mary Burdman
'This election in the United States is being watched very closely in Britain, because it is much more important for us than anything happening here for a long time,' a leading British military historian emphasized, in a discussion with this author on Oct. 4. The Presidential election will have a big impact in Britain: If George Bush loses, this will be a 'crushing blow for Prime Minister Tony Blair, since he is so closely tied to Bush. If Bush goes down in November, he will leave Blair exposed.'
Report From Germany
by Rainer Apel
Monday Rallies Spread in Europe; The German protest wave against austerity is spilling over into Switzerland, the Netherlands, and France.
U.S. Economic/Financial News
On the eve of the Vice Presidential debate in Cleveland on Oct. 4, leaders from three national organizations, the National Association of Counties, the National League of Cities, and the U.S. Conference of MayorsRepublicans and Democratsheld a joint press conference, calling upon both Bush and Kerry to talk about what they called the real issues: the economy and jobs, infrastructure improvement, and education.
Insisted Akron Mayor Don Plusquellic, president of the U.S. Conference of Mayors: "What's relevant is, how are we going to address the job loss? How are we going to rebuild our economic base, especially in the urban centers? How are we going to address reinvestment in our infrastructure? Those are the issues that are on the agenda, and should be the ones we are pushing during the debatesto force the candidates to talk about them in real terms, not just made-up phrases about how they are thinking about a program."
Added Steve Burkeholder, Republican Mayor of Lakewood, Colo., "During the past 15 months, we've heard much about the Federal investment in rebuilding the infrastructure overseas, yet we haven't heard an honest discussion about what the candidates are prepared to do to rebuild our own aging infrastructure."
The Army Corps of Engineers closed two locks on the Mississippi River system, in Illinois and Indiana, for repairs. After its lower miter gates failed, on Oct. 3, the Corps shut down the 600-foot, auxiliary lock at Melvin Price Locks and Dam near Alton, Ill. Officials warn that initial inspections indicate the repairs may be extensive and require several months to complete, involving damaged machinery and metal structure. The main, 1,200-foot-long chamber will remain in full operation.
Two days later, the Army Corps closed the Ouachita-Black River's lock in Jonesville, La., to make repairs and install new infrastructure, a shutdown estimated to last 21 days. Former Jonesville Mayor Billy Edwards said, "It is better to get it repaired now, than to have a serious problem in the future." Last month, repairs were made to a part of the lock, in a closure that lasted 16 days.
The National Academy of Sciences opposes modernizing aged Upper Mississippi locks and dams, and charges that "trend analysis" shows there is no need for improvements; instead, the NAS recommends using "nonstructural" means to aid waterway traffic. On Oct. 7, the National Research Council, part of the National Academies of Sciences, issued its evaluation that there was insufficient proof of need, in the Army Corps' proposal to replace 600-foot, old lock chambers on the 39 Upper Mississippi and Illinois waterways, with 1,200 modern structures. "Trend analysis" was the methodology used by the anti-scientific, so-called science outfit. They said that U.S. grain exports aren't growing much. The Upper Mississippi's chief commodities hauled are grains, and inputs for farming, so don't bother modernizing the waterway. "There are no overwhelming regional or global trends that clearly portend a marked departure from a 20-year trend of steady U.S. grain export levels," the NRC panel claimed.
This justification for doing nothing is timed nicely with the fact that, as of Oct. 1, FY 2005 is now underway, and Congress did not enact the request of the Army Corps for authorization of $1.5 billion for the lock replacement project.
What did the Academy propose instead? What they called "non-structural" aids to traffic through the existing waterway. They propose that the Corps issue lock pass-through "permits" (for preferred times of passing through the locks), and then have bargemen vie for them, perhaps by lottery. So the winner could speedily clear the locks, while the losers waited in congestion, and at bad hours, for passage, etc.
Joseph Stiglitz, President Clinton's chief economic adviser from 1995 to 1997, and now a Kerry adviser, warned of a financial "day of reckoning, citing government debt and liabilities for promised future benefits paid to retiring Baby Boomers (Medicare, Social Security, government pensions), USA Today reported Oct. 4. "Economists agree this cannot go on. We can borrow and borrow, but eventually there will be a day of reckoning. It may be a charismatic politician, like Ross Perot, who takes on the issue, or it may be a financial crisis," Stiglitz mused.
J. Bradford DeLong, who was assistant U.S. Treasury Secretary (under Robert Rubin) during the Clinton Administration, notes that the "unsustainable" U.S. current-account deficit reached 5.7% of (official) gross domestic product in the second quarter of 2004, but the dollar remains overvalued. Could we be headed for what IIE's Fred Bergsten calls "a disaster in the making," asks DeLong, where a stampede of investors sell their dollar-denominated securities, causing the dollar's value to crash and triggering a "major global financial crisis."
DeLong lays out a scenario for dollar crash:
* First, short-term speculators drive a currency's value to unsustainable levels;
* Second, trend-chasers keep buying, pushing the overvaluation to unexplained height and duration;
* Third, highly intelligent economists concoct theories of why this time the overvaluation is possibly sustainable after all (the current stage of the dollar collapse, says DeLong);
* Fourth, market bulls keep buying;
* Fifth, a crash similar to the collapse of a Ponzi scheme.
Japan, China, and other export-oriented East Asian economies are trying to keep the value of the dollar relatively high. DeLong cautions, "But if international currency speculators get the scent of near-inevitable profits from an ongoing dollar decline in their nostrils, all of the Asian central banks together will not be able to keep the dollar high."
DeLong concludes, "There may yet be a soft landing," but "the chances of a fast, hard landing have surpassed 25% and continue to climb."
The Federal government's proper role in maintaining and reviving the economy in a crisis, is being blocked by a near-complete deadlock of all budget legislation in a Congress overhung by huge budget deficits and bulldogged by House Majority Leader Tom DeLay.
As the Congress prepared to end its session on Oct. 8, the Defense Budget was the only one of 13 budget authorizations that has been enacted. Most of the others have been passed by the House, with unacceptably low funding levels (and the White House demanding even lower ones), and not passed by the Senate, or deadlocked in conference committees, for that reason. All these vital agencies are operating at FY 2004 or even FY 2003 levels under "continuing resolutions."
Five budget bills particularly could impact the nation's collapsing physical economy and labor force: Energy and Water Development; Transportation and Treasury; Agriculture; Labor, Health and Human Services and Education; and Veterans Administration/HUD. But the six-year $278 billion Transportation Bill passed by the House, for example, would give Federal highway aid a 3% increase, Amtrak a fatal, outright 25% cut; and public transit no increase. Even this is $22 billion too high for the White House, which would veto it. The House-passed Energy and Water budget bill would authorize $4.8 billion for the Army Corps of Engineers, 1% less than the Corps budget of two years earlier. The Corps has been laying off engineers. But again, the House funding level is $700 million too high for the White House.
Even DeLay's and Hastert's House hasn't passed its own proposed VA/HUD budget bill, because it's so low-ball, the House members are afraid to vote on it. In the midst of tremendous, added demands of returning Iraq war wounded on the Veterans' Administration, and pressures almost as strong on HUD from the housing bubble, the House bill proposes a .7% increase for both agencies combined. As a result, three other bills now circulating in the HouseHR 3800, 3925, and 3975all would impose mandatory spending caps or force deep cuts in programs and in compensation for disabled veterans.
Metro Detroit hospitals would "grind to a halt" from a major accident or epidemic, officials warn, because they are already hit by seriously overcrowded emergency rooms, the Detroit News reported Oct. 4. As the flu season approaches, at hospitals in the metro Detroit area and in many regions across the nation, emergency patients must routinely waitsometimes for an entire dayto be admitted to the hospital, due to severe shortages of beds. Warned Dr. William Barsan, University of Michigan chairman of emergency medicine, "We're at the tipping point. There's a nationwide problem here that's reaching crisis proportions. A 10% increase in patient volumes would grind us to a halt."
Illustrating the crisis, a patient with a severe leg infection that usually requires hospitalization, had to wait 27 hours before getting a room at the University of Michigan Hospital. A woman waited hours to be admitted for an abdominal hernia. Emergency patients at Beaumont Hospital in Royal Oak, who need in-patient beds, are moved to an upstairs hallway.
Hospital closings have led to a 15% drop in emergency rooms nationwide between 1999 and 2002. In Detroit alone, four hospitals have shut since 1997. Emergency visits have increased by 23% at the same time, amid rising numbers of people who lack health insurance.
United States News Digest
According to Oct. 7 news wire reports, Larry Franklin, the Pentagon/DIA analyst charged with possible espionage for Israel, has cut off his negotiations with prosecutors over a plea agreement, and has hired a prominent, and expensive, criminal defense lawyer, Plato Catcheris. Catcheris has represented convicted spies Aldrich Ames and Robert Hanssen, as well as Clinton-era Mata Hari, Monica Lewinsky. According to sources close to the case, government prosecutors have a hard case against Franklin, on a relatively minor charge of mishandling of classified documents. For weeks, news reports had indicated that Franklin was cooperating with prosecutors, who were interested in AIPAC and its ties to Pentagon neocons, and Israeli diplomats in Washington. According to one source, AIPAC recently hired Washington "super-lawyer" Nathan Lewin, to run their damage-control efforts against the government probe, which has been going on for more than two years.
The Bush Administration was forced to withdraw the nomination of Air Force General Gregory S. Martin to head the U.S. Pacific Command, currently headed by Adm. Thomas Fargo. The nomination is being pulled, in light of the Boeing aircraft-lease scandal involving, among others, neo-con big-wig Richard Perle. General Martin, who is head of the Air Force Materiel Command, worked with Darleen Druyun, who was sentenced to nine months in prison, in connection with the scandal.
Martin is not accused of wrongdoing in the matter, but was grilled by Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz), during his confirmation hearing. McCain has been fighting with the Pentagon over e-mail traffic related to the Boeing deal.
Voter intimidation was one of the subjects of an Oct. 7 hearing of the Congressional Black Caucus, on whether or not the United States is ready for the 2004 election. Most of the opening statements of the CBC members present, revolved around the vow that what happened in Florida in the 2000 election must not be allowed to happen again. However, the testimony of Rep. Corinne Brown (D-Fla) and Jorge Mursuli, Florida state director of People for the American Way, indicated that large-scale disenfranchisement of minorities, particularly African-Americans, may happen again in Florida. Mursuli testified that new means of voter suppression have replaced the old methods, such as the poll tax, and that government agencies are actively involved in such efforts. He recounted how efforts he has been involved in, in Florida, to register newly naturalized citizens to vote, have been systematically disrupted by the Department of Homeland Security and the city of Miami Beach. He also noted that because of the four hurricanes that have hit Florida in the past two months, many people are no longer living where they were, and that minority communities have been hit the hardest by this.
Brown, in her opening statement, lit into Florida Gov. Jeb Bush and Secretary of State Glenda Hood, a political appointee of Bush, saying that they have put in a system to disenfranchise African-American voters, which is the subject of numerous lawsuits; they even issued an executive order saying that recounts would be illegal, which was overturned by a Federal court. Rep. Stephanie Tubbs-Jones (D-Ohio) gave a similar account for the her state, and said that "it's an effort by some who want chaos to reign."
"Fellowship" televangelist Pat Robertson, visiting Israel under the sponsorship of the International Christian Embassy Jerusalem (ICEJ), warned President George W. Bush, on Oct. 5, not to take for granted his support by the religious right: "If [Bush] touches Jerusalem and he really gets serious about taking East Jerusalem and making it the capital of a Palestinian state, he'll lose virtually all evangelical support," Robertson said. "The President has backed away from [the road map], but if he were to touch Jerusalem, he'd lose all Evangelical support," Robertson said. "Evangelicals would form a third party."
Ha'aretz Oct. 5 quotes Robertson reprimanding Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom: "Who do you think you are, handing Jerusalem over to Arafat?" Robertson said Arab nations don't want peace; the UN Relief and Works Agency should be abolished; a Palestinian state with full sovereignty would be a launching ground for WMD and a threat to Israel.
Coinciding with the visit of Robertson and 4,000 of his followers, Israeli police blocked off streets for some 20,000 ICEJ-led Christian marchers for Jerusalem. Meanwhile, a representative of Israel's National Union party, Yuri Stern, will travel to the U.S. this week to meet with Robertson, with "conservative Congressmen"i.e., Tom DeLay and friends, and with groups of Russian emigrants based in Cleveland, New York, and Washington. Stern is saying that a U.S.A. that invades Iraq cannot support the creation of "another terrorist state," meaning a Palestinian state.
The Muslim American Political Action Committee announced Oct 4 that the "Muslim American choice in 2004 is Senator John F. Kerry for President." Mukit Hossain, President of MAPAC, said that if President Bush were reelected, there would be harsher foreign policies toward Muslim Americans in the name of combatting terrorism. "It also means a menacing rise of anti-Muslim sentiment in America, covertly nurtured by the neo-conservatives, and openly fanned by government officials like Lt.-Gen. Boykin and Attorney General John Ashcroft," Hossain emphasized.
Ten days after the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) called for the broadest expansion yet of people it recommends be vaccinated against annual influenza, the country's anticipated stock of 100 million doses of flu vaccine was cut by half, after one of only two producers of this year's vaccine announced some of its 48 million doses were contaminated. Chiron Corp., which produces the vaccine Fluvirin in Liverpool, England, first announced its vaccine would be late because some of its lots were contaminated with Serratia bacteria that can cause severe, even fatal infections in humans. But, on Oct. 5, the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency, the British agency that oversees production, suspended Chiron's license to sell vaccine, and cancelled all of the vaccine for three months while it investigates. According to U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services, Tommy Thompson, "more than a million doses" of the Chiron vaccine are already in the country.
The CDC claims that the remaining vaccine supply of nearly 54 million doses of Fluzone, produced by Aventis Pasteur, is enough to protect the population if healthy adults forego vaccination. But this is a dangerous folly. Public-health measures nationally have collapsed, the population is not getting even basic health-care needs met, and the last flu season was harsher, started earlier, and lasted longer than usual. At the same time, infectious disease experts warn that pandemic flu, and new or re-emerging infections are upon us.
Influenza already kills well over 36,000 people every year in the U.S. The CDC estimates that only 4.4% of the nation's children aged 6 to 23 months were fully vaccinated against influenza during that season. Now, they are urging all children get double doses of vaccinewhich is unlikely since even doctors' offices can't get their hands on vaccine.
Sen. Robert Byrd (D-WVa) spoke out against the Bush-Cheney doctrine of preemptive war, in a strong speech in the Senate chamber Friday afternoon. He referred to the new report confirming that there were no WMD in Iraq, and denounced the Administration for their "misbegotten war," and called to task the Congress for going along with this, against the Constitution. Byrd ridiculed the Administration catch-phrase, "Stay the course." He asked, "Stay the course? What course?" How long can we allow this to go on?
Also speaking out was Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La), who focussed on the new defense budget doing nothing"not even a comment"about the financial plight of the National Guard and Reserve duty forces, whose families are losing their homes, their jobs, and all means of managing their households.
Sen. Lincoln Chafee (R-RI) told the Oct. 4 New York Times that he will not vote for President Bush on Nov. 2, but rather, "choose a write-in candidate."
It has earlier been reported that Sen. Lincoln Chaffee (R-RI) would not be backing Bush, but in his discussion with the Times, he identifies a post-2000 election meeting with Dick Cheney as the trigger for the alienation of moderate Republicans from the Bush-Cheney team. Chaffee reported that one day after the Supreme Court nailed Bush's election, Cheney held a private lunch with five moderate GOP Senators, to discuss the new agenda.
"I literally was close to falling off my chair ... it was no room from discussion. I said, 'Well, it's a 50-50 Senate; you're going to need us moderates.' He said, 'Well, we'll need everyone.'" Cheney had told the Senators about the tax-cut plan, the planned U.S. pullout from the ABM Treaty and the Kyoto Treaty.
On the eve of the first debate between Bush and Kerry, John Eisenhower, son of President Dwight Eisenhower, and a lifelong figure in the Republican Party, endorsed Kerry in a strong statement in New Hampshire.
The Oct. 4 New York Times ran a front-page national survey of the very large increases in voter registration which are swamping election boards around the country, citing experts who say that the number of new registrants for this election is the largest in two decades. While the long article is full of cautions about not knowing how many of the newly registered voters will vote, and for whom, some indications come through. The Times says its surveys show that the new voters picture is "extreme" in urban areas and in swing states, less extreme in rural areas and more reliable states. And it says that "huge gains have come in areas with minority and low-income populations. In some of these areas in Ohio, registrations have quadrupled since 2000."
Philadelphia-area counties have started to release figures actually detailing the Democrat-Republican breakdown in new registration, which has closed. In heavily Democratic Philadelphia, there are 128,000 new Democrats registered, to 14,000 new Republicans. In Montgomery County, normally "a Republican town," there are 13,500 new Democrats registered, 9,000 new Republicans. In Chester County, which went for Bush in 2000, it's 4,400 Democrats, 3,000 Republicans. And in Bucks County it's 6,600 new Democrats to 5,200 new Republicans registered.
Ibero-American News Digest
Led by Congressman Manuel Camacho Soliswhom EIR exposed in 1994 and 1995 as a tool of George Soros against the Mexican Presidential systemand Soros's favorite Mexican Presidential candidate Jorge Castaneda, war has been launched on Mexico's Presidential system. From Sept. 27 to 30, Camacho Solis presided over a four-day seminar called "Democratic Governability: What Reform?", held in the Chamber of Deputies, and attended by politicians, businessmen, and religious leaders. Organizers of the seminar and the press report that consensus was reached that "major surgery" in needed on Mexico's political system, because the era of Presidential systems is over.
The real issue, as Castaneda has been screaming for the past year, is that under the existing system, nationalist forces have been able to block the IMF's final dismantling of the nation. Castaneda participated with gusto in Camacho's seminar.
Both "left" and "right" agreed on the alleged urgency of "refounding" the government, only disputing whether to go for a straight parliamentary system or a "semi-presidential" one. PRD honorary head Cuauhtemoc Cardenas, a possible Presidential candidate for 2006, spoke up for a "semi-presidential" system, as did President Fox's Government Secretary Santiago Creel, a PAN party Presidential hopeful. Former Ambassador to the UN Adolfo Aguilar Zinser insisted that "the time has come for Mexico to shake off its presidentialist history, and that we move towards a parliamentary system."
Camacho Solis demanded that concrete reforms be drawn up before the first Congressional session of 2005 opens next February. Now on the agenda is everything from creating the post of Prime Minister, to instituting a second-round vote for the President, reducing the number of Congressmen, and rectifying the "hole" in the Constitution which does not permit action, should Congress fail to approve the government's economic package.
Secretary of State Colin Powell repeatedly stated during his quick Oct. 4-6 visit to Brazil, that the issue of inspections of Brazil's new uranium-reprocessing facility is a matter between the IAEA and Brazil, and not with the United States. In his joint press conference with Foreign Minister Celso Amorim following their Oct. 5 meeting, Powell rejected a reporter's statement that Brazil refused to allow International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspectors into its plants, and stated: "We have no concerns about Brazil moving in a direction of anything but peaceful nuclear power, ... and in creating their own fuel for their power plants. There is no proliferation concern on our part." He did say that the U.S. would hope, that in due course, Brazil would sign the additional protocol to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, but he also insisted that Brazil's discussions with the IAEA have nothing to do with those of Iran or North Korea.
This is in sharp distinction to the hype from other circles, that the U.S. must make Brazil buckle to any and all demands on its nuclear program, in order to crack Iran.
Brazilian scientists report that the new centrifuge technology for uranium enrichment, developed in Brazil, uses only 5% of the energy consumed by U.S. enrichment centrifuges, and is more durable. Othon Luiz Pinheiro da Silva, one of the architects of Brazil's uranium enrichment program, told the Financial Times of Oct. 5, that "the Americans have much more sophisticated technology, but the simple design and low manufacturing cost make ours cheaper to produce and operate." Jornal do Brasil reported Oct. 6 that Brazilian scientists say their technology requires, only 530 Kwh to produce one kilo of 4% enrich uranium, while the U.S. gas diffusion process requires 13,250 Kwh to produce the same kilo.
Dismissing the rumors spread by anti-proliferation activists in Washington, that the IAEA believes that Brazil got its centrifuge-enrichment technology from Pakistan, Pinheiro pointed out that while European and Pakistani centrifuges "rotate on a mechanical device, ours are magnetically suspended ... an entirely different technology."
Brazil's reprocessing plant has been stalled due to its dispute with the IAEA over hownot ifinspections are to be carried out. Getting this program operational is an "economic necessity" for Brazil, Foreign Minister Celso Amorim stated in his joint press conference with Colin Powell Oct. 5. "Brazil is a country of continental dimensions. We cannot relinquish any form of energy. Brazil has large uranium reserves, and it is natural that we don't want to send our uranium abroad to be enriched, to then return to Brazil. That is an absurdity." The next day, Tribuna da Imprensa reported Science and Technology Minister Eduardo Campos's assessment, that in 20 years, 25% of the world will be powered by nuclear energy, and Brazil could be one of only six countries which could supply the fuel for the reactors. "We cannot lose this opportunity."
Brazilian Nuclear Energy Association director Edson Kuramoto pointed out to Jornal do Brasil (Oct. 6) that a world fossil-fuel supply crisis looms. Rich countries are working on developing hydrogen vehicles, and nuclear energy is how hydrogen, and energy, will be produced. "We cannot remain behind."
Interviewed by WPFW-PACIFICA's Ambrose Lane on Oct. 1, former Democratic Party Presidential candidate Lyndon LaRouche was asked by a caller what would be his position on Cuba, were he President. LaRouche referenced Democratic Presidential candidate John Kerry's discussion of war and peace in a Sept. 30 debate with George W. Bush, and concurred with Kerry that, "there is a better way to solve a problem, than going to war. There always is a better way. But you've got to get the other guy to go along with it, the opposition to go along with it, but that's the effort you have to make.
"I know a lot about Cuba, and I know a lot about Castro, things I probably won't bother going into now. But there's no reason that we should continue our present policy toward Cuba. We have in South and Central Americaand Castro's a part of this processwe have relics of the left and right version of the fascist movement, which was then controlled by the Nazis, which was deployed against the United States from about 1935 into about 1944.
"For example, you had a threat of a Nazi-directed invasion of the United States by Mexico, which was prevented largely by the victory, naval victory, of the United States at Midway. But you have still to this day, right-wing Nazis, who are a very powerful force, although a minority force, in Mexico, and in other countries in South and Central America. Castro, like Chavez, represents the left wing of that kind of phenomenon. But if we, together with our friends in these countries, and other countries, decide that we're going to have a long-term peaceful resolution of the conflict with Castro, I think we can pull it off.
"I've studied Castro carefully over the years. I think we can pull it off. I think that Kerry, [potentially] as President, has at least the brains and the instinct to pull it off, if he doesn't get too much pressure from the wrong side in the Congress and the Republican Party," LaRouche said.
U.S. officials identify Guatemala as the leading transshipment point for Colombian cocaine being sent to the United States, the Washington Post reported Oct. 6. The estimated 150-200 tons a year moving through the country, an estimated 10% of which stays there, have wreaked havoc on the country. Much of the drugs consumed domestically are distributed through the gangsknown as maraswho also are the assassins for the narcotraffickers. Local use of crack cocaine is soaring, providing a major source of income for the maras, and making their actions even more brutal. Guatemalan Attorney General Juan Luis Florido told the Post that the drug crisis is "a matter of national security for us and for the United States."
A retired U.S. Army colonel active in U.S. policy-making towards Ibero-America told EIR Oct. 7 that, in his view, "Guatemala is going down the tubes. It's almost a lawless territory in its entirety. You can't walk down the streets of Guatemala City. You can't drive anywhere and expect to be safe anywhere. There are millions and millions of people out on the streets trying to sell everything from Chiclets [chewing gum], to cars and refrigerators." And the Guatemalan government is "virtually ineffective.... The whole of Central America is in deep, deep, deep trouble, not just because of the drugs. But the drug thing is really fueling it," he said.
Had Lyndon LaRouche's 1985 proposed 15-point war plan against the drug trade been adopted, this crisis would not exist. In 1986, LaRouche, working with patriotic U.S. and Guatemalan military circles, designed a pilot project, called Operation Guatusa, to demonstrate how his war plan could work. Follow-up on LaRouche's plan was sunk by the Iran-Contra team of Lt. Col. Oliver North, then-Vice President George Bush, and Nestor Sanchez.
Now, Washington is "taking a fresh look" at the need to "put a modest amount of money" into spare parts and enhancing Guatemala's maintenance capabilities for its intercept aircraft, U.S. Ambassador to Guatemala John Hamilton told the Washington Post.
Attorney General Florido responded that more than spare parts are needed. Guatemalan anti-drug police have one army helicopter, and it's in poor shape. Police aircraft have such old windshields you can't see out of some of them! Guatemalan planning official Hugo Beteta warned that more than half the population is younger than 18, and most of them have no chance to get a job. Poor youths see two choices: migrate to the U.S., or join the drug trade, he said. "And if you get tough on migration, what is left for them?"
U.S. intelligence is incapable of knowing whether or not there is a tie between Central America's gangs and al-Qaeda, a retired U.S. military source knowledgeable about Ibero-America told EIR on Oct. 7.
On Sept. 28, the Washington Times ran a lead story on how al-Qaeda is making contact with the maras, criminal gangs which began in El Salvador, but now operate throughout Central America, Mexico, and the United States. The story was based on reports from unnamed law enforcement officials, who say that al-Qaeda is seeking help from the maras in infiltrating the U.S.-Mexican border. Various news media have since picked up the story.
Asked what he thought about the story, the source was emphatic: "We don't have good enough intelligence to say definitively one thing or another about the situation. You can only guess, and the guess that you make, in some cases, is not even educated.... Our intelligence apparatus is just incapable of getting that kind of information." But the maras are "really, really scary," he said.
The maras initially developed as a highly-organized criminal structure in El Salvador, when Salvadoran youth, who had been recruited into gangs in Los Angeles and other U.S. cities during their exile from the civil war of the 1980s, were deported back to El Salvador after the 1989 "peace" accord arranged by the Bush I Administration. Because the Central American "peace" accords brought no economic development, but only more free trade, a giant black market in weapons, and thousands of unemployed former guerrillas and former soldiers, the drug trade has had a field day. Today, some estimate that there are 60,000 members of the maras in Central America. According to a study by the executive director of El Salvador's Anti-Drug Commission, 51.9% of them are between 11 and 15 years old! Another 46.1% are between 16 and 25 years old.
Western European News Digest
Inspired by the German Monday rallies, more than 200,000 Dutch citizens took to the streets of Amsterdam Oct. 2. Labor unions and related associations had planned for the national day of action on Oct. 2, the anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, in cooperation with labor unions in several other European countries, but organizers, who expected 100,000 people, were overwhelmed by the turnout of at least twice that many, and perhaps as many as 250,000, which included members of the liberal D66 party and Christian Democrats.
A resident of Amsterdam, reported from the scene that trains heading for the rally in Amsterdam from other Dutch cities, had standing room only by their second stop. And in Amsterdam itself, the main route to the central square was so jammed with people, that the protesters filled several other squares in the city, as wellno tram, no bus could operate, because the entire downtown section of Amsterdam was crowded with people, and in the evening, after the event, many protesters had to wait several hours to catch a train.
The overwhelming success of the national day of action is encouraging those who are thinking of targetted general-strike actions to stop the government's Dutch version of the German Hartz IV. And the cynical tone in German media reports, to the effect that more Dutch took to the streets than Germans in Berlin on the same day, will backfire, because Germans who can think, see clearly that what is happening in the Netherlands, is an achievement of the German Monday rally movement.
For several weeks, a number of French cities have, in addition to rallies organized by the French LaRouche Youth Movement, held Monday rallies in support of the German movement against the Hartz IV austerity policy, as well as in opposition to the French government's cutbacks in essential social services. Avignon held its fourth Monday rally Oct. 4.
Protest ferment is developing on the issue of the speculative diesel price inflation: fishermen last week blocked the English Channel ports and they will target the Mediterranean ports.
It is also mooted among leftists in Germany that if people like Laurent Fabius gain more support for their criticism of the European Union Constitution, Socialist Party support for French Monday rallies or similar actions will visibly increase.
Many newspapers in eastern Germany give a different picture of the situation. While it cannot be denied that the total turnout at rallies is decreasing, eastern media reflect in their reports that east Germans do want the rallies to continue. The fact that many citizens who joined rallies in their home cities, but did not go to Berlin for the national Oct. 2 rally, has been noted by many observers, but it is not a sign of dwindling support for the rallies more broadly.
In many cities, Monday rallies may be called off, for the time being, or at least will not be held every week; in other cities, citizens are committed to continue no matter how many attend. In numerous cities where rallies will be called off for the next weeks, regular meetings of organizers and committed citizens will discuss more detailed alternatives to Hartz IV. Ironically, in numerous cities, the local PDS (Party of Democratic Socialism) still is on auto-pilot, from weeks of mobilization against Hartz IV, while the leaders of the state PDS party organization, especially in Mecklenburg and in Berlin, are part of the governing coalition trying to impose the Hartz IV policy.
There are related, interesting developments on the political party scene: In Wiemar, the Free Democrats are split over the issue of rallies, which are supported by one faction of the party; and in Saxony, the Christian Democratic Party base is enraged that the state party leadership is avoiding any debate on the election defeat of Sept. 19. The CDU of Mittweida is circulating a letter among party sections, calling for a debate, and for party leaders to take responsibility for the losses.
Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder began a two-day visit to India, on Oct. 6, followed by Vietnam, on Oct. 8, for a state visit and participation at the Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM) in Hanoi. From Oct. 8-9, he is scheduled to meet the Prime Ministers of Malaysia, Thailand, Singapore, and Cambodia, on the sidelines of the ASEM meeting.
On his return to Germany, Schroeder will visit Pakistan on Oct. 10, and Afghanistan Oct. 11.
French President Jacques Chirac toured Asia, beginning with a visit to Singapore Oct. 6, where he met with sitting Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong and his two predecessors, Senior Minister Goh Chok Tong and Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew.
Top issues for discussion include a potential billion dollar sale of France's Rafale jet fighters, and Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong's proposed Asia-Middle East Dialogue as a forum for governments from both regions to discuss terrorism. Chirac's spokesman said the President liked the idea of using the dialogue to discuss ways of tackling the root causes of terrorism, not just the use of military force. Former Prime Minister Goh had proposed the initiative in August while travelling in the Middle East.
Singapore's foreign affairs ministry website states the dialogue aims to promote better understanding between the two regions on political issues, security, economics, and social-cultural matters.
A steering committee comprised of government officials from Kuwait, Jordan, Egypt, Bahrain, Malaysia, Thailand, Singapore and Bangladesh are due to meet in October to lay the groundwork for the dialogue.
The most important leg of Chirac's trip is also the last leg, that to China.
Fifty French business leaders are travelling with Chirac. France is aiming to better its status as China's fourth-biggest trading partner in the European Union. This, his third visit to China since 1995, will include stops in Beijing, Hong Kong, Shanghai, and Chengdu.
Coalition partner Spain has disinvited the U.S. Marines from participating in that country's annual Columbus Day celebrations. The previous conservative government of Jose Maria Aznar had, since 2001, invited U.S. Marines to take part in honoring the anniversary of Christopher Columbus's voyage on Oct. 12, as part of the "Day of Hispanidad."
But with the change of governments in April, the new Socialist government, which withdrew its troops from Iraq soon after taking power, dropped the invitation for the Marines to participate in the commemoration, and instead invited French troops to join the festivities to mark the 60th anniversary of the liberation of Paris from Nazi occupation.
Spanish Defense Minister Jose Bono said Oct. 5 that there was still friendship and respect between Madrid and Washington, but, "What does not continue is subordination and getting down on our knees on orders from a foreign government, whichever it may be." A U.S. Embassy official declined to criticize Spain.
The "Coalition of the Willing" in Iraq has taken multiple hits in recent days, beginning with Polish Defense Minister Jerzy Szmadjdzinski announcing that Poland will end its troop presence in Iraq, definitely by the end of 2005, coinciding with the expiration of U.N. resolution 1546 and the timetable included therein.
Poland has a contingent of 2,500 Polish troops in Iraq, and commands a "multinational" force of 6,000 soldiers, stationed south of Baghdad. The Polish government's announcement coincided with a visit by President Aleksander Kwasniewski to Moscow, and thence to Paris on Oct. 4, where he met French President Jacques Chirac.
The meeting led to a significant warming of relations, after a cooling of ties related to differences between the two countries over Iraq, and Poland's decision to purchase US F-16 jets over France's Rafale jets.
In an interview with the Swiss daily Neue Zuercher Zeiting two weeks ago, Kwasniewski had hinted that Poland had been lured into Iraq on the basis of the threat of WMD, and complained that Poland had been practically frozen out of any contracts in Iraq, which according to Kwasniewski: "the U.S. had unilaterally distributed." He furthermore warned against "a unilateral hegemony policy," that America wants to play in Iraq and the world.
Polls show that 70% of the Polish population oppose Poland's troop presence in Iraq. On Oct. 15, a confidence vote will be taken in the Polish Sejm (parliament). It is reported that politicians from the opposition PSL party will present a petition demanding the withdrawal of troops from Iraq.
At the same time, Italian Vice Prime Minister Gianfranco Fini has indicated that Italy, which has 3,000 troops stationed in Iraq, could withdraw its troops after parliamentary elections in January 2005. "As soon as there is an Iraqi government which represents the will of the people, Fini said in Cairo, "there is no reason why any foreign troops should stay in Iraq."
Russia and the CIS News Digest
The September 2004 issue of Russky Predprinimatel (Russian Entrepreneur) leads with a translation of one of Lyndon LaRouche's remarks to a March 2002 seminar, held by Iniziativa Italiana in Milan. Presented under the title, "On the Moral Mission of Economics," this speech was on the creative principle in national economy, specifically the machine-tool principle, in the work of small and medium-sized, innovative manufacturing companies.
In an introduction, Predprinimatel's editors call LaRouche "one of the most extraordinary and brilliant public figures and thinkers of our time." It continues, "In our country, Lyndon has many true friends and co-thinkers in scientific and political circles. He looks with great hope at Russia's moral and constructive role in the worldat the role of our fellow citizens who are enterprising and engaged, realizing their responsibility for the fate of the world entrusted to us by the Creator. Our journal also sees Lyndon LaRouche as a great friend and strategic ally. It seems to us that the speech published here (in abridged form) ... is extremely timely for the Russian business community, which faces the task of developing ethical principles for the conduct of business."
The Moscow daily Izvestia, in Oct. 2 coverage of the first U.S. Presidential campaign debate, featured Lyndon LaRouche's assessment. The author's interview with LaRouche came under the subhead, "Bush's Hands Were Trembling." Identifying LaRouche as an economist and former Presidential candidate, Izvestia quoted him as saying, "The discussion of relations with Russia will be postponed, certainly, until after the general election. The same applies to other key questions of foreign policy. Kerry's immediate objective is to reach out for the votes of undecided voters.... Kerry came off a clear victor in the first round of the debates. He took the initiative from the start, replying to each question as precisely as possible. The television audience saw how Bush's hands sometimes trembled, and he was visibly distressed, often unable to begin to speak." (The quotations given, are actually paraphrase.)
Izvestia continued, "LaRouche's opinion that Kerry won the debate, was strongly backed up by the TV audience. According to interactive polls, 89% of CNN's audience was sure that Kerry has won, and CBS gives an even more optimistic figure91%." Thus, Lyndon LaRouche was presented by Izvestia as the real voice of America.
The London Observer of Oct. 3 and Russian media reported a statement by Gen. Maj. Ilya Shabalkin on the arrest of one Kamel Rabat Bouralha on the Russia-Azerbaijan border, on "strong evidence of his involvement in a grave crime"namely the Beslan, North Ossetia hostage-taking and massacre of Sept. 1-3, 2004. Shabalkin is a Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) officer in Chechnya. Bouralha, initially called an Algerian-born British citizen (later corrected by FSB chief Nikolai Patrushev to an Algerian citizen with British residence permit), is identified as a "key aide" of Chechen field commander Shamil Basayev, the North Caucasus radical who trained in "Afghansi" camps in Afghanistan and Pakistan in the mid-1990s.
The reports cited Russian investigators, who said Bouralha had come to Chechnya from London in 2001, along with two others involved in the Beslan attack. The Observer report linked them to the Finsbury Park mosque in London. The web site Strana.ru ran the report under the dramatic headline, "British Track Discovered in Beslan Tragedy." In an Oct. 5 TV interview, Patrushev said that at least 10 key foreign operatives, from the milieu known as al-Qaeda, are functioning in the Russian North Caucasus. He mentioned field commanders Khattab and Ab al-Walid (both killed in recent months, Khattab in an internecine struggle) as exemplary, and confirmed the recent detention of Bouralha.
The Sept. 17, 2004 EIR cover story, reprising Lyndon LaRouche's "Storm Over Asia" analysis of 1999, recalled EIR's January 2000 memo to the State Department, "Put Britain on the List of States Sponsoring Terrorism," which cited Russian demands, already then, to shut down the recruitment of Muslims in England to go to Chechnya and fight against Russia.
Two strange deaths, those of Baltic Escort security company head Roman Tsepov and St. Petersburg journalist and imagemaker Yan Travinsky (a consultant to the Rodina Party), were in the focus of St. Petersburg and national Russian media at the end of September. Coverage of Tsepov's funeral made clear the political significance of the businessman's death, while some commentaries suggested that the two assassinations had something in common, though one took place in St. Petersburg, and the other in the East Siberian region of Irkutsk.
Tsepov died in the hospital Sept. 24, of acute poisoning. His business interests included bodyguard services, gasoline retail, the chemicals, pharmaceuticals, and telecommunications industries, as well as mass media. He was also known for his intelligence ties, including to investigators of the St. Petersburg criminal scene. His funeral was attended by top political, business, and security figures, including Victor Zolotov, head of the Presidential Security Service, Northwest Policy Authority head Andrei Novikov, and other law enforcement leaders.
Some press noted that Tsepov had been close to the team of Vladimir Putin, which later rose with Putin to top positions in Moscow. In July, Tsepov was mentioned in the media as a possible negotiator between the Kremlin and the management of Yukos Oil. Moskovsky Komsomolets reported that the businessman was going to play a significant role in "supervising governors" in the newly changed Russian political system. Moreover, that report said, he was seriously expected to be appointed deputy director of the new "super-intelligence body," which Putin may establish.
The murder of Travinsky and his colleague Marina Murakhovskaya took place in Irkutsk, where they were working on a Rodina electoral campaign. Smena newspaper quoted Rodina leader Dmitri Rogozin, who said that Travinsky was also researching organized crime.
A rare interview by Deputy Chief of the Russian Presidential Administration Vladislav Surkov, appearing in Komsomolskaya Pravda of Sept. 29, set out the motives for Russia's latest government reform in brutal terms, and provoked hysterical responses from liberal commentators. Surkov is a key behind-the-scenes operator and power broker for the Kremlin under President Putin.
Summarizing the situation in Russia after the Beslan school hostage-taking and massacre, Surkov said in stark language: "All of us have to realize that the enemy is at the gate." Therefore, he argued, the Kremlin had to move ahead with "adapting the machinery of state to cope with the extraordinary conditions of an undeclared war." With the appointment, rather than election, of regional governors, Surkov said, "The competition between the center and the regions for the evasion of responsibility for political errors, will cease." He also asserted that a "fifth column" of "left-wing and right-wing radicals," was operating in Russia.
Asked why Russia is under attack, Surkovlike Putin in his Sept. 4 address to the nationpointed the finger at strategists in the West: "You know, the people making decisions in America, Europe, and the East can be divided into two basic groups with different opinions of our country. The people in the first group believe that our democracy has a future.... The second group, it seems to me, consists of people still suffering from 'Cold War' phobias, regarding our country as a potential adversary, and preventing a total financial blockade of the terrorists and their political isolation. They take credit for the almost bloodless collapse of the Soviet Union and are trying to build on this success. Their goal is the destruction of Russia and the establishment of numerous ineffectual quasi-states in its vast expanses."
Surkov said that the North Caucasus was a stomping ground for that global faction, which took advantage of corruption and a bad socioeconomic policy in the region. "There is nothing new about their methods, however," he added. "The detonation of our southern borders for the purpose of weakening Russia as a whole was already practised repeatedly in the 19th and 20th Centuries. We should bear this in mind." He repeated that the electoral reform was meant to achieve "unity of government," as "an essential condition for national unity" in the face of "interventionists," whose objective "is the destruction of the Russian state."
Former Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov, now secretary of the Russian Security Council, said Sept. 29 that the country's official National Security Concept will be rewritten, since the current one dates from 2000. The "new reality," to be addressed in the forthcoming document, includes "international terrorism," he said. On Oct. 1, Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov also took up current security needs. Announcing that the Russian military will take delivery of four new land-based ICBMs next year, Ivanov said, "We will purchase as many as is necessary to maintain genuine nuclear parity."
Scientists will protest throughout Russia on Oct. 20, against a Ministry of Education and Science plan to cut the number of state-funded science institutions from several thousand, to between 100 and 200, by 2008. Under the so-called National Concept of Participation in Managing State Scientific and Research Organizations, the rest are supposed to sink or swim in the commercial market, as state spending for science is cut in half. The St. Petersburg Times reported Oct. 5 that programs like the Medical Industry Development Plan and the Development of Methods of Protection of Population From Dangerous Pathogens, will be suspended indefinitely.
Zhores Alfyorov, Nobel Laureate in physics and member of the State Duma, said at a late-September press conference, "If the government accepts the plan, it means Russian science will soon be dead and buried." According to the Times, this month, the St. Petersburg Scientific Center, which groups 60 institutions from the country's second-biggest city, will present a counter-proposal for developing Russian science.
Some 4,000 university students rallied outside Russian government headquarters on Friday, Oct. 1, according to a report in Moscow News Oct 6-12. They protested the institution of fees for higher education, as well as implementation of already adopted cuts in student benefits (through conversion to small cash payments; like pensioners, students have lost their rights to free holidays, medical care, and transportation). Among their slogans were, "Youth is Russia's future"; "No to paid education, yes to social guarantees." Oleg Denisov, head of the Russian Association of Student Unions, told Interfax that the announced cuts are seen as just a step towards a situation where all higher education is for-fee only, putting it out of the reach of most Russians.
Southwest Asia News Digest
At his Oct. 6 LaRouche PAC webcast in Washington, D.C., LaRouche was asked to comment on a listener's concern about the foreign policy espoused by Democrats John Kerry and John Edwards. An excerpt from Mr. LaRouche's reply follows.
"Well, if I'm President, I wouldn't have a problem, would I? First of all, in the Arab world, I'm probably the only American politician the Arab world would trust, right now. The only one. If Kerry wants to get out of the problems in the Middle East, he'd better come and talk to me: Because I have the credentials, he does not. And he didn't help himself, the other way around. What we do then, if they would trust methey wouldn't trust anybody else, and they'd watch me like a hawk, because they're very suspicious.
"But we could get it, because we have to get one thing, and this is where Kerry and Edwards will not bite the bullet: You have to deal with justice for the Palestinians. You can not scream that the problem Israel has, is a bunch of crazy Palestinians. You've had a war going on, between Palestinians and Israelis for some period of time. You had a relatively sane phase under the Labor government, and I dealt with the Labor government back in the middle of the 1970s. And we had a plan for a peace plan for the Middle East. At that time, Labor government leaders, including Shimon Peres, were supporting me and praising me for what I was doing: Because what I proposed is a development program, including water development and power development for the region, so that people would have enough water and power to live and develop together. That without a constructive economic development plan, there can be no peace in the Middle East.
"You have to have a broker who sort of forces it down the throats of the parties. The only effective broker would be the United States, as Clinton correctly thought. He may not have handled it perfectly. He may have been misled on some points, but he had the right idea, of going in that direction. Only the United States can bring about the condition of Middle East peace. If you can not bring about Middle East peace between the Palestinians and Israelis nowand it could be doneyou have no possibility of settling the general crisis in the Middle East today."
(See this week's InDepth for LaRouche's opening speech to the webcast; the complete audio, with animated graphics, can be found at www.larouchepac.com)
According to a United Nations report, as of Oct. 6, eighty-two Palestinians had been killed in the Israeli invasion of Gaza (see article, InDepth), including 24 children under the age of 18, and the death toll is rising, according to international press reports Oct. 7. Over 50,000 Palestinians are trapped in their homes in the Jabaliya refugee camp, which has now become a war zone. Another seven Palestinians were killed on Oct. 7.
Twelve UN organizations released the above special report, warning of the impending humanitarian disaster as a result of Israeli military operations, and conditions of siege imposed in the Gaza Strip. Their findings testify to the criminal policies of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and his generals. Sixty-six percent of the population lives below the poverty linedefined as earning less than $2 a day! This is expected to rise to 72% within a year. The number of homeless Palestinians has reached 24,547, in the last four years, because of house demolitions, a Class A war crime. Despite the fact that the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) has been making a desperate attempt to help feed 1.5 million Palestinian refugees, chronic malnutrition among children under five years old is at 12.7% in the Gaza Strip, and is expected to rise.
Speaking in New York on Oct. 3, Palestinian special envoy to the UN, Nasser al-Kidwa, called for an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council, to end the Israeli onslaught in the Gaza Strip. Al-Kidwa said the Palestinian government condemned the strikes against Jewish settlers in the Gaza Strip by the homemade, "rudimentary" Qassam rockets, but he detailed how the Israeli reaction had thus far killed 82 people, including 20 children, wounded more than 350 others, and demolished many homes, using 2,000 soldiers, 100 tanks and a "massive use of helicopter gunships."
Al Kidwa stated, "Israel persists in committing war crimes and acts of state terrorism against the Palestinian people. There is no justification for this Israeli hysteria, for this widespread killing and deliberate destruction."
The same day, Algeria, the only Arab country on the Security Council, called for, and successfully succeeded in convening a UNSC meeting to consider a resolution to end the "terrifying ... war of extermination" against the Palestinians.
The resolution calls for "immediate cessation of all military operations in the area of Northern Gaza," and the withdrawal of all Israeli troops from there.
Motivating urgent action on the resolution, Algerian UN Ambassador Abdalla Baali said, "The Palestinian people are exposed to a virtual war of extermination.... The unfettered use of brutal force is terrifying."
On Oct. 2, UN Secretary General Kofi Annan had issued a statement which said:
"On Sunday, the Secretary-General called on the Government of Israel to halt its military incursions into the Gaza Strip, which have led to the deaths of scores of Palestinians, among them many civilians, including children.
"The Secretary-General likewise called on the Palestinian Authority to take action to halt the firing of rockets against Israeli targets by Palestinian militants. He reminded both sides to this conflict that they have a legal obligation to protect all civilians."
But it is well known that such "balanced" statements have been totally ignored by the Sharon government in the past, which continues its military operations until it has completed whatever plan it is implementing. This reality is well-known to Kofi Annan, who is faced with the opposition from the U.S., which is armed with the veto power.
The U.S. support for Sharon was articulated by U.S. Ambassador to the UN John Danforth, who said, according to an Oct. 4 report in The Age of Australia, that another resolution was "one more step on the road to nowhere," and charged that the UNSC "acts as the adversary of the Israelis and cheerleader to the Palestinians." Danforth added, "That is not the way to peace. That is not the road map to peace."
On Oct. 6, the U.S. vetoed a resolution that called on Israel to cease its heavily armed tank and helicopter assault on the Gaza Strip.
The Israeli peace group, Gush Shalom has called on the Israeli government to cease the operation, and to end the charade of Sharon's "unilateral withdrawal" from Gaza. Like other peace organizations, Gush Shalom says that Sharon's Gaza plan is a farce, and only direct negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians can achieve any success.
Asia News Digest
On Oct. 4, chief of the Northern Alliance, and former President of Afghanistan, Burhanuddin Rabbani, a Tajik-Afghan and a close ally of both Iran and India, endorsed Afghan Interim President Hamid Karzai for President (elections took place Oct. 9). According to New Delhi, India strongly supports continuation of the Karzai Presidency. Karzai is not trusted in Pakistan, and from the available information, and claims made by some Afghan leaders, Pakistan is still protecting the Taliban faction within Afghanistan.
As a result of these developments, it is evident that Karzai is heavily favored to secure more than 50% of the votes, and emerge as the new President. However, the greatest threat to the election is the likelihood of a widespread violence orchestrated by the anti-U.S. and anti-Kabul forces. These include the followers of Taliban and many other Afghans who consider Karzai as a mere U.S. puppet, and the presence of 20,000 U.S. troops as an American occupation.
It is also apparent, that among those who oppose the election, are the drug-traffickers and the warlords. The traffickers fear that a strong Kabul will eventually work against their interests, and Karzai, under the thumb of the Western powers, will be left with no choice but to act against the poppy-growers.
The warlords, on their part, worry that this could be the beginning of the setting up of institutions, the first of which would be a large Afghan national army. The warlords thrive because of their militias and the drug money which supports, and enlarges them.
The Philippines polling service, Social Weather Stations, reports that hunger has risen to record levels in the most populous island, Luzon, followed by rising acute need in the second-largest southern-most island, Mindanao.
The poll shows that one in every seven, or 15.1%, of heads of households polled in August 2004, said his family had nothing to eat at least once in the last three months, triple the number the in 2003. Rising incidence of hunger is fueled by sharply rising food and basic necessities costs, and costs of electricity and water.
The survey found the incidence of hunger in Mindanao rose to 23%, the highest in the country, and about four times the 5.3% level in September 2003.
In metro Manila, household heads reporting that their families went without food at least once over the past quarter, increased to 15.7%, compared to 7.3% almost a year ago. The rest of Luzon recorded an 11.3% incidence, up from 4.7%.
On Oct. 2, Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf announced a major reshuffle of the senior army officers of the rank of general and lieutenant general. The most important elements of the reshuffle include the retiring of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and Vice-Chief of the Army Staff. Musharraf has just returned from an overseas trip that took him to the UN, United States, Holland, and Italy.
Gen. Mohammad Aziz Khan, the former Chief of the General Staff, a Kashmiri belonging to the Sudan tribe, was the most dangerous fundamentalist at that high level. Aziz Khan was one of the triumvirate when Musharraf was brought to power in a bloodless coup in 1999. Aziz Khan was the Chief of General Staff, Lt. Gen. Usmani was the 10 Corps Commander in Rawalpindi (located about 10 miles east of Islamabad, the Rawalpindi Corps Commander always pulls the strings in Pakistan) and Lt. Gen. Mahmoud Ahmed. Both Mahmoud Ahmed and Usmani were removed after Sept. 11, 2001, at the behest of the United States. Aziz Mohammad Khan is dangerous because he runs the Kashmir infiltration job on the ground and has hired a large number of Kashmiri officers, who serve him more than they serve Islamabad.
This should make Washington happy. But at the same time, Musharraf retired Mohammad Yusuf Khan (known as "Joe" in the Pentagon and Agency circles) who is an absolute favorite of the Americans. The reason why Musharraf has done so, New Delhi contacts believe, is to take away the "option" from Washington. "Joe" got quite close to the Pentagon, and was considered by at least some as an "option" to replace Musharraf, if the Pakistani President starts disobeying Washington's diktats.
Finally, it should be noted that there exists no army officer in Pakistan above the rank of brigadier general today who has not been promoted by anyone else but Musharraf. So as some Pakistanis say, the "Bush and Mush Show" is proceeding according to schedule.
Estimates are that 100 may have been injured in the blasts from a car bomb and a motorcycle bomb which exploded simultaneously, around 4:30 a.m. Oct. 7.
Around 1,000 members of an outlawed Sunni group were participating in the meeting to commemorate the first anniversary of the assassination of their leader Azam Tariq. The attack comes six days after 30 worshippers from the rival Shi'ite minority were killed by a suicide bomber as they prayed in the city of Sialkot. Police admit that they fear a revenge attack.
Speaking at the UN General Assembly last week, China's Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing proposed that the moves to reform the United Nations should help "accelerate [economic] development of the member states." He said: "China is in favor of expanding the Security Council and giving priority to a greater representation of the developing countries." China is one of the Permanent Five UNSC members, which also include the U.S., Britain, Russia, and France.
In New Delhi, China's statement was viewed against the backdrop of India and Japan, among the Asian nations, making common cause for becoming permanent members of the Security Council. The Hindu, which is close to the Indian Foreign Office, expressed the view Oct. 3, that China now wants to bring in countries to the Security Council who could be helpful to China, as well as to Asia (following the U.S. example, during the Cold War days). If the analysis is based on signals issued to the Indians by Beijing, it is a major development, particularly in light of the future China-Japan relations and toward building a common Asian security.
The Cambodian parliament successfully amended 29 laws to allow a trial of surviving senior Khmer Rouge leaders, only one day after the Cambodian government reached agreement with the United Nations on the procedures for putting on trial surviving leaders of the 1975-79 genocide. Two million Cambodians died from starvation, disease, and overwork during that period.
Currently only two surviving leaders are in custody, Ta Mok, a military commander and central committee member known for his brutality, and Kang Kech Leu, a.k.a. Duch, who ran the high school, turned into a prison and torture chamber.
Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot died in 1998, but four surviving senior members live peacefully in the country, Khieu Samphan, 72, former head of state; his next door neighbor Nuon Chea, deputy secretary of the Central Committee; Sou Met and Meah Mut, both military commanders who may also have been central committee members.
The biggest obstacle to a trial now is money, with the trials expected to run up to $57 million, from international donors. Prime Minister Hun Sen has said his country can only provide the courtrooms, security, water, and electricity. Based on agreements with the U.N., the trials could last three years and involve a staff of 2,000. Needless to say, closure is a long way off.
Penning an op-ed published 72 hours before the landmark Presidential election is scheduled to be held in Afghanistan, French Defense Minister Michele Alliot-Marie has drawn a gloomy picture of the Afghan situation because of the relentless growth in poppy cultivation.
While most of the details about the growth of opium production in Afghanistan have been well-documented by now, what Alliot-Maries pointed out is that "no-go" areas are developing within the country to perpetuate criminal activities triggered by the drug money. The French Defense Minister also pointed out that the Taliban fighters are availing themselves of the drug money, and utilizing it in their fight against Kabul.
Alliot-Marie, after pointing out the necessity to build new irrigation systems which would enable the Afghan farmers to grow food, also urged the international community to organize the neighboring nations (Pakistan, Iran, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and Tajikistan) to help prevent the "cross-border aspect of the drug scourge."
Continuing violence in the three southern-most provinces of Thailand is stirring up frictions in the country's military command.
Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra has made a number of personnel shifts recently, but the most important signal came from Deputy Prime Minister Gen. Chavalit Yongchaiyudh, who floated the possibility of his resignation ahead of rumors of a cabinet reshuffle. Chavalit recently clashed with Defense Minister Chettha Thanajaro, who exercised a more aggressive approach to the continuing violence in the southern provinces.
There are indications that Thaksin was not satisfied with Chavalit's performance in curbing violence in the South. Chavalit has publicly spoken about stepping down and washing his hands of politics. Meanwhile, Thaksin is said to be backing Deputy Supreme Commander General Sirichai.
Crown Prince Maha Vajiralongkorn is the third member of the Thai royal family to travel to the troubled southern-most provinces to seek an easing of the violence in the last nine months.
The Crown Prince, addressing Muslim religious leaders and the Buddhist abbot of Wat Sai Khao, in Pattani's Province's Khok Pho district, said those behind the violence were people who had a misconception of Islamic teaching, and asked that the teachers correct those wrong beliefs.
Privy Councillor Palakorn Somsuwan, who accompanied the prince, said interference from abroad was partly to blame for the southern violence, but did not elaborate.
Prof. Abhoud Syed Lingga, chairman of the Bangsamoro People's Assembly from Mindanao, Philippines, was denied exit from the United States, Mindanews reported Oct. 5. Lingga, who is also head of the Institute of Bangsamoro Studies, had been invited to the U.S. by the prestigious Asia Society and the government-funded U.S. Institute for Peace, headed by Richard Solomon, together with other leading spokesmen for the Moro people, including Datu Michael Mastura, a former Philippines Congressman. They spoke at seminars in New York, Washington, and San Francisco, sponsored by USIP and the Woodrow Wilson Center. The trip was originally planned for last May, but Lingga was refused entry to the U.S. at that time, supposedly due to connections to the MILF (Moro Islamic Liberation Front), which the U.S. has placed on a terrorist list, against the wishes of the Philippines government, which is in peace talks with the MILF.
The trip was rescheduled for September, with assurances that Lingga would face no difficulties this time. Yet, as the group was returning to the Philippines on Oct. 1 from San Francisco, Lingga was refused exit. Mastura refused to leave without him, and he was then also detained. Both were questioned and their luggage searched, including a "one by one" search of all business cards and literature they had picked up in their meetings. They were allowed to leave the next day.
Africa News Digest
In his webcast from Washington, D.C., on Oct. 6, Lyndon LaRouche discussed the perpetual war scenario unfolding throughout Africa and West and Central Asia. Concerning Egypt and Sudan, he said:
"The way this Darfur thing is being mishandled and misrepresented, including by Kerry, is part of the problem. The target is, of certain people, to try to destroy Egypt, by destroying Sudan. Garang [John Garang, leader of the Sudan People's Liberation Army, SPLA] is a U.S. agent. Garang's agents are part of the slaughter. That's the genocide.... The other agent is [Hassan] al-Turabi, who's a British agent, of the Muslim Brotherhood pedigree.... So, you say the Sudanese government is doing it; it is the United States government that's doing it, with the British. They created the situation in which this happened. There is death occurring there. Yes. It should be corrected. But who's doing it? It's the United States government, who is as guilty as anybody else.... The purpose is, they grab the water and oil of the region, from Sudan. And while they grab the water, they're going to collapse Egypt. You collapse Egypt, you want peace? You want Hell on Earth?"
British Prime Minister Tony Blair, in two hours of talks with Sudanese President Umar Hassan al-Bashir Oct. 6, obtained agreement to five points: A significant expansion of the African Union observer force and of its protective troops (to 3,500 or 4,000); the government must identify the location of its troops and munitions in Darfur; it must return its troops to barracks in conjunction with a similar withdrawal by the insurrectionists; it must commit itself to reaching a comprehensive peace agreement with the insurrectionists in Darfur and southern Sudan by Dec. 31; and it must abide by the humanitarian accords signed with the UN.
Blair called the talks "frank, open, and I think constructive," the Daily Telegraph reported Oct. 7. Sudan's Foreign Minister Mustafa Usman Isma'il claimed the government had not been put under pressure by Blair, according to the Guardian Oct. 7. "Rather, [Blair] expressed his concern and Britain's concern and the concern of the international community about the situation in Darfur.... And we share the same concern. The conditions in Darfur are not normal."
Blair told reporters at the British Embassy in Khartoum Oct. 6, "The fact that I have come is, I hope, an indication of the seriousness with which we take the situation." He is the first British leader to visit Sudan since independence in 1956, and the highest-level official from a European or North American government to visit Sudan since the Darfur crisis erupted, the Guardian reported. Britain is the largest aid donor to Sudan.
U.S. Ambassador to the UN John Danforth proposed Oct. 8 that the UN Security Council meet next month in Kenya, at the site of the resumed talks between Khartoum and John Garang's Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA).
Blair's talks with Sudanese President al-Bashir Oct. 6, and now this novel proposal, are designed to force completion of the process. "We have at least raised the possibility for council consideration that the Security Council might do something extraordinary, and that is to convene the Security Council at the site of the peace negotiations in Kenya," Danforth said. The U.S. will hold the rotating presidency of the Security Council in November. The Sudan negotiations resumed in Nairobi, Kenya, Oct. 7, with Kofi Annan's envoy Jan Pronk present.
There have been two failed attempts to complete the series of agreements in recent months. The only remaining area of disagreement is security and procedural arrangements in going beyond ceasefire to ending the war.
On behalf of the Anglo-American powers, the International Crisis Group threatened Khartoum with renewed war, in a paper issued Oct. 5: "Unless current dynamics change and the UN Security Council puts more pressure on Khartoum to conclude the ... agreement, war could soon resume across the country," it said.
Pa'gan Amum, one of the SPLA negotiators, told Reuters Oct. 7 that if agreement were not reached, "There would be full war in the South and the East, and Darfur" in the West. This southerner should know about the East and Darfur, since the three insurrections are one.
A Sudanese intelligence official not wishing to be named, told Reuters by telephone from Khartoum, that the head of the Darfur Justice and Equality Movement, "Dr. [Khalil] Ibrahim, and his troops, are parading up and down the border [the Eritrean border, in the East], we have seen him." Reuters then reached Ibrahim by telephone in Eritrea.
Sudan's President Umar al-Bashir, in a major address opening a new session of Parliament, moved to outflank existing and potential insurgencies. He told Parliament Oct. 4 that he wants to generalize the peace terms offered to the SPLA, to all of Sudan's outlying provinces. He called it a "framework of a new equation aimed at sharing power and wealth between the center and the provinces," and said that, "The agreement for sharing the country's wealth will be considered in the new budget to be issued in the beginning of next year."
In an interview Sept. 30 with Al-Ahram, the Egyptian semi-official daily, President al-Bashir said, "I must again point out that the United States is supporting the rebels in Darfur to the hilt, and highlight its pressure on the UN Security Council" to impose solutions on Sudan. "Who else than the U.S. is behind this?... They took rebels to Eritrea, and set up training camps for them, spent money on them, armed them, and gave them Thuraya mobiles to speak between anywhere in the world.... Eritrea ... was the land used, but the training, spending, and planning was paid for by foreign powers, at the head of them the U.S., represented in its agencies." Al-Bashir said he had documents to prove his charges. He did not mention the fundamental British role that has been setting U.S. policy. According to Reuters Sept. 30, a U.S. State Department official in Washington denied everything. He asked not to be named.
Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak's spokesman announced Oct. 4 that Mubarak has accepted African Union (AU) President Olusegun Obasanjo's invitation to participate in an AU mini-summit on the crisis in Darfur, Sudan. Spokesman Maged Abdel Fattah said the summit was part of AU efforts to "contain the situation in Darfur" and to "fend off the consequences of UN Security Council resolutions and consolidate the role of the AU in dealing with the conflict." The summit would seek a "suitable political solution" that would be "accepted by Sudan," rather than be imposed from outside.
Chad and Libya will also attend. Obasanjo will chair the meeting, to be held in Libya before Oct. 21. Sudan's President will attend, as will "all concerned Sudanese parties," according to Abdel Fattah.
One of the Darfur insurrectionary movements carried out a hit-and-run attack in Ghubeish, perhaps 75 miles into Western Kordofan state over the border from Southern Darfur state, killing and injuring 20 people, apparently on Oct. 1. It is not clear which movement was responsible. State Minister for Foreign Affairs Najib Abdulwahab told Reuters Oct. 2 that it was an attempt "to widen the scope of the conflict into Kordofan." The insurrectionists attacked a police station in nearby al-Majrur Oct. 1, according to the independent Sudanese daily Akhbar al-Youm. It said the attackers told local people they were in control of al-Majrur and would attack Ghubeish.
UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour, having just returned from Darfur, told the UN Security Council Sept. 30 that a large international police force is needed to protect the refugees in camps there, according to a Washington File (U.S. State Department) release of the same date.
Arbour praised the AU monitors, but what she wants is people with police powers. She says the refugees don't trust the Sudanese police and "expressed their faith [in] and total dependence on the international community for protection." "What we see now are individual attacks on a massive scale, i.e., in all the camps where ... women attempt to step out to collect firewood there is very widespread preying on [them]." So, she says, international officers must accompany Sudanese police "to monitor their work and assist them in human rights awareness, community relations, and in reporting." Arbour's proposal would mean a formal breach in Sudan's sovereigntyjust what Sudan has consistently rejected.
The release leaves little doubt that the State Department supports the idea, of which it may be the real author.
Sudanese President al-Bashir has threatened to execute Hassan Al-Turabi if he's found guilty in trial of alleged coup plotting, a risky step given Turabi's large following. Turabi's wife, Wisal al-Mahdi, visited him in prison Sept. 25 after returning from Britain, where she met with British politicians and Amnesty International, seeking leverage to get her husband released. She told the weekly online edition of the Egyptian semi-official newspaper Al-Ahram (Sept. 30-Oct. 6), that he wasn't allowed access to news. "He didn't know that al-Bashir has threatened to execute him if found guilty of involvement in the alleged coup," she said.
Turabi has denied any involvement in the March and September coup attempts alleged by the government, or links to the insurrectionists. He does say he sympathizes with some of their demands, such as decentralization of power, BBC reported Sept. 30, after al-Mahdi's visit.
Turabi's Popular Congress Party had earlier denied involvement in any coup plot, saying there were differences within the army, but no plot.
The trial of the 32 alleged March plottersmembers of Turabi's Popular Congress Party, including at least two generalsopened Sept. 30.
The UN Security Council voted unanimously to add 5,900 troops to the peacekeeping force in the Democratic Republic of Congo, including a rapid reaction force of 700. Most will go to the East. The current force is 10,800. After the vote, Kofi Annan said that the "minimum required to meet the current challenges in the D.R.C." is a total force of 23,900. The Bush Administration would not agree to the full number, citing cost and the difficulties of finding countries willing to supply the troops.
There are still well-defended Rwandan mining operations to be cleaned out in eastern Congo, which are not only robbing the country of its mineral wealth, but have enslaved local populations to do the workand who then soon die from malaria and cholera because there is no clean water at the mines. Those who avoid this fate, do so by living in hiding in the forest. This is going on within 80 miles of Goma.
A recent study commissioned by Shell Oil was a factor in Nigerian President Obasanjo's unprecedented concessions to armed separatist Mujahid Dokubo Asari. Earlier this year, Shell Oil commissioned WAC Global Services, an international security company, to study security conditions in the Niger Delta. The study concluded, "If current conflict trends continue uninterrupted, it would be surprising if SCIN [Shell Companies in Nigeria] is able to continue on-shore resource extraction in the Niger Delta beyond 2008, whilst complying with Shell Business Principles."
That was before Asari's militia, the militia sent against him by the Rivers State government (Ateke Tom's Niger Delta Vigilante), and federal forces killed 500 people in just a few weeks, and Asari threatened Sept. 27 to launch Operation Locust Feast against the federal government, ostensibly across whole country.
This Week in History
On Oct. 15, 1858 Abraham Lincoln and Stephen A. Douglas faced off for the last of their debates in Alton, Ill. After the seven Lincoln-Douglas debates for the U.S. Senate seat from Illinois had been arranged in mid-summer, Abraham Lincoln sat down and drafted a speech that he never gave. It was a working paper of his closely-reasoned arguments to expose the sophistry of his opponent. Stephen Douglas posed as completely neutral on the subject of whether or not slavery was to be extended into new areas of America, saying that what he supported was "popular sovereignty," the supposed right of any territory's citizens to vote slavery in or out. Yet Douglas supported every legislative and judicial decision that made it impossible for the anti-slavery forces to stop the spread of slavery.
At the end of his paper, Lincoln focused on Douglas's tenacious support for the Supreme Court's Dred Scott decision, and posed the question of why this was so, when Douglas had denounced so many Supreme Court decisions before it. Lincoln asked, "Why does he adhere to it so pertinaciously? Why does he thus belie his whole past life? Why, with a long record more marked for hostility to judicial decisions than almost any living man, does he cling to this with a devotion that nothing can baffle? In this age, and this country, public sentiment is every thing. With it, nothing can fail; against it, nothing can succeed. Whoever moulds public sentiment, goes deeper than he who enacts statutes, or pronounces judicial decisions. He makes possible the inforcement of these, else impossible.
"Judge Douglas is a man of large influence. His bare opinion goes far to fix the opinion of others. Besides this, thousands hang their hopes upon forcing their opinions to agree with his. It is a party necessity with them to say they agree with him; and there is danger they will repeat the saying till they really come to believe it. Others dread, and shrink from his denunciations, his sarcasms, and his ingenious misrepresentations. The susceptible young hear lessons from him, such as their fathers never heared when they were young.
"If, by all these means, he shall succeed in moulding public sentiment to a perfect accordance with his ownin bringing all men to indorse all court decisions, without caring to know whether they are right or wrongin bringing all tongues to as perfect a silence as his own, as to there being any wrong in slaveryin bringing all to declare, with him, that they care not whether slavery be voted down or voted upthat if any people want slaves they have a right to have themthat Negroes are not menhave no part in the declaration of Independencethat there is no moral question about slaverythat liberty and slavery are perfectly consistentindeed, necessary accompanimentsthat for a strong man to declare himself the superior of a weak one, and thereupon enslave the weak one, is the very essence of libertythe most sacred right of self-governmentwhen, I say, public sentiment shall be brought to all this, in the name of heaven, what barrier will be left against slavery being made lawful every where? Can you find one word of his, opposed to it? Can you not find many strongly favoring it? If for his lifefor his eternal salvationhe was solely striving for that end, could he find any means so well adapted to reach the end?
"If our Presidential election [of James Buchanan], by a mere plurality, and of doubtful significance, brought one Supreme Court decision, that no power can exclude slavery from a Teritory; how much more shall a public sentiment, in exact accordance with the sentiments of Judge Douglas bring another that no power can exclude it from a State?
"And then, the Negro being doomed, and damned, and forgotten, to everlasting bondage, is the white man quite certain that the tyrant demon will not turn upon him too?"
In the last debate at Alton, Douglas left no doubt that he was a sworn enemy of the founding purpose of the United Statesto be a temple of liberty and a beacon of hope for the rest of mankindyet, there were still many who applauded his words: 'But the Abolition party really think that under the Declaration of Independence the Negro is equal to the white man, and that Negro equality is an inalienable right conferred by the Almighty, and hence, that all human laws in violation of it are null and void. With such men it is no use for me to argue. I hold that the signers of the Declaration of Independence had no reference to negroes at all when they declared all men to be created equal. They did not mean Negro, nor the savage Indians, nor the Fejee Islanders, nor any other barbarous race.'
"'They were speaking of white men. They alluded to men of European birth and European descentto white men, and to none others, when they declared that doctrine. I hold that this government was established on the white basis. It was established by white men for the benefit of white men and their posterity forever, and should be administered by white men, and none others.'"
In his rebuttal, Lincoln countered by stating that those who recently were asserting that the Declaration of Independence did not include the Negro were actually launching a "sneaking" attack upon the Declaration itself. As for the Founding Fathers' view of slavery, Lincoln asked why "they made provision that the source of slaverythe African slave tradeshould be cut off at the end of twenty years? Why did they make provision that in all the new territory we owned at that time slavery should be forever inhibited? Why stop its spread in one direction and cut off its source in another, if they did not look to its being placed in the course of ultimate extinction?" Further, Lincoln stated that the institution of slavery is only mentioned in the United States Constitution two or three times, and in none of these cases does the word "Slavery" or "Negro race" occur, but general language is used instead. That was because, said Lincoln, the Founding Fathers wrote the Constitution for the ages, and they had no intention of enshrining in it an institution which they intended should pass from the Earth.
Lincoln then went after Douglas's lying characterization of "popular sovereignty" as being the solution to the slavery question. Referring back to earlier debates, Lincoln cited Douglas's statements that he didn't care whether slavery was voted up or down in the Territories. "I do not care myself in dealing with that expression, whether it is intended to be expressive of his individual sentiments on the subject, or only of the national policy he desires to have established. It is alike valuable for my purpose. Any man can say that who does not see anything wrong in slavery, but no man can logically say it who does see a wrong in it; because no man can logically say he don't care whether a wrong is voted up or voted down. He may say he don't care whether an indifferent thing is voted up or down, but he must logically have a choice between a right thing and a wrong thing.... He says that upon the score of equality, slaves should be allowed to go in a new Territory, like other property. This is strictly logical if there is no difference between it and other property. If it and other property are equal, his argument is entirely logical. But if you insist that one is wrong and the other right, there is no use to institute a comparison between right and wrong. You may turn over everything in the Democratic policy from beginning to end, whether in the shape it takes on the statute book, in the shape it takes in the Dred Scott decision, in the shape it takes in conversation or the shape it takes in short maxim-like argumentsit everywhere carefully excludes the idea that there is anything wrong in it.
"That is the real issue. That is the issue that will continue in this country when these poor tongues of Judge Douglas and myself shall be silent. It is the eternal struggle between these two principlesright and wrongthroughout the world. They are the two principles that have stood face to face from the beginning of time; and will ever continue to struggle. The one is the common right of humanity and the other the divine right of kings. It is the same principle in whatever shape it develops itself. It is the same spirit that says, 'You work and toil and earn bread, and I'll eat it.' No matter in what shape it comes, whether from the mouth of a king who seeks to bestride the people of his own nation and live by the fruit of their labor, or from one race of men as an apology for enslaving another race, it is the same tyrannical principle.
"I was glad to express my gratitude at Quincy, and I re-express it here to Judge Douglasthat he looks to no end of the institution of slavery. That will help the people to see where the struggle really is. It will hereafter place with us all men who really do wish the wrong may have an end. And whenever we can get rid of the fog which obscures the real questionwhen we can get Judge Douglas and his friends to avow a policy looking to its perpetuationwe can get out from among them that class of men and bring them to the side of those who treat it as a wrong. Then there will soon be an end of it, and that end will be its 'ultimate extinction.'"*
* Spelling and punctuation as in Lincoln's original document.
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