Latest From LaRouche

DICK CHENEY IS DOWN, HE'S ON THE DOWN SIDE, — AND THE COUNTRY IS HEADING IN A NEW DIRECTION

Lyndon LaRouche was interviewed on Wisconsin public radio, KUWS, Duke Skorich Show, Nov. 7, which was streamed on http://www.kuws.fm. Skorich previously interviewed LaRouche on Sept. 7.

DUKE SKORICH: This is where the Northland comes together to talk about the issues that matter to you. Danny Schechter is going to be our guest on this program tomorrow. You have seen him producing some of the major news broadcasts in this country....

Welcome to all of those of you listening across the country and across the globe, on KUWS.FM....

Now: Getting ready for this program tonight, I decided—you know, let me just give you some headlines. These are headlines from the two major newspapers in this country. I don't think anybody is going to dispute that the New York Times and the Washington Post—people might talk about Boston, they might talk Chicago, they might talk the L.A. Times—but the New York Times and the Washington Post are the two newspapers that matter. Here's the headlines: "New Evidence Shows Bush Administration's Misuse of Intelligence To Justify Iraq War." "White House Orders Ethics Refresher Course for Staff." "Bush Administration Permitting Clandestine Scrutiny of Ordinary Americans under Patriot Act." And then, this one today: "Italian Satellite Television To Broadcast Evidence of U.S. Use of Chemical Weapons on Civilians."

And, I said, "Well, that's a pretty harsh story." So, I went to La Repubblica, which is the major newspaper in Italy, and I went to the website of what is going to be the Italian satellite television RAI News 24: And they have interviewed American servicemen, American personnel; they have interviewed people in Fallujah, and they have put together this documentary which will be broadcast tomorrow. And ladies and gentlemen, if what I have seen today—and why wouldn't I believe the American service personnel that were interviewed?—I am just, I am absolutely shocked, that—. We have always suspected, we have always heard about what happened in Fallujah. But tomorrow, the world will see documentary evidence of the use by U.S. troops of white phosphorus, and a new formulation of napalm, on the citizens of Fallujah.

So, I think—God Almighty—that's some pretty serious stuff. And I believe joining us by phone right now, Lyndon LaRouche is on the line. And Mr. LaRouche, you and I had an hour-long conversation about six weeks ago, sir, and we talked about a great many things. And since that time, we have had some additional claims that have come forward, about this administration. I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby has been indicted. And what are your thoughts tonight, about what is going on in these United States of America?

LYNDON LAROUCHE: Well, essentially, Cheney is being put through slow torture, probably to get him out soon. What has done this—the background, of course, is the Iraq War. This has become an untenable position, and Cheney, of course, is much to blame for this. He's being brutal. And lately, what he's done, he's made a fool of himself, but it's his policy, in attempting to buck the Senate, which 90 to 9, voted against the continued use of torture against people taken captive by the United States, in special categories, such as Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib, and so forth.

Now, the Senate, in this issue, led in part by McCain, who was a prisoner of war in Indo-China for some period of time, has voted against torture. And Cheney has been trying to suppress that, and to insist that the right for unsupervised torture of captives, who may not be guilty of anything, for as long as he chooses, is U.S. policy. And on that issue, and on the unpopularity of Cheney generally, and the unpopularity of the war, Cheney is sinking himself, in a way which is merely punctuated by the indicted of Lewis Libby.

SKORICH: Now, we're going to get into this, we're going to get into some of these issues. But I am pleased that you had raised the John McCain story. John McCain said again today, that he would add his amendment to every single piece of legislation, until the Bush Administration agrees to sign a policy that this country will not engage in torture! Now, today, the President during his news conference in Central America, says, "The United States does not torture!"

LAROUCHE: The President doesn't know, and he doesn't really—the President is not really a responsible person, in one sense. He is not an intellectual giant, shall we say. He says all kinds of things. He has been essentially a puppet of Cheney. And we've understood, that despite all the unpopularity which Bush has incurred, partly deserved, the biggest failure he's made is to be a puppet of Cheney.

Now, he was set into that role by a guy called George Shultz, who set up the whole Bush Administration, back before 2000. He designed it, and made Dick Cheney the Vice President. Dick Cheney has run the Bush Administration.

SKORICH: Why do we hear, and read in the New York Times and the Washington Post, then, that this White House is making—and has evidently overtures that they have released to reporters, that Dick Cheney is on the outs with the White House! How can Dick Cheney be on the outs?

LAROUCHE: Well, he is on the outs, and he isn't. The point is, is that there is a restiveness in the White House itself, and, to my last information, the President himself is being pressured to dump the connection to Cheney. And that is the only thing that is keeping Cheney in office, right now! Is the President, at least until recently, unless he's changed his mind in the past couple of days, has been defending Cheney, saying, "I need Cheney!" But, Cheney is—. You know, the President is sort of a Trilby, and Cheney is the Svengali, and Bush is the Trilby.

We understand that. And we know that we have to do something to get our Federal government functioning in a time of crisis. We can't go on this way. That's why things are happening the way they are: Because many of us realize, this can not continue. We can't live this out for three more years! It's not tolerable. We can't survive it.

SKORICH: Is this why, Mr. LaRouche, we see a somewhat emboldened U.S. media, willing to talk now, about evidence that maybe some of this information was fabricated? I mean, you know, there was much pooh-pooh about the Downing Street Memos. There was much pooh-pooh about the reports, last week or two weeks ago out of Italy. Is the national media finally willing to take on this White House?

LAROUCHE: Well, with a certain—in a certain degree. It's not the national media. There are people behind the scenes, including in the Democrats in the Congress, and Republicans—we have a bipartisan coalition, which is obvious, I think, to anyone who's watching Washington—of sane Republicans—who are not of the, shall we say, of the religious convictions of Dick Cheney; and not of Tom DeLay's convictions—with Democrats. And despite the fact of all the problems that go with bipartisanship, there essentially is a drift, and has been, since May of this past year, there's been a drift toward cooperation among many of the Republicans in the Senate and the Democrats in the Senate.

Now, that's where the push is coming from. There are people behind in the institutions, who are supporting the role of the Senate in this, as I do. But that's where it's coming from.

The news media—the Post was obviously on the wrong side for a long time, but now that they find that Cheney's on the way out, they're changing their tune. The Times was in a modified position, where, at some point they were attacking the follies of this Bush Administration, but they were also covering up for other things, as the Judith Miller case shows it.

So, we've come to a time, where the media is responding to the fact that the country is going in a new direction. And if the media want to keep their authority, they better join the band.

You're going to find people who have been defending this administration, defending Cheney, who suddenly are going to become his enemies, and pick on him. He's down. He's on the down side, so now they're going to pick on him. Before they were defending him; before they were his voice, and tools.

So, this is the way politics often go.

SKORICH: As close as you are to Washington's inner circle, who might the administration put, in Dick Cheney's place, if he's going to be replaced? But, let me ask you this larger question: Where is this CIA leak investigation going to end? Is it going to end only about the leak of information? Or, do you hear that these Senators will expand this, and look at this larger role of misinformation?

LAROUCHE: What you have is, you have Cheney has had Frist in his pocket, the Republican leader of the Senate. Roberts has been under the domination of Frist. They have been blocking, since Cheney ordered it—they've been blocking any investigation. Now, it is impossible to sustain that blocking.

Where this investigation is going—now, for example, with what we did recently, which is going to become a factor in this: An associate of mine has been working on an article, on the case of a Capt. Frank Olson, who was a member of the CIA, who was killed by the intelligence services back in 1953. Allegedly, he jumped out of a window in New York—it didn't happen. He was poisoned, and killed. Because he was considered a security leak.

Now, in the 1970s, Cheney, when he was going through the transition from Assistant Chief Of Staff to Gerry Ford, to Chief of Staff of Ford, covered up this stuff. And has continued to cover this up, to the present day! That, we have had murder, systematic murder, by secret agencies of our government, working with former Nazis who are skilled at this, and we picked up their skills. And that has been going on since the end of the war, World War II.

That's what the problem is, and Cheney is now in the middle of that. That issue goes to the heart of our country! It goes to the heart of the policy of our country! We have a piece of rot—not just the Iraq War, that's a piece of rot—but we have a piece of rot in our system which must be removed, if we are gong to be able as a nation, to hold our heads up around the world. Because the facts are out now: The terror which is being run, with the open defense of the terror by Cheney—remember, open defense of terrorism! Open defense of Nazi-like methods! Matter of fact, they are Nazi methods, by Cheney! We allow him to be maintained as Vice President? No!

When this thing gets to the bottom, if this nation survives, you're going to see and say that Watergate was a very mild impulse on the horizon, compared to what's going to come out now. The whole history of the post-war, the rot of the entire post-war period, is going to come out to the surface, and we're going to hear about it all.

PAT MCNULTY: Mr. LaRouche, the rot of the whole post-war period then, would cover both parties, and every President since Eisenhower, right?

LAROUCHE: In a sense—no, not Eisenhower—since Truman. Truman is the one who started this, not Eisenhower. Eisenhower was opposed to it. Remember, Eisenhower gave this famous good-bye speech from the Presidency, on the question of the "complex," the so-called—

SKORICH: "Military-industrial complex." Yes.

LAROUCHE: Yeah, right. Now, this was Allen Dulles. Now, of course, I know some of this stuff personally, being an older man: Is that, I had a friend of mine—I didn't know him at the time—but he was the chief of OSS on the ground in Italy: Max Corvo. Max Corvo ended his career in Italy, approximately, in monitoring the peace agreement between the Emperor Hirohito and Franklin Roosevelt, through the Extraordinary Affairs Office of the Vatican, part of the Foreign Office of the Vatican. He was at that point, chasing Mussolini and his girlfriend, up toward the border of Switzerland, where Mussolini was trying to blackmail his old supporter, Winston Churchill, who was waiting on the other side of the Swiss border! Mussolini never got there. He was killed, and then his body and Petacci's body were hung up in a gas station, hung upside down, this famous case.

The papers disappeared, that he was carrying with him. Some of them appeared later—but not the papers implicating Churchill. Now, what had happened is, Allen Dulles moved in with his boy Angleton, into Italy, and took over a section of the Nazi apparatus, which he adopted. And so, at that point, the Dulles faction within the former OSS and the transition under Truman, took over a part of the Nazi apparatus and adopted it! That thing is still ongoing to the present day.

A lot of the terrorism, like the terrorism of the 1970s in Italy, was a direct extension of this, long after Allen Dulles was dead. The killing of a guy who was sort of friendly to me, a former head of the CIA, Colby—was killed over this issue. And it's things like that.

So, this rot is in our institutions with a right-wing faction, the anti-Franklin Roosevelt, right-wing faction, which turned to the right, on the death of Franklin Roosevelt: That's where the rot comes. And we've had that ever since. We had McCarthyism, we had what was called McCarthyism, it was Trumanism; we've had all kinds of evil in our country, and it comes from these guys in our military and in our intelligence services, and in some private institutions.

MCNULTY: So, this thing gets blown open. How does it get fixed?

LAROUCHE: Exposure: Blow it! Get the truth out! The truth has a wonderful healing quality.

MCNULTY: And you believe we have people in place, in our country to pick up the pieces and put this whole thing back together?

LAROUCHE: Yes, I do. That's how I've been able to survive. I'd be dead, if there weren't people in our country who were willing to pick up the pieces. The very fact I'm still alive, tells you that there're some good people out there.

SKORICH: I'm going to introduce you, Mr. LaRouche, to Prof. Jim Fetzer, who has written extensively on any numbers of theories about what our government has done, and he's in our studio for another topic, but he is chomping to get at a comment with you. So, let me just put him in with you, OK? Go ahead.

JIM FETZER: Mr. LaRouche, don't you think one of the crucial issues, however, is the integrity of the voting process? That the corruption by the use of electronic voting machines controlled by Republic sympathizers, has really detached the American people from their government, so that the administration can get away with measures it would never have contemplated, if it felt it could be held responsible at the polls for those actions?

LAROUCHE: That's true. But, you got two problems here: One is, you've got a sociological problem. Is that, over the past 30, 40 years, we had a change in economic policy, which was implemented under Nixon. And over the course, under Kissinger and under Brzezinski, and people like that, we changed our country from the Roosevelt institutions, such as the Bretton Woods system, the system of regulation that we used to have. We destroyed that. As a result of that, we took the lower 80% of our family-income brackets, and we estranged them from our process. The typical voter from the lower 80% of family-income brackets today, no longer believes he is part of the political system, but he believes he's an outsider who can nag and beg, in terms of trying to get something.

But, if you look at the standard of living, the physical standard of living of the lower 80% of our family-income brackets—you look at Wisconsin, for example! Look at Michigan, look at Ohio, look at Indiana: You find in the past period, since 1987, we've had a degeneration, an accelerating degeneration of the standard of living, the physical standard of living, and the welfare of these states and other states.

So, what has happened, is the typical American, is poorer and poorer and poorer. And feels that the government is not responsive to him, and that the parties are not responsive to him or her, or to his issues. So, you have this estrangement of the people from the political process, who see themselves as outside, pounding on the door.

At the same time, this estrangement has been used to destroy the old party structures, where people used to participate in parties and have some control over them. Less so, now.

And so therefore, under these conditions, you have the preconditions for a slide toward dictatorship: This manifests itself in many ways. You know, you have election frauds that would not have been tolerated in that form earlier, because the people would have revolted—as in Ohio. You're getting a slow revolt in Ohio, against the fraud of the last 2004 election.

So, gradually, we're coming back toward reality, or toward a desire to reestablish what we used to consider reality. What you're saying is true. In general, that's the direction.

SKORICH: You mentioned the economy, and I just wanted to ask you, where this debt and deficit spending is going to end up? So much of the debt controlled by the Asian countries, right now—

LAROUCHE: Well, not really. Not really. We're controlling the Asian countries by our debt. For example, if the United States were to cease to import on the level that it is now importing, from China and from India, those economies would collapse. So, the myth is, that China, and India, and so forth are controlling the United States—or Japan—because of the great debt, which we have refused to pay, for months.

So, the point is, is it's us: We are still the United States; the monetary system is still dollar-denominated; the dollar is collapsing in value, nobody in Washington is doing much about that; the past administration has been more incompetent than any recently on this issue: So we're coming to the point, that it's we, in the United States, have to change our policy. And we will find that there are people in Europe and other parts of the world, who will cooperate with us to get back to something like the Bretton Woods system. And if we do that, we can make it.

SKORICH: Is it fair to say that with all the trade imbalances and shifts in debts and deficits that it all comes out to a wash? Or, are we in economic trouble?

LAROUCHE: We are in a breakdown crisis. But, however, people overvalue the importance of money. But there are people who are very interested in money, who have a lot of it or nominally a lot of it, and they don't want a change.

But, if we put the world through a Chapter 11 type of bankruptcy reorganization, we could stop the crash without missing a step. And, we could, as we did under Franklin Roosevelt, we could rebuild, and within a generation get back to what we had before. It would be a better world for all of us. The question is: Where is the guts, to fight the Felix Rohatyns and people of that mentality? Who want to keep this predatory system.

If we go back to thinking as we did under Franklin Roosevelt, we can make it.

SKORICH: Let me take you back to one question, because I don't believe you answered when I asked you: Is, whether—if we get rid, or if the Bush Administration decides to distance itself and dump Dick Cheney, who's going to replace Dick Cheney?

LAROUCHE: What I—I've been involved in discussion of just exactly this problem. I said: We have to get Cheney out of there, period. And we have to look at other things in terms of reorganization of government, beyond that. We have to get the Tom DeLays and what he represents out of the House of Representatives, so that institution begins to function again. The Senate is prepared to function. It's a parliamentary institution in one sense, and it has all the problems that legislative bodies have. But it's a good institution. Unfortunately, the House, despite good committees and good people in there, is not able to function the way even that the Senate does, now.

So, we have to restore the Executive branch. The key thing is to get the Cheney dictatorship out of the system.

Now, since the President of the United States is essentially controlled by Cheney, or controlled through Cheney, that, if we get the institution freed of Cheney, then I think the President might tend to come to reason on a number of issues, if he has different voices to listen to. But anyway, we've have got to take a minimal standpoint on this, and get a Vice President in, which means the liberation of our country from what Cheney represents as a factor of dictatorship in the system. Under those conditions, the Senate would take the leadership in reform, and we've seen that already: Free of Cheney, the Senate will take an active leading role on many questions.

For example, let's take the Hillary Clinton effort, in which she's taken on the auto industry collapse: There are many things like that going on in the legislative process. We would start to get some reforms we needed. Now, that's what we're looking for. Get a reform started. Build up optimism in the American population. Get the parties back to some degree of reinvigoration, as Roosevelt did back in 1933—and let's see where we go from there. I think that—

SKORICH: I'm sorry, you have had some difficulty in your life getting your message across, because the mainstream media, quite frankly has not offered you the opportunity, by and large. And Danny Schechter, from Media Channel—and maybe you know Danny—will be a guest on this program tomorrow, to talk about how the media has distorted much of the information that the American public receives every day. Do you have faith that the mainstream media in this country is prepared now to start talking about and exposing some of these issues that are so vital to the future of this country?

LAROUCHE: Well, they have gotten to it, as you may have noticed. When you find that the Washington Post is picking on poor Cheney, you've got a sense that there's been a favorable weather change going on around Washington! [laughs]

They're not changing because I think they've improved their morals. They realize that their man Cheney is on the way down. And so, they always pick on the black chick of the moment.

The problem of the news media, is that our country has been transformed in its economic character, from a country which was based largely not on large corporations; actually, the economy, as you know it in Wisconsin, for example, the economy in the past was based on agriculture, small industry, local industries. And these were the feeders of technology and so forth into the large corporations.

What's happened is, we've destroyed the family farm, we've destroyed small industry; we've destroyed the local community economy, in terms of this mega-system. Now, what's behind that, is a purely financial swindle: We call it "Wall Street" or you called "London," but it's a pure financier-oligarchy. They control the major media. They control the major news media in general. There are factions among them, but they control it.

Now, I've gone after this thing directly, and I have made very few friends among the major news media with what I've done! Because I've been considered, as Sidney Hook said, back in 1971, in December of '71, that I constitute a "credible threat" to the power of this faction. And therefore, I'm not going to get the right time, from any of the news media! And very rarely do I.

SKORICH: Well, listen: I want to thank you for this time again, with you. I always enjoy these conversations. And I know an awful lot of people have trouble with Lyndon LaRouche, and some of the messages that you bring to the public's attention. But I want you to know, that I think we can all learn by listening carefully to some of the things that you do say. So, I thank you again, sir, for this time tonight.

LAROUCHE: Thank you! Have a good day.

SKORICH: You, too. Bye, now.