LaRouche Speaks on
Philippines Radio

On Sept. 15, 2001, Lyndon LaRouche was interviewed by Mentong Laurel and Antonio Valdes on the "Zona Libre" program in Manila, Philippines. The transcript follows.

Radio Host: Herman "Mentong" Laurel, and guest Antonio Valdes interview of Lyndon H. LaRouche, Jr.

Herman Laurel: Let us first say hello to Lyn. Mr. Lyndon LaRouche, good morning. This is Mentong Laurel from the Philippines.

Lyndon LaRouche: It's good to talk to you again.

Mentong: Yes, nice to hear you. Butch Valdes is with us, and several of our colleagues from here. I'll have Butch say hello to you and get the discussion going.

Antonio Valdes: Good evening, Lyn, and it's good to hear from you again.

LaRouche: Yes, it's good that we are all still alive.

Laurel: We've been reading your very refreshing and very different perspective, which I think the Filipino people must hear, and appreciate. Butch may have something to add.

Valdes: just a question.

Laurel: Just a question?

Valdes: Go ahead.

Laurel: Okay, so, Lyn, maybe you will give us an introduction for the discussion this evening, and then maybe Butch and I can have some questions.

LaRouche: Okay, there is a qualified state of emergency in the United States. The fact of the emergency is justified beyond question, I think. The problem is how do I get the relevant people in the establishment not to run away with foolish assessments beforehand, until competent people have been able to give them a more precise evaluation of who did what to whom. Now the thing is that what was done to the United States on Tuesday morning, was actually a targeting of the U.S. population and its mentality. There is no indication yet that there was actually a physical threat to the President, but we must always assume that in any such situation that the President is in danger and that he must be protected, as if there were a threat, knowing what we know or not. So that's fine, so far.

The problem is that an operation of this type, of this technical sophistication could not have been run by the United States at the height of the conflict with the Soviet Union. In other words, no power outside the United States had the ability to run what happened on Tuesday. Now, of course, obviously, this is not done by the President. It's not that kind of Presidency. But it was done as much against him in the long run, as anyone else, as well as the American people. But there are elements inside the international intelligence community, Anglo-American-Israeli network, which are capable, with complicity of rogue elements inside the U.S. intelligence establishment, or security establishment, of running an operation like this. No one else could.

You have to look at the British capability, the Israeli capability, and the U.S. capability, more or less possibly combined. You could get other complications, but they are only complications. Now this was not done by an Arab country, nor was it done by Osama bin Laden, no matter how much people would like to believe that it is. Now, Osama bin Laden is a menace, that is true; but he is not capable of doing this.

So, therefore, we face the following situation. The security problem of the United States, and emergencies of the following nature, certain things have happened: what happened in New York, what happened at the Pentagon, is in itself an emergency. These things have to be fixed, damage has to be remedied, and so forth, as you do in damage in warfare. That's clear.

But, nothing indicates publicly, openly who is responsible. Now that means that if you don't know who is responsible, and if this is a rogue element with capabilities comparable to that of major superpowers in running an operation like this, then the enemy is still out there. The enemy has not revealed himself, and not identified himself; therefore, the enemy is going to act again. And, he is going to act again probably, first of all, in another attack on the American people and their mentality. That's the danger we face.

So, we have an emergency. The danger is, as in any combat situation, or like situation, the danger is, as I said when the thing first broke out, I happened to be on the radio at that time, as the news came pouring out — the danger is what is called military "flight forward," that somebody is so upset that they are like the man in the foxhole, hiding and messing up the inside of his trousers with fear, and then suddenly charges out of the foxhole into the machine-gun nest and dies accordingly. Flight forward, that's the danger, and what I am seeing from the United States' leading circles is a lot of flight forward. And the worst thing I am seeing is coming from the major news media, such as CNN in the United States, which are actually yelling "Fire!" in a crowded theater. As many people can be killed by CNN, as were killed by the attacks on New York and Washington, D.C., That is the danger.

So that is our general situation. The context of the situation is also important. There are two things I know about this situation. First of all, the operation coincides with a moment of total collapse of the world's present monetary and financial system. We are in the immediate vicinity, we are right up against the edge before somebody goes over the cliff. It is that close. It might be postponed a couple of weeks. It might come next week, we don't know. People are working back and forth on this, but the situation is that serious, and, if we don't change the world monetary system now — put it through bankruptcy reorganization, this is going to happen.

In this context, some rogue operation inside the United States with complicity from who knows whom outside, has run this operation. They are going to strike again. This is all occuring in the midst of the worst monetary crisis in modern world history.

So, that's the danger. Now, who thinks that way? Well, we don't know who it is, but we know the mindset of whoever was doing this, who was powerful enough, and has interests enough to pull something like this at this time. That is people who share the mindset of Zbigniew Brzezinski, of Joseph Korbell, and along with former U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright. That is, people who believe in the H.G. Wells "Open Conspiracy" theory about how to orchestrate history. And Brzezinski, Korbell, and Madeleine Albright are all openly representatives of that, and you have this question of the "clash of civilizations," geopolitical policy of Brzezinski and Huntington, and this accords perfectly.

Anybody who is doing this, from that level, has to be influenced by that mentality, as this was described, in one sense, by a special seminar, sort of a game that was run in the Council on Foreign Relations recently in New York City. So, there are people who think like this, who would do something like this inside the rogue section of the U.S. intelligence and security establishment. They think like Brzezinski, which does not mean that Brzezinski himself or Madeleine Albright, or Joseph Korbell were personally involved. It means that people who think like that, are the people who would have the motives to do something like what I have seen this past week.

Laurel: So, Lyn, do you think this group of people are getting what they want now with the Bush statement just a few minutes ago, where he talks about or asks the American people to be prepared for conflict that will not be short, which will be broad, no battle lines, and so on and so forth?

LaRouche: Well, I think, in a sense, he is being cautious in some respects in saying "be prepared," because the expectation is that in a short time — it can't be a very long time — in a short time, something terrible, akin to but not perhaps the same form as what happened on Tuesday, will occur. The principal target will probably be, immediately, the American people as it was on Tuesday. We've got to expect that.

The danger is that going against Osama bin Laden in trying to find a scapegoat in the Arab world, is the worst possible thing we can do at this time. That should be our last option. What is needed is calm, alertness, a sense of urgency, but calm and cool heads, and, in the meantime, the relevant intelligence people of various nations collaborate with one another, as the Russians are collaborating, for example, with the United States — collaborating to determine exactly what is going on, to root out the problem and cure it, and be ready to deal with whatever it might be.

Laurel: Butch, do you have any questions?

Valdes: Lyn, you repeatedly warned some months ago that August was going to be a critical month, and that we should expect something significant to happen in the world economy. You were off by 11 days, Mr. LaRouche.

LaRouche: (laughter) I've often been like that, but not in 1987.

Valdes: Obviously, something did happen. Now, you mentioned a little while back about what the results are going to be with regard to the economy. Can you be a bit more clear because, aside from the sympathies and the anger and so on and so forth, and the mixed feelings that are going all over the world with regard to the incidents themselves, many, many people here are worried about our present status as far as our economic lives are concerned. Would you give us any comments regarding this?

LaRouche: See, that is issue. That's the real gut issue. That's where Brzezinski comes in. I want to makes this clear. I am not saying Brzezinski is behind this. I am saying the mentality, the H.G. Wells' mentality, the so-called "clash of civilizations'" mentality, the so-called "Project Democracy" mentality that Brzezinski represents, is the mindset of the only plausible author from inside the United States — a rogue operation inside the United States, which is crucial to run this operation.

So, therefore, we're now in — that being the case, we have to understand the interrelationship between the global monetary and financial crisis and related economic crisis, and this thing as being two sides of the same coin. Even though we don't know all the details, we know what the war is. We just don't know the names and addresses and rank and serial numbers of some of the perpetrators.

All right, so, therefore, we have to act accordingly. Now the issue is we have now in Europe, pivoted on Russia and Eurasia, we have steps in a direction of bringing the Eurasian landmass and its adjoining islands together for large-scale cooperation in economic development to reverse this process. We would hope that the United States would be come a partner to that process with Eurasia. Start from right there.

The problems of Africa and South and Central America could be dealt with, if this problem were also dealt with. So, therefore, our objective should be to get an emergency new monetary system in place immediately, acknowledging the bankruptcy of the present sytem. That is the thing we have to do.

No phoney Bretton Woods, but the real one that I have been talking about. If we do that, then we can conquer the entire problem and we can get into a period of prosperity.

What we are going to do is to take what Franklin Roosevelt did as a lesson, not as a model, but as a lesson. We are going to take the successes, say from 1945 into the middle 1960s of the post-war Bretton Woods system. Of course, the Philippines experienced that, so you know that stuff.

We're going to go back to that, this kind of thinking, but this time on a global scale, not just on a scale of a few privileged nations. This means we have to bring in China. We have to bring in all the key nations of Asia and Middle East, including India. We have to bring all the nations of Southeast Asia into this, into a global scheme of cooperation around large-scale projects, using large-scale, long-term credit at low interest rates, with fixed exchange rates, in order to get this out of the present mess.

That's the objective. I see a rogue element behind this security emergency as being the opponent and the threat to our going to this solution.

Laurel: We understand that the European central bank, the Japanese central bank, the Federal Reserve and others intend to pump in a lot of money, I understand as much as $100 billion by today to respond to the financial crisis, and also special funds related to the events in New York. What do you think of that?

LaRouche: Well, these guys are crazy. They are desperate. Anyone who knows the situation, knows that while it may be momentarily necessary at this particular point, because of these attacks, which has caused a disruption. We don't know what's going to blow up, for example, because there are derivative contracts out there, which may not have counterparties, all kinds of things like that. So you can have a firestorm, a financial, monetary firestorm explode. So the idea of taking emergency measures including flows of credit in the very short term to buy time until we can get a handle on this thing, that is not in itself insane.

The idea that you are going to avoid facing reality, is insane. That is if someone says we are going to try to patch up the system in the coming weeks so that we can continue to do after that what we are doing now, is insane. To try to continue to maintain the system with these large-scale financial bailouts is clinically insane. It is desperation.

What we will set off, if we don't stop this nonsense soon, is we will set off a hyperinflationary firestorm internationally, which will blow out the world monetary system totally, the financial system. So, therefore, the worst thing you can try to do is to try to prevent, try to protect the existing system. What you are going to do is to protect the world from the collapse of the existing system, not maintain the existing system. Therefore, it means that we want to maneuver in such a way: "Yes, the system is going to collapse; but we are going to collapse it in orderly fashion through bankruptcy reorganization, not letting chaos take its course."

Laurel: Butch has another question, but before we go to that, we have a few important questions from our listeners sending in text messages. One is what happens now to the National Missile Defense system, which drew so much hullabaloo from Bush? Obviously, what happened was not missiles being launched from abroad, but airplanes used as missiles.

LaRouche: Well, the problem is that the National Missile Defense, as proposed by the United States under Bush is a complete hoax. There are some elements of technology kicking around the laboratories, a lot of it left over from the SDI project, and related things, which would be useful. Now, my proposal, then and now, is that the United States and Russia and other countries should collaborate to develop that kind of capability, not in the sense of rogue state defense against terrorism, that's not the way to go at it. But, the idea of such cooperation on technology, if the technology is used, for example, as an economic driver, as I proposed then, would be a sensible arrangement. There's nothing wrong with it. But the way you have to go at that is not by shoving something down someone's throat because you have to get collaboration. Shoving things down people's throats is not a good way to get collaboration.

Therefore, there should be a discussion of this from a new standpoint. Not from the standpoint put forward by Rumsfeld and Bush, and so forth, but from a fresh standpoint. The general idea that we should not be prisoners of the threat of nuclear missiles flying around, is a good idea. We should have done something about that a long time ago. There is nothing wrong with doing it now. It would be useful, but the National Missile Defense as presently proposed, the present diplomatic approach to it, is insane. I think if the United States and Russia were to come to some kind of a useful discussion on this point, in which the Russian point of view was considered seriously, I think we might come up with something in that direction, but NMD as it is presently proposed, is insanity.

Valdes: Another question, Lyn, just before you came in, we were discussing the situation that the U.S. was experiencing with regard to its own recession or economic depression, and how the world was already reeling from a major financial crisis before these terrorist attacks on the U.S. There seems to be a concerted effort to make this a properly timed terrorist act. What do you think?

LaRouche: It is not a terrorist act in any ordinary sense. Terrorism means the old business you had back in the 19th century, the so-called "propaganda of the deed." You have terrorism in this form in the Philippines, with the terrorist operations of taking hostages to try to blackmail the government and other institutions, and international institutions. That is an act of terrorism. That is international terrorism, in a sense.

But this is not simply an act of terrorism. It is an act of terror, but not terrorism. The strict distinction in military terms ought to be made, in strategic terms. Anyone who is a conventional, traditional military professional is not going to make the mistake of calling this international terrorism. It is not. What it is it is a terror attack with real physical impact by something, a capability which does not exist except as it exists within the U.S. security-intelligence establishment as a rogue element.

There may be complicity from other countries, but the essential heart of the danger lies, not outside the territory of the United States, but within it. For example, take the case of Timothy McVeigh, who was convicted and subsequently executed in the matter of the Oklahoma City bombing, which was an act of terror. No question about it. It was something else as well. It was also a run which demonstrated the existence in the U.S. of capabilities beyond those that Timothy McVeigh had, but any means whatsoever.

Timothy McVeigh may have been an accomplice, but he was not the perpetrator, nor was he and two other guys with similar qualifications — they didn't do it. Couldn't have been done. Too complicated. It was done by a much higher order of capability. So that typifies for us, in the Oklahoma City case. It was a big mistake to execute McVeigh, and to go with this "lone assassin" kind of thing. The point was he should have been squeezed to the point to dig out what was behind his involvement, if any, in this thing. And that wasn't done; he was shut up; and the trail was cut off. I think the putting on the lid on the McVeigh case by the Justice Department was a crucial element in making possible what has just happened. So, these are the kinds of things we have to think about.

This is a strategic covert operation run because of its earmarks, its capabilities by a rogue element inside the United States as the key complicit element. Our job is to dig that rogue element out before it does more damage.

Laurel: Butch, do you have another question?

Valdes: It seems that the anger that has been created among the American people has reached fever pitch. The Congress has given Pres. Bush full authority to place the United States at war against so-called terrorism, and countries that harbor and protect them. What do you think Pres. Bush will do next, or what do you think he should do next? Are we facing a situation similar to the 30 years' war of Europe, or anything like that?

LaRouche: The President should call me and personally talk to me. Not because he is a great intellect on this thing, but simply saying, look, we have got to solve the problem. We have got to get into this situation the element of actual strategic thinking, not flight forward. I think there are elements in the U.S. intelligence community, and I know there are, in the military intelligence community, some of them are old, retired people, some of them recently retired, but some of them aren't retired.

I think that this group, simply as an advisory group to assist the President and how to get at some of this stuff would be what is needed urgently at this time, and because I have the best expertise on certain aspects of this problem, the President and I are not friends, his father and I, certainly, were enemies in a political sense, but in this case, he is the President of the United States, I am an American citizen of some relevance in this regard, and, obviously, he and I ought to try to collaborate in the aid and interests of the nation, and that would be a step, which would actually improve the situation greatly. It would also enrage some people, who would probably try to kill me immediately, but that's all right. I've lived a long time, and I am not going to betray my principles now. But I think seriously that is the thing to do now.

Laurel: Michael, go ahead.

Michael: Mr. LaRouche, I wish to go back to things we were talking about before these attacks took place, with developments taking place involving Russia and China. How are these things going to effect the developments we were seeking to come about in all those countries?

LaRouche: Look at the European press and from leading European officials at the very highest level in Europe, and also with the Russians, and Catholic Church circles, to see that there is premeditation behind the kind of evil hysteria, which CNN and other leading U.S. news agencies are pouring out around the world. Admittedly, a lot of the American population is hysterical, but there are a lot of people who respect me and follow me, as well. So, the mass hysteria induced by CNN and others, with their totally corrupted, rotten approach: what they are doing is immoral in the extreme, it is treasonously immoral. They are inciting the American people with all kinds of foolishness and lies, and whatnot. In Europe, they are not so insane. In Russia, there is an attitude on this which is very positive, from the standpoint of any sane U.S. leader and the Europeans. There are similar reactions around the world, so the majority of the world is for sanity. So the situation is not impossible. We have a temporary aberration in the U.S. population, not all of it, but a significant part of it, the part that is being played upon by the press to frighten people. And the more the President does foolish things, in the sense of allowing his associates to do foolish things, the more frightened the American people will become.

The first thing to understand in a situation like this is to get an assessment of it, as I said on Tuesday, when things were breaking out, the first thing is do not shout "Fire!" at the smell of smoke in a crowded theater. What has happened, is CNN and other irresponsible parties have been screaming "Fire!" in the theater, using the fact that there was a lot of fire, a lot of dying, to disorient the American people, saying, don't even think about there being a problem inside the United States, we've got to go over and kill Osama bin Laden, perhaps bomb Iraq, perhaps take out the Taliban government. That kind of insanity is our biggest problem right now.

So, the point is we have to proceed to the solution. The solution is the economic solution, a new financial system, a new monetary system. The Europeans and Russians are moving in that direction. Countries in Asia have been moving in that direction. We must move in that direction. That should be our objective, and we should take this as an impediment and a threat to realizing that objective. That's really the only way to approach it.

Laurel: Lyn, I was just watching on CNN, and they are showing a tape of an American Congressman saying, "this is not a time for justice, this is a time for war." So I understand what you are saying CNN is doing is practically a criminal act. I don't want to be shouting "Fire!" in a theater, but there have been some speculations about the use of biological and nuclear devices already by the unseen forces. What do you think?

LaRouche: Everything is possible. Look, what was done in New York, what was done in Washington, was an act of terror-style propaganda by some rogue element inside the U.S. security-intelligence establishment. They are willing to kill masses of people. You've got people terrified in lower Manhattan. Hundreds of them, running out of there without shoes, terrified. And they did that to the American people. Do you think that the people who are still there, still sitting inside the United States, the same rogue elements, with the same and more capabilities, are not willing to do the same thing to the United States' people or people in other parts of the world? Of course, they are. That is the real danger. That is the emergency.

But all the more, we could be solving the problem, not simply going out there saying how panicked we are, how frightened we must be. It's like war. Some people in the Philippines have experienced war. Some of them are still alive, who were in the resistance to the Japanese occupation. These were terrible times. People had to survive in terrible times, and win. And those who lived through that have to help us look at this. We cannot allow the fact that something might happen, to terrify us into becoming impotent and incompetent.

Laurel: Another question from Zaide.

Zaide: Good morning, Mr. LaRouche, I was wondering about how they are using this tactic, or propaganda, of singling out the Muslim population, to fuel the idea of a religious war, or "clash of civilizations"?

LaRouche: I go back to the history of Europe, for example, the way religious war was organized in Europe during Medieval times, for example, and then again between 1511 and 1648, as part of the Treaty of Westphalia. There were voices, including Henri IV of France, and others, who opposed the principal author of the attempt to get this religious war going in the Seventeenth century, Paolo Sarpi, of Venice, the founder of empiricism, the man who created Francis Bacon, Thomas Hobbes, and whose influence was reflected in The Enlightenement.

There had always been people like Bailly in France, at the time of the French Revolution, and other voices, such as Lincoln in 1848, warning against the War against Mexico and the fraud involved in the running of that war. Voices that stand out against these things, and we who find ourselves in a position of fighting against that kind of danger, should deem what we have to do, learning from history that even if we were to fail in our immediate objective, the very fact that we had the courage to stand up and lead as a voice of sanity in a time of lunacy, our voices would be heard in future times, and might enable humanity the better to recover from the catastrophe which is descending upon us now.

Laurel: Okay, Mr. LaRouche, we have taken a lot of your time. It has been very, very substantial. We have a lot to chew on for the rest of the show. Give us your final words of wisdom for this occasion, and then I'll give Butch a chance to say goodbye.

LaRouche: Okay, well, I would say, here we are. I believe in the nation state, the sovereign nation state. We have to think in those terms, not that we don't think of the world community, but as John Quincy Adams, when he was Secretary of State, said in respect to the Americas, we must have a community of principle among sovereign nation states. That's the only way to put the world back together again. Now, we who are the patriots of these respective sovereign nation states, must collaborate with one another in order to bring our states into continuity around the common interests of us all to bring this planet into order. That is the basic job. We have to moralize people to understand that. To come together, to mobilize in those terms, to overcome the fear of our enemies and to make them friends, to do as was done at the end of the Treaty of Westphalia, which concluded religious war in Europe. We must reconcile people.

I see no objective reasons, in terms of so-called national interests, for wars on this planet today. There is no justification on the basis of legitimate national interests for wars among peoples. We should come to a time of peace. That doesn't mean we abandon our military capabilities; because not everybody is sane, and we have to anticipate the kind of thing not only what we have seen right now from a rogue government inside the United States; but, we who are sane, we who see ourselves in the longer span of history, that in our short mortal life, we have a connection to the history of the past and what we do is connected to the history of the future. We must see our mission in our place and time and ..., and act on that for the benefit of humanity.

So, therefore, no matter how bad things become, we must collaborate with and love one another, in common effort to ensure the future of humanity and to hope to rescue humanity from the terrible crisis at hand.

Laurel: Thank you very much, Lyn.

Valdes: Thank you very much for your very profound words, which I'm sure have touched the hearts and minds of many of our citizens here. We hope to God that Pres. Bush will see the prudence and intelligence to contact you and ask for your assistance in making the right decisions for both the United States and the rest of the world. So the next days will be very trying for us, and we hope to be able to contact you again.