`World War Must Now Be
Stopped, Inside the U.S.'
This intervention was made by U.S. Presidential candidate Lyndon LaRouche on May 27, 2003, during the second day of an international conference on "The World Situation After the Iraq War" in Bangalore, India.
As someone who has an off-and-on function in academic life, as well as otherwise, over a period of 35 years: Wisdom in instruction in classrooms and other situations consists in, having delivered a message, to listen to what is said, after you've delivered the message, and then see how much of the message was actually delivered; and then come back the next day, and try to clarify what was not clearly understood the first time around.
Now, very few people know the United States, on the inside, at least at the top level. Very few people understand the Constitution, or history of the United States, from the inside. Very few in Asia understand the significance of 1776, and 1976, as an interval of 200 years between the founding of the Declaration of Independence of the United States, and the crushing defeat of the hopes of the nations of Asia, in the treatment given to the Sri Lanka, Colombo Non-Aligned Conference of August 1976. Two hundred years of a failure of the cause of the original American Revolution. And the failure of a cause associated with the United States, as a republic, as a modern republic; a failure of what we fought for, including those of us who were here in Asia during 1945-46, as I was; a failure to realize the objectives of Franklin Roosevelt, who had just died in April of 1945, in realizing a world free of colonialism, and free of domination by any approximation of colonialism, or imperialism.
Now, I fought that fight, essentially, since I was here in India, when I became involved—in a rather risky way for an American soldier serving, implicitly, under the command of Mountbatten—in support of the independence cause. Because I believed at that time, as many American soldiers who served with me believed, that the cause of India was not only just, but an urgent one for organizing the entire postwar world; to prevent a new war from coming on the heels of the Second World War, as the Second World War had come on the heels of the first.
Now, we're at the time we're going to have to change that. We're going to have to go back to, essentially, 1976 Colombo, Sri Lanka, the Non-Aligned conference, and establish the Non-Aligned Movement again, not as a non-aligned movement, but as the understanding of a community of sovereign nation-states, to replace any hegemonic state system, whether two states, or one state, in the world today. That is the mission of the United States. You can refer to my website on my foreign policy, in which I elaborate the argument on this case.
We Must Remove the Neo-Conservatives Now
Now, what's the problem?
Recently, we came close to the certainty of world nuclear warfare. That was the immediate import of the success of the people behind Bush, not Bush himself; he doesn't have the brains to know what he's doing—I'm saying that frankly. You in the world must know, the President of the United States is functionally an idiot. He is not our problem, in the sense of his motives, although his motives are sometimes reprehensible, as far as they go. He is a puppet! And therefore, what you have to deal with, is the puppetry.
Now, what has happened, is, we were on the edge—after the outcome of Iraq—of a push from Cheney and Rumsfeld, toward steps comparable to those of Hitler in dealing with the generals in Germany; which would have meant inevitable world nuclear warfare. We are still in danger of that. Unless I succeed, with my friends, not in becoming President of the United States—that's 2004, 2005; I'm talking about now. I'm talking about next year. Unless we succeed in the present efforts to ram out, not Bush—that's a different proposition—but to eliminate a group called the neo-conservatives, who are actually a direct continuation of Hitler, and of Napoleon Bonaparte before him. Unless we eliminate them from their positions of power in the United States, to control the United States, all peace movements in the world will fail, because nuclear war will become inevitable.
Not that the people of Asia are not already a peace movement. The people of Eurasia are already a peace movement. Nobody in Eurasia wants global nuclear war. Everyone in Asia wants economic solutions to immediate problems, and wants peace as a framework in which to deal with economic solutions, to work them out.
But if this power, which we have challenged in the United States, with some degree of success—and my function right now, as a Presidential candidate, is also the function of being a key figure leading an assorted combination of many varieties of influences, including my former enemies, and some of my current political enemies—in pulling together the forces that agree, we do not want the United States to follow this policy toward war.
You often find in politics, you get in that situation. You find that people who have been your enemies, and so forth, are now willing to cooperate with you on a very limited basis. But that limited basis is valid, to stop this war. Because if these guys ever succeed, and continue what they have done, up to the pre-emptive, illegal war against Iraq; if they succeed, there will be war, and there will be nuclear war, and you will either have to submit to it, or fight it.
So, therefore, the idea of a peaceful protest, from outside the United States, preventing war—impossible! World public opinion preventing war? Never! Impossible. The war is now inevitable, unless we stop it inside the leadership, and inside the Presidency, of the United States, We've finally begun to get some movement.
The Importance of Eurasia
Now, what does that mean, here? What does it mean in Eurasia?
Obviously, Eurasia is going to be, if we succeed, it's going to be the central part of humanity. Why? Because it is the central part of humanity. It happens to be located in a certain geographic position, but if you look at the size of the population, of China, of India, of Southeast Asia; if you look at the role of Europe, then the emerging tendency for cooperation between Western Europe, China, India, and so forth—especially China, because China has become the key banner of this kind of cooperation, especially with Chancellor Gerhard Schröder's visit to Shanghai, which was a very important turning point, and the leadership of the former President of China, Jiang Zemin, has been crucial in bringing this about. We now have a government of China, which has a conception of its mission. The mission is correct, for China. We have now cooperation with India, which I hope will progress rapidly. Which will mean bringing the Southeast Asian nations, particularly with leaders like Dr. Mahathir, and so forth, in, with a more prominent role. A dialogue, because they don't agree. They disagree.
If we can solve the problem of North Korea—which is difficult for us, for China, for Russia, for South Korea—if we can solve that problem, and bring an amicable solution, not necessarily a political solution, but at least an economic solution; if we can have economic cooperation as a basis for peace with the North Korean government, don't worry about the political solution. Sometimes, it's like trying to convert people to a new religion. Trying to create a political solution is sometimes a mistake. Create a practical solution—that's the first step. And when people enjoy the practical solution, they may think about accepting the political one.
So therefore, the importance of Eurasia is this: Eurasia is essentially bankrupt. Now, China is not bankrupt. India is not bankrupt. Western Europe is bankrupt. Western Europe is a traditional repository of technological, economic power. The time has come for technology-sharing, between Western Europe—which needs this with Asia, with the emerging powers of Asia—and other countries. It means also a focus upon the long-term need to develop those regions of Asia, Central and North Asia, including the Russian tundra area, which are the great repository of mineral natural resources, needed by the growing population of Asia as a whole. Therefore, the development of Eurasia as a whole, the Eurasian land mass, through cooperation among different cultures, and different nations, is the key to the world as a whole. And the world as a whole, will tend to organize around that Eurasian unity of effort, as in North and South America.
We have to rebuild South America. We've ruined it. The United States has looted it, and ruined it. In South and Central America, we have to restore that. We have to restore the United States. We, in Eurasia, and the Americas, must make a major contribution to the freedom of the people of Southern Africa, Sub-Saharan Africa, who are now victims of a policy of genocide, by the United States, Britain, and other countries in the world. And that genocide will not be reversed, unless we intervene to change it.
'My Job'
So, therefore, if we have unity, in Eurasia, a growing unity, about the great economic missions of development and recovery which the people of Eurasia need, that becomes a force, which will be valuable in influencing the process inside the United States. My job is—and I understand something very well, which I think probably only a few people in the world, and only Americans, can understand, from the inside, as I do—to understand the institution of the Presidency of the United States. Our Constitution. And also to see how all kinds of movements in history, have failed. Especially popular opinion movements. They failed.
Why did they fail? Because little people try to say that world public opinion can somehow change institutions. Not directly. Only when people are exerting influence on decisive institutions—sometimes in the form of revolutions; that's why revolutions occur—can they change the character of world history. To change the course of world history from the danger of nuclear war, which now threatens us, unless we stop this inside the United States. We must influence the inside of the United States, not for my election, although that's necessay—but that's not the point. The point is, to convey to the American people, that there is a movement in the world, in Eurasia, which is moving toward unity, which is a movement of potential economic power, and an optimistic future.
The American people, 80% of them, the lower income brackets, have been suffering for over 25 years. It's not a prosperous country. Yes, a few parasites are prosperous, in terms of money, but the physical condition of the U.S. economy is degenerating, They're desperate. The health-care systems have been destroyed, the educational systems have been destroyed. The infrastructure, in general, has been destroyed. We don't have railroads any more! Our water systems are collapsing. Our power systems are collapsing.
And the same things which the people in Asia aspire to—the opportunity for the development of infrastructure, for improving the conditions of life of the poor, for a future through education, and economic opportunity, for their children and grandchildren—these are the same aspirations which infect the passions of the people of the United States.
Therefore, if we move, especially in a spirit of cooperation, in our struggle to prevent nuclear war from being launched by the United States—which means fighting to make sure that Bush is not the puppet of the fascist neo-conservatives; that Bush instead is a puppet of the American people.
And that could happen. It could happen now, in a short period of time. We already have pushed matters to the point that Israel is under tremendous pressure, even from the Bush Administration, to accept the Road Map. That is not very good, but it's better than the alternative. And if we can move in that direction, and push the U.S. Administration, as has been done in the past, ... We've had bad Presidents, with good results, because our institutions have been able to control those Presidents, and make them function. And that's our job—it's to influence the process, because if we fail, if we ignore the interior of the United States, and the United States continues to go in the direction typified by Bush, or Bush's recent decisions, then I guarantee you, within a very short period of time, before the elections in the year 2004, we will be pushed on the road, as Hitler pushed the world—toward an inevitable nuclear war—which you may not wish to fight, but you may either submit, or fight.
That is the problem. We're not talking about 25 years from now, we're not talking about 20 years from now, 10 years from now. We're talking about two and three years from now. That's where we are.
And therefore, what we're doing here today, and in similar efforts elsewhere, is extremely important. Not because it mobilizes a peace movement, but because it mobilizes a movement for the improvement of the condition of humanity. It's not negative; it's positive.
People fight for justice, they fight for all kinds of things, but they fight because they're inspired, they have a mission—not because they're trying to keep the wolf from the door. The wolf will come in the windows.
Thank you.
