LAROUCHE TO DIPLOMATS:
To Avoid War, We Need a
New Roosevelt-Type IMF System
Lyndon LaRouche held a closed-door discussion July 19 with 25 Washington-based diplomats representing 20 countries from Eurasia, Africa, and Ibero-America. As per tradition, LaRouche's opening remarks were recorded and transcribed, but the discussion afterwards was off the record.
LaRouche began by noting, "This is not yet August, but as I think back to Augusts in the past, I think of August 1914, August 1939."
There exists now a "virtual state of war" between Russia and Great Britain, he said.
Citing signs of the onrushing economic crisis, such as the recent collapse of two Bear Stearns hedge funds, and the New York Times report of the cost of a can of soda in Paris ($5.52), LaRouche said, "Under these economic conditions, war becomes likely,"
Noting particularly Dick Cheney's drive to start a war with Iran, LaRouche said, "It wouldn't be war in the simple sense of World War I and World War II, but something comparable."
And unfortunately, he said, Cheney's war drive occurs in a situation in which we have very poor leadership in the United States. Cheney and the British typify the situation. "It's very dangerous. Anything can happen. And governments are on vacation," he warned.
"The world can blow up. Now the alternative is also on the table. It was put on the table in a curious fashion this past Spring. A series of events. It happened at the time that I was making a visit to Moscow for the birthday anniversary of a friend of mine, a distinguished figure in the Russian system. I had some meetings there.
"But at the same time, you had the death of Yeltsin in that period, and the events that went along with that. President Clinton was there, former President Bush was there. Other figures were there. And during this interval of this Spring, concluding with the meeting at Kennebunkport in Maine, with the Bush family and with President Putin of Russia, there were certain negotiations behind the scenes in which former President Clinton played a key role, and others played a key role.
"We have on the table the option, the opening of the door, so to speak, with the Kennebunkport proceedings, in which we could induce what has to happen. What has to happen is a process under which the United States government engages with the Russian government, the government of China and the government of India, to sponsor emergency action to save the world from a general financial collapse, which is what's oncoming now.
"Let me explain what that means. If the U.S. dollar collapses, as it is collapsing now, the entire world could go into something worse than a depression. If you look at the effect of the collapse of the dollar on world markets, and look at the financial condition of countries throughout Asia, as well as elsewhere, a collapse of the dollar would mean a chain-reaction collapse worse than any depression of the last century.
"Now, that could be prevented. We have in United States history, in our Constitution, we have the means to do that. Roosevelt is an example of that, Franklin Roosevelt. But if the government of the United States were to engage Russia, the government of China, and India, as the four major nations who are going to co-sponsor something on behalf of the world as a whole, and say, we're going to freeze the values of currencies among these governments, and other governments, and we're going to go back to a Franklin Roosevelt approach, to organize a general world recovery.
"In other words, we're going to take over in effect, have the nations of the world, take over the IMF system, and put it under a Roosevelt-style administration. Under those conditions, we could manage this crisis and we could work our way, gradually, out of many of the financial and related problems. If we could unite nations around this issue, which has to be addressed now, the economic issue, then their interest would be in preserving that agreement. Every nation on the world would have a substantial interest in maintaining that agreement and making it effective.
"Our problem is we've been moving in part away from—Western Europe is a junkpile. It is no longer a technological center. The United States has no high technology, except in the military sector which produces weapons. We are exporting production from Europe and from North America, into countries we're exploiting on the basis of their cheap labor. So therefore, we are not really helping these countries—though they may get some benefit, as the case of China, for example, illustrates. But the benefit of the people as a whole, the entire population, that does not occur, because the income is not sufficient, the rate of growth is not sufficient, to raise the standard of living around the world. What we're doing is exploiting cheap labor in these countries, or exploiting the population in order to exploit the labor. We're not developing them.
"Therefore, we need to go to a Roosevelt-type approach. We organize the world system, freeze the values of currencies, put the whole system under bankruptcy, prevent a collapse, and then unleash measures for global development over the coming 50 years. We need really a set of 50-year agreements on economic recovery. It can be done, it has to be done. It's not something that would ordinarily be considered now, but only in a time of crisis as grave as this is, are nations capable of making the kinds of sudden, sweeping changes needed to deal with a crisis of this type.
"We're at such a point, in which it's in a sense like August 1914. The British were determined to get rid of a lot of problems, and they prepared the war—it was called World War I—by starting a war of Japan against China in 1894, and Japan's war against China, launched from London, continued from 1894 to 1945. That's a big chunk of history there. We repeated World War I, in World War II. The outcome was somewhat different because of Franklin Roosevelt, but with the death of Franklin Roosevelt, we began to abandon his policies and move in a different direction. And with the assassination of President Kennedy, we began to move in the United States distinctly in that direction.
"So, we've come to a time where we have to change our ways. We also have to recognize, from looking at the month of August, and looking at the ominousness of this month, the coming month of August, and compare it with 1914, compare it with 1939. We've come to a very dangerous period, but dangerous periods are times when people who recognize the danger will do things they otherwise would not do. They are willing to make changes they otherwise would not make. They'll make changes for worse, or changes for the better. This is a deadly threat; it's also an opportunity. And that's what I'm concentrating on.
"The point is very simple. My view is that we have to somehow get rid of Cheney. I think if we get rid of Cheney, with what's brewing among politicians here who are really not that courageous. They're not men of principles, they're opportunists. They're not bad people, they're just opportunists. But when an opportunity strikes in this form, where the horror hits 'em, they're capable of accepting the changes that they otherwise would never consider. And the time for those changes is now. The potential is now.
"And what I propose essentially, or have been proposing, is that the four principal nations I indicated must hopefully form a committee to sponsor a general rally of nations to reorganize the system. Because smaller nations do not have the courage or means to initiate these kinds of steps. You need to have a dominant leading power in the world, or combination of power, who opens the door to let other nations participate in this kind of reform. That's a chance. And in that case, we have to go back to a new kind of IMF system, a Roosevelt-type of IMF system, what Roosevelt had intended for the post-war period, had he lived.
"And with that kind of perspective, I think that we could organize cooperation among nations, dealing with some very obvious problems, which will lead to a solution to these problems. We also have to get rid of Cheney. That's clear. Cheney is not an American. He's nominally an American. He's British property. And he's his wife's property. She made him out of nothing, or less than nothing, and he represents the interests who want war. He represents the interests that want a war with Iran, and that could set the whole world afire. So we have to get rid of him. We invite him to go back and grow potatoes in Wyoming. That's his best opportunity.
"But this is the crisis. And the cowardice of my fellow American leaders here, in facing these kinds of issues, is a problem. But the crisis is now. More and more of America's leaders are realizing that this crisis exists. More and more people, Republicans as well as Democrats, behind the scenes, recognize that we've got to change some things here. And the effort is to, by September, or late September perhaps, to have something new in process where Cheney is no longer the landscape. The great danger is between now and September, September at Labor Day, until politicians return to Washington. The great danger is in this month of August, again as in August 1914 or August 1939. A monster could be let out, could be let loose, and maybe the world doesn't have the ability to quickly stop that monster from setting fire to the world. So we have opportunity and great danger. We have great issues that have to be faced.
"Being a professional troublemaker as I am, I do the best I can."
