LAROUCHE INTERVIEWED BY RADIO CUMBRE NEUQUEN, ARGENTINA
September 6, 2023

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Q: Over the last few minutes, there have been news reports of a supposed U.S. attack against Iraq. This was denied moments ago. What is your view of this news event, and what is your view of the overall situation?

LaRouche: We are actually very close to the danger of a large-scale war against Iraq. We don't know at what moment it can erupt. We're looking at the period from approximately Monday [Sept. 9] to about the 15th of September, as the first period in which we are on alert. We also have to be alert to some other incident, which may be a Gulf of Tonkin-type of incident to try to provoke the U.S. attack on Iraq. It is a very dangerous situation.

Q: I believe that such a possible attack on Iraq involves more than simply war motives or things of this sort, but rather a justification or a cover up of a financial debacle that would supposedly be covered up by a war economy. What is your view of this?

LaRouche: There may be people who are insane enough to believe that they can do that, but right now people in the U.S. are not looking just at financial data or financial markets. They're looking at the physical effect of this depression upon them. The way the worry goes in the United State and Europe is the following: they say there may be people foolish enough in the United States to believe that they can start a war, but it won't succeed, because they can start the war, but they won't be able to get out of it safely. That is the opinion of many military leaders in the United States, as well as figures in Europe.

Q: Mr. LaRouche, you are the person worldwide who has been most repeatedly successful with your various forecasts. The financial bubble is about to blow, the world today is in a situation of total insecurity, capital is fleeing the United States. What can be done with regard to the world economy, to actually reverse this terrible crisis we're facing?

LaRouche: Well, we have to go back, in part, to what Franklin Roosevelt did in 1933-34. We have to put the present international monetary system in bankruptcy reorganization, and we have to immediately establish a gold reserve-based, fixed exchange-rate system, like that which we had between 1946 and 1964. If a number of governments would agree upon that, including of course the United States, there would be no impossibility of solving this problem--not with immediate success, but with a cessation of the collapse. It is not a hopeless situation, therefore, economically. It is hopeless politically, unless we can get a change in the political geometry. We're right on the edge of a blowout much worse than the 1930s.

Q: Of your vast writings on economics, Mr. LaRouche, I would like to take you in particular to the subject of Argentina, not out of egoism, but because this is in fact an example for the entire region and the world. I have in my hands a book that you published in 1989 called {Industrial Argentina: Axis of Ibero-American Integration,} which has a prologue written by you. It was first printed in 1983, and I understand you sent it to President Alfonsin at the time, urging him to take the kinds of steps which you recommended there. He did not--quite the opposite. Could you give us a summary of the kind of advice that you were issuing at that point?

LaRouche: Already in 1982, in the immediate aftermath of the Malvinas War, it was obvious that the war, which had been provoked from London, had been intended to set off a process of destruction of the powers of all of Central and South America. And the major countries which were targetted for destruction, then as now, were not only Argentina, but also Brazil and Mexico. So, in the case of Mexico, after my discussions with President Lopez Portillo, I composed a paper called {Operation Juarez,} which would have worked then if we would have been able to implement it. President Lopez Portillo was prepared to implement it in the early fall of 1982, but the other governments, such as that of Argentina and Brazil, withdrew their initial support for Mexico.

That was the beginning of what we face now. So, during this period, in my writing to Alfonsin, my concern was to try to educate, inform, and influence governments of, particularly, Argentina and Brazil, to understand what we had to do, if we were to avoid what is actually happening now. So therefore, what I wrote in 1982 contains many of the elements of analysis and proposals which are applicable to the situation today, and it still has educational value to that purpose.

I realize that it is difficult for some governments to technically understand some of the problems, but it is extremely important to get an immediate dialogue on these subjects, to get clarity on what the necessary steps are.

Q: Mr. LaRouche, about two weeks ago, there was an article in {The New York Times} which discussed the regionalization of Argentina, the splitting of the country into different regional areas: Patagonia going its way and others the same. This has been broadly circulated inside Argentina. Some of us view this as a form of manipulation, to bring about the disintegration of the country, and there are those of us who have doubts as to whether or not this is intended to benefit the usurious powers that have always been involved in these things. Most recently, capital that left Argentina earlier in the year now seems to be returning to buy up very fertile lands for a song. What's your view of this?

LaRouche: This is a long-standing policy of a faction in the United States and elsewhere, which is called the Utopians. It is the same group behind the proposed Iraq war. Their intention is to disintegrate every country in Central and South America--Argentina and Brazil above all--to chop them up into small powerless units, which then can be looted like a victim at the pleasure of the looter. That unfortunately is the present policy of the International Monetary Fund. That is also unfortunately the policy of the anti-globalization movement led by Teddy Goldsmith. Another term for it is the "Africanization" of South and Central America. I would think that that's the way some people in Brazil are thinking about it, because they're very sensitive on the African question.

Q: This radio show is heard regionally, with the help of various repeater stations, including in one town which was the birthplace of YPF, which was Argentina's national petroleum company, the pride of the nation, which explored for and exploited petroleum throughout the country, but which was recently taken over by Spanish capital, by Repsol.

The goal of this program is to translate economic matters for the common people, so they can understand what the issues are. We recently took a poll of people on the street, asking them what they think of the IMF. Should Argentina follow the IMF plans, or devise their own plan? And the string of answers were as follows, which we would like your response to:

[Summary by translator:

One person said, of course we can live without the IMF. It would have a price, but it will cost us more with them. Another said the IMF is the worst thing imaginable. Another said we have to have our own plan, not something imposed by others. A fourth said the IMF is responsible, as far as he's concerned, for all of the problems that we're facing. Another said they're killing us with high interest rates. Another said we have to have our own policies, we don't want things imposed on us, the country is being robbed blind. Still another said the problem is that there are a bunch of corrupt politicians who always allow these foreign organizations and companies, and allow them to come into the country.

So what are your responses to such views from the man on the street?]

LaRouche: I think they're probably right. I think they're fair. I don't think that they're adequate perceptions. But for somebody who's trapped in the barrel that they're trapped in, and not able to get much access to the outside world, it's a pretty fair image of what they're up against.

I wish we had more people just as intelligent among the citizens of the United States. They're right. I sympathize with them totally in their attitude and their perception. The difference is that I, perhaps, know more about the world at large, and am in the position to formulate things that may be solutions to these problems. But they have my complete sympathy.

Q: It seems to be much easier to convince the common people of your ideas and your economic views, than it is to convince the leaders that we have around us, especially the people trained at Harvard and the Chicago School, who seem to be completely imbued with dogmas which are impossible to shake. However, your views otherwise have been understood for years among the people here in the Neuquen region. Right now, there is a series of five seminar-classes going on, sponsored by the LaRouche Center for Physical Economy, being taught by EIR correspondent Gerardo Teran, who is with us now in the newsroom. We'd like to have him ask you a question.

Teran: There is a tremendous amount of interest in the area on the Brazil-Argentina-Mexico integration project. What is your view of this, and how does integration fit into the global solution?

LaRouche: I think integration of a certain type--integration as a community of principle among respectively sovereign nation-states--could set up a series of long-term agreements in order to mobilize resources of credit for long-term investments, largely in infrastructure and in specific industries, and to strengthen agriculture. Such a group of countries, working together, is much stronger, and much better able to defend themselves.

Also, we're in a period in which you have to look at the world at large. On continental Eurasia, there is presently a great and accelerating impetus for cooperation on a large scale. Not globalization, but cooperation. Long-term credit agreements. Long term credit for technological investment. In the Americas, the same thing would apply. My hope is that we can get the world moving in that direction, because that's what we'll {have} to do if we're going to get out of this economic mess.

Mario Ferrin, EIR representative in Neuquen: I would like people to know you better, so rather than asking a question about specific current events, I would like you to explain who you are. For example, a Macedonian newspaper recently referred to you as the person who is most successful in unmasking the views of the oligarchy; Argentine patriots have talked about your views on world reconstruction; the Russian Ecological Academy referred to your original scientific work. Who is Lyndon LaRouche, and what does he mean for the current world situation?

LaRouche: Well, I'm a follower of Gottfried Leibniz, and also, as an American and U.S. patriot, much in the same tradition of John Quincy Adams, Abraham Lincoln, Franklin Roosevelt. And I'm intellectually influential enough that my enemies in power consider me very dangerous, and have tried to eliminate me a number of times. And personally, I think I could safely say that I'm the only person in sight who is qualified to be the President of the United States under the present circumstances. I'm otherwise a philosopher and a scientist in economics. I guess that would, in short, summarize who I am.

Q: Mr. LaRouche, how relevant is it for Argentina, and for the Patagonia region in particular, to develop a bi-oceanic corridor, connecting the Atlantic and the Pacific in South America, especially in connection with the Eurasian Landbridge?

LaRouche: It does go with that. If we are sane, if we shift to a pro-development policy toward Africa, and if we develop the Land-Bridge program in Asia, there is going to be a very significant increase in international ocean freight. In that case, the connection between the Atlantic and the Pacific becomes extremely important, and so, under those circumstances, in that part particularly, it would mean also an impetus for increasing the development potential in Patagonia. Because any good communication and transport system opens the way for development of the adjoining region.

Q: We don't want to take much more of your time, since we know that you are very busy, and we appreciate your having taken this time with us. But one last question: When are you going to come to Argentina? We know that you were in Brazil; when is it going to be Argentina's turn, or Mexico's turn?

LaRouche: Well, you know, I was last there in Argentina in 1984. I enjoyed it very much. I think times were much better then. That was the time I met with President Alfonsin. It was a valuable meeting, and I enjoyed meeting my friends there. I was just in Brazil, and I would like to be in Argentina again. So, as soon as the fates allow, shall we say.

Q: A final question. More than just being the leader of anti-globalization forces internationally, would you not be the leader of the forces of the new economy, the physical economy, the mathematical economy, the real economy of nations?

LaRouche: Absolutely. I'm in the tradition of Leibniz. We've been at it for centuries. We hope it is now time to get our job done.

Q: Regarding Joseph Stiglitz: although perhaps he doesn't agree with you in all aspects and areas, nonetheless he has talked about the problem of poverty, and the number of people who make less than $1 a day. Is it possible to actually change the point of view of people such as Stiglitz, in order to bring about the necessary changes as you propose?

LaRouche: Well, I wouldn't hang by my nails on that. He does act like a kind of Voltaire of his particular philosophy. Unfortunately, his cynicism goes both ways. There's his cynicism about his former associates [of the World Bank], but he shows the same cynicism toward serious proposals and solutions, which is why he doesn't like me at all.

Q: Thank you for your participation, Mr. LaRouche It was an honor for us.

LaRouche: Thank you very much.

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