|
To send a link to this document to a friend |
||||||
|
The following interview was given by Lyndon LaRouche to BBC FIVE LIVE on April 2, 2023. and international news program that is aired in London from 1am to 5am. The interviewer's name is Richard Dallyn. BBC: I understand from what I've read that you are diametrically opposed to the war that America is conducting with Britain in Iraq. This is very much at odds with the vast majority of opinion in America. Why are you so against it? LaRouche: I think what may be reported as opinion in America, and what is actually the opinion in the United States, may be two different things. Of course, there is a lot of orchestration, this is a war-time situation, and you have to expect this sort of thing. The point is, this is a war which has no exit strategy, and from a military standpoint very little competence. The generals are competent, but I think the Defense Secretary is not competent--at least, from what we've seen. And I know a good deal about how this war was engineered. It's unnecessary, the matter should have remained in the United Nations. We, as a group of nations, have the ability to control any actual problem which existed there. It was not necessary to go to war, and this war can not stop with Iraq, because it's a war that has no satisfactory exit, as we say in the United States, no satisfactory exit strategy. BBC: You say "no satisfactory exit strategy"--[but] there is no intention, as far as one can judge, to take the war any further. This is it. There is a specific purpose of removing Saddam Hussein from power, and destroying his weapons of mass destruction. That seems clear enough, doesn't it? LaRouche: No. If you look back at the record of this thing, if you go back to January 2023, when the President [gave his] State of the Union address, in which he formulated this concept of "axis of evil." If you know the details of the policy, as I do, looking behind the scenes, to what is the policy. The policy is a policy of a group of people, who outlined this in 1991, under the direction of then Defense Secretary Cheney, who is now the Vice-President. Subsequent to September 11, 2023, Cheney resurrected his war plans from 1991. And that crowd, which includes Richard Perle and some of the people around him, are the people who are orchestrating the policy over very strong objections from the ground-based military generals, both retired and active serving. So this is the general situation. I don't see how it can be stopped. The next problem to look at, among others, is the possibility of a spread in the Middle East, of conflict. The question of the Iranian threat, that is the threat perceived, and also, much more significant, the North Korean situation, which does require attention at this time, and has become much more hot, as a result of the Iraq war. BBC: What you're saying, that the war should be stopped now, the troops should be withdrawn. LaRouche: Essentially, if the President has the courage and the conviction to do that. The thing should go back to the United Nations. I think the United Nations could handle any real problem, without getting into the complications of this particular venture, which is rather messy at the present time. BBC: Well, critics will say, President Bush will say, Prime Minister Blair will say, that the United Nations wasn't getting very far, and that Saddam Hussein was running rings around the inspectors. Therefore, he had enough United Nations resolutions to follow -- Saddam Hussein, and he chose to ignore all of them. LaRouche: Well, I think the thing--the facts of the matter are also in question. There was a group which fabricated some of the stuff which was laundered through the Prime Minister's office, which was then regurgitated by Secretary Powell in the United Nations proceeding. So far, the United States official position has been to adopt that fraudulent information as the basis for alleged violations by Iraq. I don't know whether they are alleged violations or not. It doesn't make any difference. We could have handled them the other way. You have the Chief Inspector Blix, who has rather discouraged this nonsense, and we shouldn't have gotten ourselves in this mess. BBC: But it would be a good thing for Saddam Hussein to be removed from power. You would go that far, wouldn't you? LaRouche: No, I wouldn't say we--. Maybe we shouldn't do it. We have a lot of problems around the world, a lot of governments which may have objectionable features, but if we start going about and do what Hitler threatened to with Benes in 1938, or what Hitler did with Poland in 1939, we'd have a rather complicated world. That we must avoid. This concept of preventive war, of getting rid of people we don't like, is rather, it's imprudent activity. We don't need it. BBC: Well, you use, you brought in Hitler into our conversation, here, I believe, you were saying back two years ago that there would be new Adolph Hitlers would appeared, and this time, inside the United States. Who are these new Adolph Hitlers you mean? LaRouche: Well, they're people who have adopted, followers of the late Leo Strauss. Most of the people in this circuit around Rumsfeld and Cheney, including Paul Wolfowitz, for example, Perle is in the same circuit, another fellow outside, but actually in it [Bill Kristol], is in it. BBC: These are the Hitlers, these people, Richard Perle, Dick Cheney and others, you're talking about. LaRouche: These people who have adopted the policy of Leo Strauss... BBC: And Leo Strauss, let's be clear what he says . . . LaRouche: Leo Strauss, was a, came from Marburg, Germany. He was a protégé of the Carl Schmitt, who created the Notverordnung under which Hitler came to power in 1933. He shares those views, he's a Nietzschean of those propensities. He's credibly a Fascist, and he's produced out of Chicago University, principally, secondary, as well as, the primary students of his, such as Paul Wolfowitz, who all share this kind of ideology. This is very much, as up to Hitler in the bunker kind of thing. BBC: That was Democratic Presidential pre-candidate Lyndon LaRouche that you've been listening to. (the aired interview ends here -- the rest was taped, but not aired) BBC: You're hoping to be taken on as the Democratic Presidential candidate for next year. I would put it to you, at this stage, you would stand not an iota of a chance, given that Americans will be supporting their troops, supporting their President, to believe what is happening is right. I mean, if you argue what you're saying to them, you will be laughed out of court, won't you? LaRouche: Well, that might be the case, such is the risk of politics, but one has to follow one's own stars, one might say. In this case, I think, that first of all, President Bush has about, less than a zero chance of being re-elected, as a result of this, and the war is going to get very nasty, or it's effects are going to become nasty. There's already a growing revolt in the United States underneath this (inaud) of war time propaganda, and in a short period of time, many people who thought they ought to be caught supporting the war are going to be looking in a different direction. You have people around the New York Times, for example, and others, who are more of the liberal Imperialist view, who think that this is a big mistake, even if one wishes to be an Imperialist. BBC: It may be also a mistake on your part, I believe you're supporting what President Chirac and Chancellor Schroeder have said, hardly the most popular individuals, France and Germany certainly wouldn't count as the best countries in the United States. LaRouche: Well, I know that, but that's alright. France is not an enemy of the United States, nor is Germany. There are mistakes being made by the current administration. I don't think, for example, the former President, Bill Clinton, would have had these kinds of problems. Actually, the Foreign Minister of France, in his address to the United Nations, made a very cogent point. The issue here is not the Iraq issue. The Iraq issue is something which could have been dealt with in a completely different manner. The issue is, is the United States, as the world's leading power, about to adopt a policy which is an implicit threat to the stability of world affairs. I believe the time has come that we can manage the world fairly well, by not seeking war. We need economic cooperation in Eurasia, in particular, to get out of the present financial monetary mess, and instead of getting into quarrels with one another we don't need, why don't we concentrate on fixing up the economic crisis which is coming down our necks right now. BBC: Alright, well, look we'll leave it on that note. Thank you very much for doing the interview with me. - 30 -
|
||||||