Category: News

CIS leaders to negotiate trade issues in Armenia
RosBusinessConsulting, Russia
June 2 2004
RBC, 02.06.2004, Yerevan 13:41:27.The second meeting between the
leaders of the Chambers of Commerce and Industry of the CIS members
took place today in the city of Yerevan (Armenia). The Head of
the Armenian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Martin Sarkisian,
announced at the opening ceremony that the results of the meeting
“might contribute to enhancing cooperation between the Chambers
of Commerce and Industry of the CIS members’. He stressed the
importance of a prudent investment policy, establishing a positive
business-environment and increasing foreign trade.
According to the Armenian news agency Arka, representatives of the
Chambers of Commerce and Industry of the CIS are to discuss the
results of implementing agreements and to determine future spheres
of cooperation in forming a positive environment for small and
medium-sized enterprises.

Sports Features Communications (press release), FL
June 2 2004
Rowing: 2004 Final Olympic Qualification Regatta
2004 Final Olympic Qualification Regatta
13 – 16 June, Lucerne, Switzerland
A total of 121 crews, representing 41 National Olympic Committees
(NOCs) will compete for the 32 remaining Olympic Qualification places
at Lucerne, Switzerland from 13 – 16 June 2004. The field is made
up of 312 athletes (217 men and 95 women). This regatta is the last
opportunity for crews to qualify for the 2004 Athens Olympic Games.
Up to now 170 boats from 52 countries have qualified to race in
the Olympics. Qualification opportunities included the 2003 World
Rowing Championships held last August in Milan, Italy and the three
Continental Qualification regattas (Asian, African and Latin American)
held in April and May 2004. This final Olympic Qualification regatta
is open to crews from Europe, Australia, New Zealand, the United
States and Canada as well as countries with crews wishing to qualify
in an event that was not on the programme of the Olympic Qualification
regatta held in their continent.
There could be up to six additional NOCs represented in Athens if
crews from Armenia, Belgium, Finland, Latvia, Sweden and Slovakia
qualify. A total of 85 National Federations have attempted to qualify
for the 2004 Olympic Games, up from 73 in 2000. However, under the
do-or-die qualification system, crews must finish in the top two to
four places, depending on their event.
Tim Maeyens of Belgium looks to be in qualifying shape for the men’s
single after winning bronze at the 2004 BearingPoint Rowing World Cup
in Munich last month. He will be up against 11 other scullers including
Bulgaria’s Ivo Yanakiev who finished fifth at the Sydney Olympics.
The Austrian lightweight four were World Champions in 2001 and with
only one crew change this year they are strong contenders. However
the Austrians have Munich bronze medal winners Chile to deal with.
Stroked by Miguel Cerda of pair world best time fame, the Chileans
have already beaten Austria once this season.
The Chinese women’s eight come hot off a silver medal win in Munich
where they beat current World Champions Germany and they look to
be a safe bet as two out of the three boats entered in their event
will qualify.
The draw for the heats will take place on Sunday 13 June 2004 at the
Regatta Centre, Rotsee Lake, Lucerne at 11.00hrs. Heats will start
at 17.00hrs on Sunday, repechages on Monday and finals will take
place on both Tuesday and Wednesday from 17.00hrs.

Cross Country call center gets GM contract, will add 100 jobs
By TEYA VITU, Tucson Citizen , FRANCISCO MEDINA/Tucson Citizen
Tucson Citizen, AZ
June 2 2004
Employees look at a Bentley outside the Cross Country Automotive
Services’ call center, 1401 S. Pantano Road. Seeing the car is supposed
to help workers provide better help when answering emergency road
service calls.
Cross Country Automotive Services call center employees last week
got a close look at a dozen luxury $150,000 Bentley Continental
GT coupes, all parked outside the center at 1401 S. Pantano Road.
It’s part of the job, a matter of getting to know the car better so
Tucson employees fielding emergency services calls from across the
nation can better identify with a caller’s problem.
Cross Country takes calls from owners of 70 percent of the automotive
brands at call centers in Medford, Mass.; Sebring, Fla.; and, since
1995, in Tucson, which is the largest center, with 500 employees,
and about to get larger.
In the coming months, 100 new jobs will be added to help serve all
eight lines of General Motors vehicles, a contract that Cross Country
just landed, spokeswoman Kathy Cavolina said.
Applications are being accepted at the office, online at
[email protected] and by phone at (800) 343-3288.
Starting salaries range from $8 to $9.50 per hour, with some jobs
starting higher, Cavolina said.
It’s not like every other call center job.
“At this one you are more in contact with the customer,” said Lelani
Barrios, a Cross Country roadside associate for one year. “You’re
more in-depth with them.”
Cross Country primarily deals with people with an automotive situation
such as a breakdown, a flat tire or a child or dog locked in the
car. The associates are trained to confirm the caller’s safety,
determine location and the problem and send help which could be a
tow truck, police, even a helicopter.
Vartan Yozghadlian, an Armenian immigrant with seven years at Cross
Country, one day found himself on the other end of a call from a
couple in Colorado stuck in a snowstorm on the way to the hospital.
The woman was in labor.
All he had to do was stay on the line until paramedics or police showed
up. But he stayed with the couple even as the helicopter came in.
“Suppose I needed to send for a tow truck,” Yozghadlian said. “It’s
my duty. We do whatever it takes to help and give our best to the
customer. This is our dedication, the quality we give to the customer.”
A family in Texas was driving to the airport for its first trip to
Disneyland when the car’s tire went flat.
There was no spare.
The family called and got Cross Country roadside associate Corrie
Fisher in Tucson, who added urgency to her dispatch style.
“They were freaking out,” Fisher remembered. “While I dispatched
service, I could hear the children asking, ‘Can we still go to
Disneyland?’ I was talking to the dispatcher, saying, ‘These kids
had to go to Disneyland. You need to get someone there fast.’ ”
Every few months, automakers take cars to the Cross Country center
for employees to inspect. But never before has the Tucson operation
seen a fleet of Bentley Continental GTs.
“I think that’s the highest end, especially that volume – 12 cars,”
said Paul Kline, the center’s operations director. “This is for
folks to actually see the vehicle and see some of the nuances,
like how the remote key works. It makes people feel more engaged,
not just something you read about.”

ANS Pulls BBC Off Air
Baku Today, Azerbaijan
June 2 2004
Baku Today 03/06/2004 01:17
Azerbaijan’s private ANS Media and Broadcasting Company pulled the
Russian-language radio programs of the BBC Central Asia and Caucasus
Service off the air on Tuesday in response to what ANS called the
BBC management’s failure to stop the service’s biased reports on
Azerbaijan.
ANS, which was one of the re-broadcasters of the programs in
Azerbaijan, had set up deadline to the BBC World Service in Mid-May to
stop the purported unbalanced reports by June 1 or see its broadcasts
stopped.
ANS demanded the BBC World Service fire an ethnic-Armenian producer
of its Central Asia and Caucasus Service, Mark Griogorian, whom ANS
blamed for anti–Azerbaijani propaganda.
While expressing regret for ANS’s decision to pull the Russian
programs off the air, a statement by the BBC said the corporation
is committed to the objective coverage of the Armenian-Azerbaijani
conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh.
“We are concerned that listeners in Azerbaijan would be deprived of our
reliable and unbiased news and information especially in a time when
there is a greater need for international news,” said the statement,
which was posted on the Russian web site of the BBC Central Asia and
Caucasus Service.
The statement said that BBC would keep covering events in the region
in a balanced, fair and accurate way as it is doing all over the world.
The Russian programs of the BBC Central Asia and Caucasus Service in
Azerbaijan are being re-broadcast by the State Television and Radio
Company and also by the BBC’s own FM frequency 103.3 in Baku.

HEALTH PROGRAMS TO TARGET MOTHER AND INFANT MORTALITY
ArmenPress
June 2 2004
YEREVAN, JUNE 2, ARMENPRESS: Maternal and infant mortality rates still
continue to remain be high in Armenia. Among the most pressing problems
are the increasing rate of pre-birth mortality rate, widespread anemia,
especially among pregnant women and early childhood, widespread
endemic deficit of iodine, continuous birth of low weight children,
high abortion rates.
The average three month rates for maternal mortality for 100,000
births was 43.3 in 1999-2001 and infant mortality rate for 1000 birth
was 14 in 2002. Figures are not available for 2003.
Last year, 36.700 children were born in Armenia, 540 of who died.
The great majority of Armenian mothers keep to breast feeding.
Among 100 children of 1 year at least 69 receive beast feeding up to
4 months, which reduces mortality risk up to 7-10 times.

UNION OF ARMENIANS IN ISRAEL ESTABLISHED
ArmenPress
June 2 2004
YEREVAN, JUNE 2, ARMENPRESS: Armenians who moved to Israel over the
last decade met on May 31 in an Armenian restaurant in the town of
Baytiem to found the Union of Armenians in Israel. The constituent
meeting of the Union was followed by dinner, attended by Armenian
honorary consul in Israel Tsolak Momjian, Armenian ambassador to
Russia, Armen Smbatian and representatives of the Armenian Patriarchate
in Jerusalem.
Abraham Chopikian, a native of the Armenian town of Artik, was elected
the president of the Union. He said the main goal of the Union is
to help Armenian families in Israel to seek jobs and protect their
rights, also to try to boost Israeli-Armenian trade.

KOCHARIAN SETS UP ANTI-CORRUPTION COUNCIL
ArmenPress
June 2 2004
YEREVAN, JUNE 2, ARMENPRESS: Armenian president Robert Kocharian
decreed today setting up the Council for Struggling Against
Corruption. A press release by Kocharian’s press office said the
Council is set up for full and effective implementation of the
government-designed anti-corruption policy, elimination and prevention
of reasons giving birth to corruption and improvement of anti-graft
measures by the authorized bodies.
The new body, composed of chief minister of government staff, justice
minister, an advisor to president, chief prosecutor, governor of
the Central Bank, chairman of a government commission for protection
of economic competition, chairman of parliament Audit Chamber and a
head of a presidential oversight service is headed by prime minister
Andranik Margarian.
The Council is supposed to develop effective anti-corruption measures,
monitor and coordinate their implementation in line with Armenia’s
international obligations.

Executive Intelligence Review (EIR), VA
June 2 2004
How To Lead the United States
Out of Its Current Tragedy
by Lyndon H. LaRouche, Jr.
The following is Presidential candidate Lyndon LaRouche’s opening
statement and some of the question-and-answer dialogue which occurred
during a press availability for the candidate in New Jersey on May
21.
In the period from the time of Solon of Athens, through the death of
Plato, there was a development in Europe, centered on Athens–but to
some degree also, on what was called Magna Graecia, the southern part
of Italy where a Greek civilization existed–in which there was a
certain high point of development. This development is actually the
birth of what became modern civilization.
However, this civilization failed, at that time. It failed notably in
the case of the Peloponnesian War, which was this long war of Greece
against its former allies in Sparta; which began, with Athens and the
Athens alliance and extended to southern Italy, to Magna Graecia; a
war which was begun under Pericles of Athens, continued under his
successor, the notorious Thrasymachus. As a result of that, Greek
civilization disintegrated, not entirely–its residue didn’t
disintegrate–but Athens, which had been the leading part of
civilization at that point, worldwide as far as we know,
disintegrated. It continued in a Hellenistic form, in the wake of the
success of Alexander the Great, but it degenerated. It degenerated
into what became its successor–the Roman Empire, which was decadent,
and evil, from the beginning.
Now, what is happening now in the United States, is similar to that.
You had–in ancient Egypt and ancient Greece–you had this development,
typified by the rise of what was called the Eleatics, by the
Sophists, and by the followers of Aristotle. And this tradition
continues to this day.
What has happened now to the United States: The United States, which
led the world out of the risk of a fascist world order in World War
II, began to degenerate in the post-war period. Our degeneracy of the
United States, today–our cultural degeneracy–is analogous to what
happened to Greece under Pericles and Thrasymachus: that we have
become Sophists. People are no longer concerned with truth. We put
spin on everything. They’re concerned with popular opinion. They
believe lies. You have to be seen “believing.” And this has gotten us
into this kind of mess.
The Persistence of Fascism
The second part of this story, is that the Nazi system, which began
to disintegrate after the battles of Stalingrad and after the United
States victory in Midway Island against the Japanese fleet, in which
Nazi Germany was ultimately doomed: Some people in Nazi Germany,
around Hermann Göring, decided that Hitler was a nut; and they were
determined that the Nazi system would survive, as a tradition,
survive the defeat of Germany in the war. These people entered into
collaboration with certain people in the United Kingdom and the
United States: people with names such as, Harriman, Morgan, du Pont,
Mellon–who had originally supported Hitler in bringing him to power
in Germany, but for strategic reasons, supported Roosevelt against
the Nazis during the war.
At the end of the war, once Germany was being defeated–for the final
defeat was on the way–these guys, typified by Allen Dulles, brought
the Nazi system into the Anglo-American system. This became the
Anglo-American right wing, typified by that pig, President Truman–who
we got rid of, and replaced him with Eisenhower, who gave us a period
of relative peace.
But then, when Eisenhower left office, Kennedy was not capable of
understanding or dealing with the situation. They killed him. And
once they had killed Kennedy, they moved with the war in Vietnam, the
Indo-China War. Under this period, there was a deliberate cultural
corruption of the United States, called “contemporary liberalism”
today. It’s generally accepted ideology today in the United States.
It’s the reason why neither of the political parties, as parties, are
capable of solving the problems before us. Only someone who
recognizes the same problem that happened to Greece under Pericles,
the same kind of moral corruption which has gripped our institutions
today, would avoid the destruction of worldwide civilization today,
led by the self-destruction of the United States.
What you’re seeing in Iraq: You’re seeing fascism, in the form of
Cheney. Cheney’s policy was perpetual warfare; it was perpetual
nuclear preventive warfare. The wars we’ve seen in Afghanistan, what
we’ve seen in Iraq, are intended to be extended, against Syria–by
January; if Bush were re-elected, and Cheney was still his Vice
President, we would be attacking Syria by January of this coming
year. We would be putting nuclear weapons, bombing the sites of the
power stations in Iran. We would be dropping nuclear weapons on sites
in North Korea. The planet as a whole would degenerate, in a way
comparable to the way that the Greek civilization underwent a partial
degeneration into a relative dark age, as a result of the
Peloponnesian War.
The problem is, that we have no standard of truth generally accepted
in the United States, today. Or, in European civilization generally
today. Truth has been destroyed, especially over the past 40
years–the idea of truth–in favor of what’s called opinion: popular
opinion, or what’s called “spin.” The press lies, the major press
lies. The major political figures lie! The judgment is based on,
“Don’t tell the truth. It will get you into trouble. Work within
popular opinion. If you want to accomplish something, argue for it,
from the standpoint of generally accepted popular opinion.”
So, now we come to a point, in which we have a war in Iraq which can
not be won. Because it’s not a war in Iraq. It’s a war against
civilization. It’s a war on the part of some people who intend to
create an English-speaking world empire, a new Roman Empire, of the
British and the United States. The idea is to eliminate all of the
nation-states, to do the same thing the British Empire has done since
1763: Play the nations of Europe and other nations against each other
with struggles to neutralize them, so they will not be a challenge to
the empire. And foolish nations agree to be played by that game.
The U.S. Constitutional Opposition
Now, I come along. The advantage is, here in the United States, we
have–the United States is the only place this problem can be solved.
Because, if the United States were to act upon certain elements of
its tradition, its Constitutional tradition, we could intervene, and
rally most of the nations of the world to cooperate with us in
getting out of this mess.
You have institutions in the United States, in the intelligence
services, in the professional military, and others, who typify
powerful influences inside the Executive branch of government, who
have friends in the Legislative branch of government, and within
certain institutions within society. These circles tend now to agree
with me, at least in the direction I’m taking. My course of action is
to provide an element of cohesion and leadership among these circles
in the United States, especially around the Executive branch–the
opposition to Cheney and to what poor Bush represents, in the
Executive branch. These circles are capable of recognizing that the
existence of civilization depends upon acting, to get rid of what
Cheney represents, and to find a peace in the Middle East (or,
so-called Middle East), which is being used as a cockpit to
destabilize the world.
The key aspect of this, which is often misinterpreted, is this
question of petroleum. In the preparation for what became known as
World War I, by Edward VII, the King of England–and even when he was
Prince of Wales, before he was actually King–the idea came, of taking
the area of southern Mesopotamia, now called Kuwait, and making it a
personal property of the King of England. The purpose was to take the
oil, which was the richest source of petroleum at that time,
available petroleum, from the Gulf, and grab that petroleum, to use
it as a way of equipping the British military fleet, the naval fleet,
with oil-burning vessels, which would be superior in their mobility
to coal-burning vessels; and to use this as a factor of strategic
control.
Once that was established, the British then conceived … making the
world dependent upon consumption of petroleum, by eliminating
alternatives to petroleum as a source of cheap power. (It’s not
actually cheap power. You haul it all over the world. It costs more
to carry it around, than it does to produce it.) All right.
So therefore, the Middle East area, which has the richest and
cheapest source of supply of petroleum, probably has at least 80
years’ supply for the world as a whole, from the Gulf and adjoining
areas. You take the area from Iraq down to the Gulf and beyond; that
area contains at least 80% of 80 years’ worth of the world’s
petroleum supplies. Therefore, by making the world dependent upon
petroleum, and putting it in the hands of what’s called the London
marketing cartel, which controls this–it’s not the Arab world that
controls it, it’s the London marketing cartel, which controls the way
oil is sold around the world–then you have the grip on the world.
What is happening right now, is that the world financial system is
collapsing. It’s doomed. Nothing can save the present world
monetary-financial system. It’s finished now. Just a question of when
it goes over the cliff. It’s going over. At this time, they’re trying
to prop up the financial system, and the best way to prop up the
financial system was to use hedge funds to gamble on a rising price
of petroleum. In other words, the profits on investment in petroleum,
the petroleum stocks, on financial markets, is the major source of
impetus for profits in the world system as a whole. It is not the
price of production at the source of petroleum production, which is
the problem, the problem of the inflation–we’re now over $40 a
barrel.
That is not the price of production. It’s not OPEC, that is
responsible. It is the London marketing cartel, which is using the
margin of profit, on the basis of an increase in price on the
contracts per barrel of oil, which is now using this as the major
prop of the world financial system: the U.S.-British-dominated world
financial system.
We are now in a hyperinflationary spiral, which is in the process of
blowing up. Just give an example: At about $20 a barrel of petroleum,
presuming no hedge-fund intervention, the price of petroleum around
the world, at $20 a barrel, would not be a threat to the stability of
the world economy. At $30 a barrel, it’s a problem. At $40 a barrel,
it’s a crisis. One more crisis and $50 a barrel, and the whole system
will blow up. But, this is caused entirely by this hedge fund
speculation in this area.
So, that’s the nature of the problem.
So, we have an intertwined relationship, between a war policy–a
nuclear war policy, a world imperial nuclear war policy, by Cheney
and what he represents, behind him–you have at the same time, the
same financial group, which is behind the Cheney phenomenon is
playing this other game with a wrecked financial system. So, we now
come to a point, that the entire world financial-monetary system is
in the process of collapsing.
And in this process, they’ve unleashed a way of trying to control the
planet in the long term, the way the Roman Empire did: by perpetual
warfare. Perpetual warfare, which can not be conducted today by
conventional warfare methods, but only by aid of nuclear warfare. And
therefore, since Israel was created as a nuclear power in the Middle
East, for this purpose of destabilization, we’re now trapped into a
nuclear warfare scenario, as the controlling scenario.
The only way we’ll get free of it, is by getting rid of what Cheney
represents. That also means, overturning those in the Democratic
Party, who are tailing what Cheney represents, who are not exposing
it, who are not fighting it. And therefore, only those forces in the
world, which recognize that the United States could lead a way out of
this problem, and only those in the United States, who recognize that
we in the United States have the responsibility of providing that
leadership, could avoid a collapse of civilization into a dark age
right now.
My Unique Role
My problem is that I’m relatively unique, in terms of political
figures actually leading that process. And you see in the reaction of
many parts of the so-called Arab world, and others–to my proposal on
the alternative, on a doctrine–there are many parts of the world
which are prepared to act in support of what I propose.
That’s the seriousness of the situation. Whatever these clowns say
about my candidacy, whatever they say about what is inevitable in
political candidacy–that is reality. And it’s the way the system
reacts to that reality, not to the polls, which is going to determine
the way this situation goes. They can choose against me: They can
lose everything. We all lose everything. But, we’ve now seen, with
the response to my proposal on the Doctrine, that, if my influence in
the United States is accepted–which will only happen under conditions
of perceived monetary-financial crisis–under those conditions, there
is a way out. And much of the rest of the world is prepared to
cooperate with the United States, on that basis, including Europe.
So, that’s the situation. It’s not a simple kind of problem, which
you hear talked about in the news media. This is reality. And reality
is not what happens from time to time, under ordinary circumstances.
Reality is what happens in times of crisis, when civilizations
themselves are threatened with collapse. We are now at a breaking
point, of potential collapse of a world civilization. This has
happened several times before. It’s threatened now. Sometimes we
escaped from that threat. Sometimes, we did not.
The question is, are we going to escape from that threat? Or, are we
not? And that’s what my candidacy represents. That’s what the issue
is.
Questions and Discussion
Q: My name is Brother Leroy from WHCR [radio] and my question relates
to one of the last points that you made: You said, sometimes we have
escaped from these crises. An example in history, of having escaped
from the crisis?
LaRouche: Most recent was the case of Franklin Roosevelt. Franklin
Roosevelt saved the world from fascism. If Hoover had been
re-elected, then the policies of the United States, under Hoover,
would have been a continuation of the same ones that were going on in
Europe, under the Germans. Then we would be living, today, in the
aftermath of a Nazi world system. It was Roosevelt that saved
humanity from that.
Earlier, the United States was saved from extinction by Benjamin
Franklin–or what became the United States. And after that, by
Lincoln, Abraham Lincoln. These were revolutions. They were called
revolutionaries. Roosevelt was a revolutionary, even though what he
did was nothing but uphold the U.S. Constitution. Lincoln was a
revolutionary, but he did nothing but defend the intent of the
Constitution. Franklin was a revolutionary, but he expressed the
opinion of the highest levels throughout Europe, of civilization.
So, we have had, in European experiences, that kind of thing. For
example, we had a dark age in the 14th Century, in Europe, as a
result of this Norman system, the Venetian system. We had a rescue
from that in the 15th Century, with the birth of the Renaissance.
But, then, beginning 1480, with the rise of this fascist Tomás
Torquemada, the Grand Inquisitor in Spain, we had a process of
attempted breakup of civilization by Torquemada. We had a plunge from
1511-1648 into religious war throughout Europe, which we were saved
from by the Treaty of Westphalia.
So, we’ve accosted this thing, in all known history of European and
adjoining civilization, of periods of crisis. In times of crisis,
sometimes leadership and people come together, and take an action,
with great difficulty, which saves civilization, and may take it a
step upward.
The basic problem we have, is, as far back as we know, mankind has
been engaged in a struggle to free us from a condition, in which some
people–a relative few–hold the rest of the people in a condition of
virtual or actual slaves, as human cattle: either herded cattle of
the type that 80% of the people of the United States are today; or,
as hunted cattle, as we treat the people of Southern Africa. That’s
the whole thing: The slave system is an example of that. What is
that? They went in there, they killed a lot of people, they hunted
them down. The Spanish called them “animals.” They said, “They’re not
human. Therefore, we have a right to take them captive, like we take
wild animals captive. We kill the strong ones, the old men, the tough
ones. We keep the young women and the children. We put the young
women and the children into slavery.”
That’s herded and hunted cattle. The rest of us, who are not hunted
down that way, were herded. We’re not allowed to know anything. We’re
not supposed to be “taught things” above our station.
It’s like the whole fight in the Reconstruction period, the fight
around education–away from Frederick Douglass’s policy that the
person is free, to the extent their mind is free; to the extent their
development has reached a highest enough level, so they are part of
society. They’re thinking members of society. They’re free! And once
free in their mind, they’ll be free in their body. It went the other
way: You can be free in your body, as long as we enslave your mind.
And therefore, the educational policy, was “let’s not educate the
freed slaves above their proper station in life.” The educational
policy in the United States, today: “Let’s not educate our children
above the expected kind of employment they’re going to have.” And
that’s how we’ve destroyed ourselves.
So, it’s always this kind of struggle: The struggle against the
tradition of some people holding other people, as herded or hunted
animals. And that’s what’s happened to the lower 80% of our people in
the United States today, the lower income brackets. In these times of
crises, civilization will degenerate, unless someone, in the form of
leadership, intervenes and arouses the people, awakens them to a
great struggle to fight against this tradition of treating human
beings as cattle.
So, we win and we lose. And the most important thing you can do with
your life, is find yourself in the midst of a great crisis, like this
one, and to be able to act in such a way, that you turn the tide,
away from destruction into something good….
The LaRouche Doctrine
In response to another question, LaRouche elaborated on his LaRouche
Doctrine for peace in Southwest Asia.
LaRouche: You have an impossible situation. You have a general
so-called Middle East war, which is a result of a long phase of
orchestration of events in the region; and more specifically, what
happened with the collapse of the Soviet Union, in which a new game
came into play. And the first Bush Administration played a more
cautious role. What Cheney, at that time, as Secretary of Defense,
was a bastard–but they checked him. Then, later, under the new Bush
Administration, at a later point in the crisis, this guy went loose.
And we now have unleashed, as I said, this policy of perpetual
warfare, preventive nuclear warfare: an imperial policy! This is not
an issue of Iraq; it’s not an issue of Afghanistan, it’s not Syria,
it’s not Iran. It’s global intent. One by one, with the threat of
nuclear warfare, to bring these nations into imperial submission.
This creates a situation which we see in Iraq, which from a military
standpoint, was insane. Now, in other countries, Cheney would use
nuclear weapons. For various reasons, they did not use nuclear
weapons yet, at least not–except for one incident at the airport,
outside Baghdad, where there’s a question about what was done there.
They did not use nuclear weapons.
But against Iran, the intention is: nuclear weapons. Either nuclear
weapons used by the United States, or by Israel. And the alternative
is an Israeli attack on Syria, or a U.S. attack on Syria, in January.
The alternative, is either an Israeli–dropping of Israeli nuclear
weapons on the oil stations and the nuclear stations in Iran; or the
U.S. doing it. Or, the U.S. dropping nuclear weapons on sites in
North Korea.
We’re leading an imperial thrust, at the time that the international
monetary-financial system is collapsing.
Now, what this would mean: The United States can not conquer the
world. We’re a degenerate culture, at the end of our skein, under the
present system. Therefore, all this can mean, is U.S. superiority,
military superiority, in this way, could lead the whole planet into
nothing but a new dark age, of asymmetric warfare.
Under those conditions, you have to respond in a special way, which
is what I’ve done. We know that, my knowledge of the Middle East, and
my role in the Middle East gives me a special position: That I can be
trusted. I’m the only leading U.S. figure, who can be trusted, and
that is a view shared by many people in the region; it goes back over
a quarter of a century, more than a quarter-century. So therefore, I
have to use that, to state a policy as my policy, for what I’ve
defined as Southwest Asia, as a policy which the United States should
support, once it’s determined that certain representative
institutions in the region, accept that kind of doctrine, that
approach.
The second thing that’s required, is that Israel, the
Israeli-Palestinian question be resolved, or be put into a form which
is assuredly resolvable, immediately. Otherwise you can not bring
unity, in effect, for this purpose into the region.
That’s my policy.
Now, this involves a number of complications, which I’ve alluded to
in my remarks here today. Because of the sophistry in the situation,
the Israeli-Arab conflict is of a special nature: It’s based on–it’s
very similar to the religious warfare in Europe between 1618 and
1648. There is no way in which an ordinary conflict negotiation would
work. A long period of cultural-religious warfare in the region is
not something you can negotiate away, “like that.” You therefore have
to introduce a commitment, like that that was introduced by Cardinal
Mazarin, in the case of the 1648 Treaty of Westphalia. Therefore, we
must bring the concept of the Treaty of Westphalia into play in that
region.
Now, what the problem has been, since I first became involved in this
problem in this region, on the Israeli-Arab and related conflicts in
the Middle East, has been that, you could not succeed in getting an
economic development program adopted as the basis for negotiating a
solution. Because the Treaty of Westphalia was based on each nation,
each person in conflict, must agree to commitment to the “advantage
of the other”: That is, must agree to give primary concern to the
welfare of the other. That if the parties that have been warring,
will commit themselves to the welfare of one another, then you can
have peace. And that’s the only way you get peace in this kind of
warfare, religious warfare.
Now, the issue here, becomes water. You fly over the whole region,
you see sand, sand, sand, sand. You see desert. There’s lots of
territory, but there’s no development. There’s not sufficient energy,
despite the fact petroleum’s all over the place. There’s not
sufficient water. The Israelis have been taking water from the
Jordan, from the Litani region, and from the area of Syria. They’ve
been stealing all the water. There’s not enough water to meet the
requirements of the population inhabiting the area. Therefore,
without an energy policy, without a power policy, a power-development
policy, without a hydroelectric policy, without a water policy in
general, without a growth policy in the region, there is no way, to
provide true “advantage of the other,” through development.
Israel has nuclear power, it has nuclear weapons. But, it doesn’t
have any nuclear power to take care of its own territory, as well as
around it. There’s no power. There’s not enough water. There’s no
desalination program, on a scale needed for the population, also.
So therefore, to deal with this, you have to have a commitment, to
peace through development. You have to have agreement among most of
the powers of the region–this includes Turkey, which is a positive
factor here; you have to include Armenia; you have to include
Azerbaijan, as a stability factor, as well as dealing with Iran. You
must dealing with Syria as a state. You must deal with Egypt as a
leading state. You must give a sense, that we are giving security, to
an implicitly increasingly insecure set of states in the region.
Every one of these states, so-called Arab states, are threatened with
destruction, chaos, where government exists today, unless this
changes.
Therefore, you have a situation, where we know we have to hang
together, and work together, otherwise, we’re all going to go Hell
together. Under those conditions, when that perception comes across,
and where there’s a commitment to the solution, I believe that you
can get a solution, which you can otherwise not get.
Britain’s Imperial Game
Q: Would you go back, and touch on the embracing of the Nazi way of
civilization–I’m paraphrasing what you said, I’ve been taking notes
on that–this is when the individuals in Nazi Germany saw that they
were going to lose, and they made a determination that the Nazi way
of life would survive. How was that effected here. Because, you
mentioned that it was embraced by individuals on this side. They
already had a relationship.
LaRouche: Um-hmm. Like Joe Kennedy–the father of Jack Kennedy–was a
Nazi! That simple! That’s why Roosevelt dumped him.
Now, the point was this: It goes back to 1763, when the British
Empire first emerged at the Treaty of Paris, as a victory at the
close of the so-called Seven Years’ War in Europe. So, the
Anglo-Dutch Liberal system became, essentially, an empire. From that
point on, this imperial group, the Anglo-Dutch imperial group, was
determined to have the British system, the Anglo-Dutch system, emerge
as a world empire: a permanent world empire, as successor to the
Roman Empire; at that time under the leadership of Lord Shelburne,
who was about 28 or 30 when this occurred, who became the leader of
this process.
Since that time, the British played a game, always in the interest of
the Venetian-style, financier oligarchical system, to play the
nations of Europe, and other nations, against each other, in such
away that nothing would arise from Europe which would be a challenge
to the permanent power of this imperial power, based in London. At
the same time, the determination was made–again, in 1763–that there
would be no nation formed in the English-speaking colonies in North
America. That’s the general history of the thing.
That struggle is going on to the present time. The system exists. The
system also exists inside the United States. What this evolved into,
in the course of the 20th Century, was the idea of a large British
Commonwealth, which would include the United States, as a major part
of the British Empire. In other words, the United States became the
physically leading element of the intended British Empire–run from
London, but with the power of the United States behind it. The center
of this was largely in two areas: It was in the New York bankers,
such as Morgan, Mellon, Harriman, du Pont and so forth; and in the
Southern Confederacy, the legacy of the Confederacy. These two forces
together represented the idea of the empire.
Now, these forces, coming out of World War I, the Versailles Treaty,
created a system that wouldn’t work. They knew it. So, a group was
assembled, called the Synarchist International, which created every
fascist force on the continent of Europe, between 1922 and 1945. So,
this was a unit, which was integral to the Anglo-American interest.
The Anglo-Americans were the people that put Hitler into power in
1933. But then, toward the middle of the decade, they decided that
they didn’t want a German dictator of the world. They didn’t dislike
fascism. They just didn’t like to have it German-speaking, instead of
English-speaking.
So, for that reason, forces behind Churchill turned against people
like Joe Kennedy, Lord Halifax and company, who wanted Hitler, who
were friends of Hitler and Göring, who wanted an alliance between the
British and Hitler. But other forces, including Churchill, united
with Roosevelt against this. The reason they united was, they said:
We are not going to have a continental European-based world fascist
system.
So therefore, we had an Anglo-American alliance, around Roosevelt,
against Hitler. But, as soon as 1942, after Stalingrad was obvious,
and after the ensuing events at Midway in June, where the U.S. Navy
defeated the Japanese, which meant that the Nazi empire was
doomed–not immediately, but in the long run–at that point, Göring and
company began to move. And they decided that this nut Hitler would go
on with the war–they couldn’t stop that–but they were going to
prepare to create something which would come out of the war as a
rebirth of their system.
Now, all the way through, the Göring circles were closely tied to
Anglo-American-Dutch and so forth financial interests. That is, there
were common stock companies, which were holding companies, which were
owners of the Nazi system, industrial system, and owners also of part
of the American system. In July 1944, when the doom of the Nazi
system was obvious, militarily, after the breakthrough at Normandy,
these guys moved. And they moved through a guy who became–who’s an
enemy of mine, but a guy who also became an enemy, François Genoud.
François Genoud, in Switzerland (who became one of my notable enemies
during the 1980s), was the go-between between the Nazi interests and
Allen Dulles, who brought this Nazi system inside the U.S. system,
and the British system.
So, Truman was the realization of this. Truman was, in effect, a
Nazi! The President of the United States, a Democrat. And Truman and
the British launched the so-called Cold War policy. This was
moderated by Eisenhower, because Truman brought us to the edge of
nuclear war. And, once the United States knew, that the Soviet Union
had developed a thermonuclear weapon–deployable–the United States
said to Truman: “Retire, buddy! You’re finished.” And they brought
Eisenhower in, who was opposed to that kind of policy.
Then, when Eisenhower retired, Allen Dulles and company went back
with the same process, unleashed the Missile Crisis, killed Kennedy,
and moved on to the Indo-China War–and the transformation of our
culture into this so-called post-industrial degeneracy we have today.
Two Forces at Play in U.S.
Q: So that, based on that, at that time of Roosevelt, Truman,
Eisenhower–there’re two forces at play? There’re two forces at play:
the ones that represent–that Dulles represented; and the ones who
would say, “No, this is enough. Enough is enough.”
LaRouche: Or, more–“got to get rid of it.”
Q: Okay. But, there are two forces at play. One, you laid out, was
the Anglo-Dutch financial piece. Who was the other one?
LaRouche: That’s us. I mean, in this country, in our institutions, in
our traditions, we have a Constitutional tradition, which is not just
us living today. It’s something we have from the 18th Century and
earlier; it’s a cultural tradition which we have, which is
transmitted from generation to generation.
And, you find that people in our government; that is, in the
Executive branch, either retired or serving, as military–not Boykin
or Miller, but more sane people–that these sane people, certain
people in our intelligence services; Colby was like that. Colby was a
mixed bag, but Colby was, in a sense, on my side.
So, you had people who were devoted to the American tradition.
Because we think of ourselves as being responsible for this country.
We’re responsible. I mean, the country needs some leadership. We have
to be the repository and supply of leadership, to help pull the
people together, to defend our nation.
Q: That group was outflanked in 2000. It was outflanked.
LaRouche: Well, in part. Because Clinton is a complication. Gore,
yes; Gore’s a terrible character. But Clinton is probably one of the
brightest political figures we’ve had, in high office. But he belongs
to this generation. And, he’s very bright. He can actually
think–unlike many of politicians of the type we have running loose
today. They can’t think! They really can’t! They can scheme, but they
can’t think. But he can actually think conceptually. But Clinton
believes the mystique of his generation. That’s his weak point. So,
what happened in 2000–what was outflanked was me: What you had, is
you had a bunch of racists who excluded me from the election
campaign.
And that kept off the platform–in other words, if I had not been
excluded, the way I was excluded that year, Gore would have been
elected. But it would have been largely to my credit. And, we,
Clinton and so forth, and others, would have preserved control over
the governmental process. We’d have saved the country. But, when
Gore–the damned fool–blew the election, with his nonsense, then you
had this Bush thing!
The fascists took over! And Bush is nothing but an idiot, the young
Bush. But Cheney and company, and what’s behind him, took over. And
they were on their way, as I said–as I said in January, before Bush
was inaugurated: It was inevitable, because Bush is stupid, because
the Administration’s party is stupid, we’re going into the worst
financial crisis, which is already coming on. And because of this, we
have to expect that some Hermann Göring is going to do something,
like setting fire to the Reichstag, in order to bring about
dictatorship in the United States–and that happened on Sept. 11,
2001.
That’s the issue.
Now, we’ve got a point, that I was right. Many people in the
institutions recognize that I was right. They don’t control the
parties, but they are part of our system. And they recognize I was
right. And you now have a fight to get rid of Cheney, which happened,
because we did it. We haven’t got rid of him, yet.
‘An Idiot on the Wrong Side’ As President
Q: The reason I said “outflanked,” is that, it appears as though that
group plays power centers within power centers. Within the Pentagon,
there’s a power group that “answers” to Cheney. And, there is, I
think in the State Department–I call them “power centers”–and that
they have effectively outmaneuvered the structure that has been in
place; but that today, behind the headlines, it appears as though
there is a struggle. That there’s a struggle within the military, or
the military against that group–
LaRouche: Yeah, right.
Q: There is something going on.
LaRouche: Start–look at the way our Executive branch is structured.
Under our Constitution, the Executive branch has an importance which
does not exist in any other country in Europe. Doesn’t exist. Those
are parliamentary systems. Ours is a Presidential system. Under a
Presidential system, under a Constitutional Presidential system, it
is the Executive branch that acts. Now, the Presidential system
doesn’t act too well, if you have an idiot as President. We have an
idiot who’s on the wrong side as President. I don’t know what side
he’s on–I don’t know if he knows what side he’s on.
But, nonetheless, the people who are in the Executive branch–or, like
me, who are outside, but part of it–we represent, like professors who
are no longer in, or that sort of thing, we represent a core of the
Executive branch’s Constitutional tradition in the United States.
What I did, was I concentrated–while people were trying to play other
games–I said, “The only way you’re going to stop this crap: You’ve
got to mobilize and assemble a hard core of the professional
Executive branch of government, to act with concerted influence and
force, to induce the institutions of the country to react, to change
this.”
And that’s what we’ve done. You see it all over the press. We’ve
spilled the beans. We couldn’t act immediately, because you can’t
raise a coup against your own government! But, we moved to
influence–to expose, to expose, to expose, to make clear. And we
have, so far, succeeded, and events have confirmed that. So
therefore, we have, today, a force inside the United States, which is
fighting, against this nonsense. And these are the people, if I were
President tomorrow, these are exactly the people I could depend upon,
as a President, to move things!
What I’m trying to do on this doctrine, on the Southwest Asia
Doctrine, is: If people in this part of the world agree with what I
propose, and many do, then the institutions of the United States
know, that this is the way to go. We move in. We change things. We
make an agreement with the people in this area, on a new policy for
the entire Southwest Asia region. And we know it’ll work; we can make
it work. We just have to get Cheney and company out of the way. I
think that, even with idiot Bush we can handle it. Because his daddy
and company would recognize how dangerous the situation is, and they
probably would support it.
So, we could probably get the Executive–even with this idiot, the
incumbent President of the United States–to say, that this is policy.
If the President of the United States instituted an Executive Order,
stating it was this policy–this doctrine is policy of the United
States–then we have a deal. Then we can move. We can disengage the
troops immediately. Put the country back in the charge of the Iraqis.
We can get out of this mess.
But, the problem we immediately face–once you do that, then you got
to say, “What are you going to do about Israeli-Palestinian
conflict?” And, you’ve got to find ways–and there are ways to deal
with it. You’ve got to be flexible, somewhat, but you know what your
objective is: Your objective is to bring a durable peace agreement,
between the two forces.

PRIME MINISTER MEETS ADB DELEGATION
ArmenPress
June 2 2004
YEREVAN, JUNE 2, ARMENPRESS: Armenian prime minister Andranik Margarian
received today a delegation of the Asian Development Bank (ADB), headed
by ADB deputy secretary Amarjit Vasan. The delegation has arrived in
Armenia to have consultations on Armenia’s membership to the bank.
The government press service quoted prime minister Margarian as saying
that Armenia has already obtained huge experience in dealing with such
influential international lending organizations as World Bank, EBRD
and others, underscoring at the same time establishment of efficient
cooperation with ADB. He said Armenia has been working towards that
end since 1997.
Assessing positively the results of consultations in Armenia, Andranik
Margarian noted, pointing out to ADB’s main directions of activity,
aimed at boosting economic growth in developing countries and reducing
poverty, saying Armenia’s membership to ADB will provide the country
with an opportunity to attract additional means for quicker development
of agriculture, education, health and infrastructures.
Margarian also said that the membership will help Armenia to establish
close contacts with the countries of the region leading in IT sphere
that will give a fresh muscle to IT development in Armenia, a sector
that was announced by the government as one of its priorities.
Among other benefits that Armenia may draw from the membership,
according to the prime minister is an impetus to implementing projects
aimed at reducing the poverty volume, especially having in mind the
favorable terms on which the bank allocates credits.
Amarjit Vasan was in turn quoted by the government press office as
saying that he was pleased too with the outcome of the consultations.
He added that the general conclusion of the Bank’s board,
after negotiating with 63 member countries, World Bank and other
international lending organizations is that it is time to pass to
practical actions for Armenia’s accession.
Margarian said Armenia is ready to solve all required organizational
and other technical problems in due time, expressing hope that the
anticipated cooperation will produce good and tangible results.

Institute for War and Peace Reporting (IWPR)
June 2 2004
Armenia Aviation up in the Air
After a string of managers and failed projects Armenia’s national
airline is formally bankrupt.
By Rita Karapetian in Yerevan (CRS No. 236, 02-Jun-04)
The clue to the state of Armenia’s civil aviation industry can be
found in Equatorial Guinea, where six Armenian pilots are expected
to stand trial shortly, accused of spying and plotting a coup d’etat.
The pilots deny these charges, and the Armenian government claims
that they were in the area for perfectly innocent reasons. Foreign
ministry spokesman Gamlet Gasparian said that dozens of Armenian
pilots are being forced to find work in Africa because the state
aviation company Armenian Airlines, AA, has been declared bankrupt
and is facing a Russian takeover.
The company’s management now has just over a week to present a recovery
package to the Armenian economic court by June 12, or it will face
certain liquidation.
Opposition politicians and industry analysts are furious. “Smart
operators from the aviation industry with government support have
ruined a whole strategically important sector of the economy,” said
Dmitry Adbashian, a former AA director, who now runs the National
Aviation Union.
Most of the company’s employees have since lost their jobs and
income. According to Marietta Kazarian, head of the airline’s legal
department, the number of company employees has dropped from 1,500
to 100 people.
“Of the 300 members of the flying team, only around 30 have secured
jobs with different airlines; the rest are looking into opportunities
abroad, ” said Kazarian.
For many pilots, this could be the end of the road. “I am too old
to change my profession and start again from scratch, but I am too
young to retire,” said 51-year-old pilot Genrikh Pogosian.
According to Arsen Avetisian, general director of AA, the company
owes its staff ten months’ wages – around 250,000 US dollars in all.
“The court has decided that debts will mainly be repaid after the
company property is sold,” he told IWPR, adding that the exact scale
of the firm’s debts would only be made clear when the liquidation
process begins, but it is estimated to be between 12 and 30 million
dollars. Some opposition figures are alleging that the bankruptcy
has been deliberately planned. “Since 1998 the authorities have
been carrying out a policy of artificial bankruptcy for AA,” claimed
parliamentary deputy Tatul Manaserian.
“Debts have mounted up so as to artificially lower the price of this
company, which many people want to get their hands on,” he added.
Justice minister David Harutiunian rejected this charge, but
did concede that there had been “serious mistakes in the company
management”.
Armenian Airlines was founded in 1993 and given the status of national
carrier. The company inherited highly qualified staff, a mass of
equipment and 23 planes.
Former director Adbashian said he had drawn up plans to make the
airline, as well as Zvartnots airport and the state-run refuelling
company GSM, commercially competitive. But he was sacked and his
programme was not implemented, something which he said “pushed civil
aviation towards collapse”.
The company has been in financial crisis since 1998. AA lost out both
to competitors and to other state companies, and the fuel supplied by
GSM was expensive. Opposition parliamentary deputy Agasi Arshakian said
that GSM used its monopoly “to sell one tonne of aviation kerosene
at a price which was 100 dollars higher than the average price in
the region.”
Trade union leader Garik Mkrtchian says that a heavy blow came with
the transfer of Zvartnots airport to the management of Argentinian
businessman Eduardo Ernekian.
According to an agreement signed at the beginning of 2003, Ernekian
pledged to invest up to 100 million dollars in reconstruction and
development of the airport over 15 years. But in practice, almost
immediately after it took over the management, Ernekian’s company
increased prices on fuel, plane parking and ground service.
AA has also suffered from having 15 general directors over the course
of a decade, most of whom were not industry specialists.
“General directors who presided over mounting company debts were
replaced one after another, but no one was sacked or made to answer
for this,” AA manager Ashot Berberian told IWPR.
In March last year, the Armenian government took a decision to transfer
ownership of AA to the private Russian airline company Armavia. After
nearly 70 per cent of Armavia’s shares were sold to another Russian
company, Sibir-Avia, that company then took a controlling stake in AA.
Opposition politicians are outraged. “Armavia cannot be the national
carrier, as the controlling shareholding belongs to Russian business,
and the rest of the shares belong to a Russian citizen,” said
Manaserian.
Another deputy, Grant Khachatrian, believes that the takeover threatens
the sovereignty of landlocked Armenia, which has two closed borders
because of the Nagorny Karabakh conflict.
But the government maintains that the sell-off makes commercial
sense. Justice minister David Harutiunian said, “The state is a bad
businessman – only privatisation can guarantee the profitability
of aviation.”
Rita Karapetian is a correspondent for Noyan Tapan news agency
in Yerevan.