The following is Helga Zepp-LaRouche's keynote to the Schiller Institute European Conference, November 24-25th, titled "A New Paradigm for the Survival of Civilization" This transcript is an unedited proof.
Ladies and Gentlemen, dear guests of the Schiller Institute, let me welcome you to this conference. Well, obviously, it is a rare event that a conference of this scope and international attendance is called on such a short notice. As a matter of fact, the preparation for this conference only took place over four weeks. But the reason is, that the international situation, especially in the Middle East and the possible dangers coming from that region for the rest of the world, made it necessary to have such an emergency conference.
Now, all of you know, that the situation in Southwest Asia, or the Greater Middle East, right now, is a complete and total powderkeg. As a matter of fact, one can compare it, to the situation of the Balkans before World War I. And you can easily see that just one more incident, and it could explode into a new Third World War, which, this time, in all likelihood would be a thermonuclear war, and we are literally on the edge of it. If it would happen, it is our best estimate that this would lead to the extinction of the human race, because if only a small percentile of these available nuclear weapons would be used, that would lead to a nuclear winter and after one and a half hours, most life would be extinct, and after a few weeks or maybe years, the likelihood is that nobody would survive.
Now, this is only one of the existential dangers. The other one is that the trans-Atlantic financial system is also about to collapse, and it is on the verge of a hyperinflationary explosion. The euro system is about to blow, and if you look at the absolutely devastating situations in Greece, in Italy, in Spain and Portugal, you have a foretaste of what could happen in terms of an uncontrolled social explosion and collapse in all of Europe.
Now, for any thinking person, and unfortunately there are not so many around these days, it should be obvious, that if this present trend of politics is continued, mankind is about to crash at full speed into a brick wall. The present policies have brought about the most existential civilizational crisis in mankind's history, and if they continue, mankind will have proven not be one iota more intelligent than the dinosaurs.
The purpose of this emergency conference, therefore, is to propose a complete and dramatic paradigm shift, to end the paradigm of geopolitical confrontation and conflict resolution by war, and have, instead, a paradigm where the oligarchical financial system of profit-maximizing for banksters and speculators, which right now is threatening the lives of literally billions of people, is replaced with a new paradigm, where the focus is on the "common aims of mankind" and overcoming those threats which could lead to the extinction of civilization.
This new paradigm shift must be as fundamental, and addressing the axioms underlying these policies, which must be as fundamental as that axiomatic shift which separated the Middle Ages from modern times. With all its breakthroughs in natural science, and Classical artistic composition, the difference between the Middle Ages, which was characterized by scholasticism and superstition, which was replaced by a focus on modern science and modern culture.
Now, if you look at the Middle East situation, it is good that this ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, mediated by the Egyptian President Morsi, supported by Hillary Clinton, and the UN chief Ban Ki-Moon did occur, and hopefully, at least for the time being, put out one of the many fuses, but it does not, at all, fundamentally change the situation between Israel and Iran, which is still set on a course of confrontation, and it unfortunately does not change the regime-change policy against the Assad government in Syria.
Only on the 20th November, there was an article in Ha'aretz written by a Druze-Israeli poet, called Salman Masalha, who basically, in my view correctly said that the attack by Israel on Hamas was part of a well-defined plan to take out, before the attack on Iran, the so-called "wings" in the Gaza Strip and in Lebanon, which would be activated in case of an Israeli attack and an Iranian counterstrike. And this attack on Iran is still scheduled to occur if things remain as they are, because, one should not forget that only very recently, at the UN General Assembly, Prime Minister Netanyahu presented this very strange sketch of a nuclear bomb, with red lines, and this red line was supposed to be crossed in six months.
So, two months of these six months have passed already, and Netanyahu also made a speech in the Knesset in March, where he said literally, and this is a quoted by this Ha'aretz article, "Sooner or later, Iran's forward positions in Gaza must be eliminated."
Now, just to say this as a clarification, and you will have the opportunity to hear from His Excellency, the Ambassador of Iran, his views on the matter, but according to our best knowledge, and this is the estimate of the National Intelligence Estimate this is the umbrella organization of intelligence organizations of the United States as well as the German BND basically said that there is no evidence whatsoever that Iran has resumed its nuclear weapons program, which it discontinued in 2003, but that, naturally, given the volatility of the whole situation, Iran is pursuing very actively a policy to be nuclear capable, so that if some attack occurs, which also is the general estimate, would not eliminate the nuclear program of Iran entirely, but then it could proceed very quickly to develop a nuclear bomb. But that is a big difference from having an active nuclear weapons program right now.
Now, what else was the intention behind the targetted killing of the military leader of Hamas, Ahmed Jabari, on the 14th November. This had set an escalation into motion, leading to a boiling rage of many people in the Arab world, and hopefully, by the ceasefire, this has calmed down a little bit. But that alone is not enough to put out the fire which is already burning.
Now, look at what Turkey is doing. They are obviously a member of NATO, and they have officially requested the deployment of Patriot missiles and approximately 170 Bundeswehr soldiers to be deployed at the Turkish-Syrian border. Now: For what? Well, Germany seems to capitulate to it, because there is a gigantic pressure applied, that Germany, who did not participate in the Iraq War and not in the Libya War, must now be involved in any new NATO campaign, because of loyalty to the Alliance.
Now, so far, there was nothing coming from Syria in terms of weapons against which the Patriots would be effective. So far, only grenades and artillery was fired, and there, it is also not so clear from whom; it could have been the rebels, it could have been provocations, it could have been the Syrian Army, but the cui bono? has to be asked on this, as well.
Now, NATO chief Rasmussen assures us that the deployment of these Patriots are only for defensive purposes. But, what about the statement of the British Prime Minister Cameron, who has said, that sooner or later the British government would be involved in establishing a no-fly zone over some territory of Syria. And what about the statement of the Chief of the Defense Staff of Great Britain, Gen. Sir David Richards, who said that it's just a question of time, when British forces will intervene in Syria, if the so-called "humanitarian" situation worsens.
Now, once these Patriots are deployed, what counts is not words, but in military terms, what counts is capability, and once this capability is there, well, if there you have an escalation, they will be used, and the Patriots do represent the capability to participate in the enforcement of a no-fly zone over parts of Syria, and that is absolutely unacceptable for Russia and for China. And that is why the Russian government immediately, after this announcement of the Patriots deployment, basically warned that this leads to a very dangerous destabilization of an already extremely unstable region. As a matter of fact, if this happens, we are on the course of a third thermonuclear world war.
And I don't know what causes this German government and some of the opposition parties to follow this insane policy, because it will lead to the destruction of Germany! Germany is in this Alliance, and therefore a target of everything which will happen. And I want to really appeal to all of you, to help us, to make that an issue. Because the thing which is really extremely upsetting, is that civilization is on the verge of World War III, and there is no debate about it! If you remember, 50 years ago, during the Cuban Missile Crisis, there was extensive discussion what would be the consequence: President Kennedy, at that time, warned that the people who would die within the first minutes, would be better off than those who died weeks later. When there was a middle-range missile crisis in the beginning of the '80s, there were hundreds of thousands of people in the street! And now, we are in a much, much worse situation, and neither the media, nor the politicians have anything to say! The general population doesn't know, that we are on the edge of extinction.
Now, the question is, how could the world come to this point: When the Soviet Union disintegrated between 1989 and '91, there was the historical chance to create a peace order for the 21st century, because there was no longer an enemy. It would have been possible to completely reorganize the world and establish a development perspective. Unfortunately, at that point, in the United States, the neo-cons emerged in the old Bush Sr. administration, and they decided, together with the British, Margaret Thatcher at that time, to run the world as an empire, based on the "Anglo-American special relationship." The first step was to turn Russia from a superpower, into a Third World raw-materials producing country, during the Yeltsin period: This was done with the help of the shock therapy, privatization; the Russian productive potential collapsed, between '91 and '94, to only 30% of its previous levels.
At the same time, the policy of regime change was established against any country which would not submit itself to this idea of an empire. This led to the second Gulf War, which started on 2nd August, 1990, which supposedly was an attack by Iraq against Kuwait, but you remember the treacherous words by U.S. Ambassador to Baghdad April Gillespie who encouraged that, and therefore contributed to this war. This drive was then interrupted for eight years of the Clinton administration, in which, among other things, the Oslo Accords, occurred.
But then, in the background, the neo-cons, all the time, continued with this policy. In 1996, there was written a policy document by a study group led by Richard Perle, for Prime Minister Netanyahu, which was called, "Clean Break," and this was a complete rejection of the Oslo Agreement which demand a comprehensive peace with the entire Arab world, and it suggested that Israel should work instead, with Jordan and Turkey, to "contain, destabilize, and roll back, the governments of the neighbor countries, of Iraq, Syria, Iran, and Lebanon."
Then, from February 1998 on, the Blair government, in league with Netanyahu, was putting pressure on President Clinton, for a regime change in Baghdad, which supposedly had weapons of mass destruction. President Clinton initially rejected that, but then, when hew as under the impeachment threat because of the Monica Lewinsky affair, he basically authorized the Operation Desert Fox, in December '98. Then, one year later, in 1999, Tony Blair made the infamous Chicago speech, where he announced the Blair Doctrine, which basically said that from now one, it would be justified everywhere in the world, to have humanitarian interventions, and this was also the same year in which globalization really went into high gear with the financial deregulation, which he had also demanded in his speech which led to the repeal of Glass-Steagall, the full, unregulated free trade and environmentalism, also the health policy of the National Health System of Great Britain, which is this euthanasia/triage policy. All of this was announced in this speech by Blair.
Now, Blair, in his speech, praised the long history of British relations with "Chicago-land," and maybe there is also the reason why he was the election advisor to President Obama for the entire present year.
Now, on 3rd January, 2001, my husband, Lyndon LaRouche made a prophetic webcast, because he said that the Bush Jr. administration which was coming in, three weeks later, would be confronted with such problems of the financial system, that they couldn't handle it, and that they would therefore, be tempted to make a new Reichstag's Fire incident. Now, this was prophetic, indeed, because exactly eight months later, September 11th occurred.
And in the commission which investigated the events of September 11th, by both the Congress and the Senate, the leader of this commission, Sen. Bob Graham basically pointed to the fact that classified 28 pages which were never published, and which President Obama had promised to immediately declassify, once coming into office, and this was a demand by the families of the victims of the World Trade Center, that that should be open, because it pertains to the role of Saudi Arabia.
Now, we have published extensive documentation of the role of the British Aerospace Enterprises (BAE) in the so-called Al-Yamamah deal, which pertains to the British-Saudi financing of Sept. 11th, and all of this is documented very well. This official document from the U.S. Congress, except these 28 pages; but Senator Graham gave an interview to the Huffington Post on Sept. 11th this year, where he demanded that, and explicitly talked about the role of Saudi Arabia.
Then, the third Gulf War started on 20th March, 2003. This had no UN mandate, it was done by the "coalition of the willing." Now, this was all based on a memorandum by MI5, which basically said that Iraq would have weapons of mass destruction, they would have the ability to reach any major city in 45 minutes around the world, that Saddam Hussein would have relations with al-Qaeda. You remember the yellowcake story of supposed nuclear material from Niger. And Colin Powell, the then-Secretary of State, used this memorandum to justify, in a speech to the United Nations, the attack on Iraq. And it turned out, it was all a lie, and Colin Powell is on record for having said that this speech was the biggest mistake of his life.
Now, then, you had in the fall, last year, the so-called humanitarian intervention against Libya, and at that point, the Obama Administration was in full gear to continue the regime-change and it would have already continued against Syria, against Iran, but really, against Russia and China, but for the international mobilization Mr. LaRouche initiated, which the Schiller Institute did worldwide, and very importantly, for the Chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Dempsey, who intervened again and again. You know, when Susan Rice, for example, said "now all options are on the table," then he would intervene and say, "no, Iran has a rational government and we can negotiate"; or he warned against military intervention against Syria. And the reason is very simple: That the U.S. military knows fully well, what an outbreak of war would be. And you can judge it yourself, and compare the reasonable statements by the U.S. military, and the bellicose statements by the administration.
Now, at the recent conference of the National Council of U.S.-Arab Relations, the former U.S. Ambassador Chas Freeman gave a devastating account of this policy. As a matter of fact, he sent his speech to this conference, and probably we can read a short excerpt from it, because from a strictly internal American point of view, he points to the complete failure of this policy and that it did not serve American interests, but to the contrary, that the Iraq War was not a "cakewalk" which would pay for itself, which was the line before it happened, but that it killed 6,000 U.S. soldiers, wounded more than 100,000 I'm not even talking about Iraqis; it cost $3.4 trillion, and now it has not a pro-American government, but a government which is more leaning more towards Iran and where you have the danger of a Shi'ite-Sunni confrontation.
Now, the U.S. influence in the region is not enhanced, and Chas Freeman also makes the point that it has not demonstrated the power of the United States, but the limitations of U.S. ability to accomplish its aim. Now, if the aim was, he says, to demonstrate the U.S. rule of law, and the superiority of U.S. liberties, well, unfortunately, the world has experienced Abu Ghraib, the denial of the Geneva Convention protections for its enemies, and it leaves the United States "morally diminished." Afghanistan after 11 years, has killed 2,000 Americans, has wounded, 16,000, and the only thing left now, is a more or less shameful exit, because the people who being trained to take over security are now turning around and killing those who are training them.
The "Arab Spring," at best, was not an Arab Spring, but a Salafist awakening; the drone war has killed 5,000 people without legal process, without accusation, with recourse to courts, and al-Qaeda is not finished, despite the rather bestial perpetration of the killing before running video cameras, but al-Qaeda is strengthened, and has spread to Pakistan, Yemen, North Africa, the Sahel zone, and other places in Europe and Asia. So the U.S. influence has not been strengthened but weakened and what is left is mere military power as such.
The United States unfortunately, has, as of now, completely taken over this Blair Doctrine, and it's called "right to protect." The Obama Administration has instituted something called the Atrocities Prevention Board, which draws up lists of countries in which humanitarian violations occur, and which are scheduled for intervention.
Now, then, you have to take in addition, into the picture that the NATO and U.S. missile defense system, which is being built in Eastern Europe and some of the Mediterranean, is regarded by Russia as an encirclement, together with the eastern expansion, and General Makarov, the former Chief of the General Staff, said Russia can not accept that because it does destroy the Russian nuclear second strike capability, and therefore, destroys the strategic balance. Now, China has reacted in a similar way to the new alliances which the United States has formed in the Pacific.
Now, if you look at the immediate situation concerning Syria: While in the case of Libya, Russia and China still were neutral, but after they saw that the so-called "humanitarian intervention" in Libya was really a full-fledged war, with the bestial assassination of the former President Qaddafi, who did not enjoy the protection of the Geneva Convention, they are now vetoing in the UN Security Council and therefore, you have, in the case of Syria, the immediate clash of the Putin Doctrine versus the Blair Doctrine. The Blair Doctrine saying the Peace of Westphalia of national sovereignty is over, humanitarian interventions are allowed. The Putin Doctrine, which he deliberately sent to all the governments when he came back as President, this year, says, that Russia absolutely upholds the UN Charter which guarantees the national sovereignty of every country.
Now, this could clash while we are talking here.
Secondly, the situation with Iran has equally the potential, because it is very clear that Israel alone, can not really carry out such a mission, because of the distance, the refueling, the various other limitations, and therefore, the aim is to pull in the United States. Now, if this happens, then it is really the end of civilization.
Now, the whole problem is aggravated by the fact that we are right now seeing the collapse of the trans-Atlantic financial system, which is the end result of the same imperial policy caused by the repeal of Glass-Steagall and the full deregulation of the financial markets.
Now, the absolute desperation of the people in Greece, in Spain and Portugal, and also Italy which is not so much reported, but the suicide rate in all of these countries has tripled, quadrupled, people are just completely desperate, and this gives you a foretaste, for what could come.
I'm in contact, and the Schiller Institute in general, we are in contact with many economists, who privately tell you, that what these governments, with their EU austerity policy and bailouts are doing, is completely irresponsible, because it come to a sudden collapse of the banking system, with incalculable social consequences, and it is quite telling that both the EU and Great Britain, and also the Swiss government, all have made contingency plans for the collapse of the euro, and the total collapse of the international financial system.
Now, the question therefore, is, if you look at these two mortal dangers, the danger of thermonuclear war and the danger of a financial collapse, the question is, when we are in mortal danger of extinction as a human species, do we have the moral fiber and the intellect to change the paradigm in time? Or, will we prove no more intelligent than the dinosaurs?
What we need to do, is to introduce a complete new perspective into the international discussion, and propose a solution on the level of reason, on a higher plateau, than all the different historical, ethnic, religious conflicts represent. Something everybody can recognize as more beneficial t themselves and future generations, than the pursuit of the present supposed self-interest. We have to do exactly the opposite of the Blair Doctrine: We have to reestablish the principle of the Peace of Westphalia, which, after all, was only accomplished because 150 years of religious warfare and the Thirty Years' War on top of that, had destroyed large parts of Europe, up to a point where it was clear, that the continuation of the war would leave nobody to enjoy the outcome.
And that was the condition under which the people of the Peace of Westphalia were sitting down for four years, and developed this accord, which became the basis of international law the UN Charter.
Now, let's recall the first principle of this Peace of Westphalia: For the sake of peace, it says, all crimes committed by one or the other party, must be forgiven and forgotten. Now, if that is not applied, there will never be peace.
The second principle, for the sake of peace, all policy from now on, must be in the interest of the other. Well, that is the foundation on which peace can function.
And thirdly, not in the document as such, but as a consequence, in the aftermath, it was the formulation of the importance of the sovereign nation-state, and the role of that state in the reconstruction of what was destroyed by the war, on a more advanced level than it had existed before. And that was then what led to the beginning of physical economy, in the form of cameralism.
Now, what we propose concretely is an economic development plan for the entire region of Southwest Asia. The Greater, Near, and Middle East, and I want you to imagine the entire region maybe we can have the slide of the region, with the Eurasian Land-Bridge for the region of the Middle East of the Caucasus, Central Asia, Afghanistan, Iran, the Gulf States, the Arabian Peninsula, Israel, Palestinian National Authority, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, Turkey, and Iraq, as one space, as one integrated space. So, rather than this area becoming the cockpit of the thermonuclear destruction of the planet, we should make it one of the most prosperous and well-developed regions of the world.
Now, the desert, please: Now, if you look at it, you see an enormous area of desert, which starts, really, from the Atlantic coast of Northern Africa, and it stretches all the way through the Arabian Peninsula into Western China, and it encompasses a region of 13 million sq km.
Now, just imagine now you have seen it many times on television the bombed out cities of Gaza, of Baghdad, of large parts of Syria, and well, we see a region which is completely devastated, where the average income of many people is $800, but not per month, but per year, and this is the reason why it is not easy to have peace, because if you have that poverty, and you see what is going on, the recruitment of terrorism is not so difficult.
But, this picture does not have to be the only vision, because this region did not always look like that. At the end of the last Ice Age, it was mostly covered by vegetation. Now, in your mind, if you condense the last 20,000 years, since the last Ice Age, into a five-minute computer animation, you can see how the desert expanded. And the desert is still expanding; five years ago, the United Nations was warning that if the desert expansion would not be reversed, soon it could lead to the displacement of 50 million people or more.
But there was also a period where this region of the world was almost the high point of the entire globe! This was the period of the Silk Road, the period where, in this region, you had the largest exchange of goods and cultures, flourishing of trade, urbanization, architecture.
Please, the pictures of Baghdad: Baghdad during the time of the Abbasid dynasty, according to this artist's rendition, was the most developed city in the world. You had more literate people, more books, more libraries.
This is when [Caliph] Haroun al-Rashid was having relations with Charlemagne, and in that period, they collected all the knowledge of the Mediterranean, from Egypt, from Greece, from Italy, from Spain, and emissaries would bring the knowledge to the different caliph, like al-Mansour, or Haroun al-Rashid, and they would weigh them up in gold for what they found. And when Europe was destroyed, after the collapse of the Roman Empire, much of the knowledge of the high period of the Greek civilization, or other advanced periods were lost, and it was only through the connection of Haroun al-Rashid with Charlemagne that Europe could rediscover its earlier roots!
Here you have the first hospital; this is a water clock, given to Haroun al-Rashid; this is another beautiful gift given to him. This is Haroun al-Rashid playing polo. Now, I find this very amusing, because, you know, it just shows you, they had leisure to do these things. This is the House of Wisdom in Baghdad. This is also a school and pupils.
Here is Ibn Sina, who is not from Iraq, but I think he's from where Iran is presently, and there were many thinkers: al-Farabi, al-Kindi, Ibn Sina, who were really in the tradition of Plato, and carried on the work of Plato. Ibn Sina was also a master of medicine and he had very advanced studies of the body can we see that? Here is his work translated into Latin. Here you see how his influence spread. As a matter of fact, Ibn Sina was so famous, and so advanced in terms of his medical studies, that it took until the 17th century in Europe, before his knowledge was surpassed.
So, there is no reason why this Golden Age of the Persian and Arab Renaissance should not be revived. I mean, in the same way that European cultures are disconnected from their high points, Italy is not on the level of the Italian Renaissance; Germany is not on the level of its own Classical period; but there is no reason why the not only Europe, but also the Arab, Persian, Islamic world can not revitalize on a modern level, but with connecting with the roots of its earlier Golden Age.
Now, there is just a tremendous lack of infrastructure and industrial development; there is almost no agriculture, because of a total lack of water. You can fly for five, six, seven hours over this area of Northern Africa and the Greater Middle East, and you can look out and you do not see one green spot. I did this once, and I was looking, where are the oases? And there were none!
So therefore, what we have to do, is treat this whole region as a part of the World Land-Bridge. This is a concept, which grew out of a proposal which was made by Mr. LaRouche and myself in reaction to the collapse of the Soviet Union, and this was our first proposal which we presented in 1991, which was the idea to connect the population and industry centers of Europe with those of Asia, through so-called "development corridors," and we used, after studying it in depth, the existing lines of the Trans-Siberian Railroad and the Old Silk Road, because they, for geographical reasons, were just the optimal locations, and we proposed to have intensive cooperation of all the countries of the Eurasian Land-Bridge.
Now, this was our idea of a peace order for the 21st century. Now, in the beginning, and we had literally hundreds of seminars and conferences about it. People said, "Yeah, this would be a nice idea, but it's utopian. Who should finance it?
But it grew into the World Land-Bridge: which is, right now developing, and it is being realized, and what was only an idea in the beginning, is now in different degrees of realization through the governments of China, Russia, South Korea. And basically the idea is to take the Middle East development program, as an extension of this World Land-Bridge.
Because, what I'm saying here, and what will be developed further, also later by Hussein Askary, will only work if we can convince the governments of Russia, China, India, Iran, hopefully some European nations, and hopefully the United States, which abandons the policy of Anglo-American special relations, and returns to the policy of John Quincy Adams, of a perfect alliance of perfectly sovereign countries, and then it can be realized.
Now, the first priority has to be a war on the desert. Because one of the biggest problems in this region is the lack of freshwater, and for that we have to focus on three key problems: One is the diversion of the Arctic Central Asian water flows, but also such projects like the Turkish GAP project; the Peace Pipeline of Turkey, which was never realized. It must include the Oasis Plan which has been proposed by Mr. LaRouche since 1974. It must especially focus on nuclear power desalination, and underground water reservoirs.
The approach has to be the same as what we proposed with the North American Water and Power Alliance (NAWAPA), which is the largest infrastructure project ever undertaken by mankind, which is the idea to take the waters flowing into the Arctic Sea, and bring them through a pump system, along the Rocky Mountains all the way into Mexico. And that would immediately create 6 million jobs. This is under active consideration right now in the U.S. Congress as a result of our work.
Now, the idea about it, is to have a human intervention, to upgrade the biosphere, through the redirection of the flows of water in great amounts, causing vegetation to develop, and then, with the aid of the work of photosynthesis, the vegetation evaporates water, it comes to cloud formation, new rain patterns, and new regional weather patterns.
Now, I only want to identify some key projects which will be later elaborated by Hussein, but just to set the framework for what I'm going to say afterwards: First, we want to have the Aral Sea basin developed, because the Aral Sea has shrunk to 10% of its size, and this presently is an acute problem for all the countries of Central Asia. It was the result of the depletion through the monocultures in the Soviet era, and has turned most of these countries into salt wasteland, where wind storms redistribute salt in the lands of Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, and is hurting agriculture and the health of human beings.
Secondly, we want to have a major river diversion project, for example, to redivert the water from Pechora River which flows into the Arctic Sea, into the Volga River via Kama. And this will eventually pump 19 cubic km of water into the Caspian Sea system of canals, into the Caucasus. This was a project already on the drawing boards during the Brezhnev era, and at that time, the cost estimate was only $4 billion, which obviously is not a lot. And this project was then totally killed during the Gorbachov period.
We also want to have the Rivers Ob and Irtysh redirected through a 2,550 km long canal, lifted 300 meters up through a system of six pumps into the Aral Sea. This will then also go to the Sib-Aral Canal. Now, at the beginning, only 7% of the discharge of these two rivers will pump 26 cubic km of water into the Aral Sea, and in the second phase, 60 cubic km through enlarging the canal to be able to carry larger ships. Then we also want to build, following the Turkmen canal, for ship travel from the Black Sea via the Don-Volga Canal, to build the Eurasian Canal across the Russian part of the Caucasus, to Afghanistan and the Aral Sea. Then, Central Asia will be connected to the Atlantic via the Mediterranean, and to the Indian Ocean and through the Suez Canal and to the Atlantic through the Mediterranean. This then, will not only function for shipping, diversified agriculture, because cotton is the most water-intensive crop, which really should not be used in these areas.
Now, if this happens, the Aral Sea will be rich, filled with fish populations again, which used to be, and this irrigation of the area will also moderate the climate.
Then another project, is an underground pipeline, of 4-5 meter in diameter, which will draw water from the Turkmen Canal into the very fertile Caspian central area of Iran. Water should be pumped over the [Elgords?] Mountains, into central Iran, to central Iranian cities west of Mashhad. This pipeline can be built rapidly, since this region is already well connected to the Eurasian rail line which goes through Mashhad. The Iranian government already has initiated several of these projects, to fight the spread of the desert, and is working with the Central Asian countries. The Iranian government wants to build waterways for ships between the Caspian Sea and the Persian Gulf, and there are other well-defined projects, some under way, some in the drawers, and some only in the minds of engineers.
For example, there is this project called the Turkish GAP, which goes through southeastern Anatolia, and this is modelled on the Tennessee Valley Authority project. It started 22 years ago, and eventually will have 22 dams for electricity, water management, irrigation and flood control. It will be in the southeast of Turkey, and it will include 10% of land area between Euphrates-Tigris Basin and the southeastern plains. Eventually it will make possible 1.7 million hectares of land for agricultural use.
Now, obviously, this area is located on the borders of Turkey, Syria, Iraq, and Iran, with a heavy Kurdish population, and this is obviously now, one of the crucial hot spots of the crisis. But the development perspective is the only way how peace can come to this region, and it is a very, very impressive project.
The centerpiece of this GAP is the Ataturk Dam, which is one of the largest in the world: It brings water into the plains of Harran, Mardin and Ceylandpinar plains making possible enhanced production of agriculture and industry.
Now, in 1993, during the Oslo Accords, there was an Arab-Israeli peace process going on, where the idea came up of the Turkish Peace Pipeline. Now, this never materialized, but it was the idea of moving water from Turkey to Israeli and Palestine, Jordan, to the Arabian Desert states of the Gulf region, and then a western pipeline into the Ceyhan and Ceyhan River, which are now flowing unutilized into the Mediterranean in Adana, through separate pipelines. Now, they would have brought, and will bring, water, one in the west, through Syria, Jordan, Israel, Palestine, and one to Saudi Arabia, which will eventually be 2007 km long, and one in the east, through Syria, Iraq, Kuwait and other Gulf States, altogether, 3900 km long. And they will carry 16 million cubic meters of water a day.
Now, in 1975, Mr. LaRouche travelled to Baghdad for an annual celebration of the Ba'ath Party, where he had the opportunity to talk to many leaders of the Arab world and he toured some of the previous irrigation systems of Iraq, and he came back with the idea of the Oasis Plan. This is the crucial idea of using nuclear power plants for large-scale desalination of large amounts of ocean water.
Now, presently both the International Atomic Energy Agency, the government of Iran, the Gulf Cooperation Council, and France, have made various studies of the cost and efficiency of having desalination plants run by nuclear energy, rather than by gas. Iran presently is the only country which has a large civilian nuclear power plant, in Bushehr, since 2001, which was worked out through the collaboration of Iran and Russia. The original design by Siemens from the early '70s, also had the idea of large-scale water desalination plants, which are not yet included, and Iran is planning several new nuclear reactors, including desalination of seawater.
The United Arab Emirates have presently an agreement, the Emirate Nuclear Energy Corp. (ENEC), established in 2009 in Abu Dhabi, a deal with South Korea to build together with the Korea Electric Power Corp., Kepco, four nuclear plants, 1,400 MW nuclear energy to be ready by 2020. The first one was started this July 2012. The Saudi government has plans to build 16 nuclear plants by the year 2030. The United Arab Emirate-South Korea cooperation includes the training of Emirati engineers in South Korea. In Saudi Arabia, the original intention of the King Abdullah City for Atomic and Renewable Energy, included a training program, and this is not really continued as far as I know, but presently, the big Achilles' heel of Saudi Arabia is the almost total reliance on foreign labor and expertise.
Now, it is very obvious, that if the LaRouche Oasis Plan of 1975 would have been implemented, a lot of bloodshed and misery would have been prevented. At different times, leaders of both Israel and Palestine agreed with LaRouche to go in this direction. For example, the Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres, at the time, and Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, in 1985 launched a campaign for a Marshall Plan for the Middle East. In '93, when the Oslo Accords were signed, the world came very close to the potential realization of these plans. But, there was a big problem: As Lyndon LaRouche had underlined, and emphasized, that this peace plan could only have success, if immediately, the population in the impoverished region, especially in Palestine, would immediately see earthmoving machines begin to work, so that the population could have a perspective of a better future.
Now, this was totally sabotaged by the World Bank and the international community. The World Bank had a conference on the 20th September '93, and explicitly refused the funding for infrastructure projects, water, and energy. Peres and Rabin at that time, talked about a budget of $50 billion to get this program going. Now, $50 billion compared to the approximately $25 trillion which were used alone to bail out the American banks shows you the proportion of these things!
Now, what we have to do, is, we have to have the extension of the World Land-Bridge into this region, and it must go together with other crucial infrastructure projects, such as greening the deserts through water management and building transport lines. The Gulf Cooperation Council States are already building internal railway networks, which are supposed to be finalized by 2017, and there are studies to connected Saudi Arabia to Egypt, through the south Aqaba Gulf, through Sinai, and this was under way for years, but only interrupted by the crisis.
Now, the objective of this project is to build rail connections, among others, for the travel of the Muslim pilgrims from North Africa to arrive by air, sea and land. Another project is the Bab-el-Mandeb Strait Bridge between Yemen and Djibouti. This was done by a Danish firm, Kovi [ph], and it basically collapsed with the collapse of the Dubai real estate bubble, but it could be the most important land connection between Asia, and Sub-Saharan Africa. The idea is also to build a bridge or a tunnel across the Strait of Hormuz, and to renew the more than 100-year-old conceptualized Ottoman-German Al Hejaz Railway, which is supposed to connect, or is connecting the holy cities in western Arabia, to Turkey and through Jordan and Syria. The Berlin-Baghdad Railway does exist, and it is the idea to extend it to the Gulf province of Al-Hejaz Railway, but it must be urgently modernized. Saudi Arabia has plans to connect to the Iraq railway, and Iran has already connected a rail line from Bandar Abbas, the port in the Gulf, to Turkmenistan through the Mashhad-Sarak connection which was established in 1996, which reestablished the Old Silk Road.
Now, this connection from '96 was a major breakthrough. This occurred when, in Beijing there was the large conference with 34 countries participating, discussing projects for the 34 regions along the Eurasian Land-Bridge, and at that time, Beijing declared that to be the long-term strategic perspective for China. It was then interrupted because of the Asia crisis in 2007-2008, but it is now the Eurasian Land-Bridge is fully back on the agenda.
Another line between worked on between Russia, Iran and Azerbaijan, through the Caucasus to Europe, is underway.
Presently, individual countries have various projects in progress. Some are collecting dust in the drawers, or others are not even yet worked out in feasibility studies. Now, how do you solve the problem, that you have some rich countries which have a complete lack of developed labor, some countries are very poor, some have educated workforce but a lack of resources how do you get development for the region as a whole? Well, what you have to start with, is a unified conception, a vision how this region should look like in 20, 40, or even 50 years. And then, decide among all the governments involved, to pursue this development as a conscious war-avoidance strategy. There have to be preparatory conferences by the transport and science ministries, and they have to work out the details of this plan, which we only sketch out here, and then it has to be announced to the people of this region, as the intention.
There should be a declaration in the tradition of the Tehran of 1943, where Franklin D. Roosevelt had his personal representative, Gen. Patrick Hurley, present the declaration regarding Iran, which promised independent sovereignty and territorial integrity to Iran. FDR also commissioned an economic development plan and assistance in the building of the economy afterwards. Now, I take now a quote from this Tehran Declaration, but I change it so that it does not concern only Iran, but the whole region, and I'll change three words:
"The inauguration in all the countries of the Greater Middle East," instead of Iran, "of the American pattern of self-government and free enterprise, will be an insurance that the proceeds from development of the resources of the countries of the region will be directed substantially to the building of schools, hospitals, sanitary systems, irrigation systems and improvement of all facilities contributing to the health, happiness, and general welfare of the people of the region. This plan of nation building may be improved through our experience in the region, and may become the criterion for the relations of the United States towards all the nations which are now suffering from the evils of greedy minorities, monopolies, aggression, and imperialism."
Now, all that is necessary is that the United States goes back to its tradition of the Founding Fathers, of Benjamin Franklin, of Lincoln, of John Quincy Adams, of Franklin D. Roosevelt, and there is a strong tradition of that in the United States!
Now, presently, the question naturally arises, who should finance this? One could ask polemically the question, what is it worth to avoid the extinction of civilization, which would occur if this is not implemented? Now, I can assure you, it will never be built in the world of the old paradigm of globalization, because that system is about to disintegrate in a hyperinflationary explosion.
Therefore, this system has to be replaced by a credit system in the tradition of Alexander Hamilton, the first Secretary of the Treasury of the United States, and the formation of a National Bank.
Now, this policy has been echoed by the Reconstruction Finance Corp. of Franklin D. Roosevelt; it was used by the Kreditanstalt fόr Wiederaufbau to develop the Marshall Plan in Germany in the postwar period, and with the help of this policy, Germany was turned from a rubble field in 1945 in only a few years, into the famous German economic miracle, which has been admired by the whole world.
Now, what needs to be done, therefore, is that each participating nation establishes a National Bank, which give credit lines for these clearly defined projects. And then you need a multinational, long-term agreement between the governments and that multinational agreement does represent the new credit system. The credits must be long-term and low in interest rate, and they must be entirely determined by criteria of physical economy, and lead to the maximum increase of energy flux densities, which automatically means, that, for example, oil will not be used for fuel purposes, but as a resource for chemical production.
So, we are not looking, explicitly, for foreign investments, but the credit system will provide credit for future production of real physical goods. This is a concept understood by almost nobody, but this policy of credit lines for future production, as compared to bailouts for past debt, is very crucial to understand. There is a very good chance that in this interim period, between now and the new year, when the new Congress comes into office, that the chance exists that in the United States, the Glass-Steagall law will be reimplemented. There is presently a motion in the whole country, not only in the U.S. Congress, in the Senate, but also among many regional savings banks, even the Republicans have a big drive; some people from Wall Street, even some people in the City of London, have recognized that all these rules, the Volcker Rule, the Vickers Commission, the ring-fencing, all these watered-down versions have not functioned, and that only a full-fledged return to Franklin D. Roosevelt's Glass-Steagall Act, can solve the problem.
Now, if that happens, the commercial banks will be put under state protection, and the investment banks will have to clear their books on their own, without having access to the savings accounts of the commercial banks or being bailed out by taxpayer money. And then, it is very likely that some of these banks will have to declare insolvency.
At that point, you need a credit system, because there will not be enough liquidity around for the economy to function. At that point, credit lines for future production, as compared to hyperinflationary bailout packages for past debt, will come into play.
Now, this goes back to the conceptual policy of Friedrich List, and the Customs Union, the development of the German economic development in the 19th century, and it was Friedrich List, who in his writings made the very clear difference between the British and the American System of economy. The British system, he describes, at great length, is based on monetarism, free trade, "buying cheap and selling dear," which is the present system of the World Bank, the IMF, the WTO, and all the leading financial institutions, and they are about to go bankrupt.
The second system, the American System of economy, is totally different: It goes from the assumption that the only source of wealth, is the increase in productivity of the labor force, and that it is therefore, in the interest of the state, to develop the cognitive powers of its citizens, in the best possible way.
Now, this American System was then continued and elaborated further by Henry C. Carey, who was the economic advisor of Lincoln, which he outlined in his writing The American System of Political Economy. And also, almost not known, is the fact that through the influence of the U.S. ambassador in Berlin, George Bancroft, and the friend of his youth, John Lothrop Motley, and Wilhelm von Kardorff, who was the founder of the Central Association of German Industry, the German Chancellor Bismarck became a believer in the American System of protectionism, and became a follower of Carey and List.
Now, the reason why Germany developed in the end-period of Bismarck and after that, very quickly, from a feudal economy to one of the leading industrial nations in the world, was because of that: That Bismarck rejected free trade, rejected monetarism, and went into state protection of the building of the state.
Now, the same thing occurred in Japan, with the Meiji Restoration. Now, Japan was isolated for many centuries after it had kicked out some Jesuit and other monks, and was completely cut off from the rest of the world. But then, in the middle of the 19th century, some economists travelled to Germany and to Holland, and they got acquainted with the writings of Friedrich List and Henry C. Carey, and they implemented it in the Meiji Restoration. And in a few years, also Japan became one of the leading nations of the world.
Also the industrialization of Russia, under Count Witte, who was a devout follower of Friedrich List, occurred exactly in the same way.
Now, obviously, what I'm saying now, is totally going against the present policies, and it goes totally against the so-called Project of the '80s which were launched actually in '75, by the Council on Foreign Relations, and the Trilateral Commission, which had a project which was called "the controlled disintegration of the world economy." They worked on about 22 studies which were all published by McGraw-Hill, and the basis thesis was, to never allow the Japan model again! At that time, they said, one has to prevent socialism to merge with mercantilism, which was the key and code word for industrialization of Third World countries.
The problem is, if we don't stop this kind of colonialist thinking, we are not going to make it as a species. Therefore, what we have to do, is to make a conscious jump in the evolution of mankind: Rather than squabbling over limited resources, and pursuing supposed "geopolitical interests," we have to, at this grave hour in history, define the common aims of mankind.
Now, when the Middle East is one area where this paradigm shift has to occur, the second large area is other threats, which are threatening the planet as a whole. You have the danger of thermonuclear weapons, the U.S. NATO missile defense system, which is regarded as unacceptable by Russia; and that has to be approached in the way how the present Deputy Prime Minister of Russia Dmitri Rogozin has formulated it with the Strategic Defense of the Earth.
Now, LaRouche and a team of young scientists have worked out a conception which is in the tradition of the Strategic Defense Initiative which my husband had proposed at the end of the 1970s into the beginning of the '80s, which was a comprehensive proposal for the replacement of nuclear weapons, through weapons based on new physical principles, which later became the SDI. As a matter of fact, President Reagan had announced it to be official American policy on the 23rd March 1983. It was rejected by the Russian government at that time, with the argument that it would bring more advantages to the West, and at that point, because Reagan had proposed two times, American cooperation by the application of these new physical principles in the civilian economy, and therefore, the argument of Russia at that time was not valid.
But at that point, Mr. LaRouche had said, if the Russian government sticks to the rejection, it will disintegrate in five years. Now, nobody believed that, but history has proven, the Soviet Union did disappear as a result of this rejection.
Now, this SDE proposal, LaRouche has now, with his team, developed into a strategic defense of the planet, not only from thermonuclear missiles, but also the growing danger of the impact of asteroids and comets, where presently mankind does not have yet, a feasible technology to avoid that, but also early warning systems against earthquakes, extreme weather, volcano eruptions, and so forth.
Now, all of these are threats which are not specific to any one nation. But the survival of the entire species depends on our ability to either control or adapt to these processes.
Now, earlier this year, two small asteroids flew by the Earth only 14,000 km distance. This coming February in 2013, the asteroid with the name 2012DA14 which has a diameter of approximately 45 meters and weighs 14,000 tons, also flies by relatively closely; it probably will not hit Earth, but it can become a real danger for the very many satellites which are circling the Earth.
Now, a larger rock, 2011AG5 will pass Earth in 2023 and 2028. In 2040, it could come to an impact of an asteroid with 140 meter diameter, which could already lead to the destruction of middle sized nation.
Now, the impact of an extremely large object, of about 10 km diameter, created a 180 km diameter crater in Chicxulub, in the Yucatan Peninsula of Mexico. Now, it is a good hypothesis that this impact created the conditions for the elimination of not only the dinosaurs, but over 80% of all species. The most recent large impact, occurred in Tunguska, Siberia, in 1908: This was only an object of about 30-50 meters across, but it created a crater the size larger than area of greater New York City.
And as I said, as of now, here you see the asteroid size as compared to the energy released, and the effect of impact, or comparable events, and you can see, that already with 10,000 km, you have the complete extinction of the human species. And, here you see, that only a certain small amount of these asteroids is known. There are many asteroids whose location is not yet on the radar screen.
As of now, as I said, there is no method to protect the planet Earth, and it is obvious that these asteroids don't respect the Schengen agreement, or other border agreements, so does it not make sense to form an international cooperation to defend mankind against such threats?
This afternoon, we will have the opportunity to hear from the one of the participants in the IGMASS conference, which took place in September in Ukraine; IGMASS stands for International Global Monitoring Aero-Space Systems, and we will hear what is the status of research at that point.
Now, following the earthquake and tsunami hitting the area of Fukushima on 11th March 2011, obviously, not everybody in the world reacted so insanely to this event as the German government. Rather than exiting from nuclear energy, without adequate replacement, and going into the utopia of "decarbonization of the world economy" which is the formulation used by the Potsdam Institute for Climate Research and Mr. Schellnhuber, the Commander of the British Empire, as he proudly calls himself, a decarbonization of the world economy, meaning, getting rid of not only nuclear but also gas, oil, and so forth, would only mean a carrying capacity of 1 billion people!
Now, contrary to this insane German policy, many nations increased their research into seismic precursors for earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, but also spotting large fires, extreme weather, and integrating the investigation into the interaction of different effects, which occur before such earthquakes. For example, anomalies in gravitation, special effects in the ionosphere, exit of gasses from the Earth's crust, changes in the temperature of this crust, instability of the rotation of the Earth, and other such geoeffective phenomena, like the activities on the Sun, and so forth.
Now, obviously, we need an integrated system of such early warning systems, and the next leap in evolution of mankind also requires, for that same reason, manned space travel, for the same reason rocket scientist Krafft Ehricke, who participated in the Apollo program, what he called the "extraterrestrial imperative." Now, he has this beautiful development, showing how evolution occurred by life developing out of the oceans, and conquered the land with the help of photosynthesis, and then, when man appeared, the first settlements occurred on the coasts of the oceans and the mouths of rivers. Then, with the help of the development of infrastructure, man started to build roads, canals, and conquer the interior of the land. Then with the invention of railways, mankind was able to more deeply penetrate the continents, a process which we are still in the middle of, as we saw concerning the lack of infrastructure in the Greater Middle East.
Now, Krafft Ehricke had the conviction that the next necessary step for this evolution has to be the colonization of space, especially manned space travel. And in the beginning, in the so-called Near Abroad, Moon and Mars, but later in the future, beyond that. Now, with the landing of the Mars rover Curiosity, we have a fantastic preview of the future capability of mankind. With only 14 minutes delay that is, the amount of time it takes for the signals on the earth stations to arrive at Mars we can now have sense-impressions on Mars. We can see, hear, speak, we can have experiments with lasers, we can investigate the properties of Mars [shows video of Curiosity landing], we can now see the experiments of this rover, and this gives us a tremendous reason for optimism. An optimism which did not exist, since the Apollo program, where, if you would have asked young people at the time, what they wanted to become, many times, they would have answered, "I want to become an astronaut, a cosmonaut. I want to develop these things." And this can now be put back on the agenda.
Now mankind is the only species capable of discovering ever new physical universal principles, universal principles in science and Classical art, and the truth does not lie in the so-called sense-experience, but in the process of the progress in the knowledge of these principles. What enables man to continuously perfect this process, is his innate capacity for creativity. Nikolaus of Cusa, the great philosopher of the 15th century, called this the vis creativa, the creative power of man: When man is creative, he discovers new principles which correspond to the real laws in the physical universe, and he can upgrade the biosphere through the intervention of the noφsphere, as Vladimir Vernadsky put it.
Now, the fact that man can discover these principles is the proof that there is a coherence between the lawfulness of the creative mind, and the laws of the Creation, the physical universe. Because if an immaterial idea, a hypothesis, a thought, leads to changes and improvement of the physical universe, then such a cohesion must exist, otherwise, it would not work.
Now, this is also called natural law, and you can violate this natural law, the order of the universe, for certain periods, but you can not do it for an extensive period, or the laws of the universe will strike back on you. Now, we are now at such a point, where a continuous violation of the laws of the universe, the nonapplication of creativity, as the basis for our daily procedures, is becoming a threat! And we have now the total moral test of mankind: Are there enough human beings, in light of the possible extinction through thermonuclear war, are capable of responding in this way?
Now, we are being tested: We are being tested, do we have enough people who are working together for a plan which clearly shows a way out? Can you help us, and be part of a mobilization to convince the governments of the world to abandon a narrow-minded, geopolitical confrontation, and make the kinds of the changes which are necessary to guarantee the survival of the human species? Now, I know that this is possible. I know that the human mind is absolutely capable of making such leaps, of thinking things in the imagination like a great composer, like a great poet, like a great artist. And I think that we need to have the collaboration of the wise people of the planet, of the scientists, of the artists, for a common purpose, and the common survival of civilization.
Now, I don't want to belittle the danger, because the danger is absolutely gigantic! I think if most people would know how close we are to the edge of thermonuclear war, they would not sleep. And I don't want you to go away from this conference, and sleep! I want you to be upset. I want you to be totally upset, and worried, because only that will give you the energy to help us, to try to change this. And the reason why I'm optimistic, anyway, and in spite of this, because if you would have shown the picture of Curiosity to a Stone Age man, the Stone Age man would have probably said, "Bah! You are crazy, it does not exist!" Well, this is only a couple of thousands of years ago, and if we do these projects, what I laid out to develop a level of reason in international politics, a plateau of cooperation among nations, then, I think if you just think where mankind can be in 1,000 years from now can we see the final picture? In a thousand years from now, mankind can be more developed than the comparison with the Stone Age man, today.
