Waking Up The American People Is The Most Important Thing

Mike Billington Interviews Dr. Chandra Muzaffar

30 October, 2014

Countercurrents.org



Malaysian scholar Dr. Chandra Muzaffar is the

president and founder of Just International

(http://www.just-international.org/); he is a

political analyst, specializing on the Islamic

world. Dr. Muzaffar gave an interview to EIR's

Mike Billington on Oct. 1, 2014, during his

visit to the U.S. The interview was videotaped

by LaRouchePAC and can be viewed at

[[http://larouchepac.com/node/31876]]. Here are

excerpts.



{{Michael Billington: }} Chandra, you've

long led efforts in Malaysia and

internationally to end war, and bring justice

to all nations and to all peoples. You share

with our organization the idea that peace and

justice are only possible through development,

and that ending poverty for all is addressing

the most fundamental human right of all. So,

how would you describe Just and its goals?

{{Chandra Muzaffar: }}Thank you, Mike, for

this interview. I am very happy to be here at

the headquarters of the LaRouche movement, and

I'm also very pleased that we have a chance to

explore some issues in this interview. Let me

respond to your question about Just by first

stating what Just's principle aims are. Just is

an organization anchored in Malaysia, but

international in its scope.

We have a small membership, but a big

portion of our members actually are

non-Malaysians, and they come from something

like 42 countries.... We are very concerned

about global hegemony, which is one of the

reasons why Just was established in the first

instance. Because when the Cold War ended, and

the Soviet Union collapsed, that was in

1990-1991, some of us felt that we should be

vigilant about the emerging unipolar world: the

dangers posed by this unipolar world, by the

politics of the sole superpower of the day. And

this is the rationale behind Just: to critique

the hegemony that has emerged from this

unipolar world, and to see how we can offer an

alternative, which is the second dimension of

our mission.

We feel that that alternative has to

emerge from the shared spiritual and moral

values of the human family. We believe that the

unipolar world, and hegemony in all its

manifestations--political, economic, social,

cultural, intellectual, spiritual--that this

hegemony is a threat to the enduring perennial

spiritual and moral values of the human family.

Values of love, justice, and compassion, caring

for one another, empathy for one another,

kindness as a human trait. These are perennial

values. And institutions that are part of this

value system: the family, respect for the

environment, for instance, as again a principle

of living is part of that value system....



`We See Hope on the Horizon'

{{Billington:}} The world has changed

quite dramatically this past year, I think you

could say; it begins in a sense with [Chinese

President] Xi Jinping's trip to Kazakstan, and

his announcement of the New Silk Road. And

then, visiting Indonesia and Malaysia, and

announcing the new Maritime Silk Road; and now

the very dramatic development by the BRICS

nations this past Summer in Brazil, announcing

enhanced cooperation amongst themselves and

much of the world: a New Development Bank,

China's new Asia Infrastructure Investment

Bank, creating truly a new paradigm where we

see all over the world nations launching new

rail connections, canals, enhanced agriculture,

nuclear power, joining in the space

program--the opposite of what you see

here in the United States and Europe, where

everything is falling apart. So, I wonder how

you would read this global situation, the

emergence of this new paradigm?

{{Muzaffar:}} You and I, Mike, we are able

to see what's emerging on the horizon, and we

are thrilled by it. We see hope on the horizon.

But lots of people don't see these changes.

They don't interpret these changes as important

developments, as milestones, in the human

journey. And I think there's a reason for it,

why people don't see things the way we see

them, or the way we feel they should be seen.

It is largely because of the media.

The media has downplayed all these major

developments that you referred to. I can't

think of any newspaper in Malaysia, or

television station, radio program, that has

highlighted the Maritime Silk Road, which

involves us directly in Malaysia. Or any media

that has highlighted the land Silk Road, or

the BRICS, for that matter, even though that is a

development which impacts on us; all the other

things that are happening, infrastructure

development program that China is involved in,

in so many parts of the world, in Africa, in

Latin America, in various parts of Asia....

{{Billington:}} And of course while the

media is not presenting that, what they are

presenting is, the fact that the old imperial

forces in London, and New York, and Washington,

are continuing their self-destruction, as well as their destruction

globally. And that to preserve this bankrupt

financial system, it's clear they're willing to

risk a global war, perhaps a war of

annihilation.

You can see that in the developments

around Ukraine, around Syria and Iraq, and in

Asia as well, around the South China Sea and so

forth. And the wars that President Obama has

continued to wage, unilaterally, without even

appealing to the UN for support, or even to

the U.S. Congress.

Helga Zepp-LaRouche has called for a new,

inclusive world security architecture, for all

nations, based on these great development

projects, which are now in the process of

coming into being around the BRICS. I wonder if

you can comment on that, on the continuing

disaster in the West, and how we can turn the

United States around, or what's needed from the

rest of the world, like from Malaysia, in order

to help to turn America around.

{{Muzaffar:}} Let me begin with trying to

wake up the American population, because I

think that is what is most important. American

citizens should realize what is happening. You

have a society where there are multiple

channels of communication, and yet, the truth

is not known. People don't know, for instance,

why Ukraine is in crisis. They just believe

what the mainstream media has told them. They

don't know the truth behind this fac@alade.

So, we'll have to find ways and means of

reaching people, of informing them, of

educating them, or enlightening them about what

is happening. For instance, if you take

Ukraine: What is the root cause of what is

happening in Ukraine? Is it because of Crimea?

Is it because [Russian President] Putin decided

that he would act? Is this the reason behind

the crisis? Or is it because he was reacting,

rather than just igniting a crisis? He was

reacting to a situation? And what was the

situation he was reacting to?

Wasn't he reacting to the eastward push of

NATO? Something that should not have happened

at all. Because the President of the United

States of America in 1991-1992, George Bush,

Sr., he had agreed with Mikhail Gorbachov, the

Soviet leader at that time, that once the

Warsaw Pact was dissolved (and the Russians had

agreed to dissolve the Warsaw Pact established

in 1955), NATO would not expand eastwards. NATO

would not gobble up states that were part of

the old Soviet Union, or part of Eastern

Europe, which was linked to the old Soviet

Union. This was the understanding.

But the U.S. leadership went back on its

word, and they started expanding eastwards. And

you expand eastwards to a point where you are,

there in Russia, and there is Crimea, Russia's

warm-water port. Crimea is so much a part of

Russia's history. And we know that the

capital of Ukraine, Kiev, was actually once the

capital of Russia. So we're not talking of any

other state. We're talking of a state which is

so much a part of the heart and soul of Russia.

And you expand to that point and say,

``Well, we want Ukraine to be a part of NATO,

and part of the European Union.'' What is a

Russian leader supposed to do in such

circumstances? He was bound to react. So it was

the West that created this crisis. But this is

something that a lot of Americans are not aware

of. So, making Americans aware of what is

really happening is critical.



ISIS Grew Out of the U.S. Invasion of Iraq



And same thing with ISIS. The impression

given is, this is some sort of monster that has

suddenly emerged, and is threatening human

civilization. But what is the history behind

ISIS? It grew out of the American

invasion/occupation of Iraq. It was created,

al-Qaeda was created, because we know that

during Saddam Hussein's time, there wasn't a

single terrorist organization in Iraq; al-Qaeda

was created in order to fight what the U.S.

itself, in a sense, helped to create, a

Shi'a-led government in Baghdad, which emerged as

part of the democratic process, with Shi'as as

the majority. They came to power as a consequence

of the invasion, and the Shi'as had very good

relations with Iran, every Shi'a leader of

consequence in Baghdad, very good

relations with Tehran, which the

Americans are not happy about. So, what do they

do? They decide to strengthen al-Qaeda, the

Sunnis against the Shi'as; first the Shi'as

against the Sunnis, now the Sunnis against the

Shi'as.

And you create al-Qaeda, a group that was

brutal, violent, but there was a faction that

felt that al-Qaeda was not radical enough. They

broke away and formed ISIL, at that time; moved

to Syria to fight a very similar war against

Shi'as, the so-called Shi'a minority in power,

and what they saw as a secular government.

The funding for these terrorists came

from within the region, we know

that: Saudi Arabia, from some of the other

monarchies; Turkey played a very big role in

terms of facilitating the growth of this group.

In other words, Turkey was helping to transport

weapons and other military hardware to this

ISIL group training ground, headquarters, or

political activities. Jordan was a very

important training ground; the CIA was involved,

MI6 was involved.

So they created this huge monster. And

suddenly, when the monster decides to move into

Irbil, where all the oil companies are ...

they decided to respond.

And then, of course, the beheadings take

place and all the rest of it. And they decided

they must now start bombing the ISIS, or what

is now known as IS group in Iraq and in Syria.

Now, what the ending is, we don't know.

Maybe they're trying to topple the Bashar Assad

regime [in Syria], perhaps. Or, maybe some

faction around President Obama wants to do

this. Perhaps there is resistance from others

within the U.S. establishment who know the

situation and they feel that this should not be

done, to stop that bombing of IS centers in Syria.

But whatever it is, they created a huge crisis,

a crisis of their own making, with the help of

their allies and their agents,

their proxies.



- Malaysian Airliner MH370 -

{{Billington:}} As a leading

political-strategic analyst in Malaysia, you've

been quite outspoken about the failures to

investigate the shootdown of the Malaysian

airliners--both the one that disappeared

somewhere [MH370]; and the more outrageous

shootdown of the MH17 over Ukraine. What have

you--and I understand Dr. Mahathir [bin

Mohamad, former prime minister], also--had to

say and do about this, and what do you propose?

{{Muzaffar:}} You're right, they're both

shrouded in mystery. The case of

MH370, which happened on the 8th of March,

2014: that particular aircraft is supposed to

have crashed in the southern part of the Indian

Ocean. They had searched for something like two

months, and now the search is at a different

stage. But they've not come up with anything

substantial so far, to indicate that the

wreckage is in the southern part of the Indian

Ocean.

There's been a lot of speculation about

who did it, why, and so on. I

don't have to go through the whole lot of

speculations that have been floating around,

that some people link it with the pilot; and

some people say that it is something to do with

an accident that took place on the aircraft;

others think that there is something else that

happened, it could be some sort of shooting,

perhaps--we don't know.

But there is also this other theory that's

going around, that someone outside the aircraft

had deliberately turned it around; that the

capacity to turn around an aircraft from

outside--in other words, you turn off the

transponder, you turn off the communications

system, without being in the aircraft

itself--that this is something that can be done

now, and this is what Dr. Mahathir raised, in a

blog article of his, about three months ago.

He argued that, based upon an article that

had appeared in a scientific journal that

talked about Boeing's capacity to turn aircraft

around from outside, that this was something

that was developed as a way of ensuring that

9/11-type incidents don't happen; that you

should be able to prevent it, by turning an

aircraft around from outside. And Dr. Mahathir

asked whether this is true, whether it's

something that could be done. Is there such a

technology that's available? And who has access

to this sort of technology? Is it possible that

some intelligence networks had access to this

sort of technology, the CIA, perhaps, or MI6,

Mossad, whoever, has access to this

sort of technology? And why would they have

wanted to turn the plane around?

Now, as far as the technology is

concerned, I'd hope that Boeing would have

responded to Dr. Mahathir. We waited and waited

and waited; Boeing has not really responded to

him. They came out with a very general

statement saying they are cooperating with

the authorities.

But that is a specific allegation, about a certain

technology, an invention, which has horrendous

implications for aviation, travel....

There's nothing from Boeing, which makes

us very suspicious.... So MH370, very

suspicious, to this day, and the suspicion

remains.













