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 La- RouchePAC 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 peopledon’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 façade. 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’retalking 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.
And MH17
MH17, different set of circumstances. Everyone now says: Well, the plane was shot out of the sky [July 2014]. But how exactly do they know? There are people who say it was the Buk system from the ground, that brought the plane down. Others say that the plane was shot by a jet fighter that was trailing the aircraft, in other words, air-to-air. They really don’t know.
The investigations are incomplete at this moment. I think if one had a comprehensive reading of the fuselage, one would be able to come up with answers, though there are former pilots who have gone to the site, and experts, who say it looks as if it was shot in the air. There is a former Lufthansa captain, and also a Ukrainian-Canadian pilot, who was the first on the site, actually; he’s not employed by any of the airlines as such, but he was with one of the airlines before, and he also came to the same conclusion about the aircraft, how it was shot down.
So there are suspicions of this sort, but the Russians have produced data, satellite evidence and evidence from their radar, which say that this is what happened, the sequence of events, known result. They haven’t said firmly that “X” did it, or “Y” did it. They haven’t gone that far, but they say that these are the facts that we want to consider. The Ukrainian government also has radar information, but they’ve not made it public; neither has the United States, which also has access to satellite information, but won’t make it public.
So people are very concerned, this is from all sides, in both cases of course. Hundreds of people killed in each case, and in the case of MH17, apart from the Malaysians killed, a lot of Dutch citizens were also killed in that crash. I hope the Dutch public, like the Malaysian public, would pressure their governments, to make sure that there is no attempt to hide the truth. Don’t ever try to conceal or camouflage the truth. It involves lives that will be on our conscience forever. Not just of this generation, but of future generation, if this is not resolved satisfactorily. Even if you don’t provide all the answers, at least, indicate very clearly that these are, perhaps, some of the clues that point to a particular answer. We have a right to know this much.
Malaysian scholar Dr. Chandra Muzaffar is the president and founder of Just International (http://www.justinternational.org/); he is a political analyst, specializing on the Islamic world.
17 October 2014