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The follow-on continues along important lines of action furthered in China last weekend, when national delegations from many continents met on development initiatives, at the time that Russia and China announced their strategic document, “Joint Statement of the Russian Federation and the People’s Republic of China on the International Relations Entering a New Era and the Global Sustainable Development.” In this spirit, yesterday’s international webinar co-hosted by the Schiller Institute and Russian International Affairs Council (RIAC) on the subject, “The Humanitarian Crisis in Afghanistan—Toward a Long-Term Solution”— took the dialogue on strategy to the highest level of the question of mission for humanity.The war bloc faction is beating the drums at a roar. U.S. National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan today gave a White House harum-scarum briefing that Russia may invade Ukraine “in a very swift time frame,” and Americans should depart Ukraine within 24 to 48 hours. President Biden had a secure-video meeting with trans-Atlantic leaders today, including heads of state and agency directors of Canada, France, Britain, Germany, Italy, Poland, Romania, NATO, the EU and others. He will speak by phone to President Vladimir Putin tomorrow morning. The Kremlin reports that this call was set at Biden’s request. Sullivan’s remarks were replete with “possibles” and “maybes,” but no evidence that a Russian attack is set. “It may well happen soon.” Reports are that Britain and Denmark have likewise called for their nationals to exit Ukraine. This is the situation—both acutely promising and acutely dangerous—at the time of the third anniversary of the passing of Lyndon H. LaRouche, Jr., February 12, 2019, whose historic contribution of brilliant creativity and profound love for humanity are a living legacy of inspiration for our work today. The LaRouche Organization Manhattan Project is broadcasting a special, commemorative program on Saturday, at 2 pm (EST), titled, “On the Third Anniversary of Lyndon LaRouche’s Passing: Why the World Needs the LaRouche Method of Discovery.” Among the initiatives regarding the Afghanistan crisis, there are multiple meetings now set for March, including the March 22 ministerial meeting in Islamabad, Pakistan of the Organization for Islamic Cooperation, and a mid-month UN-hosted event on humanitarian aid. Near the end of March the six neighboring nations to Afghanistan will meet in China, including the Afghan’s acting foreign minister. During the month, Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoyev will visit Islamabad to meet with Prime Minister Imran Khan. On Feb. 6, ministers from Uzbekistan and Pakistan conferred in person in Beijing, including meeting with Chinese counterparts, on major Afghanistan projects to benefit all Eurasia. They conferred on the Trans-Afghan Railroad, and the Uzbek-Pakistan Transit and Trade Agreement (UPTTA), which would connect to the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, and generally interconnect with the continental Belt and Road Initiative and Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU). They also conferred on immediate humanitarian aid to Afghanistan, some of which arrives by Uzbek rail. Meantime, the need is desperate for multi-nation, full-scale emergency aid—medical, food, fuel, water, and shelter from the winter cold, plus agriculture inputs for spring planting. This week in Switzerland, a delegation of the Taliban government met with relief agencies, such as Doctors Without Borders, under the rubric of the Geneva Call group. In the U.S., testimony on the emergency was given Feb. 9 at a hearing of the Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on Afghanistan, by the head of the International Relief Committee, calling for stepped-up action. This morning, the U.S. made extensive reference to this humanitarian crisis, announcing its disposition of the $7 billion (of the total of nearly $10 billion) of Afghanistan national assets frozen in the Federal Reserve Bank of New York since last August. (The remainder is frozen in Germany, Switzerland, and the U.A.E.). By Presidential Executive Order signed today, $3.5 billion are to be lined up to go as donated aid for the Afghan public, but outside any Taliban government channels; leaving $3.5 billion to be lined up for eventual settlement of multiple lawsuits by victims of 9/11. Notwithstanding the benefit of aid, this is a glaring act of override of the principle of national sovereignty, in which, in particular, Afghanistan needs its rightful assets to shore up its banking functions, currency and to resume economic functioning. No nation is sovereign without this, and now the U.S. has decreed against it. Former Afghanistan Finance Minister Kaylid Payenda denounced it this morning, as “morally and ethically wrong” and one which will have “long-term consequences, not just in the region, but globally.” This action will show “what sort of ally the U.S. is perceived to be in the future” and Ukraine should be watching. This U.S. imperialistic “administrative” act is in line with the war policy now pushed to the extreme in Europe against Russia, and in the Indo-Pacific against China as well. U.S. Secretary of State Tony Blinken is in Australia, where a statement was issued today by the QUAD—U.S., Australia, Japan, India—with chest-beating rhetoric about joint commitment to vanquish any nation (not named) in the Indo-Pacific, that offends the “rules-based order.” Translated: Obey whatever the U.S./U.K./Global NATO bloc demands. This must stop. Helga Zepp-LaRouche, Schiller Institute President, underscored the significance of the role of every citizen, everywhere, and of the institution of the Schiller Institute, in her weekly strategic webcast today, to organize for the dialogue and mobilization for the right policies “to guarantee the long-term survival of our humankind.” As she said about the historic Russia-China Feb. 4 summit statement, “I think it is shaking things up for good.”

In commemoration of Lyndon LaRouche's passing on February 12, 2019, we invite you to meet, or reacquaint yourself with the mind and the personality of one of the greatest geniuses of the last 100 years. Genius without beauty is not genius at all. Join our LaRouche marathon, and bring your friends young and old alike.

Feb. 10—Pentagon spokesman John Kirby announced yesterday that Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin has picked billionaire environmentalist “Mussolini Mike” Bloomberg to chair the Defense Innovation Board. Kirby said that Austin had nominated Bloomberg to “leverage his experience and strategic insights on innovation, business and public service.” Kirby added that Bloomberg will bring “a wealth of experience in technology innovation, business and government to the Defense Innovation Board.”“His leadership will be critical to ensuring the department has access to the best and brightest minds in science, technology and innovation through the team of diverse experts that he will lead as chair of that board,” Kirby said. “And obviously the secretary is very grateful that Mr. Bloomberg was willing to take on this additional responsibility and very grateful that he’s willing to serve in that capacity,” he continued. The Hill notes that the Defense Innovation Board is an advisory board that was established in 2016 to provide the department with recommendations on emerging technologies and innovative approaches to development. In other words, it was created as part of then-Deputy Secretary of Defense Robert Work’s Third Offset Strategy to “leverage” Silicon Valley into making the U.S. military technologically superior to Russia and China. “Innovation and adaptability are absolutely critical at any large organization, and there is no organization bigger or more complex than the Department of Defense,” Bloomberg said in a statement. “I’m honored to work with Secretary Austin, Deputy Secretary [Kathleen] Hicks, other senior Defense Department leaders and innovators from government and business to help bring new ideas and outside perspective that can help protect Americans and our values, interests, and allies around the world.”

Helga Zepp-LaRouche stated today that the agreement released following the summit between President Putin and President Xi last week was extremely important, and has shaken things up in a positive way. The two leaders reasserted the concept of peaceful coexistence, which includes non-interference in other nations' affairs, reflecting the principles of the Bandung conference. Coming at the time of the ramping up of tensions between NATO and Russia, it is shaping the potential for a new international geometry, which requires a discussion of a new security architecture.President Macron's meeting with Putin pushed things in that direction, and other smaller countries are speaking out -- for example, Pakistan's President Imran Khan. She is hopeful about what might come from Germany, but agreed with Zakharova, the spokeswoman for the Russian Foreign Ministry, that Germany remains a "U.S. protectorate." The other major development she highlighted was the Schiller Institute-RIAC seminar yesterday addressing achieving a solution to the humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan. She described the announcement by President Biden that the U.S. will release funds frozen by the U.S. which belong to Afghanistan, which can be used to purchase food, medicine, etc., is a "step forward", but what is required to fully overcome the crisis there is the cooperation of all major powers, with the regional powers, to fully integrate the country into the regional economy.

Patrick Lawrence, one of the few honest journalists in the U.S., together with economist Marshall Auerback, published a piece in Scrum on Wednesday that identifies the extraordinary joint statement by Presidents Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin on Feb. 4, in the same manner that Helga Zepp-LaRouche and EIR have stated and the British Empire’s Daily Telegraph admitted negatively—a new era, an era without geopolitics, has emerged, based on the respect for all humanity’s right to security and development. As Lawrence and Auerback put it in their title: “The World Just Turned—Ukraine and the Putin-Xi Statement.”Some quotes from this important article: “[W]e are living it and cannot see it historically without great effort. But we are living through a passage of the 21st century whose long-term significance is hard to overstate. The future is arriving, to put the point another way. Who would have guessed it would come to us by way of the ongoing morass in Ukraine? “On the ground, the crisis in Ukraine sharpens by the day. This is the point of Washington’s incessant efforts to provoke Russia into an incursion that will justify a proxy war on the part of the U.S. and those few allies hawkish enough to follow its lead into the cesspit of corruption and crypto—Nazism on the Russian Federation’s southwestern border. “But on the ground is not where to look if we want to understand this long-festering crisis and its likely outcome—not as of last week. When Presidents Putin and Xi issued a declaration of mutual solidarity as the Winter Olympics opened in Beijing last Friday, all changed, changed utterly. What the Russian and Chinese leaders had to say in 5,300 words puts the mess in Ukraine in a fundamentally new perspective. What happens there will stand as a mile marker and nothing more on the way to a global order most of humanity has awaited throughout the postwar decades—all seven of them. “This is immensely positive.” They describe the Joint Statement (published in full in this week’s EIR) as a “document of historic magnitude.” comparing it with the joint statement at the 1955 Bandung Conference in Indonesia, of the formerly colonized nations, declaring the principles of freedom, sovereignty, the right to development, and respect for all nations. Xi and Putin fully backed Russia’s call for a new security architecture which, following the OSCE, insists that one nation’s security can not be at the expense of another. But the Xi-Putin statement is universal, they write: “Now what might have been resolved by way of a new settlement on European and Russian security has become a question of a genuinely new global order. This is what happened in Beijing last week. Secretary of State Blinken, his spokesman, Ned Price, National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan, the Pentagon, the intelligence apparatus, the NATO leadership in Brussels: None of these appears capable of addressing this new reality.” The authors point to an emerging “Eastward diplomatic démarche French President Emmanuel Macron is currently leading, compared to an”American campaign of propaganda and disinformation that is almost certainly the match of anything marshaled during the Cold War," pointing to the absurd, unsubstantiated accusations flowing from the White House and the State Department on a daily basis about Russian dirty deeds. The two gleefully reference AP’s Matt Lee’s showdown with State Department spokesman Ned Price, in which Lee referred to wild stories as “unhinged conspiracy theories, in Alex Jones territory.” The authors point to the color revolution in Ukraine in 2014 as the “first major misstep” of the unipolar world’s hubris. Putin, they note, quickly called the referendum in Crimea, arranged a $400 billion natural gas deal with China, and launched a “global hands-across-the-water tour of Latin America, Africa, Asia, and the Middle East to begin expanding relationships with non—Western nations.” Now, Xi and Putin have “submitted nearly 40 times since the Kiev coup. What began on the economic and trade side now has political and military dimensions.” The Xi-Putin statement, they write, “is a bilateral statement announcing a new world order altogether, with an attendant aspiration to advance sustainable economic strategies worldwide.” They quote from the statement, that “a trend has emerged towards redistribution of power in the world; and the international community is showing a growing demand for leadership aiming at peaceful and gradual development”; they also note the statement’s attack on “certain states” who are, the statement says, “flouting democracy and go against the spirit and true values of democracy. Such attempts at hegemony pose serious threats to global and regional peace and stability and undermine the stability of the world order.” The two authors conclude by pointing to the Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence which Zhou Enlai signed with India, which were then incorporated into the 10-point declaration at the 1955 Bandung conference. They print all 10 points verbatim, adding: "We quote them in full because it is instructive to read them next to the Joint Statement. They are historical ballast. They remind us that there is nothing very strange or outré, and certainly nothing overly ambitious, about the world Putin and Xi envision: It is the world two-thirds of U.N. member nations and more than half of humanity desired before the Cold War buried their postwar hopes and aspirations. The Russian and Chinese leaders have just demonstrated that these hopes and aspirations were never extinguished. Maybe it is as simple as this. “Hardly do Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping propose an easily, swiftly completed project. (And hardly will a solution of the Ukraine crisis prove easy or swift.) Great movements in history never work that way. And that is what Putin and Xi have just described.”

Feb. 10—As further confirmation of EIR’s documentation that it is the economic crisis which is driving the rush to war with Russia and China, the Norwegian Central Bank announced on Feb. 4 that the new head of the nation’s Central Bank will be the current NATO Secretary General, Jens Stoltenberg, one of the most belligerent of the Western leaders preparing for war with Russia and China. Stoltenberg finishes his term as NATO chief on October 1, and will switch over to his new job as central banker, where he will undoubtedly continue his mobilization for war. He will also be in charge of the world’s largest sovereign wealth fund—$1.4 trillion. Stoltenberg was the leader of Norway’s Labor Party, was Norwegian prime minister from 2000-01 and 2005-13 before becoming NATO chief the following year. He has also been finance minister and energy minister. Reuters reports that former finance minister Siv Jensen, in office from 2013 to 2020, last month urged Stoltenberg to withdraw from the process, arguing that his appointment would damage the central bank’s credibility and reputation. The deputy head of Norway’s main opposition Conservative Party, Tina Bru, had also argued against Stoltenberg’s candidacy, calling it unwise to appoint him.

The pathetic attempt by UK Foreign Minister Truss to imitate her model, Margaret Thatcher, in her confrontation with her Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov, fell flat, as she came off looking like an ill-prepared buffoon. At the same time, the French and Germans saw in a Normandy Four meeting in Berlin, that the Russians are right, that it is Ukraine -- NOT Russia -- that is blocking the fulfillment of the Minsk Accords. And the EU's version of a Green Build Back Better plan was hit by a blow from Senegal's President, who said Africans are more concerned about having electricity than in meeting the COP 26 agreement's demands on hydrocarbons.

The Russian International Affairs Council (RIAC) and the Schiller Institute (SI) will be convening a seminar on Thursday, February 10, 2022 at 8 AM EST on the topic, “The Humanitarian Crisis in Afghanistan: Toward a Long-term Solution."Among the topics to be addressed by a panel of six speakers will be:: What are the causes of the Afghan humanitarian crisis What are the geopolitical implications of a failed state in Afghanistan What is needed to reverse the immediate threat of mass starvation and refugee problems A long-term solution to the humanitarian crisis: the role of the global powers Opening and closing statements will be presented by Dr. Andrey Kortunov, Director General of RIAC, and Helga Zepp-LaRouche, chairwoman of the SI Additional speakers will include:Ivan Safranchuk, Director at the Center for Eurasian Studies of MGIMO UniversityTemur Umarov, Fellow at the Carnegie Moscow CenterJim Jatras, U.S. diplomat, former advisor to U.S. Senate Republican leadershipGraham Fuller, 25 year career as a CIA operations officer, author Questions may be submitted to questions@schillerinstitute.org

Feb. 9—“The world is currently in an incredibly dangerous situation, with a Cold War that threatens to become a hot war at any moment,” Helga Zepp-LaRouche stated in an interview on Pakistan PTV World’s “Views on News” broadcast today. We are the proverbial 100 seconds away from the midnight of a nuclear catastrophe, a war danger that is playing out around the extreme tensions around Ukraine. The United Kingdom and the United States are putting massive pressure on Europe to fully join the drive to push Russia into a strategic corner and launch scorched-earth economic sanctions and attacks on that country. But, as of this moment, Europe is not fully on board—as can be seen in German Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s trip to Washington, and especially French President Emmanuel Macron’s six-hour discussion in Moscow with Russian President Putin. They are increasingly aware that the current policies of confrontation, driven by the breakdown of the trans-Atlantic financial system, cannot continue, or they will succeed in blowing up the entire world.But we are also witnessing the beginnings of a gigantic international political and economic realignment as well. “I think we should not underestimate the incredibly historic meeting which took place between Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin during the Olympics, where they concluded a new strategic partnership which is a new model for international relationships,” Zepp-LaRouche stated. What this reflects is the fact that the unipolar world is over, and countries around the world—from Pakistan to Argentina to Hungary—are responding to that new reality. “It takes politicians and the media a while before this reality sinks in,” Zepp-LaRouche noted. “Europeans right now are really completely scared about the possibility of the Ukraine crisis going out of control,” Zepp-LaRouche stated, "and they are trying to put a new model on the table. But I believe that something else is needed. We are right now at a branching point of all of history, and we need a new model of international relations, where thinking in terms of geopolitics, in terms of blocs, in terms of wars of one against the other within a zero-sum game—this has to be overcome." A new international security architecture based on the universal economic development of all nations must be forged, even as we stand at the very edge of a terrible existential danger. “We must fill people with hope that it can be accomplished,” Zepp-LaRouche told a meeting of Schiller Institute associates today. Americans in particular must ensure that the United States joins with Russia and China in forging constructive solutions to the world’s problems. The Feb. 10 joint seminar of the Schiller Institute and the Russian International Affairs Council (RIAC) on “The Humanitarian Crisis in Afghanistan: Toward a Long-Term Solution,” is one such urgent forum.

Feb. 8—We begin by providing a short report, otherwise unavailable to Americans, of what went on in the six- hour discussions that occurred several days ago between Presidents Vladimir Putin of Russia and Emmanuel Macron of France. It should be noted that simultaneously with these discussions, President Joe Biden was meeting with Chancellor Olaf Scholz of Germany. Prior to their respective meetings with the United States and Russia, Scholz and Macron had spoken on the phone, and they also spoke on the phone immediately after those meetings had concluded. Macron then went to Ukraine to meet with President Zelensky, and was to return to Germany to consult with Chancellor Scholz after that meeting.President Putin: "I am deeply grateful to Mr President for discussing these matters in Moscow today. I believe that these security matters concern not only Russia but also Europe and the world as a whole. “Look, our proposals include not only NATO’s expansion, which we oppose, but also a second point: the non-deployment of offensive systems near our borders. If everyone wants peace, tranquility, well-being and confidence, what is bad about not deploying offensive weapons near our borders? Can anyone tell me what is bad about this? “If NATO is a peaceful organization, what is bad about returning its infrastructure to the level of 1997, when the NATO-Russia Act was signed? This would create conditions for building up confidence and security. Is this bad? “We can let the open-door pledge be, even though the issue remains on the agenda. It is a key priority for us, and I have explained why. We talked about this for six hours. “Tomorrow, President Macron will fly to Kiev. We have agreed that he will at least put forth his action plan regarding this. I am deeply grateful to him for giving so much attention to this and that he is trying to find a solution to this matter of great importance to all of us.” President Macron:… "I think that it is first of all France’s responsibility to have the strongest possible relationship with Russia. We are two great European nations and great world powers. We are two permanent members of the UN Security Council. “Bilateral relations are of great importance for us, firstly, to have them develop, and to have common decisions on acute international issues. We are trying to do so on the Iranian issue and attempting to find a point of contact on Libya and other matters. We do have disagreements but we still find compromise. This is obvious to me. “Secondly, I think that President Putin and I agree that Russia is a European country. Those who can see Europe should be able to work with Russia and find ways to build the future in Europe and with Europeans. Is it easy? No, but Europe was also created through difficult initiatives that had immediate effects. So, yes, we do have difficulties but we must not give up. “Finally, this is France’s mission, it is its role. During these six months we are presiding in the European Union. Our role is to make the voice of the European Union heard and take into account a variety of complex circumstances in communication with such neighbors as Russia, which plays a decisive role in our security, and listen to all Europeans as well. I have been doing this over the past days. Being here I am trying to be the person who can make a contribution to finding this proper way. “I have a simple conviction. Do we increase our collective capability for making peace without our contacts with Russia? No, we do not. Who do we leave this role for? For others. “We do have disagreements. We realize that. Sometimes we fail to move forward and it is the result of such disagreements. However, we are trying to find compromises. I consider it to be my responsibility. Our task is to make sure that these compromises protect the interests of our partners and allies. This is why in the coming days and weeks we must start this difficult work, find new decisions in order to protect these guarantees while still protecting our basic principles and our neighborly relations, because our geography will not change. This is why we carry on.” Serious negotiations and diplomacy have been underway involving a day-to-day dialogue among the heads of state of Germany, France, Russia, and United States, as well as Ukraine, not only to prevent the potential outbreak of war, intended or unintended, but also, in the words of Macron, to “jointly show the will to work on security guarantees and to build a new security and stability order in Europe.” That fact has been suppressed from the consciousness of the American and European citizenry, in favor of media sideshows aptly characterized by Russian spokesman Maria Zhakarova as “psychedelic phobias.” In that vein, “The Ned Price Experience” was once again called out on Monday by reporter Matt Lee, this time supported by a colleague. State Department spokesman Ned Price attempted to falsify his exchange last week with reporter Lee, who had simply asked Price for any evidence to corroborate his “State Department-approved” assertion that Russia had manufactured a “false flag” video depicting an attack by Ukraine on Russia, including using “crisis actors” a la Alex Jones. In Monday’s exchange, in which Price again refused to provide any evidence whatsoever, Lee again asked, “Do you have anything more that you can say to back up the claim than you did— than you had to say last week? That’s all.” Price: “Beyond what we told you last week …in pretty detailed terms about the Russian plans … We don’t have anything further to offer on that.” Second reporter: “Then you’re saying the proof that you’re correct is that nothing is actually going to happen? Is that what you’re saying? … because you putting this out there will have stopped the Russians from doing it, correct?” While the practice of State Department-Speak (StateSpeak) has been previously satirized over decades by authors like Joseph Heller and Kurt Vonnegut, the Ned Price and other responses on Ukraine are now more like the dialogue in “Waiting For Godot—” self-assured opaqueness, unassailable by reason, but internally consistent and therefore “obvious” to the speaker alone. Whatever NATO’s objections to reality, however, last week’s Russia-China agreement underscores a reality that was extensively discussed by Lyndon LaRouche exactly 40 years ago in his “A Fifty Year Development Program for the Pacific Ocean Basin”: the center of gravity of human civilization has shifted to Africa, Asia, and the Indian subcontinent, the homes of more than five billion of the nearly eight billion people on the planet. NATO’s strained “sphere of influence” discussions with respect to China and Russia are the equivalent of using Ptolemy’s discredited epicycles to draw more and more elaborate “revisionings” of an “old, mad, dying imperial world” that is being decisively transcended through investments in advanced power, space, and production systems applied to mining, manufacturing, and agriculture, creating a whole new world platform—and the people who will produce and benefit from this transformation. Those who don’t intend to miss out on Earth’s next fifty years of progress, are “making it clear with their feet” which side of the future they intend to be on. The State Department’s hapless flailing, while it should be derided, must also be taken seriously; it serves to mask the actual foreign policy practice of the United States, its “Iago-like” controller Great Britain, and that of other equally guilty participants, in the ongoing death-by-starvation- and-depraved indifference in Afghanistan and Yemen, most spectacularly, and in the use of sanctions against vulnerable states throughout the world. Attention was called to this in the Monday United Nations Security Council session, in the Open Debate on “General issues relating to sanctions: preventing their humanitarian and unintended consequences.” Unlike Cambodia 1975-79, the world cannot pretend to not know what is happening there. The United States cannot pretend to not be responsible. The individual citizens, armed with social media and other forms of communication, cannot claim that they are powerless or voiceless to stop one of the cruelest forms of murder, starvation. Dante’s Count Ugolino could at least claim that he ate his children out of extreme hunger. Today, we are as Count Ugolino, with respect to our consumption of the lives of perhaps a million or more children in Afghanistan, either because we defend the genocidal policies now under way, or because we fail to overturn them. The Russian International Affairs Council (RIAC) and the Schiller Institute (SI) will be convening a seminar on Thursday, February 10, 2022 at 4 PM Moscow time/2 PM CET/8 AM EST on the topic, “The Humanitarian Crisis in Afghanistan: Toward a Long-term Solution.” Join us and help implement the Institute’s Operation Ibn Sina, not only to save Afghanistan, but to, by that means, save the soul of trans-Atlantic civilization.

Why is it that U.S. nuclear war exercises are good, as we are told they are "to secure our freedoms", but Russian exercises are described as a prelude to invade another country? Who has invaded more countries in recent years, the combined U.S./NATO forces, or Russia and China? Which alliance has used false flags as an excuse for war, organized Color Revolutions to carry out coups, and imposed sanctions to punish innocent civilians? The lying narratives must stop! The Schiller Institute will hold a joint event with the Russian International Affairs Council on Feb. 10 to discuss a solution to the crisis in Afghanistan. Join us: https://schillerinstitute.com/blog/2022/02/07/seminar-the-humanitarian-crisis-in-afghanistan-toward-a-long-term-solution/

The din of war in the trans-Atlantic media, the drumbeat of “Russian attack and invasion,” has now reached a crescendo. Can there still be some Leonard Bernstein of London who will raise the orchestra of the intelligence services to a still louder pitch, until American and European publics actually believe that a Russian military invasion of Ukraine is underway? Will some stiff-necked journalists continue to demand actual evidence?On Feb. 5 the Financial Times took the podium, with “U.S. Believes Russia Plans Nuclear Exercise To Warn West over Ukraine.” It declared with the London media’s usual evidence-freedom that “U.S. military and intelligence officials believe Russia is planning a major nuclear weapons exercise this month as a warning to NATO not to intervene if President Vladimir Putin decides to invade.” This nuclear weapons exercise should be in September, the FT decides, but the bully Putin is going to hold it in February or March instead to intimidate NATO when the invasion goes ahead. The invasion that, according to NBC on Sunday, Biden Administration officials believe is coming “any day now.” “Russia generally holds its annual nuclear exercises—which involve testing intercontinental ballistic missiles from land, sea and air—in the fall,” wrote the FT. “But the U.S. believes Putin has decided to hold them earlier this year as a show of strength in the event that he orders his military to further invade Ukraine” probably in “mid-February to the end of March.” Then a somewhat unintelligible—perhaps crazy—analyst from the Hudson Institute is quoted, of this hypothesized February nuclear exercise, “It would be an incredibly provocative and foreboding message if they did that simultaneously with an invasion of Ukraine.” What the FT presented as its war scoop—similar to Bloomberg News’ short-lived headline, “Russia Invades Ukraine,” on Feb. 4—actually was already apparently stated to the Congress Feb. 3 in closed-door, classified testimony by Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Mark Milley and DNI Avril Haines, and then leaked to Fleet Street. What about the fact that the United States right now is holding nuclear weapons exercises, called Global Lightning 2022, which exercises are intended to simulate an extended nuclear war, with first strikes—nuclear and conventional—retaliatory second strikes, responses to those strikes, and on, with more and more of the nuclear arsenals being fired? Nothing such inconveniently directed threat matters, facing the “Russia is invading Ukraine” drumbeat. But it does matter to its real target, the human race. Helga Zepp-LaRouche in a new article said of Global Lightning, “This nuclear war plan includes not only nuclear weapons but various other lethal systems such as missile defense systems, directed energy weapons such as electromagnetic pulse weapons and lasers, cyberattacks, and Space Force attacks from space. Who would be able to survive such a prolonged nuclear war?” There are some signs of motion toward a solution: French President Emmanuel Macron’s negotiation with Russian President Vladimir Putin gave signs of immediate, possibly productive follow-up from both sides. But the real solution can only be found in the direction Zepp-LaRouche indicated. The financial system is an immense mass of unpayable debts preparing to crash again, worse than in 2008, and the City of London and Wall Street can survive it only if they beat down Russia and/or China before it crashes, distracting millions in the process from perceiving the failing monetarist system. A new paradigm of economic as well as moral and cultural relations among the great powers is the antidote both to the coming financial crash, and to the resort to unsurvivable war. A New Bretton Woods credit system is urgently needed which can save Afghanistan and other war-destroyed nations, and build modern healthcare systems in every country to save people from pandemics.

"A nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought" Schiller Institute International Online Conference, two panels Saturday, February 19, starting 10 a.m. EST The Schiller Institute will hold an international online conference on Saturday, February 19 to reassert that very sane declaration by the five nuclear powers and permanent members of the UN Security Council, which they affirmed in a joint statement on Jan. 3 of this year. The conference will also present a {solution} to the current crisis: the establishment of a new security architecture that guarantees all nations the right to security, and to economic and cultural development. To do that, a dialogue about the causes and the cures of the current crisis is urgent.In the last week of January, the U.S. Strategic Command launched the Global Lightning exercise to test the readiness of US nuclear forces under a nuclear war plan, operative since 2019, based on the assumption that the United States and NATO would be able to survive a nuclear first strike by Russia or China, then retaliate, absorb further attacks, retaliate again, etc., in an ongoing military confrontation. President Putin had announced Russia's new nuclear weapons systems in 2018, including the Avangard hypersonic missile, the hypersonic cruise missile Kinzhal, nuclear-powered cruise missiles, fast underwater drones, and laser weapons. This was an enormous shock to the western military establishment. But President Putin was responding to the 2004-2014 color revolutions and so-called "humanitarian" wars against all governments who opposed having their own nations looted. The $5 billion spent on NGOs in Ukraine alone is well known, which eventually became the Nazi Maidan coup of February 2014, on Russia’s very doorstep. On Dec. 17, 2021, Putin presented two draft treaties to the United States and NATO, insisting that there be no further eastward expansion of NATO (especially into Ukraine), and no offensive weapon systems stationed on Russia's borders. Given the lack of serious response so far, Putin has announced "military-technical measures" in the event of a definitive refusal.One American expert has written that he thinks Russia’s “military-technical measures” may include deploying sea-launched hypersonic Zircon nuclear-armed cruise missiles off the coast of Washington, D.C., which Russian experts have previously said could destroy the American capital so quickly the President would not have time to board Air Force One to escape. More and more people are waking up to the fact that there are only the proverbial hundred seconds before midnight left on the Doomsday Clock.To stop the clock, the causes of war must be addressed: 1) The hyperinflationary final phase of the trans-Atlantic neoliberal financial system; and 2) the deadly fantasy of the financial establishment in the City of London, Wall Street and Silicon Valley that they can impose their "rules-based order" in their eternal unipolar world.The root causes trace back to the shift of August 1971, prophetically recognized by Lyndon LaRouche, when Nixon effectively ended the Bretton Woods system by abolishing fixed exchange rates and thus paving the way for speculative profit maximization. This caused the increasing shift away from investments in the productive physical economy and towards speculation in increasingly exotic derivative-based financial products, and now "shifting the trillions" into the Green New Deal.From the standpoint of the physical economy, this policy of driving investments into industries with the lowest possible energy-flux density ultimately represents an extensive destruction of capital, just like investments in the military production of weapon systems. Far too many people are confused about monetary values, as distinct from real wealth. They have bought into the illusion that the share values of listed companies say something about the productivity of the economy – which they do not.Some more level-headed voices have spoken out in favor of a new pan-European security architecture including Russia and Ukraine, in a new Helsinki agreement. However, in view of the complexity of the world situation, the threat to world peace affecting all states, and the indivisibility of the security of all, it is necessary to go beyond Helsinki and create an international security architecture that encompasses the security interests of all states on earth.Just such a proposal is elaborated in a recent article published by Schiller Institute founder Helga Zepp-LaRouche: “100 Seconds to Midnight on the Doomsday Clock: We Need a New Security Architecture!” This architecture must be based on the principles of the Peace of Westphalia; i.e., it must guarantee the interests of all states and, above all, their right to economic and cultural development. The maintenance of world peace requires a total and definitive renunciation of Malthusian politics, and requires universal access to the achievements of scientific and technological advance for all nations. This new order— the prerequisite for the survival of the human species—requires a new paradigm of thought that must draw upon the best classical traditions of all cultures at the highest humanistic level.Who can deny that we are an indivisible community of destiny?We have a choice: Either we let the clock tick away until the last of the hundred seconds has struck, and then there will be no one left to comment on the result; or we can remember that we are the only known creative species in the universe, and shape our common future together.

The desperation evident in the succession of increasingly blatant lies, coming from Anglo-American spokesmen about an impending Russian invasion of Ukraine, demonstrates that they know their attempt to dictate the shape of the post-Cold War world is reaching an end. Each day, a new fabrication is produced, while in the background, a new Russian-China alliance has been cemented, calling for a new global security architecture which protects the interests of people in all nations. The issue of war or peace has never been so clear -- can the Anglo-American war drive be stopped?

· February 6, 2022 “A nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought,” the five nuclear powers and permanent members of the UN Security Council affirmed in a joint statement on Jan. 3 of this year. Since the use of nuclear weapons always involves the risk of using the entire nuclear arsenal, a percentage of which is enough to cause the extinction of the human species, the confirmation of this fundamental insight should actually have practical implications for the military strategy of all nuclear powers. Notwithstanding this joint statement, in the last week of January, the U.S. Strategic Command launched the Global Lightning exercise, designed to test the readiness of U.S. nuclear forces. Although this was a so-called “routine” maneuver integrated this year with the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command and thus aimed at a possible confrontation with China, in the context of heightened tensions between Russia and the United States and NATO, it can be seen as just another—but perhaps the most dangerous—element in the way that the West is playing with fire with respect to Russia and China. The timing of the maneuver coincided with hitherto unproven allegations by the United States and UK that Russia was planning a military attack on Ukraine between late January and mid-February, which the Russian government has repeatedly denied. The nuclear command-and-control exercise is based on the U.S. Strategic Command’s current nuclear war plan. Hans M. Kristensen, Director of the Nuclear Information Project of the Federation of American Scientists, was able, under the Freedom of Information Act, to obtain the cover page of this plan, entitled Stratcom Conplan 0810-12, Strategic Deterrence and Force Deployment, Change 1. Kristensen, one of the most competent specialists in the field of nuclear strategy and weapons, explained to Newsweek that the Global Lightning exercise does not simply assume a nuclear first strike by one side or the other, but an extended nuclear war that will continue after the first exchange of strikes. Even though the individual components of this new war plan, which has been operational since April 30, 2019, are subject to the highest levels of secrecy, the outlines of this conception emerge. The assumption is that the United States and NATO would be able to survive a nuclear first strike by Russia or China, then retaliate, absorb further attacks, retaliate again, etc., in an ongoing military confrontation. This nuclear war plan includes not only nuclear weapons but various other lethal systems such as missile defense systems, directed energy weapons such as electromagnetic pulse weapons and lasers, cyberattacks, and Space Force attacks from space. Who would be able to survive such a prolonged nuclear war? The few people who can nest in deep underground bunkers? It makes the morbid fantasies of Dr. Strangelove look like a child’s birthday party. Last year’s Global Lightning maneuvers in April 2021 focused on a potential conflict with Russia; this year it was devoted to a possible confrontation with China. The Pentagon’s various strategy papers since 2017 had increasingly defined Russia and China as geopolitical rivals and adversaries, replacing the fight against global terrorism with great-power competition as a strategic priority. At the same time, the modernization of the nuclear triad begun by the Obama Administration continued and the threshold for the use of nuclear weapons was increasingly lowered by the stationing of low-yield warheads on Trident submarines, among other things. The Strategic Conflict Although there was little official comment, President Putin’s March 1, 2018 announcement was about Russia’s new nuclear systems. These included the Avangard hypersonic glide vehicle (launched from an ICBM, it travels at 20 times the speed of sound and boasts excellent maneuverability that renders the American missile defense system essentially obsolete;" the hypersonic aeroballistic missile Kinzhal; as well as nuclear-powered cruise missiles, fast underwater drones and laser weapons—a shock to the western military establishment. Meanwhile, China has also developed its own hypersonic missiles with infrared homing technology, a capability that the American military may not have for two to three years. American satellite imagery has also located about 300 missile silos under construction in scattered locations across China, some of which may remain empty, but others would have nuclear missiles in a state of “launch on warning” to forestall a disarming surprise attack. This is broadly the strategic background against which Putin presented two treaties to the United States and NATO on Dec. 17, demanding that they be legally binding: no further eastward expansion of NATO, and no offensive weapon systems stationed on Russia’s borders; plus guarantees that Ukraine would not be admitted to NATO. Unlike many trans-Atlantic politicians and media outlets, Gen. Harald Kujat, the former Inspector General of the German Armed Forces, believes that the gathering of some 120,000 Russian troops near the Ukrainian border—some of them, however, hundreds of kilometers away—is not indicative of an impending attack on Ukraine, but that Russia wants to demonstrate strength with this threatening backdrop in order to force negotiations with the U.S.A. and NATO on an equal footing. So far, the United States and NATO have refused to make any commitments on Putin’s key demands, and appear only willing to make what Russia considers secondary commitments on new disarmament talks. Putin has announced “military-technical measures” in the event of a definitive refusal. In view of the fact that the stationing of potentially offensive weapon systems in the vicinity of the Russian borders in connection with NATO’s eastward enlargement—this includes, for example, the Aegis missile defense system stationed in Poland and Romania—created a situation for Russia comparable to the stationing of Soviet missiles in Cuba, the question arises as to what these “measures” might look like. The American Russia expert Gilbert Doctorow suspects that they could include the stationing of nuclear-armed SS-26 Iskander-M short-range missiles in Belarus and Kaliningrad in order to threaten the NATO front-line states and eastern Germany in return. He further suspects Russia may plant sea-launched hypersonic Zircon nuclear-armed cruise missiles off the coast of Washington, D.C., which Russian experts have previously said could destroy the American capital so quickly the President would not have time to board Air Force One to escape. Theoretically, the Zirkon hypersonic missiles could, of course, also be used anywhere on the seven seas and are very difficult for conventional air defense to detect and intercept in view of their velocity—nine times the speed of sound—and maneuverability in flight. So it is only logical that the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists’ Doomsday Clock on Jan. 20, 2022 showed only 100 seconds to midnight. That’s only about a minute and a half until the nuclear apocalypse. Even though, since the escalation of the Ukraine crisis, after a deep sleep of almost 40 years, the anti-war movement has issued a whole series of appeals, public calls and open letters—most recently from 100 organizations in the U.S.A. demanding that President Biden de-escalate the tensions with Russia—the enormous extent of the threat has by no means penetrated the public consciousness. Uncertainty about the Causes But even among most Westerners who recognize the imminent danger, there is a lack of clarity about the underlying causes of the existential danger to human existence. They are to be found, on the one hand, in the systemic character of the crisis of the neoliberal financial system, which has now entered its hyperinflationary final phase; and on the other hand, in the claim of the financial establishment in the City of London, Wall Street and Silicon Valley to a unipolar world in which only the power interests of this establishment determine what shall happen in the “rules-based order.” The dilemma now arises from an opposing dynamic. Since the paradigm shift of August 1971, prophetically recognized by Lyndon LaRouche—when Nixon effectively ended the Bretton Woods system by abolishing fixed exchange rates and thus paving the way for speculative profit maximization—there has been an increasing shift in the trans-Atlantic world away from investments in the productive physical economy and towards speculation in increasingly exotic derivative-based financial products, of which the most recent folly is “shifting the trillions” into the Green New Deal. From the standpoint of the physical economy this policy—of making investments in industries with the lowest possible energy-flux density—ultimately represents an extensive destruction of capital, just like investments in the military production of weapon systems and the army. The fact that this effect is usually not recognized has to do with the confusion about monetary values, money vs. real wealth, and the illusion that the share values ​​of listed companies say something about the productivity of the economy. Of course, it is in the interest of the yacht-owning billionaires, some of whom have long since acquired condominiums in deep-seated bunkers in Australia and elsewhere, that the bubble economy be sustained for as long as possible, even as the proportion of the population that is impoverished continues to increase, and the middle class shrinks. When the Soviet Union dissolved in 1991 and the trans-Atlantic establishment, despite all warnings—for example from Pope John Paul II—succumbed to the fantasy of having “won” the Cold War, and interpreted the “end of history” to mean that the whole world must now subject itself to the neoliberal rules-based order, there was no longer any need to keep any promises made to Russia not to expand NATO eastward. The whole spectrum of instruments for cementing the unipolar world was used: regime change, either through color revolutions or “humanitarian” wars against all governments that held other values. Victoria Nuland publicly boasted that the State Department had spent $5 billion on NGOs in Ukraine alone, which initially led to the 2004 “Orange Revolution.” When President Yanukovych refused to join the EU Association Agreement in late 2013, not least because the EU is fully linked to NATO in terms of treaties and security, the not-so-democratic side of the rules-based order came to the fore in the form of the Nazi Maidan coup of February 2014. This did not result in any annexation of Crimea by Putin, but rather a referendum by the people of Crimea, who wanted to withdraw from Kiev’s fascist policies. Even then, Putin stated that the West was actually concerned with containing Russia and that, if not in Ukraine, they would have found another excuse for doing so. The decisive hardening towards Russia and China became visible, in 2017 at the latest, in the changed language in the security doctrines of the Pentagon and the characterization of these two countries as “enemies” and “autocracies.” While the Western institutions initially reacted to the announcement of the New Silk Road by Xi Jinping in September 2013 with an extensive blackout for an amazing four years, these institutions have now reacted to this largest infrastructure project in human history as if it were an existential threat—namely to the unipolar world! Virtually all sanctions that have been imposed anywhere in the world unilaterally, i.e., without UN Security Council resolutions, ultimately had the chief purpose of preventing China’s economic rise and Russia’s regaining the status of world player. The transcript of the Jan. 25 background press briefing by two unnamed White House officials shockingly reveals this intention. They present a whole spectrum of “serious economic measures”—starting at the highest level of escalation—to thwart Putin’s strategic ambitions to industrialize his economy, by denying him access to all modern, advanced technologies, such as AI, quantum-computers, and any technology related to defense or aerospace, to prevent him from “diversifying” the economy beyond exporting oil and gas. The objective is the atrophy of the Russian economy. This policy, formulated in incredibly brutal language, is nothing more than a continuation of Jeffrey Sachs’ so-called “shock therapy” of the 1990s, which had the explicit aim of reducing Russia from the status of a superpower at the time of the Soviet Union to that of a commodity-exporting Third World country. That policy was then, as it is now, a declaration of war—the only difference being that Putin is not a pathetic figure like Boris Yeltsin, pampered by the West for geopolitical motives, but a brilliant strategist who knows how to defend Russia’s interests. The no less hateful tirades against China, which can be heard today from court scribblers of the Empire, as well as from former Maoists of the SDS era who have now risen to top positions in the Green Party, cannot change the outstanding success of the Chinese economy, which recorded a growth rate of over 8% in 2021 despite coronavirus. China has done more for human rights than any country of the so-called Western community of values, lifting 850 million people out of poverty domestically— including the Uyghurs, who now enjoy vastly better living standards and faster-than-average population growth—and offering many developing countries for the first time the chance to overcome poverty. The silence of the same circles on the largest of all humanitarian catastrophes, triggered by Western sanctions in Afghanistan, in which one million children are starving and a total of 24 million people are at risk of dying this Winter, seals their complete discrediting. Joint Statement by Putin and Xi If various authors have warned that the campaigns against Russia and China could lead to even closer ties between these two countries, then rest assured that this is exactly what has now happened during Putin’s visit to the Olympic Games in China. However, there is an urgent need to remove the ideological spectacles and recognize the extraordinary opportunity presented for the whole world by the joint declaration of Presidents Putin and Xi in this extremely dangerous world situation. The 16-page document entitled, “Joint Declaration of the Russian Federation and the People’s Republic of China on International Relations Entering a New Era and Global Sustainable Development,” calls for replacing geopolitical confrontation with economic cooperation as the basis for a common security policy. Both nations are calling on NATO to refrain from further expansion plans, to move beyond Cold War thinking, and to enshrine the long-term security guarantees that Russia is demanding. The role of international organizations such as the G20, BRICS, APEC and ASEAN should be strengthened, they say. Russia will cooperate in realizing China’s proposed “Global Development Initiative” and emphasizes the importance of the concept of the “community of a common destiny for mankind.” Let’s think back to the hundred seconds before midnight on the doomsday clock: Who can deny that we are an indivisible community of destiny? In recent weeks, more level-headed voices have spoken out in favor of a new pan-European security architecture including Russia and Ukraine, which could be enshrined in a new Helsinki agreement. However, in view of the complexity of the world situation, the threat to world peace affecting all states, and the inseparability of the security of all, it is necessary to go beyond Helsinki and create an international security architecture that encompasses the security interests of all states on Earth. This architecture must be based on the principles of the Peace of Westphalia; i.e., it must guarantee the interests of all states and, above all, their right to economic and cultural development. The maintenance of world peace presupposes a total and definitive renunciation of Malthusian politics, and requires undivided access to the achievements of scientific and technological advance for all nations. This new order— the prerequisite for the survival of the human species—requires a new paradigm of thought that must draw upon the best traditions of all cultures at the highest humanistic level. We have a choice: Either we keep the clock ticking until the last of the hundred seconds has struck, and then there will be no one left to comment on the result; or, we can remember that we are the only known creative species in the universe, and shape our common future together.

Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, founded in 1945, announced on Jan. 20 that for the third year in a row, their Doomsday Clock remains fixed at 100 seconds to midnight. “Steady is not good news,” said Sharon Squassoni, a professor at George Washington University and a member of the group. “We are stuck in a perilous moment—one that brings neither stability nor security. Positive developments in 2021 failed to counteract negative, long-term trends,” she said.The clock was originally only concerned with the threat of nuclear war, but has recently included the politically correct issues of climate change, disruptive technologies and biological hazards, including sections of their report on these issues. They even bring up Jan. 6. The organization’s website says: “Founded in 1945 by Albert Einstein and University of Chicago scientists who helped develop the first atomic weapons in the Manhattan Project, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists created the Doomsday Clock two years later, using the imagery of apocalypse (midnight) and the contemporary idiom of nuclear explosion (countdown to zero) to convey threats to humanity and the planet.” This year’s report begins by saying the new administration in the U.S. raised hopes of decreasing the danger, with the extension of New START, talks between the U.S. and Russia, and revived talks on the JCPOA. However: “U.S. relations with Russia and China remain tense, with all three countries engaged in an array of nuclear modernization and expansion efforts—including China’s apparent large-scale program to increase its deployment of silo-based long-range nuclear missiles; the push by Russia, China, and the United States to develop hypersonic missiles; and the continued testing of anti-satellite weapons by many nations. If not restrained, these efforts could mark the start of a dangerous new nuclear arms race.” They express hope that the upcoming Nuclear Posture Review will reduce the danger of a nuclear war. They would not be pleased by the new reports by William Arkin and others elsewhere in this briefing.

Feb 5—At 4:00 p.m. on Friday afternoon (Feb. 4), the following headline appeared on the Bloomberg News website: “Russia Invades Ukraine.” Note that it was then midnight in Moscow, and that President Vladimir Putin was not in the country, but in Beijing. For a full 30 minutes, this headline remained on the website, before it was finally removed, with Bloomberg News posting an attempted apology: “We prepare headlines for many scenarios and one of those headlines was inadvertently published at around 4 p.m. ET today on our website. We deeply regret the error.”Error? For months the Western media, with Bloomberg News right up front, have peddled the lie that a Russian invasion of Ukraine was “imminent.” The U.S. Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines briefed NATO leaders in October that the invasion would come in the last weeks of January or the early weeks of February. Day after day the lie was peddled that over 100,000 Russian troops were poised for the invasion on the Ukraine border, despite denials by not only Moscow, but even by Kiev! Error? Keep in mind that Sir Michael Bloomberg made his billions with a software which provided information on every trade taking place in the world in microseconds. “The chance that this was an accident is essentially zero,” Helga Zepp-LaRouche exclaimed today. “There must be a Congressional investigation immediately.” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said he could not say whether or not it was an accident, but in any case, “This is a perfect demonstration of how dangerous the situation is when provoked by the endless aggressive statements that come from Washington, London and from other European governments. This is probably also a great demonstration of how such messages can lead to irreparable consequences.” Who is Sir Michael Bloomberg? Not only is he “Mr. Wall Street,” with his computer software used in virtually every financial institution, but he is also “Mr. Green New Deal,” taking great pleasure in the fact that he personally financed the campaign that shut down half of the U.S. coal mines, and also served as the United Nations’ Special Envoy on Climate Ambition and Solutions. At the Glasgow COP26 climate conference in November he announced a new effort aimed at closing a quarter of the world’s 2,445 coal plants, as well as stopping efforts underway to build 519 new coal plants by 2025. As any African leader will tell you, this means poverty and death for Africa. The fact that it is Michael Bloomberg, who is the operative in this war-mongering ploy, further proves the point emphasized for the past 50 years by Lyndon LaRouche and EIR: It is the collapse of the Western financial system (now apparent to all but the morally blind) which is the driving force for war, not the fake geopolitical accusations about “aggression” or “human rights abuse.” Not coincidentally, this incident comes on the same day that Presidents Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping met in Beijing, releasing a communiqué, titled “Joint Statement of the Russian Federation and the People’s Republic of China on the International Relations Entering a New Era and the Global Sustainable Development.” To understand the profound importance of this historic document, it is instructive to read what a leading mouthpiece for the British Empire and the City of London, the Daily Telegraph, has to say about it. Under the headline, “Russia and China Rise from Their Knees To Challenge U.S. Dominance,” The Telegraph writes: “The message here is anything but routine. At a moment of immense international tension, Russia and China are asserting the arrival of a new geopolitical era. From now on, the dominance of the U.S.-led global West will no longer be taken for granted—or tolerated.” It is quite interesting that they dropped the usual phrase, “U.S.-led international order,” effectively acknowledging that the U.S. is no longer the “world’s only superpower,” but at best the leader of the “West.” The Telegraph continues: “After decades of humiliation, the world’s autocratic superpowers have risen from their knees and will now up-end the inequitable post-Cold War world order.” But they add, we are now entering “a long and frosty Cold War Two.” They also effectively acknowledge that the multiple efforts to turn Russia and China against each other have failed: “The hope that Mr. Xi might be persuaded to restrain his ally or remain aloof—or conversely that Mr. Putin could be enlisted to help contain China—has been dashed.” Unstated, but implied, is that all that is left for the dying British Empire is war, both military and economic warfare, in order to return Russia and China to their knees. Helga Zepp-LaRouche addressed this utopian insanity in an article to be released soon, “100 Seconds to Midnight on the Doomsday Clock—We Need a New Security Architecture!” This is a reference to Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, which has kept its annual Doomsday Clock at 100 seconds to midnight for the third year in a row. Zepp-LaRouche insists that the new security architecture, demanded by both Russia and China, must include all nations; must include the right to development for all nations; and must end forever the Empire’s Malthusian paradigm. On February 19 the Schiller Institute will sponsor a virtual conference on this existential strategic crisis. It is essential, Zepp-LaRouche declared, that people everywhere recognize the incredible potential of this moment. Arriving at the brink of extinction is waking people up, causing them to look to see who has been lying and who has been telling the truth—and most important, who knows the necessary solution. This is the LaRouche Moment in history.

February 4—On the occasion today of the opening of the XXIV Olympic Winter Games in China, President Xi Jinping and President Vladimir Putin attended the opening ceremony, held extensive talks, saw to the announcement of 15 economic and policy deals, and issued a “Joint Statement of the Russian Federation and the People’s Republic of China on the International Relations Entering a New Era and the Global Sustainable Development.”The 16-page document opens with an assessment of the world situation—crises and potential—then proceeds through four areas of strategic concern, giving specifics. The statement is a leadership call to action for humanity, not a call to “take sides” in deadly geopolitical games. Most of all, it is grounded in commitment to economic advancement as the basis for security. The place in dire need for immediate, concerted world action, is Afghanistan. The death toll mounts by the hour among the children, from malnutrition, cold and illness, all of which can be prevented. On Feb. 2, the Afghan Ambassador to India Farid Mamundzay made a point of saying how many nations have “turned their back” on Afghanistan at this time of desperate need. But he otherwise singled out India with appreciation, for having sent six tons of medicine, and other supplies, and new funds, and for the Indian wheat donation that will start to be trucked across Pakistan to Afghanistan, beginning Feb. 10 to 12. A full 50,000 tons should be delivered within a month. There are other individual donations coming in, but the scale-up and mobilization are lacking. Moreover, there is the fundamental requirement for the U.S. and Europe to free up the Afghanistan government’s $9.5 bil in funds they have wrongfully frozen, so the country can function. Yesterday, in the U.S. House of Representatives, an amendment on that topic was raised, but didn’t pass. As the Schiller Institute tweet said at the time the amendment was taken up, “Don’t do to Afghanistan what the British Empire did to the Irish, letting them starve, or emigrate! BREAKING: Progressives [in Congress] to force vote on Biden’s policy of arbitrarily starving Afghanistan to death. BUT: The House voted it down! Shame on you!” In the China-Russia document’s opening section, it notes—without naming names—that there are nations and figures which take “unilateral approaches to addressing international issues and resort to force; they intervene in the internal affairs of other states, infringing on their rights and interests, and incite contradictions, differences and confrontation, thus hampering the development and progress of mankind…” The first of the four areas discussed by the statement in detail, is that “democracy is a universal human value, rather than a privilege of a limited number of States…” It is wrong that “certain states” attempt to impose “their own ‘democratic standards’ on other countries,” and act to “establish blocs” that go against genuine democracy. Secondly, “development is the key driver in ensuring the prosperity of nations,” and thus, security. “It is vital to enhance partnership relations” to further development. China and Russia commit to further cooperation between the Belt and Road Initiative and the EAEU (Eurasian Economic Union.) Russia will participate in the “Group of Friends of the Global Development Initiative (proposed by China) under the UN auspices.” Thirdly, the longest section, which addresses “serious international security challenges,” contains the emphatic statement that, “The two sides (the term used in the statement for Russia and China) oppose further enlargement of NATO and call on the North Atlantic Alliance to abandon its ideologized cold war approaches…” Also, “The Chinese side is sympathetic to, and supports the proposals put forward by the Russian Federation to create long-term legally binding security guarantees in Europe.” The two sides also, “stand against the formation of closed bloc structures and opposing camps in the Asia-Pacific region…” And, “The Russian side reaffirms its support for the One-China principle, confirms that Taiwan is an inalienable part of China, and opposes any forms of independence of Taiwan.” The fourth section identifies the United Nations as having a “central coordinating role in international affairs,” and calls for cooperation, not confrontation among world powers. The role of the G20, BRICS, APEC, ASEAN and WTO (to undergo “reform”) are discussed at length. The two sides “advocate expanded functionality of the SCO Regional Anti-Terrorist Structure.” Affirmation is stated for the recent “Joint Statement of the Leaders of the Five Nuclear Weapons States on Preventing Nuclear War and Avoiding Arms Races,” and steps for the drawdown of nuclear weapons and risks are discussed. These are only selected points of the joint statement, but the significance is clear. This is a welcome initiative that throws into stark relief the dangerous geopolitics in play over Ukraine from the U.S./UK/NATO ploys, and their depraved, deliberate inaction which is killing people in Afghanistan. The Schiller Institute’s role as an active platform for getting out the truth, and fostering the dialogue for the needed policies is critical. An international conference is planned for later this month. The sense of what can be done was included in a statement issued today by Senatorial candidate for New York, Diane Sare, on the eve of street rallies Feb. 5 in New York City and several dozen other towns around the country, to protest the Washington/UK/NATO war drive. In the statement entitled "Truth is the First Casualty of War" Sare wrote, "Lyndon LaRouche’s widow and founder of the Schiller Institute, Helga Zepp-LaRouche, has advanced an alternative to this path toward annihilation. The fulcrum is the fate of the people of Afghanistan, who are currently condemned to a tortuous death of starvation and disease because of sanctions and the decision by the United States and European banks to freeze their funds in the wake of the abrupt exit by the United States. Right now, over 7 million children are starving, with one million near death. “The United States, Russia and China, could combine to lead an effort involving the surrounding nations, to not only supply desperately needed humanitarian aid, but to build a fully operational modern healthcare system in that war-ravaged nation. This would require new infrastructure to deliver water and electricity along with modern transportation systems. Obviously, the Taliban would have to be in the center of the negotiations, but they have already opened talks with many of these nations, and have nothing to gain through the suffering of their people. “This initiative, called by Zepp-LaRouche ‘Operation Ibn Sina (Avicenna),’ after the brilliant Islamic scholar and physician born in this region over 1200 years ago, is the opportunity to build trust between the major powers, now perilously close to war, while preventing the imminent death by starvation of as many as 23 million people. By embracing ‘Operation Ibn Sina,’ the United States could avert nuclear war, and save the lives of millions in Afghanistan. Action is urgently needed now. As poets have understood better than politicians, universal law dictates that the fate of these starving children is likely to become your own, sooner than you might imagine."

Ever wonder why you keep thinking the the things you do, despite knowing those thoughts are wrong? Or perhaps, why do our political leaders seem to keep making the same mistakes over and over again? Tonight, we are going to discuss how the most evil man of the 20th century, Bertrand Russell, convinced you "snow is black" but also, to celebrate his death by being a creative human being. Join Anastasia Battle of Leonore and Diane Sare of the LaRouche Movement National Executive Committee to discuss!

The ability of the Empire to keep the world on a course of war and depression depends on their ability to control the narrative, through intense psychological warfare. Their most important weapon in this is to promote the belief in the "Magic of Money", to seduce otherwise intelligent people to seek personal security, rather than to mobilize to defend the Common Good. Join us to mobilize to bring down the Empire of the Mind, and replace it with the principles of the American System of physical economics, as developed by Lyndon LaRouche in his Four Economic Laws.

Feb. 3—The days of UK-U.S.-NATO hegemony are over. Will that oligarchical reign end in the hell of thermonuclear obliteration by thousands of hydrogen bombs? Or will it be overcome by the people of the U.S. and other trans-Atlantic nations throwing off their self-imposed shackles, to demand a new mission of progress and growth for all people of the planet?With every passing day, the potential to organize people out of their day-to-day activity grows. This potential takes force from the gathering danger of war—thermonuclear war—that could be unleashed by design or by what would be called, in the realm of events, “an accident,” but which would simply be an included feature of the UK-NATO-U.S.-created geopolitical environment against which Russia is raising its just and insistent demands. (In a recent example, Boris Johnson promises Ukraine the noose-like “support” of his nation’s military and diplomatic “assistance.”) This opportunity for change is fed by the economic collapse brought on by the twin factors of a relentless financialization of the economy—whereby a shrinking productive layer is squeezed harder and harder still to extract growing wealth for the oligarchy and its pathetic lackeys—and the direct and intentional destruction of the physical potential of the economy, under the guise of achieving “green” goals. But the greatest impulse towards an enlivened sense of human potential—and the accompanying impulsion to cast off injustice—comes from visions of the future: development initiatives crafted by the LaRouche movement over decades, China’s meteoric growth and its Belt and Road Initiative, Russia’s rock-solid commitment to multipolarity and sovereignty, and the electrifying moments of inspiration sparked by scientific discovery and works of cultural beauty. In Beijing, Russian President Vladimir Putin will meet with his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, on Friday, the next level of their collaboration in the fields of economy, science, medicine, and security cooperation. China has conquered extreme poverty within its borders, and it has addressed a threat of terrorism in its western Xinjiang region in a way far superior to the treatment of Afghanistan at the hands of the West, whose spokespeople cry alligator tears for the suppression of Muslim Uyghurs while murdering the people of Afghanistan through starvation brought on by withholding that nation’s rightful financial resources — not to speak of the refusal to provide the additional development collaboration that should be provided by its repentant erstwhile occupiers. The interests of the people of the U.S., of Canada, of Ibero America, of Europe, lie not with the grotesque geopolitical system of the Anglo-American oligarchy, but in repudiating that outlook in exchange for the joy of collaboration, of international friendship, of joint work to expand humanity’s powers in outer space and our mastery of the subatomic domain. The war-time propaganda of the legacy media and the social media censors must be defeated. The LaRouche Organization and the Schiller Institute play the key international role in bringing together the shared interests of Russia, China, India, and the United States, and identifying the deadly axioms that cause people to choose their own doom. The future is human, not green!