Article Search

The War Hawks behind the foolish endless wars, who continue their destruction with sanctions and freezing funds belonging to the people of Afghanistan -- which threaten the lives of millions due to starvation -- have been engaged in a dangerous escalation against Russia. While some pundits say that Putin has made his point, and "de-escalation" will occur, the cause of the problem remains: NATO, the tool used by the neocons against Russia. The best way to de-escalate, says Helga Zepp-Larouche, is to disband NATO, and cooperate in a global financial bankruptcy reorganization

Join us LIVE on Monday, January 17 at 11am EST. As the year 2022 opens, let us, all over the world, turn our thoughts not only to Martin Luther King, but to his mission: the establishment of a “Beloved Community” of all mankind. We must come to realize that the greatest disease threatening humanity is “depraved indifference,” shown most spectacularly in the deliberate starvation right now, of millions in Afghanistan, “in the name of human rights.” Moreover, if you let such an injustice happen to others, the same injustice will sooner or later happen to you.Nineteen people just died in a horrific fire in the Bronx, New York. There were over two dozen previously reported violations at that building. Among the dead were nine children. But hundreds of thousands of children are about to starve to death in Afghanistan. The cause of the deaths of innocent children in Afghanistan, and in the Bronx, is the same: the cause is a depraved indifference as to whether or not they either would, or should survive. Once, nations aspired to prosperity for all citizens; it was called “the General Welfare, of ourselves and our posterity.” Now, because we refuse to stop Wall Street and the City Of London’s futile attempts to continue their bankrupt system, mass death beckons, daily, throughout the trans-Atlantic world. We are told that, regrettably, mass death will be “normal;” it will be “endemic” in the form of pandemics, or war, or “extreme events.” If that be so, that must be a direct result of our depraved indifference, because we could have treated the sickest in the world first, but instead chose not to do so, and still continue to choose not to do so. We say “No!” to this pact with despair, and death. There is a plan, called “Operation Ibn Sina,” designed by the Schiller Institute, to resolve the injustice underway in Afghanistan, and by that means, create a united worldwide effort to roll back the glaring injustices in health care and other areas. Releasing Afghanistan’s $9 billion in funds is only the beginning.

Perhaps the most certain thing about the world today is the immense uncertainty about the future. Will geopolitical games targeting Russia and China cross the line—even if unintentionally—thereby triggering a nuclear holocaust that would destroy human civilization for generations? Would anyone be so mad as to allow that to occur? Or will the trans-Atlantic financial power centered in the City of London and Wall Street be forced to its knees and put through bankruptcy, as a new paradigm of growth is inaugurated worldwide, led by the mission of ensuring health, purpose, and growth in all nations?While there are no guarantees that humanity will choose a sane path, there are many reasons to hope that the latter outcome will come to pass. The success of the Helga Zepp-LaRouche and the LaRouche movement in forcing the issue of Afghanistan is seen in the spate of reports and actions from the International Crisis Group, the United Nations, and even the New York Times and Financial Times. The ICG has issued an extensive report on the situation, denouncing efforts to cause the Taliban to fail, which would bring “famine … migration … terrorism, and … drugs.” The bitter pill of Taliban success must be swallowed, and the lives of Afghanistan’s people put ahead of ego. Funds are desperately needed, and there is no way around working with the current de facto government. Otherwise, tens of millions risk famine and death. Will Afghanistan—a crossroads of trade—prove to be a crossroads of history, a branching point in the axioms animating human behavior? The dangers are immense. It seems that Joe Biden does not personally want to risk nuclear war, but does he control his administration? Russia insists on formal, written responses to the security concerns it has raised with the U.S. and NATO, and talks continue, even as NATO nations say that Russia’s demands are absolutely unacceptable. The answer is up to you. Choose to forge a new future, to give a meaningful direction to the Earth’s next fifty years. Today, join the Schiller Institute’s seminar “To Stop the Murder of Afghanistan” and commit yourself to acting on the famous words of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., that “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”

The Schiller Institute (SI) has taken the lead in mobilizing to save the people of Afghanistan. After finally ending four decades of war, which killed tens of thousands of civilians and left the nation in chaos, the war hawks of the Trans-Atlantic region took out their anger by adopting policies to "punish" the Taliban, which in reality are killing innocent civilians. There is now a growing recognition of the evil this represents; also the possibility that collaboration among Russia, China and the U.S. can not only end the suffering, but create a basis for further collaboration. Join the SI online seminar today, "To Stop the Killing of Afghanistan" -- register here: https://schillerinstitute.com/blog/2022/01/16/live-event-stop-the-murder-of-afghanistan/

Join us LIVE on Saturday at 2pm EST. A reevaluation of the strategic significance of Martin Luther King’s insightful and principled critique of war, viewed from the standpoint of Helga Zepp LaRouche‘s recent call for a new world defense architecture to replace the obsolete NATO. Speakers include Ray McGovern and Mike Billington. Also featured: Lyndon Larouche’s reflections on “The Immortal Talent of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King,” delivered in Talledega, Alabama in 2004.

As of the time of this dispatch, word is awaited from a meeting (virtual) today, to be held with U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and top officials of the United Nations on Afghanistan, that was announced yesterday by UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres, because of the imminence of mass death. Guterres called not only for mobilizing full-scale aid, but for the urgent re-establishment of the Central Bank, currency liquidity and a financial system, or the country will cease to exist. He said that millions of Afghans are on the “verge of death,” and that “freezing temperatures and frozen assets are a lethal combination. Rules and conditions that prevent money from being used to save lives and the economy must be suspended in this emergency situation,” he warned.Guterres singled out the United States, saying that it has “a very important role to play because most of the financial system in the world operates in dollars,” and the U.S. is withholding most of the frozen Afghan foreign reserves. Expected to be present at the meeting today with Secretary of State Antony Blinken, besides Guterres himself, are Peter Maurer, President of the International Committee of the Red Cross, and Martin Griffiths, UN Undersecretary for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief. On Jan. 11 Griffiths issued an international funding appeal, on behalf of all UN humanitarian agencies and aid partners, for $4.4 billion this year for Afghanistan, which is the largest such appeal for a single nation in the history of the United Nations. Among the necessary measures cited in the appeal is the lifting of sanctions against Afghanistan, which prevent essential commercial functions, as well as emergency aid, and the unfreezing of the $9.5 billion in assets belonging to the nation and people of Afghanistan, and other measures allowing banking, currency and exchange to function. Impoverishment has reached the stage of destitution, in which barely 5% of the entire population of 38 million have enough to eat. 23 million are in various degrees of extreme hunger, and of those, 8.9 million people are at the starvation point. Among the limited fallback initiatives of the Taliban government, is the food-for-work program, in which a person who is still able, is offered 10 kg of wheat, for a set amount of work. This is unlivable. Yesterday, World Food Program Country Director for Afghanistan Mary-Ellen McGroarty described the situation to AP as a “tsunami of hunger.” Responding to this emergency is a test of morality for the “West,” whose U.S. and NATO forces pulled out five months ago, after 20 years of occupation. No lies about “democracy” and “values-driven” foreign relations can cover up the culpability for mass death that will result unless emergency action is taken now. The same test of morality is involved in the question of war or peace, in the current confrontation of the U.S. and NATO against Russia. Yesterday was the last of the trio of talks this week between Russia and the “West”: On January 9-10, talks between the U.S. and Russia (Geneva) took place; on January 12, between NATO and Russia (Brussels); and on Jan. 13, the OSCE and Russia (Vienna) talks. Initiated by Russia, which provided two security guarantee texts in December for concrete action, potential for productive work was blocked, not surprisingly, by a collective stance of lies and threats from the U.S. and NATO, with almost nil exception. Nevertheless, today, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, giving his annual review of last year’s diplomacy, did speak of proceeding on these security talks, on principle, with good will, while sternly saying that what is now expected are written replies to the Russian proposed texts, and soon. Russia does not have infinite patience, he underscored. However, almost at the same time as the end of the Vienna OSCE talks yesterday, U.S. National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan signaled a new attack on Russia, which has since come to pass. Sullivan said at a press briefing, that “the intelligence community has developed information” that Russia is right now “laying the groundwork to have the option of fabricating a pretext for an invasion” of Ukraine, the same way they did so in 2014. He said Russia is using the same “playbook” as they did in 2014, and “the Administration will have further details on what we see as this potential laying of a pretext, to share with the press over the course of the next 24 hours.” Right on Sullivan’s cue, “the press” came out this morning with three waves of articles—with the Washington Post and the New York Times in the lead—that Russia has assets embedded in Ukraine, ready to stage a “false flag” stunt, to justify Russian invasion. Secondly, that the U.S. better consider leading, not just supporting, Ukraine’s defense against Russia in the event of attack. Thirdly, come the reports that a new cyber-attack on Ukraine ministries has just occurred, with Russia presumed to be the perpetrator. If this line of insane foreign policy is allowed to continue, the result will be mass death from war. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has already come out denouncing these accusations as completely unfounded, based on “hearsay.” The Schiller Institute, with collaborators, has mobilized all possible means to expose and stop this deadly course of action, and its perpetrators. For immediate attention to the Afghanistan emergency, a Schiller Institute webinar will be held Monday, January 17, at 11 a.m., titled, “Stop the Murder of Afghanistan.” Schiller Institute President Helga Zepp-LaRouche said yesterday on her weekly webcast, “If you have any heart left in your body, then join this campaign. Because, I think if the West cannot mobilize to help to resolve the situation which we caused—I mean, ‘we,’ the West, NATO was there for 20 years—if we cannot solve that, the whole world will look at the West with complete contempt. So this is a last chance to reverse that, by joining hands now with all the neighbors, and including emphatically Russia and China, but the Europeans and the United States are called upon the most. Because if we can’t do that, then I think this will be the symbol of our demise. And we must not allow that to happen, but must take that as the turning point of history.”

Jan. 14 -- A week of summits scheduled to resolve the deepening tensions over Ukraine between Russia and the United States and NATO did not succeed, based on the initial press briefings and read-outs produced by the participants. The talks came after two video calls between Presidents Biden and Putin, and were centered on U.S. charges of an impending invasion of Ukraine by Russian forces, and the Russian's insistence on receiving written, legally-binding treaties from the U.S. and NATO, agreeing to no further eastward expansion of NATO, including a prohibition on placing sophisticated weapons and ABM systems in Ukraine.

The axioms under which they operate, have led the U.S., NATO, and the other members of the OSCE to make essentially no response to Russia’s central security concerns, which that nation laid out repeatedly over a series of meetings this week. But those axioms can be junked at the moment the decision is made to do so. And the accelerating approach of the menace of nuclear annihilation must serve as the catalyst for this change!Will the Treaty of Versailles approach being taken by NATO — whereby the victor dictates terms to the vanquished — give way to a new Peace of Westphalia, whereby the interest of the other must guide a nation’s (and one’s own) actions, as the key to durable peace? Consider the example of Syria, which has been pummeled by years of economic warfare, invasion by outside military forces, and support for domestic and imported terrorists. Despite its suffering, still the State Department and Members of Congress demand more blood. But China offers something else — something that the trans-Atlantic world could have offered, but didn’t. China offers development, investment, advancement, and growth. Syria just joined China’s Belt and Road Initiative, a modern approach like that of the Treaty of Westphalia that ended the brutal and bloody Thirty Years War by creating an active peace — one based on cooperation for the future, rather than recriminations for the past. Can empty politicians, selfish billionaires, and City of London and Wall Street institutions be reformed? Kazakhstan’s newly empowered President, Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, shows a way to achieve that goal, with a little “assistance.” His country possesses vast mineral resources, a phenomenally wealthy elite, and great need for economic, cultural, and scientific advancement. To help achieve those latter ends, Tokayev has announced the establishment of a “National Fund” to invest in “health care, education, and social services.” How will it pay for these investments? Tokayev is direct: through “meaningful and regular contributions to the fund on the part of businesses.” “Thanks to the first president [Nazarbayev], there is a group of very profitable companies in the country and a layer of people who are rich even by international standards. I think the time has come to pay back the people of Kazakhstan, and help them on a systematic, regular basis.” He even offers to help, by compiling a list of eligible “donor” companies, and a calculation of how much they should “contribute.” A similar approach towards such extravagantly and unjustifiably wealthy institutions as the British Monarchy, Blackrock, and Jeff Bezos could have a salubrious effect on both donors and recipients. On a national and global scale, the Four Laws of Lyndon LaRouche can guide the establishment of a system whereby the many “contributions” given to the financial oligarchy over the decades can be redirected to create growth through infrastructure, technological leaps, and scientific advance. The world is ready to be turned upside down. Will we take this great opportunity to think big? Join the Schiller Institute’s January 17 event “An Injustice Anywhere Is a Threat to Justice Everywhere: Stop the Murder of Afghanistan” for the outlook capable of creating such revolutionary change.

"It is midnight in the social order. As we look out on the international horizon we see the nations of the world engaged in a colossal and bitter contest for supremacy. Within a generation two world wars have been fought, and the clouds of another war are constantly hovering dangerously low. Man now has within his possession atomic and nuclear weapons that can completely destroy any of the major cities of the world in a matter of seconds. In spite of this, the arms race continues at breakneck speed. Nuclear tests continue to explode in the atmosphere with the grim prospect that the very air we breathe will be poisoned by radioactive fallout. Bigger and faster missiles continue to carve highways of death through the stratosphere. There is the ever present danger that all of these conditions and weapons will yet conspire to bring about the total annihilation of the human race." - From Strength to Love, a compilation of sermons of Dr. King, this sermon was delivered on February 11, 1962 Eight months before the Cuban Missiles Crisis, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. made the above remarks in a sermon entitled "A Knock at Midnight," thus demonstrating the quality of leadership and insight which caused Lyndon LaRouche to say that King would have been qualified to become President of the United States. We are closer to midnight now than we were in 1962, and neither King, nor LaRouche is here to personally guide us, but we have had the privilege to know their work, and we should learn from their example how to meet the crisis currently challenging us in the immediate days ahead. Join Diane Sare of the LaRouche Movement National Executive Committee to discuss!

In reviewing the ongoing series of discussions this week between Russia, the U.S. and NATO -- which she said so far "looks terrible" -- Helga Zepp-LaRouche returned to what she described as the two alternative approaches to relations between nations.The Versailles Treaty at the end of World War I has in common with the posture of the U.S. and NATO today the view that the victors in war can dictate the terms of peace, as a unipolar force. This blatant assertion of world dominance ignores the legitimate wishes of other nations, and insists on their subordination to the unipolar power. This typifies the "arrogance of power" of today's globalist war hawks, who claim the U.S. "won the Cold War", and therefore has the right to be the dominant world power. In contrast, the Peace of Westphalia, which ended the Thirty Years War in 1648, was based on the idea that recognizing the "interests of others" is the key to a durable peace. The outright rejection thus far by U.S. negotiators of the legitimacy of President Putin's security concerns will not be accepted by Russia. While it is better to talk than not, she said, the overall posture of the U.S. in these talks has "lowered the nuclear threshold", making the use of nuclear weapons more likely should war break out. NATO, which should have been dissolved at the end of the Cold War, must be replaced, especially since its present policy course leads to a war in which its members in Europe will be destroyed. Belonging to a security alliance which would lead to war doesn't make sense. Demonizing Putin and attacking the Belt-and-Road Initiative when the western financial system is crashing also does not make sense. She concluded by calling on our viewers to participate in the emergency Schiller Institute's online seminar on January 17, on the theme, "Stop the Murder of Afghanistan."

Helga Zepp-LaRouche's description that we are "sitting on a powder keg" regarding relations between the U.S. and Russia was confirmed following the conclusion of talks Wednesday. A Russian spokesman said there is no "unifying, positive agenda" between Russia and NATO, as the West is choosing a Cold War containment strategy. A sudden outbreak of war is increasingly possible, as long as relations are defined by the imperatives of imperial geopolitics, i.e., divide the world into competing blocs, with the unipolar power of the U.S./NATO dictating terms. One flank, where cooperation is possible, is collaboration to rebuild Afghanistan. Join us, Jan. 17, at 11 AM EST, for our online seminar "To Stop the Murder in Afghanistan" (register here: https://schillerinstitute.nationbuilder.com/20220117-conference).

Between Monday and Wednesday of this week, the world has moved dramatically closer to the brink of thermonuclear war.The United States and NATO dug in their heels in their respective Jan. 10 and Jan. 12 high-level security talks with Russia, and proclaimed their intent to continue expanding NATO eastward up to Russia’s very border, and to deploy threatening nuclear attack systems also on that border, five minutes flight-time from Moscow. Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Grushko emerged from today’s Russia-NATO Council meeting to report that not only was there no unifying positive agenda between Russia and NATO, but that the U.S. and NATO have reverted to the full Cold War strategy of “containment” towards Russia, including “full spectrum dominance.” Russia is being left with no option but to respond in kind to the policy of containment, deterrence and intimidation, he stated. The Monday U.S.-Russia discussions ended on a similar note. These results are not surprising, Schiller Institute founder Helga Zepp-LaRouche commented today. Other than any possible back-channel or private communications between Presidents Biden and Putin that may be underway and which offer a more rational approach, there could well be a quick counter-action on the part of Russia. As Putin and many top Russian leaders have warned repeatedly over recent weeks, Russia cannot back down to the threats being posed to its very sovereignty and existence. Russia is faced with a reverse Cuban Missile Crisis, only this time with a far shorter hair-trigger to war. Recall the words of JFK sixty years ago: “Within the past week, unmistakable evidence has established the fact that a series of offensive missile sites is now in preparation on that imprisoned island (Cuba).” To do this, he reminded the world, “in an area well-known to have a special and historical relationship to the U.S., is a deliberately provocative and unjustified change in the status quo which cannot be accepted by this country.” Zepp-LaRouche warned that, if the bellicose statements and confrontation continue, then the world is most likely in for a sudden showdown—which could escalate to the thermonuclear threshold nearly instantly. A broad mobilization of forces worldwide is urgently required to stop this descent into hell, and quickly develop new options that will guarantee security and wellbeing for all parties. • A new, global security architecture is needed to immediately replace the NATO organization and policy, which has brought the world to the brink of war. The driving force that is impelling the world towards thermonuclear war is the breakdown crisis of the entire trans-Atlantic financial system. For their system to survive, the predatory speculators of the City of London and Wall Street must impose fascist levels of economic looting, and bring Russia and China to heel to ensure that there is no real opposition to that policy. • The trans-Atlantic system must be put through bankruptcy reorganization along the lines specified by Lyndon LaRouche in his 2014 Four Laws. Put that system out of its misery, and you remove the danger of World War III. Throughout his life, Lyndon LaRouche repeatedly explained this intimate connection between the collapsing financial system and the drive to war. One of his clearest expositions was in a Dec. 23, 2011 statement, “To Stop Thermonuclear War, Bring on the World Economic Recovery,” which we have previously quoted in this space, and excerpts of which are the editorial appearing in the January 7, 2022 issue of Executive Intelligence Review. As that editorial notes, LaRouche’s remarks from 2011 “confirm the prescience of this genius, and demonstrates why Helga Zepp-LaRouche has called for the year 2022—the 100th anniversary of his birth—to be known as ‘The Year of Lyndon LaRouche.’” LaRouche warned in his 2011 presentation: "We are now on the verge of what must be called World War III: This will be thermonuclear World War III—not pre-nuclear war, not nuclear war, but thermonuclear war. The targets, principally, are Russia and China. These are the two principal targets…. “The issue is as follows: The present world system, the economic system, is in the process of disintegrating. Exactly how that will occur is uncertain, but it is happening. The intention is to eliminate two nations—Russia and China—and this means nuclear weapons; it means thermonuclear weapons. That part is engaged…. “Now, at this point, the United States, nations of Europe, Russia, China, and other countries, are poised for exactly this war. “The background of the war is the fact that the entire world is going bankrupt, especially the trans-Atlantic region, especially Europe, and also the United States, and the nations of South America and elsewhere, as well… “The bankruptcy from the United States’ standpoint, was set into motion back in 2007, when the beginning of the bailout process was set into motion. Since that time, the entirety of the trans-Atlantic region, particularly the United States and Europe, have been trapped into a bailout crisis, a hyperinflationary bailout crisis. At this point, the debt which has been accumulated since 2007, under this program, is such that every part of Europe at this time, under the present rules and the present arrangements, is hopelessly bankrupt! They could never recover as living nations, under the present degree of indebtedness they have. The same thing is true of the United States; Europe is a little more acute. That’s what’s happened…. The author of this thing is the British…. “Now, what we have to do—there are solutions for this bankruptcy. First of all, we have to put the world through bankruptcy—that is, a legitimate bankruptcy operation. We can do that, by, first of all, in the United States, for example—and other nations can copy this measure in cooperation with the United States—we go with a Glass-Steagall law, a U.S. Glass-Steagall law. And there are nations of Europe who are thinking of adopting the same Glass-Steagall law. “Under a Glass-Steagall law, the greater part of the debt of European nations, and the United States and others, will be wiped out, in effect, because under Glass-Steagall, the gambling debts, which are the major part of the indebtedness of the United States, will be simply put into a special category where somebody’s going to try to figure out how to get these debts paid—and they will never be paid! They will simply be wiped off the books; there’s no other solution. “Wiping that debt off the books, canceling the bailout debt, will mean that the United States, and Europe if they join, will be in a position to reorganize their finances, to create a credit system, and actually going into a new kind of Hamiltonian kind of credit system, a banking system which will enable the United States, and also Europe and other nations if they join, to organize a financial recovery. “In other words, what would happen, immediately: Remember, most of this bailout debt, the Wall Street debt, the London debt, the other bailout debt, is absolutely worthless! It can never be repaid! It never could be repaid: And the only solution, of course, for this thing, was to have this war. And if the British Empire came out as the victor in such a war, with the support of the United States, then they would cancel their debts, and they would go about their business. But, the population of the world would be reduced, greatly, through hunger, starvation, and so forth, which is about to occur anyway.”

In recognition of the January 11 birthday of Alexander Hamilton, the inventor of the American System of economics—not “capitalism,” which the Founding Fathers never called it, but the national system of credit, banking and Constitutional law documented in Hamilton’s four Reports, written as the first Secretary of the Treasury, and implemented in the Washington-Hamilton Presidency’s revolution in self-government through economic development—and in celebration of the American System’s challenge to the British East india Company, through the creation of such institutions as the Paterson, New Jersey, Society for Useful Manufactures in implementation of those policies—we present Lyndon Larouche’s 2013 remarks on the principle of Glass-Steagall, the June 1933 legislative action deployed by Franklin Roosevelt to clean up Wall Street, and to put people first.LAROUCHE: OK, what I’ve been pushing, of course, is this program around Glass-Steagall, but pushing it from what I do every Friday night, where I have a regular internet television program internationally, and this is covered. But we’re at the point where we have to immediately install Glass-Steagall. Now, what does that mean? Glass-Steagall was the foundation of the formation of the United States. What we call Glass-Steagall, which was established at that time: Now, that has been destroyed a number of times, that concept, which was set up by the chief organizer of the whole American System, Alexander Hamilton. And his design is the design on which the United States Constitution was premised for action. We have since been destroying that, or ripping it up, again and again, as was done recently, in the terrible years just preceding now; and so, the question is Glass-Steagall now. Now, what that means is, that if we in the United States act with our powers, as citizens of the United States, to ensure that Glass-Steagall is installed in the United States now, we open the gates for a new system of national economy, which other nations will go into, why? Because Glass-Steagall is the only formulation available, in the trans-Atlantic region in particular, which could solve the problems we face now, the economic problems and related problems. So therefore, if we get Glass-Steagall through, then what happens? Europe’s situation is generally hopeless: That is, the governments of Europe, the conditions of their laws and so forth, do not allow them to go directly into Glass-Steagall as an alternative. However, if the United States does that first, reinstalls Glass-Steagall, which is what has to be done now, then, immediately, you have the basis in Glass-Steagall for agreements among other governments, across the Atlantic and so forth, and these agreements mean that you are launching a new world system, which will actually address these kinds of problems. That’s the simple, practical solution: Glass-Steagall, what it means is that all the junk credits are cancelled. The junk is cancelled. And then we go back to a credit system, based on Glass-Steagall in particular, but actually on the original design by Alexander Hamilton of the credit system of the United States. Once we re-establish the credit system of the United States, which had been launched first by Alexander Hamilton, we are on the way home. Because every nation in the world needs that same program as their way out of the chaos. And therefore, we can then, on that basis—and I know what the situation is in China, for example, relative to this; what the situation is in other parts of Asia, and so forth. If we do this, we can turn the tide on the history of the United States, to get back to what we were really intended to become, when we were founded as a republic." Sooner than people may imagine, the necessity of returning to the principle of the American System will be perceived as the only way out, if the United States, or the trans-Atlantic world, will have any chance to survive. Right now, as can be seen in myriad ways, it is gripped by a Nebuchadnezzar-like madness, but this also means that, by losing its reason, it has also “lost the mantle of heaven.” British “Great Game”tricks, such as the ugly deployment of “Afghansi” terrorists to make a “Color Revolution” coup in the nation of Kasakhstan, have failed through resolute, pre-emptive action. The days of the late British Intelligence agent Bernard Lewis and his “Islamic Fundamentalism/ Arc of Crisis” jihad against Russia and China for control of the “Eurasian heartland” are over—though Victoria Nuland and other State Department “creatures from Foggy Bottom” have yet to get the memo. In the midst of the whirlwind of anxiety-creating fast-moving events, which often require analytical methods considerably above the “intellectual pay grade” of the dismally demented media of today, it is important to remain keenly focused on what is actually knowable and changeable in humanity’s dire condition. Therefore, we are re-emphasizing the conclusion of what was said by Helga Zepp LaRouche in the conclusion of her remarks made on Monday: “I always have this image of acting on the basis of Providence. Providence in my view is not something where you somehow have an angel from Heaven, who puts a crown on your head and then you are a Bishop or something. Providence is that you, almost intuitively act on necessity, and one thing Lyn has really taught all of us, is what that means, because Lyn was the man of Providence 100%. He was fearless, he knew the laws of the universe and he acted on it, and that’s why he was so right in his forecasts. That’s why Lyn’s analyses were so absolutely sharp, in being able to forecast events which would occur decades later. And, at the same time, then proposing solutions, always from the top, always from the standpoint of mankind first, of the laws of the universe, and if you internalize that as your parameters, —we don’t know how the solution will come. It could come by a financial crash, and then the only governments which are functions calling an international conference and reorganizing a system which has already collapsed. It could be like that. It could be more peaceful, like eventually at some big conference a proposal is made, and many countries endorse it. I have no idea: It’s very difficult to exactly say how we can win. “But the idea that we have not only a solution, but that that solution can become the dominant solution in history, I’m deeply convinced of it. It’s almost like every time something gets worse, it’s an affirmation that we are getting closer to the solution. If you’re not married to the system, then you think that what is becoming worse, in one sense, somehow affirming what Lyn has been forecasting all of this time, you say, yeah, we’re on the right track. And in a certain sense, it’s only when you marry into income, money, prestige, all of these things, then you don’t see it. And I think one of the reasons why these individuals don’t believe there are solutions possible, because they have one foot in paradise and one foot in hell; and then naturally, you don’t see a solution because you’re torn apart. “And I think it’s really something worth thinking about, because the one powerful weapon is that we can tell people we do have the solution and there exists a solution because otherwise, you would think that Leibniz was wrong about the best of all possible worlds; you would think that the Creator made the universe badly, which I fundamentally don’t think; I think this universe is the most perfect, beautiful, universe, that the Creator is the most loving Creator you can imagine, and the whole existence of creation is an example of the principle of Love. I fully agree with Kepler who said, the more I study the stars the more I come to the conclusion that the Creator must have been the absolute Loving existence in the universe. “I think this emotion of Love, recognizing the beauty of the Creation, can only come from this gigantic principle of agapē. That gives you hope. And if you are attuned to that, you are not afraid, either. So I think we should be absolutely emphatic, that solutions are possible, and that if people don’t see it, then they should investigate what’s wrong with their thinking, and not for one second give credence to such an idea.” As the institutional forces of the trans-Atlantic world lose the mantle of heaven, we will begin to see spontaneous, if disorganized and semi-informed, revolt. The walk-out yesterday by several hundred students in Brooklyn from a high school where they were required to show up and remain, despite known Covid cases among the faculty and fellow students; the request by Black Voters Matter and other Georgia Democratic organizations that Biden and Harris not show up to spew vacuous platitudes about Martin Luther King at his Atlanta memorial; the cowardly but continuous move toward nuclear power by nations asserting its indispensable role in an “energy taxonomy,” despite the conniptions of the “Brown Greens,” indicates in different instances how the mantle of heaven is being lost. Look at the contrast between the 1.4 million cases of Omicron virus in one day in the United States, and the 87 cases in Henan province in China, leading to a full lockdown of the city of Anyan (pop. 5.2 million.) The idea that the nation of China, 1.4 billion people, cannot continue to do the kind of lockdown process, mass testing, and aggressive healthcare that in fact defeats the pandemic, shows only the pessimism of those whose Malthusian health-care outlook, like the outlook of the recently exhumed Obama-era Ezekiel Emmanuel, will soon be shown to be unsustainable. Another contrast: not America or Europe, but Russia, as proposed by its medical officials at the December CIS meeting, has converged upon the public sanitation approach for all nations proposed 18 months ago by the Schiller Institute. This means that two of the world’s major powers are proceeding as the Schiller Institute suggests. Why not the rest? Soon, the populations of all nations will have no choice but to attempt to preserve their lives by adopting the proposals of Dr. Jocelyn Elders, and Helga Zepp-LaRouche. This Saturday, Helga will address international youth on the life, work, and significance of the great Islamic thinker and physician, Ibn Sina, after whom her strategic intervention into Afghanistan, “Operation Ibn Sina,” is named. Monday, on the Martin Luther King holiday, the Schiller Institute will host a gathering entitled “Injustice Anywhere is a Threat to Justice Everywhere: International Seminar to Stop the Murder of Afghanistan.” Meanwhile, to remind everyone of the boorish behavior of the Brutish Empire toward the United States, we present in the Documentation Section Prince Andrew’s (yes, that Prince Andrew) discussion about “The Great Game,” as recorded in October, 2008 by Tatania Gfoeller, the American ambassador to Kyrgyzstan. This sheds light on the ideational and synergist geopolitical context of the recent, failed attempt to overthrow the government of the nation of Kazakhstan. The efficiency of response by the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) to the attempted “Afghansi” disintegration of that nation will not have been lost on the negotiators that met in Geneva. Vladimir Putin’s attempt to engage President Joe Biden in a rational discussion, even amidst continuous provocations to war, may well prove to be the primary reason that we all survive.

Has there been any progress in the ongoing talks between U.S. and Russian reps? The best that can be said is that it's good they are talking, but statements issued by them show that the Russians have not received the agreement they are seeking, as the U.S. continues to insist it will not accept Russian "red lines" on NATO expansion and arms to Ukraine. Meanwhile, the attempt at a "Color Revolution" coup in Kazakhstan has been thwarted by decisive action by the CSTO allies of the nation. "Russia will not allow a 'Color Revolution'", Putin stated yesterday, after revealing that "Maidan technologies" -- a reference to the methods used in the 2014 coup in Ukraine -- had been employed in Kazakhstan.

The following article appeared in Russian press service RIA Novosti today. Expert Black: US Must Be Urged to Seriously Negotiate on the Demands of Russia NEW YORK, January 11 - RIA Novosti. The US authorities should be encouraged to conduct serious negotiations on the requirements and conditions that have been put forward by Russia, Richard Black, a representative of the Schiller Institute in New York, told RIA Novosti.Speaking about the Russian-American negotiations on security guarantees which took place in Geneva on Monday, Black said, “it is too early to say what the outcome of the talks, which will extend through the week, will be.” Talks are expected later this week in the Russia-NATO format, as well as of the OSCE . “We at the Schiller Institute believe that it is necessary to mobilize veteran diplomats and leaders in civil society in the United States who must call on the United States to seriously negotiate the demands and conditions set out by President Putin,” Black said. “We believe that a drastic turnaround is needed on the part of the United States, in terms of goodwill negotiations with Russia,” he added. At the same time, Black expressed doubts about the truth of the allegations promoted by the media and the US authorities, that “Russia is an autocracy, Russia is a strategic enemy, Russia has invaded Ukraine.” “In our opinion, this is an extremely dangerous situation,” he added. Earlier, Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said that there had been no progress in negotiations with the United States on NATO’s non-expansion. Ryabkov said that Moscow needs significant legal guarantees, “reinforced in concrete,” that Ukraine and Georgia will never become NATO members. This is a matter of Russia’s national security, Ryabkov stressed. Moscow and Washington, during January 9-10, held consultations in Geneva on Russia’s proposals on security guarantees. Following this, a meeting of the Russia-NATO Council will take place in Brussels, and consultations on the platform of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe will take place in Vienna. At the end of 2021, Russia had published proposed draft agreements with the United States and agreements with the North Atlantic Alliance on security guarantees. Moscow, in particular, demands from its Western partners legal guarantees to refrain from further expansion of NATO to the east, and guarantees to prevent both Ukraine from joining the North Atlantic Alliance, and to prevent the creation of military bases in post-Soviet countries. However, even before the start of the consultations, the United States had already stated that some of Russia’s proposals were unacceptable. Moscow, in turn, stressed that although the project of the proposed treaties is not an ultimatum, Russia will not agree to any unilateral concessions, especially under pressure. At the same time, Ryabkov did not rule out the possibility that the dialogue with the US might be limited to only one meeting—that there would be no point in continuing it. If so, this threatens a new round of confrontation. Translated By Ilko Dimov

The talks between U.S. and Russian officials yesterday in Geneva reached no positive outcome. This should not be a surprise, as U.S. spokesman Ned Price announced that the U.S. "had not intended to reach any agreement with Russia." Will this attitude persist as the U.S. approaches further talks? With the Trans-Atlantic nations facing a deepening economic crisis, warnings of a "sharp correction" in hyper-inflated stock markets, the continuing disruption caused by the pandemic, starvation threatening 22 million in Afghanistan, and electricity blackouts in Germany, this is the time to move towards cooperation between sovereign nation states, rather than geopolitical confrontation to defend bankrupt corporate cartels.

So many institutions of the U.S. intellectual establishment are now echoing the Schiller Institute and demanding the release of Afghanistan’s aid and reserve funds—15 think-tanks and organizations in a Jan. 8 joint letter to President Biden and others on their own websites—that there is clearly a horrible realization: United States financial and economic sanctions are murdering an innocent people, for insufficient loyalty to NATO occupying forces. Any citizen who thinks this crime is unrelated to the threat of an imminent, much bigger conflict over Ukraine, is mistaking moral posturing for morality.In the U.S.-Russia meetings now going on in Geneva about NATO in Eastern Europe and Ukraine, moral posturing by U.S. diplomats has quickly and completely replaced the personal diplomacy between Presidents Biden and Putin which seemed to give hope of a solution. After the bilateral U.S.-Russia stage of the meetings on Jan. 10, State Department spokesman Ned Price said that the United States would never consider keeping Ukraine out of NATO, “had not intended to reach any agreement” with Russia, and did not even “consider the talks as a negotiation.” He concluded his briefing with a talking points list of Russian “malign activities,” to claim that Russia, and only Russia, had to de-escalate and make concessions, to allow NATO forces and missiles to complete their long advance right to Russia’s borders—while Russian troops must vacate their own western border regions and “return to their permanent bases.” Secretary of State Tony Blinken added, at the same time, a gratuitous attempt to gloat over Russia’s assistance to the government of Kazakhstan to control rioting and attempted insurrection. Unless President Joe Biden intervenes personally again, Russia’s proposed agreements have been bluntly and permanently rejected. This is the equivalent of Nikita Khrushchev having refused ever to consider withdrawing Soviet missiles from America’s southern border in the terrifying Cuban Missiles Crisis of October 1962. At that time, tens of millions of frightened people around the world had already imagined what that refusal would mean. Even if the consequence now is “merely” a conventional conflict in Ukraine, U.S. former chief weapons inspector and military expert Scott Ritter gives an idea why that would not go well for NATO forces. What if the consequence is only the “complete rupture of relations” threatened by Putin and a deep and immediate Cold War. The nation with the world’s most rapidly expanding and technologically advancing economy, and with the greatest anti-poverty and development influence in Africa, South and East Asia, is firmly in partnership with Russia. This is clearly shown once again in the suppression of the apparently failed “color revolution” attempt in Kazakhstan. If the Biden Administration has decided the United States will attack and confront Russia and China together in a new Cold War—opposing them in space, fighting their policies of exporting nuclear power to third countries, demanding they stop using coal for power, attacking China’s Belt and Road and poverty eradication policies, and so on, who will it have in its corner? Why, the British Empire, of course—those green royals and Bojo the Clown and Her Majesty’s forces eager to deploy into Ukraine. What will America have in reserve? No development credit institution; a weak economic recovery from a deep recession; a labor force 3 million workers and 3.5 million jobs down from two years ago; declining real incomes; a Federal Reserve creating economic calamities worldwide, as the IMF warned Jan. 9, trying to stop the inflation it caused. But far worse than any of this is the ongoing strangulation of the people of Afghanistan by U.S. sanctions. It is causing a growing cascade of deaths by starvation, by freezing in homes with no winter fuel, in a nation for which the United States clearly bears responsibility after 20 years’ war and occupation. Murdered for the sin of not sustaining a puppet government when NATO left it. These sanctions are a crime against humanity. With this Afghanistan as its “banner,” nations will instinctively shun an Anglo-American attempt to make the rules for the world. There would be perverse new meaning, as Schiller Institute President Helga Zepp-LaRouche said today, to the phrase “Afghanistan, the graveyard of empires.” This must be prevented, reversed. The policy must be changed to one of development, by Helga LaRouche’s Operation Ibn Sina. The Schiller Institute’s urgent organizing for this objective, will take its next step forward with a webinar on Martin Luther King Day, Monday, Jan. 17.

This evening in Geneva, informal talks began between the United States and Russia, at a supper with U.S. delegation leader, Wendy Sherman, Deputy Secretary of State, and Sergey Ryabkov, Deputy Foreign Minister, and their teams, at the residence of the U.S. ambassador to the Conference on Disarmament. Tomorrow, the formal talks ensue, on the topic of security, between the U.S. and Russia. On Jan. 12, in Brussels, NATO and Russian officials will meet on security. On Jan. 13 in Vienna, the U.S., Russia and other member nations of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) will meet.On the eve of this historic week, Secretary of State Antony Blinken spoke this morning on two Sunday TV interviews, unfortunately reiterating his litany of charges against Russia, his false history of Europe, and his crazed assertions about what he claims is in the interest of the United States, e.g., backing Eurasian nations against Russia—Georgia, Moldova, Belarus, Ukraine and now Kazakhstan. In turn, Minister Ryabkov today told TASS, speaking of the Russian readiness to discuss the two draft security documents that they have provided for discussion and action: “Honestly speaking, I really doubt that our American colleagues are ready for such a talk, judging by the signals that we have been hearing in recent days…. But it would be naïve to expect progress, given the revised public presentation of the position that we see today, right before the start of contacts.” The Schiller Institute and collaborators in recent years, have done everything in their means to prevent this state of brinkmanship expressed by the Blinken position, which is, in fact, the classic, deadly British Great Gamesmanship in Eurasia. Now is not the fitting moment to prognosticate what exactly will happen in the discussions tomorrow and this week. But it is time to redouble our efforts to engage everyone possible to understand what is going on, and what they can do to stop the drive to Armageddon. An important initiative comes from the United States. Fifteen organizations—including religious, veteran, diplomacy and other groups—issued an open letter Jan. 8 to President Joe Biden, on what kind of negotiations should go on with Russia this week, to the joint interest of all nations and peoples. The letter was also sent to Blinken, and Sen. Charles Schumer and Rep. Nancy Pelosi. The letter is titled, “Further Strengthen Diplomatic Efforts and Avert War,” and is circulating through the channels of the American Committee for U.S.-Russia Accord. The bipartisan authors call on the U.S. to reject expanding NATO, and say: “It is in the interests of the United States, the region, and the world to address these and other root causes of tension with Russia as part of an ongoing strategic dialogue.” It states: “Continuing engagement is necessary to avert a military conflict that will harm the interests of the United States, harm innocent civilians in Ukraine, and risk spiraling into a potentially catastrophic war between the world’s two leading nuclear powers.” What is called for is statecraft in service of the common good, which in the face of war, is life itself. Look at Afghanistan, for the threat of mass death from famine, disease and weather. Some days ago, a fierce storm system hit south of the Hindu Kush, bringing snow and freezing temperatures in Kabul and neighboring provinces. To the east in Pakistan, over Jan. 6-7, the storm system dropped up to four feet of snow very fast, and trapped thousands of tourists in their cars in the scenic mountain area some 22 miles north of Islamabad, in the popular winter resort town of Murree. So far 22 are dead. Emergency crews are working hard, and this is rightly highly publicized. However, in Kabul, a city of 4.5 million, the frigid weather and lack of food are creating mass death circumstances, but the “news” remains almost completely blacked out. On Jan. 7, the Afghan government issued a direct world appeal by video. Acting Deputy Prime Minister Abdul Ghani Barada said, “In various places right now, people do not have food, accommodation, warm clothes or money….The world has to support Afghan people without any political bias and carry out their humanitarian obligations…. We call for the international community, NGOs and all the countries not to forget our poor people.” The situation underscores the role of the Schiller Institute and collaborators to make known the reality of the crises, and the reality that nations collaborating can solve them all. Plans are being made final for a Schiller Institute international conference on the Afghanistan emergency within the coming 10 days. Circulate everywhere the Schiller Institute Memorandum (Dec. 31, 2021) “Are We Sleepwalking into Thermonuclear World War III?”

Now is the perfect time for the people living in the Trans-Atlantic nations to come to their senses, and throw out the ideological insanity embodied in neoliberal, and neo-conservative policies. The security dialogues with Russia this week provide an opportunity to move away from geopolitical confrontation with Russia; hyperinflation, supply-chain breakdowns, and unsustainable debt expose the fallacy of radical free market/free trade policies; and winter has shown why the Green New Deal must be dumped. So let's get to work, and organize a new paradigm, based on the body of work done by statesman and economist Lyndon LaRouche.

by: Harley SchlangerJan. 8 -- Beginning on January 10, there will be three meetings which will include Russian and American representatives, in which the possibility exists that the tensions which have increased over Ukraine during the second half of 2021 will be addressed, resulting in a de-escalation. These meetings follow direct discussion in two video conferences in December between Presidents Putin and Biden, in which the most urgent issue addressed was the danger of war between Russia and Ukraine. U.S. intelligence claims to have evidence, based on Russian troop movements along the border, that they are preparing to invade Ukraine, as early as the end of January. President Putin dismissed this claim, raising instead his concerns over the possibility that Ukraine would be granted membership in NATO, a prospect he denounced as an unacceptable provocation, which would be the crossing of a "red line." While Biden insists that an offer of NATO membership is not imminent, the Russians have pointed to ongoing NATO-U.S. military exercises in Ukraine, and the provision of increasingly sophisticated weapons to Ukraine, as a threat to Russia's security. Putin has submitted drafts of two legally-binding treaties -- one for the U.S., one for NATO -- which would prevent further eastward expansion of NATO, would prohibit the delivery of new weapon systems to the Ukrainian military, and would pressure Ukraine to abide by the Minsk agreement which it signed to allow for a peaceful resolution of the conflict in the Donbas. He has been raising the need for security guarantees repeatedly, as the anti-Russian rhetoric and NATO military deployments have escalated. For example, he said in a speech delivered to the Valdai Discussion Club in Sochi on October 21, that Ukraine does not even have to be given formal NATO membership to pose a strategic threat to Russia. "Formal membership in NATO ultimately may not happen, but the military development of the territory is already underway. And this really poses a threat to the Russian Federation....Tomorrow, rockets could appear near Kharkov, what are we going to do about it? It's not us placing our missiles there, it's them shoving theirs under our nose." He continued, referring to the February 1990 promise made to Soviet President Gorbachev by U.S. officials, on behalf of NATO, that no eastward expansion of NATO would occur after the reunification of Germany: "Everyone from all sides said that after the unification, in no circumstance would NATO infrastructure move toward the east. Russia should have been able to at least rely on that. That's what they said, there were public statements. But in practice? They lied...and then they expanded it once, and then they expanded it again." Putin elaborated his view of the threat to Russian security in a December 21 report to the Defense Ministry Board: "What they (the United States) are doing on the territory of Ukraine now -- or trying to do and going to do -- this is not thousands of kilometers away from our national border. This is at the doorstep of our home. They must understand that we simply have nowhere to retreat further....Do they think we don't see these threats? Or do they think that we are so weak-willed to simply look blankly at the threats posed to Russia?" Putin stressed that placing weapons with nuclear devices in Ukraine puts them within 5 minutes of Moscow! He continued, "As I have already noted, in the event of the continuation of the obviously aggressive line of our Western colleagues, we will take adequate retaliatory military-technical measures, and react toughly to unfriendly steps. And, I want to emphasize, we have every right to do so, we have every right to take actions designed to ensure the security and sovereignty of Russia....We are extremely concerned about the deployment of elements of the U.S. global missile defense system near Russia." In case the urgency and intensity of Putin's message were missed by the Trans-Atlantic powers, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov reiterated the non-negotiable nature of Putin's demand for the adoption of these treaties. Russia is preparing, he said, "to firmly and effectively pursue the agenda of defending our interests and refusing to make concessions that would be unilateral...."

Secretary of State Tony Blinken went on a Goebbels-style rampage against Russia, turning history since 2014 completely on its head, in remarks to reporters following NATO’s virtual foreign ministers meeting. “We’re prepared to respond forcefully to further Russian aggression, but a diplomatic solution is still possible and preferable, if Russia chooses it,” he said, according to the State Department transcript. “That’s what we, together with our allies and partners, will continue to pursue intently next week at the Strategic Stability Dialogue between the United States and Russia, and at the meetings of the NATO-Russia Council and the OSCE, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe.”“Ahead of these urgent discussions, let’s be clear about how we got to this moment,” he said, before unleashing a completely false narrative about events since 2014. “In 2014, the Ukrainian people chose a democratic (!) and European future for themselves. Russia responded by manufacturing a crisis and invading,” he said completely reversing the reality that an elected government was overthrown by a neo-Nazi-dominated violent coup in which the U.S. played a direct role. Acknowledging the reality, however, would make it impossible to then paint Moscow as the aggressor trying to crush the “democratic aspirations” of the Ukrainian people. That of course includes the rhetoric that NATO is only a “defensive alliance” that “exists to protect, not to attack.” Additionally, “NATO never promised not to admit new members,” Blinken went on, “It could not and would not—the ‘open door policy’ was a core provision of the 1949 North Atlantic Treaty that founded NATO.” Turning to the topic of the series of meetings beginning on Monday, Jan. 10 in Geneva, Blinken declared that “Russia is now demanding that both the United States and NATO sign treaties to withdraw NATO forces stationed in the territory of Allies in Central and Eastern Europe and to prohibit Ukraine from ever joining NATO. They want to draw us into a debate about NATO, rather than focus on the matter at hand, which is their aggression toward Ukraine. We won’t be diverted from that issue, because what’s happening in Ukraine is not only about Ukraine. It’s part of a broader pattern of destabilizing, dangerous, and often illegal behavior by Moscow as it tries to build a sphere of influence that covers the countries that were once under Soviet dominion, and to stop them from realizing their democratic aspirations as fully sovereign, independent nations.” As for yesterday’s NATO meeting, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg was on the same track as Blinken in terms of blaming Russia for everything. “Russia’s aggressive actions seriously undermine the security order in Europe,” he said. “NATO remains committed to our dual-track approach to Russia: strong deterrence and defense, combined with meaningful dialogue. It is a positive signal that Russia is now prepared to come to the table and talk because when tensions are high, dialogue is even more important.” “We are always ready to listen to Russian concerns and NATO will make every effort to find a political way forward,” Stoltenberg droned on. “But for dialogue to be meaningful, it must also address Allies’ long-standing concerns about Russia’s actions. It must be based on the core principles of European security and it must take place in consultation with Ukraine.” But there’ll be no halt to NATO expansion. “We will not compromise on core principles, including the right for every nation to decide its own path, including what kind of security arrangements it wants to be a part of,” he said. Stoltenberg claimed that the Russian military buildup that sparked fears of an invasion has continued. “We see armored units, we see artillery, we see combat-ready troops, we see electronic warfare equipment and we see a lot of different military capabilities,” he said. This buildup, combined with Russia’s security demands, and its track record in Ukraine and Georgia, “sends a message that there is a real risk for a new armed conflict in Europe,” Stoltenberg said.

by: Harley Schlanger Jan. 4 -- The idea proposed by Helga Zepp-LaRouche to make 2022 the "Year of LaRouche" is not an honorific request, shaped simply by a desire to see that an intellectual giant, the late Lyndon LaRouche (1922 to 2019), is given the recognition he richly deserves. It is, instead, a necessary intervention, to provide both world leaders and honorable citizens the profound, in-depth insight required to pull the world back from the danger of thermonuclear war -- which is what Mrs. LaRouche intends in making this proposal.Lyndon LaRouche had an absolutely unique knowledge of the dynamics that shape human history, which he presented as an integrated understanding of the inter-relationship between strategic relations, global financial and economic processes, scientific advance and culture. The solutions he developed to the civilizational crisis which has been unfolding and deepening since the end of World War II, and especially since the 1963 assassination of President John Kennedy, come from his "top-down approach," of the sort which few today can even appreciate, not to mention replicate. That is why the crisis today is an existential threat to human society, and requires a return to the quality of philosophical/scientific rigor which characterized the richness of his output over the last half-century. A short report cannot provide more than a glimpse into that work, However, a brief review of a statement he presented in a webcast on December 23, 2011, may inspire our readers to engage in a serious dialogue with the body of ideas which are the legacy of Lyndon LaRouche. The webcast was published under the headline, "To Stop Thermonuclear War, Bring on the World Economic Recovery." He begins by identifying the increased danger of war during the Obama presidency as coming from the "intention" of a global oligarchy, centered in the City of London and deploying Obama as their tool, "to eliminate two nations -- Russia and China." The urgency behind this is that the Trans-Atlantic world, since 2007, has faced an accelerating bankruptcy crisis. To protect the value of worthless paper in the hands of the financial institutions controlled by that oligarchy, they deployed central banks to pump unprecedented volumes of liquidity into the system, not to create a real, physical economic recovery, but to maintain the illusion of solvency. It was clear then, as it is today, that the sovereign nations of Russia and China would not submit to bailing out speculative predators, and that made them the ultimate targets. This process which he dissected then entered a new, even bigger phase, following the near-financial collapse in September 2019, with Russia and China again representing the major obstacles to a global financial dictatorship known as the Great Reset, to implement the Malthusian Green New Deal. Thus, the present provocations which are underway against Russia using Ukraine, and China using Taiwan. To shift the power away from the predatory looters of the City of London and Wall Street, which enforced the looting through the U,S. military, NATO and intelligence warfare, such as "regime change coups", he proposed an alliance of Four Powers -- Russia, China, India and the U.S. These nations possessed the potential economic might to enact the measures necessary to transition from the collapsed system into a New Paradigm. To accomplish this, he drafted his Four Economic Laws, which would begin by reaching an agreement to put the world economy through a "legitimate bankruptcy operation," centered around the 1933, Franklin Roosevelt policy of Glass Steagall banking separation. If this were done in a coordinated way today, it would wipe out the worthless debts sitting on the books of bankrupt financial institutions, which he called "gambling debts", opening the way for new credit issued by sovereign national banks, which would function as "Hamiltonian credit" institutions. Each nation would be able to generate credit into reviving the physical economy, with an emphasis on developing new platforms of infrastructure, and credit into areas at the frontiers of science, such as nuclear fusion, and space exploration. There is no other alternative to the "LaRouche Solution." Risking thermonuclear war to sustain a system which is hopelessly bankrupt is not an acceptable option.

HARLEY SCHLANGER: Hello, I’m Harley Schlanger with the Schiller Institute and Executive Intelligence Review. It’s January 6, 2022, and I’m joined today, very happily, by Dr. Andrey Kortunov, the director general of the Russian International Affairs Council (RIAC). He’s been a participant at several Schiller Institute conferences. The RIAC itself is a very prestigious and important institute in shaping Russian foreign policy. We’re speaking at a moment of heightened tension between the U.S. and NATO with Russia, but also on the eve of a number of dialogues which have a potential for a breakthrough, and we want to explore this with Dr. Kortunov. Andrey, thank you for joining us today. ANDREY KORTUNOV: You’re welcome. SCHLANGER: The tension that’s been growing in the most recent period can be traced back to the Dec. 3rd leak in the Washington Post, claiming that the Russians and President Putin are about to invade Ukraine. This has led to several discussions, two talks, in fact, videoconference talks between Presidents Putin and Biden. And there is a demand from President Putin that there be a discussion about legally binding agreements for Russian national security. I’d like to start by just asking you, why do you think at this time, there’s been increased tensions? I don’t mean to say it just started Dec. 3rd, but we’ve seen a constant drumbeat since then. KORTUNOV: Well, it’s hard to tell what exactly triggered the current escalation, but I think it was simmering for some time. If you look at the Russian side of the equation, of course, there has been a growing disappointment with the performance of the Normandy group, and I think that right now, there are very clear frustrations about the ability of this group to lead to the full implementation of the Minsk agreements. There were hopes when Mr. Zelenskyy came to power in Kiev, that he would be very different from his predecessor, Mr. Poroshenko, but at the end of the day, it turned out that it was more of the same. He introduced new legislation on languages, which implies naturalization of the use of the Russian language in Ukraine; he banned a couple of important and influential opposition media; and he prosecution some of Russia-friendly politicians in his country, so the perception was that probably we cannot expect too much from him. Likewise, there was growing frustration with Paris and Berlin, in terms of their ability to use their leverage in Kiev to make the Ukrainian side implement the Minsk agreements. And an indicator of this was the publication of an exchange of letters between Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov and his peers in Paris and in Berlin, a very unorthodox, unusual step for Russian diplomacy, which suggests that Russia cannot really count on Berlin and Paris as honest brokers in this context. So, I think ultimately, the decision was made that we should bring it to the attention to President Biden, because President Biden might be a tough negotiator, but he at least delivers on his commitments. And Biden has demonstrated that he is ready to continue a dialogue with Moscow. They had a meeting with President Putin in June of last year in Geneva, and I think that the decision was made that we should count on the United States more than on our European partners. This is how I see the situation on the Russian side. And of course, there are also concerns about what Putin called a “military cultivation” of the Ukrainian territory by the North Atlantic Alliance. Looking at the situation from Moscow, one can see that although Ukraine is not a member to the NATO alliance, but there is more and more military cooperation between Ukraine and countries like the United States, and Germany, and the United Kingdom, and Turkey, and that changes the equation in the east of Ukraine; and I think that the concerns in Moscow are that at some point, President Zelenskyy, or whoever is in charge in Kiev, might decide to go for a military solution of the Donbas problem, and this is definitely not something that Moscow would like to see. So in certain ways, the Russian policy in Ukraine is that of deterrence, to deny Kiev a military solution for the problem of the east. SCHLANGER: Now, you wrote that you don’t believe that President Putin intends to invade Ukraine: That it would be an enormous cost to Russia, and that, in fact, sending troops to the border which was within Russia, may be in all this increased tension, may be designed to send a signal to the West—you just mentioned France and Germany. But do you think the West is getting the signal? Annalena Baerbock, the German Foreign Minister, was just in Washington and she and Blinken were rattling their sabers, a little bit, again. Stoltenberg of NATO continues to make very strong statements. Do you think the signal is being recognized, or it’s reaching the people that need to understand what President Putin is insisting on? KORTUNOV: Well, I think that it really depends on how you define “recognition” of the signal: Because on the one hand, indeed, you’re absolutely right, we observe a lot of rather militant rhetoric coming from the West, and it is not limited to Washington and to Berlin only. We see some other Western countries, where they make very strong statements, denying Russian veto power over decisions that are made, or can be made within the NATO alliance. But on the other hand, you can also observe that there is a readiness, at least, to start talking to Moscow, and this is exactly what Mr. Putin apparently wants. His point is that if we do not generate a certain tension, you will not listen to us, you will not even hear us. So we are forced to make all these noises in order to get heard, if not listened to. So they are ready to meet. I am not too optimistic about potential breakthroughs that can be reached within these meetings, but the idea to meet and to discuss a band of issues is already something that President Putin can claim as his foreign policy accomplishment. SCHLANGER: Now, in the United States, the media are continuing to paint President Putin as an autocrat, Russia as authoritarian nation, and they’re sort of missing one of the broader points here, which is that we’re looking at something which could be described as a reverse Cuban Missile Crisis. And I just went through President Kennedy’s Oct. 22, 1962, where he made a point very parallel to what President Putin is saying, which is that no nation can tolerate offensive weapons that close to its border, as the Soviet weapons were to the U.S. in Cuba. Do you think this is something that is part of the consideration from the standpoint of President Putin and the Russian government? KORTUNOV: Well, I think that, again, you’re right, here. I think that definitely President Putin implies that there are certain rules of the game, maybe not codified rules of the game, that should be observed. And I think that when we’re talking about the U.S. position, there is a standard U.S. feeling of exclusiveness—we can do it because we are good guys, so we cannot harbor any evil intentions, so our missiles are fine. These are peacekeeping missiles, they cannot constitute any threat to Russia or to anyone else. But if you guys put your missiles in the vicinity of our borders, since you are bad guys, it means your missiles are also bad, and that they should be removed. Of course, the United States pursues this policy of double standards for a very long time, and I understand why the United States is doing that, but I think that such double standards can no longer work in our world. So, if we agree that there should be some constraints, and that security interests of major powers should be taken into consideration, then it should be applied universally. It should not be applied to the United States only, but it should be applied to Russia, to China, to some other countries as well. SCHLANGER: Now, you’ve spoken of your view that there needs to be a new security architecture, to replace the existing bloc structure which seems to be left over from the Cold War. Just a few days ago, the permanent five nations of the UN Security Council issued a statement, which I think was quite extraordinary, that “nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought,” which is an echo of the discussion between Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev back in October 1986 in Reykjavik. Is this the kind of thing that can move toward a new security architecture, or recognition of something like this? And what kind of changes would you like to see, in order to create stability and ease the tensions? KORTUNOV: Well, I would say that this is an important first step, and the question is whether this step will have any continuation. Because it is relatively easy, though it is difficult in itself, but it is, in relative terms, it is easier to make a general statement, without making any specific commitments, than to go for something more practical. I guess that one of the problems we see in Europe, in particular, is that NATO has monopolized the security agenda in Europe, and that implies that if you are not within NATO, you have no stakes in the European security: You are not a stakeholder. And if you’re not a stakeholder, you are tempted to become a spoiler. And that is something that I see as a major problem. So, in my view, the key goal should be not to reverse the NATO enlargement, which is not possible, I think. But rather to deprive NATO of its monopoly position on European security matters. That might imply giving more power and more authority more inclusive European institutions, like the Organization on Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), for example, which really needs some addition flesh on its bones. It has to be empowered, it has to become a real European multilateral organization that can take a part of the security agenda. There might be some other agreements, and some other arrangements that would diversify our security portfolio in Europe. But I think that definitely, any European system which excludes Russia by definition, is likely to be very—not very stable, let me put it in this way, and fragile, and it will have high maintenance costs. So, I think it’s better to have Russia in, rather than to have Russia out. SCHLANGER: Now, in an article you wrote recently, “A Non-Alarmist Forecast for 2022,” one of the things you talked about is finding areas of cooperation. And you say one of the most urgent of these is Afghanistan for obvious reasons: the refugee crisis, the potential for radicalization of people if the humanitarian crisis deepens—as it is; David Beasley of the World Food Program just said yesterday, almost 9 million Afghans are at the verge of starvation. [https://russiancouncil.ru/en/analytics-and-comments/analytics/a-non-alarmist-forecast-for-2022/] Do you see a potential, then, through the Extended Troika—China, Pakistan, Russia, United States—to do something? And as you know, Mrs. Helga Zepp-LaRouche of the Schiller Institute has called for an “Operation Ibn Sina” to use the healthcare situation as the basis for beginning, not just emergency aid, but building up a modern healthcare system in Afghanistan. Is this some area, where you could see some cooperation? KORTUNOV: Well, Afghanistan strikes me as one of a very few places in the world, where I see no major contradictions between the East and the West, between Russia and China on the one hand, and the United States and the European Union on the other. I think that everybody around Afghanistan, and also if we consider overseas powers, everybody is interested in seeing Afghanistan as a stable place, as a place which will not harbor international terrorism, as a place which will stop being a major drug producer and drug exporter to neighboring countries: So these interests are essentially the same. I would definitely call for an as broad international coalition to deal with Afghanistan as possible; and this coalition should involve not only neighboring countries—which are clearly very important—but also countries which have the stakes in Afghanistan. We can talk about the European Union which remains the largest assistance provider to Afghanistan, even today; we can talk about the United States with its residential influence in Afghanistan; we can talk about Pakistan, Turkey, Iran, and the Central Asian states. So I think the broader the coalition we have in dealing with Afghanistan the better it is, because it would mean that we have more leverage in dealing with the regime in Kabul and that also implies that we can agree on the red lines that this regime should not cross if it wants to maintain its international legitimacy. So I think Afghanistan can be regarded not only as a challenge, but also as an opportunity for a multilateral, international cooperation. We can talk about the Extended Troika. We can talk about the SCO [Shanghai Cooperation Organization] as a platform to discuss Afghanistan. We can talk about other formats, but formats are just tools in our hands. The key issue is to agree on what we expect from the Taliban, and what we can give the Taliban in exchange. SCHLANGER: Now, another area I want to take up with you is the Russia-China alliance. This is causing sleepless nights for a lot of the geopoliticians who see this as primarily a military alliance and it seems as though they’re ignoring the economic benefits of Eurasian integration, including potential benefits for the West. I wonder what your thoughts are on this? Is this going to continue the alliance, and is it more than just a reaction to the targetting of Moscow and Beijing by the Western war-hawks? KORTUNOV: I think that these days, everybody is pivoted to Asia, Asia is becoming an important driver of the global economic development, and you cannot ignore China, no matter where you sit—whether you sit in Moscow, or Brussels, or in Washington, you have to keep in mind what’s going on in Beijing. So the Russian-Chinese cooperation has its own logic: We have arguably the longest land border in the world, and definitely, there is a natural complementarity of the Russian and the Chinese economies. Trade is growing pretty fast: I think if you take last year, it was about $140 billion and there is a lot of potential there. There are also common interests: there are interests that the two countries share in terms of Eurasia, and we discussed Afghanistan; definitely this is where Russian and Chinese interests mostly coincide. We can talk about the situation in Northeast Asia, and again, here, there is a noble effort for Russian and Chinese interests. As far as the United States is concerned, I think definitely both countries are exposed to political and military and economic pressures from Washington. The Biden administration continues the policy of dual containment targetted as both Beijing and Moscow, and that is an additional factor that brings Russia and China closer to each other. But let me emphasize once again that the Russian-Chinese cooperation has its own dynamics, its own logic and this logic does not depend fully on the position of the United States though this position is important for politicians both in Russia and in China. SCHLANGER: I want to come back to the P5 statement on not fighting nuclear wars, because we’ve raised this before in discussion with you: President Putin in January of 2020 proposed a P5 summit, so that it’s broader than just the United States and Russia. Do you still see this as a venue that would be an appropriate one for taking up some of these broader issues? KORTUNOV: I think it would be important, at least, in order to reactivate the United Nations Security Council. Because unfortunately, we see on many important issues, the council cannot really deliver, because there are very clear disagreements between its permanent members and that prevents the council from taking a consolidated action. So I think if they discuss some of the regional issues at such a meeting; if they discuss issues like nonproliferation, or the fight against international terrorism, or let’s say, energy or food security, that would be helpful. Of course, the P5 cannot decide on every single international issue. They cannot resolve all the global problems without participation of other states, but you have to start somewhere, and maybe a P5 meeting, face to face hopefully, will be this important starting point. If it is successful, then we can complement it with other formats, for example, when we talk about the economic dimension we can do a lot within the G20 framework, and that should complement the efforts of the Security Council. Some issues can be discussed in the framework of bilateral U.S.-Russian negotiations, some of them will require multilateral discussions, in multilateral formats. So formats might be different. The question is whether they have the political will to pursue this agenda, whether they are ready to go beyond their conventional wisdom and think strategically. SCHLANGER: And on this question then of bilateral discussion, do you think there’s a prospect for progress on nuclear arms discussions in the year ahead? KORTUNOV: I think that if there is a will, there is a way, of course. But it will be an uphill battle for both sides, because it’s not clear what we could have after the New START agreement expires in about four years from now. The arms race is changing. It’s no longer about numbers, it’s no longer about warheads and delivery means. It’s about quantity, it’s about precision, it’s about prompt strike, it’s about autonomous lethal weapons, it’s about cyborgs, it’s about space, and we still have to find ways to counter these very dangerous, destabilizing trends in the nuclear arms race. On top of that, we have a very serious problem of how to multilateralize strategic arms control, because the lower we go—I mean “we,” the United States and Russian Federation—the lower we go, the more important nuclear capacities of a third country become, and we have to engage them in this way or another into the arms control of the future. So there are many issues here. I will say I’m probably pessimistic about the future of arms control, but it will require a lot of commitment, a lot of patience and a lot of stamina. SCHLANGER: Somewhat pressing right now, which is the situation in Kazakhstan: We were talking last night, given the upcoming meetings and the potential for a breakthrough, that maybe we should be watching for something coming out of the blue that could be a destabilizing influence. And there are elements of what’s happening in Kazakhstan which are coherent with what we’ve seen with color revolutions in the past, including Western intervention into the affairs of other countries. Do you have any reading on this? Any thoughts on that? KORTUNOV: Well, it’s hard to tell. It’s probably too early to jump to conclusions, because of course, there will be people in the West who would applaud the kind of developments in Kazakhstan. At the same time, for instance, if you look at large American oil and mining companies, they had a pretty good business in Kazakhstan, and they cannot be interested in a political destabilization there. So I’m not sure that the United States has been directly involved in staging a color revolution in Kazakhstan. But definitely, there are some external players, that might be interested in turmoil and mutiny in Kazakhstan. Having said that, I should underscore that there are some fundamental domestic roots of the problem: Definitely the leadership of the country was too slow to react to the social and economics demands of the population. They promised political reforms, but again, they dragged their feet on this issue, which triggered the events that we now observe. I can only hope that everybody will learn appropriate lessons. The state authorities should learn how important it is to keep an eye on the changing moods of society, and protesters should also learn that the borderline between peaceful protests and violent extremism might be murky. We now see that already hundreds of people, unfortunately, were killed in Kazakhstan. There were many cases of looting and vandalism, and definitely this is something that has to be stopped. SCHLANGER: Well, Andrey, thank you very much for your time and joining us today. KORTUNOV: Thank you. SCHLANGER: As these meetings take place and we see new developments, I’d like to be able to have an opportunity to speak with you again and see how these things are moving. KORTUNOV: My pleasure, thank you.

In reviewing events of the last days, Helga Zepp-LaRouche raised the question of whether the violent demonstrations that broke out yesterday in Kazakhstan were designed to disrupt the potential progress between the U.S. and Russia which could result from a series of upcoming diplomatic events. It's too early to tell if this is an organized "Color Revolution", she said, but should be investigated, as it is clear the riots in several cities were coordinated.She said she had been expecting a provocation to disrupt the meetings, which begin with a U.S.-Russian Strategic Stability dialogue meeting on January 10. With the announcement by the P5 of the U.N. Security Council that nuclear wars cannot be won, and must not be fought, there is a possibility for a breakthrough away from the geopolitical provocations and tension, which has been building. There are still obstacles to progress, typified by the Baerbock-Blinken talks, in which the German Foreign Minister proved again that she is a loud-speaker for NATO in provocations against Russia and China. It is also shameful that there is still no action to relieve the humanitarian debacle unfolding in Afghanistan. Our role with Operation Ibn Sina is essential to awaken people out of the moral indifference which characterizes the actions of all governments, which do not act for the Common Good.