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Today Putin and Biden will have a discussion, aimed at a de-escalation of the crisis over Ukraine, which has been provoked by U.S.-NATO actions and over-heated rhetoric. This occurs at a moment of accelerated collapse of the western financial system, the spread of COVID to the point of a dramatic reduction of life expectancy in the U.S., and growing political, social and cultural instability in nations of the TransAtlantic region. In response, the institutions of the Larouche organization are upgrading our intelligence product, to provide the answers you need to organize others out of the dangerous condition of sleepwalking in the midst of a civilizational crisis.

It all goes back to November 20, when CIA chief, Avril Haines, briefed NATO ambassadors in Brussels on intelligence reports that Russia had massed 10,000 troops at the border with Ukraine and was planning an invasion.

Jens Jørgen Nielsen has degrees in the history of ideas and communication. He is a former Moscow correspondent for the major Danish daily Politiken in the late 1990s. He is the author of several books about Russia and the Ukraine, and a leader of the Russian-Danish Dialogue organization. In addition, he is an associate professor of communication and cultural differences at the Niels Brock Business College in Denmark.The Schiller Institute released a memorandum entitled “Are We Sleepwalking into Thermonuclear World War III,” on December 24th. In the beginning, it states, “Ukraine is being used by geopolitical forces in the West that answer to the bankrupt speculative financial system, as the flashpoint to trigger a strategic showdown with Russia, a showdown which is already more dangerous than the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, and which could easily end up in a thermonuclear war which no one would win, and none would survive.” Jens Jørgen, in the past days, Russian President Putin and other high level spokesmen have stated that Russia’s red lines are about to be crossed, and they have called for treaty negotiations to come back from the brink. What are these red lines and how dangerous is the current situation? Jens Jørgen Nielsen: Thank you for inviting me. First, I would like to say that I think that the question you have raised here about red lines, and the question also about are we sleepwalking into a new war, is very relevant. Because, as an historian, I know what happened in 1914, at the beginning of the First World War — a kind of sleepwalking. No one really wanted the war, actually, but it ended up with war, and tens of million people were killed, and then the whole world disappeared at this time, and the world has never been the same. So, I think it’s a very, very relevant question that you are asking here. You asked me specifically about Putin, and the red lines, because you can have the point of view — I heard that the Clintons, Bill and Hillary Clinton, and John Kerry, and many other American politicians, claim that we don’t have things like red lines anymore. We don’t have zones of influence anymore, because we have a new world. We have a new liberal world, and we do not have these kinds of things. It belongs to another century and another age. But you could ask the question, what actually are the Americans doing in Ukraine, if not defending their own red lines? Because I think it’s like, if you have a power, a superpower, a big power like Russia, I think it’s very, very natural that any superpower would have some kind of red lines, because you can imagine what will happen if China, Iran and Russia had a military alliance, going into Mexico, Canada, Cuba, maybe also putting missiles up there. I don’t think anyone would doubt what would happen. The United States would never accept it, of course. So the Russians would normally ask, why should we accept that Americans are dealing with Ukraine and preparing, maybe to put up some military hardware in Ukraine? Why should we? And I think it’s a very relevant question. And basically, the Russians see it today as a question of power, because the Russians, actually, have tried for, I would say, 30 years. They have tried. I was in Russia 30 years ago. I speak Russian. I’m quite sure that the Russians, at that time, dreamt of being a part of the Western community, and they had very, very high thoughts about the Western countries, and Americans were extremely popular at this time. Eighty percent of the Russian population in 1990 had a very positive view of the United States. Later on, today, and even for several years already, 80 percent, the same percentage, have a negative view of Americans. So something happened, not very positively, because 30 years ago, there were some prospects of a new world. There really were some ideas, but something actually was screwed up in the 90s. I have some idea about that. Maybe we can go in detail about it. But things were screwed up, and normally, today, many people in the West, in universities, politicians, etc. think that it’s all the fault of Putin. It’s Putin’s fault. Whatever happened is Putin’s fault. Now, we are in a situation which is very close to the Cuban Missile Crisis, which you also mentioned. But I don’t think it is that way. I think it takes two to tango. We know that, of course, but I think many Western politicians have failed to see the compliance of the western part in this, because I think there are many things which play a role that we envisage in a situation like that now. I think the basic thing, if you look at it from a Russian point of view, it’s the extension to the east of NATO. I think that’s a real bad thing, because Russia was against it from the very beginning. Even Yeltsin, Boris Yeltsin, who was considered to be the man of the West, the democratic Russia, he was very, very opposed to this NATO alliance going to the east, up to the borders of Russia. And we can see it now, because recently, some new material has been released in America, an exchange of letters between Yeltsin and Clinton at this time. So we know exactly that Yeltsin, and Andrei Kozyrev, the Russian minister of foreign affairs at this time, were very much opposed to it. And then Putin came along. Putin came along not to impose his will on the Russian people. He came along because there was, in Russia, a will to oppose this NATO extension to the East. So I think things began at this point. And later on, we had the Georgian crisis in 2008, and we had, of course, the Ukraine crisis in 2014, and, also, with Crimea and Donbass, etc. And now we are very, very close to — I don’t think it’s very likely we will have a war, but we are very close to it, because I think that wars often begin by some kind of mistake, some accident, someone accidentally pulls the trigger, or presses a button somewhere, and suddenly, something happened. Exactly what happened in 1914, at the beginning of World War I. Actually, there was one who was shot in Sarajevo. Everyone knows about that, and things like that could happen. And for us, living in Europe, it’s awful to think about having a war. We can hate Putin. We can think whatever we like. But the thought of a nuclear war is horrible for all of us, and that’s why I think that politicians could come to their senses. And I think also this demonization of Russia, and demonization of Putin, is very bad, of course, for the Russians. But it’s very bad for us here in the West, for us, in Europe, and also in America. I don’t think it’s very good for our democracy. I don’t think it’s very good. I don’t see very many healthy perspectives in this. I don’t see any at all. I see some other prospects, because we could cooperate in another way. There are possibilities, of course, which are not being used, or put into practice, which certainly could be. So yes, your question is very, very relevant and we can talk at length about it. I’m very happy that you ask this question, because if you ask these questions today in the Danish and Western media at all — because everyone thinks it’s enough just to say that Putin is a scoundrel, Putin is a crook, and everything is good. No, we have to get along. We have to find some ways to cooperate, because otherwise it will be the demise of all of us. Michelle Rasmussen: Can you just go through a little bit more of the history of the NATO expansion towards the East? And what we’re speaking about in terms of the proposed treaties that Russia has proposed is, firstly, to prevent Ukraine from becoming a formal member of NATO, and secondly, to prevent the general expansion of NATO, both in terms of soldiers and military equipment towards the East. So can you speak about this, also in terms of the broken promises from the western side? Jens Jørgen Nielsen: Yes. Actually, the story goes back to the beginning of the nineties. Actually, I had a long talk with Mikhail Gorbachev, the former leader of the Soviet Union, in 1989, just when NATO started to bomb Serbia, and when they adopted Poland, the Czech Republic and Hungary into NATO. At this time, I had a long talk with Gorbachev. You should bear in mind that Gorbachev is a very nice person. He’s a very lively person, with good humor, and an experienced person. But when we started to talk, I asked him about the NATO expansion, which was going on exactly the day when we were talking. He became very gloomy, very sad, because he said, ‘Well, I talked to James Baker, Helmut Kohl from Germany, and several other persons, and they all promised me not to move an inch to the east, if Soviet Union would let Germany unite the GDR (East Germany) and West Germany, to become one country, and come to be a member of NATO, but not move an inch to the East. I think, also, some of the new material which has been released — I have read some of it, some on WikiLeaks, and some can be found. It’s declassified. It’s very interesting. There’s no doubt at all. There were some oral, spoken promises to Mikhail Gorbachev. It was not written, because, as he said, ‘I believed them. I can see I was naive.’ I think this is a key to Putin today, to understand why Putin wants not only sweet words. He wants something based on a treaty, because, basically, he doesn’t really believe the West. The level of trust between Russia and NATO countries is very, very low today. And it’s a problem, of course, and I don’t think we can overcome it in a few years. It takes time to build trust, but the trust is not there for the time being. But then, the nature of the NATO expansion has gone step, by step, by step. First, it was the three countries Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic, and then, in 2004, six years later, came, among other things, the Baltic republics, and Slovakia, Romania and Bulgaria. And the others came later on — Albania, Croatia, etc. And then in 2008, there was a NATO summit in Bucharest, where George Bush, president of the United States, promised Georgia and Ukraine membership of NATO. Putin was present. He was not president at this time. He was prime minister in Russia, because the president was Medvedev, but he was very angry at this time. But what could he do? But he said, at this point, he said, very, very clearly, we will not accept it, because our red lines would be crossed here. We have accepted the Baltic states. We have retreated. We’ve gone back. We’ve been going back for several years, but still, it was not off the table. It was all because Germany and France did not accept it, because Merkel and Hollande, at this time, did not accept Ukraine and Georgia becoming a member of NATO. But the United States pressed for it, and it is still on the agenda of the United States, that Georgia and Ukraine should be a member of NATO. So there was a small war in August, the same year, a few months after this NATO summit, where, actually, it was Georgia which attacked South Ossetia, which used to be a self-governing part of Georgia. The incumbent Georgian president, Mikheil Saakashvili did not want to accept the autonomous status of South Ossetia, so Georgia attacked South Ossetia. Russian soldiers were deployed in South Ossetia, and 14 of them were killed by the Georgian army. And you could say that George W. Bush promised Georgian president Saakashvili that the Americans would support the Georgians, in case Russia should retaliate, which they did. The Russian army was, of course, much bigger than the Georgian army, and it smashed the Georgian army in five days, and retreated. There was no help from the United States to the Georgians. And, I think, that from a moral point of view, I don’t think it’s a very wise policy, because you can’t say ‘You just go on. We will help you. – and not help at all when it gets serious. I think, from a moral point of view, it’s not very fair. But, actually, it’s the same which seems to be happening now in Ukraine. And in Ukraine, even though there was, what I would call a coup, an orchestrated state coup, in 2014. I know there are very, very different opinions about this, but my opinion is that there was a kind of coup to oust the sitting incumbent president, Viktor Yanukovich, and replace him with one who was very, very keen on getting into NATO. Yanukovich was not very keen on going into NATO, but he still had the majority of the population. And it’s interesting. In Ukraine, there’s been a lot of opinion polls conducted by Germans, Americans, French, Europeans, Russia and Ukrainians. And all these opinion polls show that a majority of Ukrainian people did not want to join NATO. After that, of course, things moved very quickly, because Crimea was a very, very sensitive question for Russia, for many reasons. First, it was a contested area because it was, from the very beginning from 1991, when Ukraine was independent — There was no unanimity about Crimea and it´s status, because the major part of Crimea was Russian-speaking, and is very culturally close to Russia, in terms of history. It’s very close to Russia. It’s one of the most patriotic parts of Russia, actually. So it’s a very odd part of Ukraine. It always was, a very odd part of Ukraine. And so I have no doubt at all that the majority of the people in a conflict, where the first thing the new government did in February 2014, was to forbid the Russian language, as a language which had been used in local administration, and things like that. It was one of the stupidest things you could do in such a very tense situation. Ukraine, basically, is a very cleft society. The eastern southern part is very close to Russia. They speak Russian, and are very close to Russian culture. The western part, the westernmost part around Lviv, is very close to Poland and Austria, and places like that. So it’s a cleft society, and in such a society you have some options. One option is to embrace all the parts of society, different parts of society. Or you can, also, which afterwards is what happened, one part could impose its will on the other part, against its will. And that was actually what happened. So there are several crises. There is the crisis in Ukraine, with two approximately equally sized parts of Ukraine. But you also have, on the other hand, the Russian-NATO question. So you had two crises, and they stumbled together, and they were pressed together in 2014. So you had a very explosive situation which has not been solved to this day. And for Ukraine, I say that as long as you have this conflict between Russia and NATO, it’s impossible to solve, because it’s one of the most corrupt societies, one of the most poor societies in Europe right now. A lot of people come to Denmark, where we are now, Germany and also to Russia. Millions of Ukrainians have gone abroad to work, because there are really many, many social problems, economic problems, things like that. And that’s why Putin –, if we remember what Gorbachev told me about having things on paper, on treaties, which are signed — and that’s why Putin said, what he actually said to the West, ‘I don’t really believe you, because when you can, you cheat.’ He didn’t put it that way, but that was actually what he meant. ‘So now I tell you very, very, very, very clearly what our points of view are. We have red lines, like you have red lines. Don’t try to cross them.’ And I think many people in the West do not like it. I think it’s very clear, because I think the red lines, if you compare historically, are very reasonable. If you compare the United States and the Monroe Doctrine, which is still in effect in the USA, they are very, very reasonable red lines. So much more than — I would say that Ukraine, many of the Ukrainians, are very close to Russia. I have many Ukrainian friends. I sometimes forget that they are Ukrainians, because their language, their first language, is actually Russian, which is also close to Russian. So those countries being part of an anti-Russian military pact, it’s simply madness. It cannot work. It will not work. Such a country would never be a normal country for many, many years, forever. I think much of the blame could be put on the NATO expansion and those politicians who have been pressing for that for several years. First and foremost, Bill Clinton was the first one, Madame Albright, from 1993. At this time, they adopted the policy of major extension to the East. And George W. Bush also pressed for Ukraine and Georgia to become members of NATO. And for every step, there was, in Russia, people rallying around the flag. You could put it that way, because you have pressure. And the more we pressure with NATO, the more the Russians will rally around the flag, and the more authoritarian Russia will be. So we are in this situation. So things are now happening in Russia, which I can admit I do not like, closing some offices, closing some media. I do not like it at all. But in a time of confrontation, I think it’s quite reasonable, understandable, Even though I would not defend it. But it’s understandable. Because the United States, after 9/11, also adopted a lot of defensive measures, and a kind of censorship, and things like that. So it’s what happens when you have such tense situations. We should just also bear in mind that Russia and the United States are the two countries, which possess 90 percent of the world’s nuclear armament. Alone the mere thought of them using some of this is a doomsday perspective, because it will not be a small, tiny war, like World War II, but it will dwarf World War II, because billions will die in this. And it’s a question, if humanity will survive. So it’s a very, very grave question. And I think we should ask if the right of the Ukraine to have NATO membership, which its own population does not really want, is it really worth the risk of a nuclear war? That’s how I would put it. I will not take all blame away from Russia. That’s not my point here. My point is that this question is too important. It’s very, very relevant. It’s very important that we establish a kind of modus vivendi [an arrangement allowing people or groups of people who have different opinions or beliefs to work or live together-ed.]. It’s a problem for the West. I also think it’s very important that we learn, in the West, how to cope with people who are not like us, because we tend to think that people should become democrats like we are democrats. And only then will we deal with them. If they are not democrats, like we are democrats, we will do everything we can, to make them democrats. We will support people who want to make a revolution in this country, so they become like us. It’s a very, very dangerous, dangerous way of thinking, and destructive way of thinking. I think that we in the West should study, maybe, a little more what is happening in other organizations where the West is not dominating. I’m thinking about the BRICS, as one organization. I’m also thinking about the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, where Asian countries are cooperating, and they are not changing each other. The Chinese are not demanding that we should all be Confucians. And the Russians are not demanding that all people in the world should be Orthodox Christians, etc. I think it’s very, very important that we bear in mind that we should cope with each other like we are, and not demand changes. I think it’s a really dangerous and stupid game to play. I think the European Union is also very active in this game, which I think is very, very — Well, this way of thinking, in my point of view, has no perspective, no positive perspective at all. Michelle Rasmussen: Actually, today, Presidents Biden and Putin will speak on the phone, and important diplomatic meetings are scheduled for the middle of January. What is going to determine if diplomacy can avoid a disaster, as during the Cuban missile crisis? Helga Zepp-LaRouche has just called this a “reverse missile crisis.” Or, if Russia will feel that they have no alternative to having a military response, as they have openly stated. What changes on the western side are necessary? If you had President Biden alone in a room, or other heads of state of NATO countries, what would you say to them? Jens Jørgen Nielsen: I would say, “Look, Joe, I understand your concerns. I understand that you see yourself as a champion of freedom in the world, and things like that. I understand the positive things about it, but you see, the game you now are playing with Russia is a very, very dangerous game. And the Russians, as a very proud people, you cannot force them. It’s not an option. I mean, you cannot, because it has been American, and to some degree, also European Union policy, to change Russia, to very much like to change, so that they’ll have another president, and exchange Putin for another president. But I can assure you,’ if I speak to Joe Biden, ‘Joe Biden, be sure that if you succeed, or if Putin dies tomorrow, or somehow they’ll have a new president, I can assure you that the new president will be just as tough as Putin, maybe even tougher. Because in Russia, you have much tougher people. Many blame, actually — I would say even most people in Russia who blame Putin, really blame him because he’s not tough enough on the West, because he was soft on the West, too liberal toward the West, and many people have blamed him for not taking the eastern southern part of Ukraine yet. He should have done it.’ So I would say to Biden, ‘I think it would be wise for you, right now, to support Putin, or to deal with Putin, engage with Putin, and do some diplomacy, because the alternative is a possibility of war, and you should not go down into history as the American president who secured the extinction of humanity. It would be a bad, very bad record for you.’ ‘And there are possibilities because I don’t think Putin is unreasonable. Russia has not been unreasonable. I think they have turned back. Because in 1991, it was the Russians themselves, who disbanded the Soviet Union. It was the Russians, Moscow, which disbanded the Warsaw Pact. The Russians who gave liberty to the Baltic countries, and all other Soviet republics, and with hardly any shot, and returned half a million Soviet soldiers back to Russia. No shot was fired at all. I think it’s extraordinary.’ ‘If you compare what happened to this dismembering of the French and the British colonial empires after World War II. It was very, very civilized, in many ways. So stop thinking about Russia and as uncivilized, stupid people, who don’t understand anything but mere power. Russians are an educated people. They understand a lot of arguments, and they are interested in cooperating. ‘There will be a lot of advantages for the United States, and also for the West, and also the European Union, to establish a kind of more productive, more pragmatic relationship, cooperation. There are a lot of things in terms of energy, climate, of course, and terrorism, and many other things, where it’s a win-win situation to cooperate with them. ‘The only thing Russia is asking for is not to put your military hardware in our backyard. I don’t think it should be hard for us to accept, certainly not to understand why the Russians think this way. And they should think back to the history, where armies from the West have attacked Russia. So they have it in their genes. I don’t think that there is any person in Russia who has forgot, or is not aware of, the huge losses the Soviet Union suffered from Nazi Germany in the 1940s during World War II. And you had Napoleon also trying to — You have a lot of that experience with armies from the West going into Russia. So it’s very, very large, very, very deep.’ Michelle Rasmussen: Was it around 20 million people who died during World War II? Jens Jørgen Nielsen: In the Soviet Union. There were also Ukrainians, and other nationalities, but it was around 18 million Russians, if you can count it, because it was the Soviet Union, but twenty seven million people in all. It’s a huge part, because Russia has experience with war. So the Russians would certainly not like war. I think the Russians have experience with war, that also the Europeans, to some extent, have, that the United States does not have. Because the attack I remember, in recent time, is the 9/11 attack, the twin towers in New York. Otherwise, the United States does not have these experiences. It tends to think more in ideological terms, where the Russians, certainly, but, also, to some extent, some people in Europe, think more pragmatically, more that we should, at any cost, avoid war, because war creates more problems than it solves. So, have some pragmatic cooperation. It will not be very much a love affair. Of course not. But it will be on a very pragmatic — Michelle Rasmussen: Also in terms of dealing with this horrible humanitarian situation in Afghanistan, and cooperating on the pandemic. Jens Jørgen Nielsen: Yeah. Of course, there are possibilities. Right now, it’s like we can’t even cooperate in terms of vaccines, and there are so many things going on, from both sides, actually, because we have very, very little contact between –. I had some plans to have some cooperation between Danish and Russian universities in terms of business development, things like that, but it turned out there was not one crown, as our currency is called. You could have projects in southern America, Africa, all other countries. But not Russia, which is stupid. Michelle Rasmussen: I wanted to ask you a little bit more about that, because you wrote two recent books about Russia. One is called “On his own terms: Putin and the new Russia,” and the latest one, just from September, “Russia against the grain.” Many people in the West portray Russia as the enemy, which is solely responsible for the current situation. And Putin as a dictator who is threatening his neighbors militarily, and threatening the democracy of the free world. Over and above what you have already said, is this true, or do you have a different viewpoint? Jens Jørgen Nielsen: Of course, I have a different point of view, because I think, well, Russia for me, is not a perfect country, because such a country does not exist, not even Denmark. Some suppose it is. But there’s no such thing as a perfect society. Because societies are always developing from somewhere, to somewhere, and Russia, likewise. Russia is a very, very big country. So you can definitely find things which are not very likable in Russia. Definitely. That’s not my point here. But I think that in the West, I think, actually for centuries, we have — if you look back, I have tried in my latest book, to find out how Western philosophers, how church people, how they look at Russia, from centuries back. And there has been kind of a red thread. There’s been a kind of continuation. Because Russia has very, very, very often been characterized as our adversary, as a country against basic European values. Five hundred years back, it was against the Roman Catholic Church, and in the seventeen eighteen hundred it was against the Enlightenment philosophers, and in the 20th century, it was about communism. And it’s also split people in the West, and it was also considered to be a threat. But it is also considered to be a threat today, even though Putin is not a communist. He is not a communist. He is a conservative, a moderate conservative, I would say. Even during the time of Yeltsin, he was also considered liberal and progressive, and he loved the West and followed the West in all, almost all things they proposed. But still, there’s something with Russia, which I think from a philosophical point of view is very important to find out, that we have some very deep rooted prejudices about Russia. And I think it plays a role, because I hear, when I speak to people who say ‘Russia is an awful country, and Putin is simply a very, very evil person, is a dictator.’ ‘Have you been in Russia? Do you know any Russians?’ ‘No, not really.’ ‘Ok. But what do you base your points of view on?’ ‘Well, what I read in the newspapers, of course, what they tell me on the television.’ Well, well, I think it’s not good enough, because — And I understand why the Russians — I very often talk to Russian politicians, and other people, and what they are sick and tired of, is this notion that that the West is better. We are on a higher level. And if Russians should be accepted by the West, they should become like us. Or at least they should admit that they are on a lower level, in relation to our very high level. And that is why, when they deal with China, or deal with India, and when they deal with African countries, and even Latin American countries, they don’t meet such attitudes, because they are on more equal terms. They’re different, yes, but one does not consider each other to be on a higher level. And that’s why I think that cooperation in BRICS, which we talked about, and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, I think it’s quite successful. And I don’t know about the future, but I have a feeling that if you were talking about Afghanistan, I think if Afghanistan could be integrated into this kind of organization, one way or another, I have a feeling it probably would be more successful than the 20 years that the NATO countries have been there. I think that cultural attitude plays a role when we’re talking about politics, because a lot of the policy from the American, European side, is actually very emotional. It’s very much like, ‘We have some feelings — We fear Russia. We don’t like it,’ or ‘We think that it’s awful.’ And ‘Our ideas, we know how to run a society much better than the Russians, and the Chinese, and the Indians, and the Muslims, and things like that.’ And I think it’s a part of the problem. That it’s a part of our problem in the West. It’s a part of our way of thinking, our philosophy, which I think we should have a closer look at, and criticize. But it’s difficult, because it’s very deep rooted. When I discuss with people at universities and in the media, and other other places, I encounter this. That is why I wrote the latest book, because it’s very much about our way of thinking about Russia. And that’s why the book is — it’s about Russia, of course, but it’s also about us, our glasses, how we perceive Russia, how we perceive not only Russia, but it also goes for China, because it’s more or less the same. But there are many similarities between how we look upon Russia, and how we look upon and perceive China, and other countries. I think this is a very, very important thing we have to deal with. We have to do it, because otherwise, if we decide, if America and Russia decide to use all the fireworks they have of nuclear [armament] power, then it’s the end. You can put it very sharp, to put it like that, and people will not like it. But basically, we are facing this, these two alternatives: Either we find ways to cooperate with people who are not like us, and will not be, certainly not in my lifetime, like us, and accept them, that they are not like us, and get on like as best we can, and keep our differences, but respect each other. I think that’s what we need from the Western countries. I think it’s the basic problem today dealing with other countries. And the same goes, from what I have said, for China. I do not know the Chinese language. I have been in China. I know a little about China. Russia, I know very well. I speak Russian, so I know how Russians are thinking about this. What the feelings are about this. And I think it’s important to deal with these questions. Michelle Rasmussen: You also pointed out, I think, that in 2001, after the attack against the World Trade Center, I think Putin was the first one to call George Bush, and he offered cooperation about dealing with terrorism. But I think you’ve written that he had a pro-Western war worldview, but that this was not reciprocated. Jens Jørgen Nielsen: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Afterwards, he was criticized by the military, and also by politicians in the beginning of his first term in 2000, 2001, 2002, he was criticized because he was too happy for America. He even said, in an interview in the BBC, that he would like Russia to become a member of NATO. It did not happen, because there are many reasons for that, but he was very, very keen –. That’s also why he felt very betrayed afterward, and in 2007, at the Munich Conference on Security in February in Germany, he said he was very frustrated, and it was very clear that he felt betrayed by the West. He thought that they had a common agenda. He thought that Russia should become a member. But Russia probably is too big. And if you consider Russia becoming a member of the European Union, the European Union would change thoroughly, but they failed. Russia did not become a member. It’s understandable. But then I think the European Union should have found, again, a modus vivendi. Michelle Rasmussen: Way of living together. Jens Jørgen Nielsen: Yeah, how to live together, because they joined — It was actually a parallel development of the European Union and NATO, against Russia. And in 2009 the European Union invited Georgia, Ukraine, Belarus, Armenia, Azerbaijan, to become members of the European Union, but not Russia. Even though they knew that there was really a lot of trade between Ukraine, also Georgia, and Russia. And it would have interfered. But they did not pay attention to Russia. So Russia was left out at this time. And so eventually, you could say, understandably, very understandably, Russia turned to China. And in China, with cooperation with China, they became stronger. They became much more self-confident, and they also cooperated with people who respected them much more. I think that’s interesting, that the Chinese understood how to deal with other people with respect, but the Europeans and Americans did not. Michelle Rasmussen: Just before we go to our last questions. I want to go back to Ukraine, because it’s so important. [Jens Jørgen Nielsen wrote the book, “Ukraine in the Field of Tension-ed.] You said that the problem did not start with the so-called annexation of Crimea, but with what you called a coup against the sitting president. Can you just explain more about that? Because in the West, it’s like everybody says, ‘Oh, the problem started when Russia annexed Crimea.’ Jens Jørgen Nielsen: Well, if you take Ukraine, in 2010 there was a presidential election, and the OSCE monitored the election, and said that it was very good, and the majority voted for Viktor Yanukovich. Viktor Yanukovich did not want Ukraine to become a member of NATO. He wanted to cooperate with the European Union. But he also wanted to keep cooperating with Russia. Basically, that’s what he was like. But it’s very often claimed that he was corrupt. Yes, I don’t doubt it, but name me one president who has not been corrupt. That’s not the big difference, it’s not the big thing, I would say. But then in 2012, there was also a parliamentary election in Ukraine, and Yanukovych’s party also gained a majority with some other parties. There was a coalition which supported Yanukovych’s policy not to become a member of NATO. And then there was a development where the European Union and Ukraine were supposed to sign a treaty of cooperation. But he found out that the treaty would be very costly for Ukraine, because they would open the borders for European Union firms, and the Ukrainian firms would not be able to compete with the Western firms. Secondly, and this is the most important thing, basic industrial export from Ukraine was to Russia, and it was industrial products from the eastern part, from Dniepropetrovsk or Dniepro as it is called today, from Donetsk, from Luhansk and from Kryvyj Rih (Krivoj Rog), from some other parts, basically in the eastern part, which is the industrial part of Ukraine. And they made some calculations that showed that, well, if you join this agreement, Russia said, ‘We will have to put some taxes on the export, because you will have some free import from the European Union. So, of course, we don’t have an agreement with the European Union. So, of course, anything which comes from you, there would be some taxes imposed on it.’ And then Yanukovich said, ‘Well, well, well, it doesn’t sound good,’ and he wanted Russia, the European Union and Ukraine to go together, and the three form what we call a triangle agreement. But the European Union was very much opposed to it because it didn’t want –. Even though you could say the eastern part of Ukraine was economically a part of Russia. Part of the Russian weapon industry was actually in the eastern part of Ukraine, and there were Russian speakers there. And the European Union said, ‘No, we should not cooperate with Russia about this,’ because Yanukovich wanted to have cooperation between the European Union, Ukraine and Russia, which sounds very sensible to me. Of course, it should be like that. It would be to the advantage of all three parts. But the European Union had a very ideological approach to this. So they were very much against Russia. It also increased the Russian’s suspicion that the European Union was only a stepping stone to NATO membership. And then what happened was that there was a conflict in, there were demonstrations every day on the Maidan Square in Kiev. There were many thousands of people there, and there were also shootings, because many of the demonstrators were armed people. They had stolen weapons from some barracks in the West. And at this point, when 100 people had been killed, the European Union foreign ministers from France, Germany and Poland met, and there was also a representative from Russia, and there was Yanukovich, a representative from his government, and from the opposition. And they made an agreement. Ok. You should have elections this year, in half a year, and you should have some sharing of power. People from the opposition should become members of the government, and things like that. But all of a sudden, things broke down, and Yanukovich left, because you should remember, and very often in the West, they tend to forget that the demonstrators were armed. And they killed police also. They killed people from Yanukovych’s Party of Regions, and things like that. So it’s always been portrayed as innocent, peace-loving demonstrators. They were not at all. And some of them had very dubious points of view, with Nazi swastikas, and things like that. And Yanukovych fled. Then they came to power. They had no legitimate government, because many of the members of parliament from these parts of the regions which had supported Yanukovich, had fled to the East. So the parliament was not able to make any decisions. Still, there was a new president, also a new government, which was basically from the western part of Ukraine. And the first thing they did, I told you, was to get rid of the Russian language, and then they would talk about NATO membership. And Victoria Nuland was there all the time, the vice foreign minister of the United States, was there all the time. There were many people from the West also, so things broke down. Michelle Rasmussen: And there have actually been accusations since then, that there were provocateurs who were killing people on both sides. Jens Jørgen Nielsen: Yeah, yeah. Yeah, exactly, exactly. And what’s interesting is that there’s been no investigation whatsoever about it, because a new government did not want to conduct an investigation as to who killed them. So, it was orchestrated. There’s no doubt in my mind it was an orchestrated coup. No doubt about it. And that’s Russian –. That’s the basic context for the decision of Putin to accept Crimea as a part of Russia. you should say, but normally you would say, in the west, that Russia simply annexed Crimea. It’s not precisely what happened, because there was a local parliament, because it was an autonomous part of Ukraine, and they had their own parliament, and they made the decision that they should have a referendum, which they had in March. And then they applied to become a member of the Russian Federation. It’s not a surprise, even though the Ukrainian army did not go there, because there was an Ukrainian army. There were 21,000 Ukrainian soldiers. 14,000 of these soldiers joined the Russian army. And so, that tells a little about how things were not like a normal annexation, where one country simply occupies part of the other country. Because you have this cleft country, you have this part, especially the southern part, which was very, very pro-Russian, and it’s always been so. And so, of course, you could say that you — there’s a lot of things in terms of international law, you can say about it. But I have no doubt that you can look upon it differently, because if you look it at from the point of people who lived in Crimea, they did not want — because almost 80-90 percent had voted for the Party of the Regions, which was Yanukovych’s party, a pro-Russian party, you could say, almost 87 percent, or something like that. They have voted for this party. This party had a center in a central building in Kiev, which was attacked, burned, and three people were killed. So you could imagine that they would not be very happy, well, to put it this way. They would not be very happy with the new government, and the new development. Of course not. They hated it. And what I think is very critical about the West is that they simply accepted, they accepted these horrible things in Ukraine, just to have the prize, just to have this prey, of getting Ukraine into NATO. And Putin was aware that he could not live, not even physically, but certainly not politically, if Sevastopol, with the harbor for the Russian fleet, became a NATO harbor. It was impossible. I know people from the military say ‘No, no way.’ It’s impossible. Would the Chinese take San Diego in the United States? Of course not. It goes without saying that such things don’t happen. So what is lacking in the West is just a little bit of realism. How powers, how superpowers think, and about red lines of superpowers. Because we have an idea in the West about the new liberal world order. It sounds very nice when you’re sitting in an office in Washington. It sounds very beautiful and easy, but go out and make this liberal world order, it’s not that simple. And you cannot do it like, certainly not do it like the way they did it in Ukraine. Michelle Rasmussen: Regime change? Jens Jørgen Nielsen: Yeah, regime change. Michelle Rasmussen: I have two other questions. The last questions. The Russian-Danish Dialogue organization that you are a leader of, and the Schiller Institute in Denmark, together with the China Cultural Center in Copenhagen, were co-sponsors of three very successful Musical Dialogue of Cultures Concerts, with musicians from Russia, China, and many other countries. And you are actually an associate professor in cultural differences. How do you see that? How would an increase in cultural exchange improve the situation? Jens Jørgen Nielsen: Well, it can not but improve, because we have very little, as I also told you. So, I’m actually also very, very happy with this cooperation, because I think it’s very enjoyable, these musical events, they are very, very enjoyable and very interesting, also for many Danish people, because when you have the language of music, it is better than the language of weapons, if I can put it that way, of course. But I also think that when we meet each other, when we listen to each other’s music, and share culture in terms of films, literature, paintings, whatever, I think it’s also, well, it’s a natural thing, first of all, and it’s unnatural not to have it. We do not have it, because maybe some people want it that way, if people want us to be in a kind of tense situation. They would not like to have it, because I think without this kind of, it’s just a small thing, of course, but without these cultural exchanges, well, you will be very, very bad off. We will have a world which is much, much worse, I think, and we should learn to enjoy the cultural expressions of other people. We should learn to accept them, also, we should learn to also cooperate and also find ways –. We are different. But, also, we have a lot of things in common, and the things we have in common is very important not to forget that even with Russians, and even the Chinese, also all other peoples, we have a lot in common that is very important to bear in mind that we should never forget that we have a lot of things in common. Basically, we have the basic values we have in common, even though if you are Hindu, a Confucian, a Russian Orthodox, we have a lot of things in common. And when you have such kind of encounters like in cultural affairs, in music, I think that you become aware of it, because suddenly it’s much easier to understand people, if you listen to their music. Maybe you need to listen a few times, but it becomes very, very interesting. You become curious about instruments, ways of singing, and whatever it is. So I hope the corona situation will allow us, also, to make some more concerts. I think it should be, because they’re also very popular in Denmark. Michelle Rasmussen: Yeah. As Schiller wrote, It’s through beauty, we arrive at political freedom. We can also say it’s through beauty that we can arrive at peace. Jens Jørgen Nielsen: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Michelle Rasmussen: The Schiller Institute and Helga Zepp-LaRouche, its founder and international president, are leading an international campaign to prevent World War III, for peace through economic development, and a dialogue amongst cultures. How do you see the role of the Schiller Institute? Jens Jørgen Nielsen: Well, I know it. We have been cooperating. I think your basic calls, appeals for global development, I think it’s very, very interesting, and I share the basic point of view. I think maybe it’s a little difficult. The devil is in the details, but basically, I think what you are thinking about, when I talk about the Silk Road, when I talk about these Chinese programs, Belt and Road programs, I see much more successful development that we have seen, say, in Africa and European countries developing, because I have seen how many western-dominated development programs have been distorting developments in Africa and other parts of the world. They distort development. I can see — I’m not uncritical to China, but, of course, I can see very positive perspectives in the Belt and Road program. I can see really, really good perspectives, because just look at the railroads in China, for instance, at their fast trains. It’s much bigger than anywhere else in the world. I think there are some perspectives, really, which I think attract, first and foremost, people in Asia. But I think, eventually, also, people in Europe, because I also think that this model is becoming more and more — it’s also beginning in the eastern part. Some countries of Eastern Europe are becoming interested. So I think it’s very interesting. Your points of your points of view. I think they’re very relevant, also because I think we are in a dead end alley in the West, what we are in right now, so people anyway are looking for new perspectives. And what you come up with, I think, is very, very interesting, certainly. What it may be in the future is difficult to say because things are difficult. But the basic things that you think about, and what I have heard about the Schiller Institute, also because I also think that you stress the importance of tolerance. You stress the importance of a multicultural society, that we should not change each other. We should cooperate on the basis of mutual interests, not changing each other. And as I have told you, this is what I see as one of the real, real big problems in the western mind, the western way of thinking, that we should decide what should happen in the world as if we still think we are colonial powers, like we have been for some one hundred years. But these times are over. There are new times ahead, and we should find new ways of thinking. We should find new perspectives. And I think it goes for the West, that we can’t go on living like this. We can’t go on thinking like this, because it will either be war, or it’ll be dead end alleys, and there’ll be conflicts everywhere. You can look at things as a person from the West. I think it’s sad to look at Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, and those countries, Syria to some extent also, where the West has tried to make some kind of regime change or decide what happens. They’re not successful. I think it’s obvious for all. And we need some new way of thinking. And what the Schiller Institute has come up with is very, very interesting in this perspective, I think. Michelle Rasmussen: Actually when you speak about not changing other people, one of our biggest points is that we actually have to challenge ourselves to change ourselves. To really strive for developing our creative potential and to make a contribution that will have, potentially, international implications. Jens Jørgen Nielsen: Yes. Definitely Michelle Rasmussen: The Schiller Institute is on full mobilization during the next couple of weeks to try to get the United States and NATO to negotiate seriously. And Helga Zepp-LaRouche has called on the U.S. and NATO to sign these treaties that Russia has proposed, and to pursue other avenues of preventing nuclear war. So we hope that you, our viewers, will also do everything that you can, including circulating this video. Is there anything else you would like to say to our viewers before we end, Jens Jørgen? Jens Jørgen Nielsen: No, no. I think we have talked a lot now. No, only I think what you said about bringing the U.S. and Russia to the negotiation table, it’s obvious, I think that it should be for any prudent, clear thinking person in the West, it should be obvious that this is the only right thing to do. So of course, we support it 100 percent. Michelle Rasmussen: Okay. Thank you so much, Jens Jørgen Nielsen. Jens Jørgen Nielsen: I thank you.

Vladimir Putin’s statement during his marathon press conference of Dec. 23 that “the first thing to do here is to unfreeze Afghanistan’s assets, the money it had in foreign, primarily American, banks, in order to provide the required assistance to the Afghan people. Otherwise, the country could plunge into famine; there will be grave consequences that will affect the neighboring states as well,” should be read as not necessarily identical to, but congruent with, Russia’s proposals concerning stopping the extension of NATO farther eastward. Putin’s statements represent a summary rejection of the Malthusian military outlook characteristic of both trans-Atlantic policies, each of which is based on population reduction in a different way. That same outlook was fought at the COP 26 Halloween Summit, and must now be fought in the worldwide war against pandemics. The Schiller Institute proposal, the pro-life, pro-development “Operation Ibn Sina,” to provide food, water, and medical treatment and supplies, now, is the proper springboard for immediate action and follow-up in Afghanistan, once funds were indeed released.This is the season of Hope. We don’t know, but have been told, and pass on for corroboration to any who can help verify the rumor, that signs have begun to appear in offices in and around Washington, including at the State Department, Pentagon, the House of Representatives and Senate, among other locations—even the CIA and FBI. They read, “WARNING: Marijuana and other drugs can severely compromise your ability to operate government machinery.” Perhaps with the assistance of the newly-launched James Webb telescope, signs of intelligent life can once again be spotted somewhere near the Washington Beltway. The return to sanity, or a reasonable facsimile thereof, in deliberative exchanges with nations such as China and Russia, might be the greatest present that the world could expect to receive from the United States at the beginning of the New Year. The appearance yesterday in the New York Post of an article entitled “Top Russian official likens Ukraine standoff to Cuban Missile Crisis” has broken the near-blackout in American media on the reality of the ongoing strategic confrontation between Russia and China on the one hand, and the United States on the other, which is most advanced at the moment in Ukraine. Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov, no stranger to the United States (he served in the Russian consulate to Washington from 2002-2006 and is fluent in English), “has compared Moscow’s standoff with the West over a possible invasion of Ukraine to the Cuban Missile Crisis, the tense 1962 confrontation between the US and the Soviet Union that led the world to the brink of nuclear war.” More of Ryabkov’s remarks, as well as those of Sergei Lavrov and President Putin appear below. Former CIA analyst Ray McGovern, a co-founder of the Veterans Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS,) has asked why the United States agreed so quickly, as reported by Ryabkov yesterday, to meet with Russia on Monday, January 10, the first day after the end of Russia’s Christmas season. McGovern called attention to an address given to the Russian military by Putin two weeks after his December 7 phone discussion with Biden, in which Putin reported: “Incidentally, during our conversation he [Biden] actually proposed appointing senior officials to oversee [Russian concerns over U.S. missile deployments in Romania, Poland, and possibly Ukraine]…. It was in response to his proposal that we drafted our proposals on precluding the further eastward expansion of NATO and the deployment of offensive strike systems in the countries bordering on Russia." The Russian proposal was drafted as a response to an initiative proposed by the United States President. It is no”ultimatum." The chronology is significant. The Washington Post printed the story, “Russia planning massive military offensive against Ukraine involving 175,000 troops, U.S. intelligence warns” on Dec. 3, with the New York Times following suit on Dec. 5. Russia’s head of foreign intelligence, Sergei Naryshkin, had already responded a week earlier, on Sat., Nov. 27, to assertions made the day before by Karen Donfried, Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs, about a planned attack on Ukraine. At that time, according to Reuters, “U.S. President Joe Biden said he was concerned about the situation in Ukraine…and added that he will ‘in all probability’ speak with his Ukrainian and Russian counterparts Volodymyr Zelenskiy and Vladimir Putin.” The Putin-Biden conversation then occurred on Dec. 7, followed by the release of the Russian proposal, and its being reported in the New York Times on Dec. 17: “Russia Lays Out Demands for a Sweeping New Security Deal With NATO.” The Post further reported, “Asked if he was exaggerating by comparing the Ukraine situation to the stalemate over the deployment of Soviet missiles in Cuba, Sergei Ryabkov said, ‘No, not too much,’ Russian media reported Monday…. ‘We are not bluffing. These are our real proposals. The West’s awareness of this needs to be facilitated and we are going to make every effort to achieve it,’ Ryabkov, who is known for his over-the-top rhetoric, said in an interview with a Russian foreign affairs magazine….” LaRouche Organization forces know that since the 1970s, on several occasions, the impending danger of thermonuclear war precipitated dialogues involving "“East” and “West” in which this organization played a decisive, if marginal role. Lyndon LaRouche’s personal backchannel negotiations with the then-Soviet Union over the course of the Fall of 1981 through early 1983 resulted in the “miracle” of the Strategic Defense initiative (SDI) policy being adopted by President Ronald Reagan over the fierce opposition of the globalist forces against which FDR, LaRouche, and in this instance Reagan had campaigned for decades. Now, in the face of one of the greatest threats in humanity’s history—the inaction in response to the emergence of increasingly treatment-resistant bacteria and viruses worldwide, something to which LaRouche called attention as a threat five decades ago—Helga Zepp-LaRouche proposed a World Health Platform, as an international strategic intervention, to be organized by a “Committee for the Coincidence of Opposites.” She also indicated how a tactical-strategic instance of the application of this “Coincidence of Opposites” principle, as in Afghanistan’s “Operation Ibn Sina,” would provide the means to supersede war, famine, and disease. At the ongoing 30th anniversary meeting of the heads of state of the nine nations of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS,) Putin, addressing the coronavirus pandemic as the number one issue on the agenda, introduced Russia’s Chief Sanitary Physician, Anna Popova, to brief people on the current worldwide situation. “Considering the proximity of our states, the commonality of epidemic threats and the level of integration, one of our key tasks is to build a unified system for epidemic response and relief,” she said. Putin himself spoke about “joint scientific activities, the development of medications and preventive drugs, as well as exchanges of test kits and means of overcoming this disease.” Lyndon LaRouche’s Fall, 2001, “National Defense Against Germ Warfare,” in the section subtitled “National Defense As Sanitation,” identified something with which Putin is familiar, and that any sane head of state should quickly learn: "The most important principles of national defense against bacteriological and related forms of warfare, were consolidated as knowledge in the experience of World War II and the war in Korea. Those lessons were featured in the adoption and implementation of the Hill-Burton legislation adopted shortly after the close of World War II…. “We must situate the role of the medical profession, both in care for the sick and in other ways, as an essential, subsumed feature of public sanitation….” Once again, by returning to the outlook of the United States of Franklin Roosevelt, the true self-interest of a United States facing tens, if not hundreds of millions of cases of infectious disease in the short term, can be re-established by organizing the worldwide symposium proposed by Helga Zepp-LaRouche and Dr. Jocelyn Elders, and extending that to the world as a whole as rapidly as possible. That way lies hope, and humanity’s immediate way forward.

Ray McGovern wrote that he believes the willingness of President Biden to engage in diplomacy with Putin is perhaps the result of being awakened to the "profound shift in the world correlation of forces" due to the deepening of the China-Russia alliance. A series of meetings is now scheduled in January, to address Putin's concerns over the continuing eastward expansion of NATO. The War Hawks are boldly proclaiming that the west must not give in to Putin, willing to risk war to preserve their commitment to the fraudulent idea of a Rules-Based Order. This insanity, based on loyalty to British geopolitics, must be rejected by an awakened citizenry -- join us to bring down the globalists of the Military-Industrial-Complex, and end their dangerous utopian delusions.

According to the latest available reports, talks between Russia and the United States, and Russia and NATO will begin before mid-January, on the texts of the two draft agreements on security guarantees presented by Russia to the U.S. and NATO on Dec. 15. January 12 in Geneva is under consideration for the NATO-Russia talks, and before that, possibly January 10, for the bilateral U.S.-Russia meeting. This is critical diplomacy, which Russia has initiated. But also critical to stopping the countdown to World War III is the activation of citizens everywhere against the policy of brinksmanship and encroachment against Russia and China.A barrage of warnings has come from Russia in the past 36 hours. President Vladimir Putin told Rossiya-1 TV on Dec. 26, that the talks dare not have a “destructive agenda” in which the United States and NATO, “will indulge in endless talk about the necessity of negotiations, but will do nothing but pump a neighboring country with state-of-the-art weapons systems and build up threats to Russia, and we will have to do something with these threats.” Putin explicated the meaning of the “red line” which he has set. He said, “I want everyone both in our country and abroad, our partners to clearly understand: the matter is not in a line we don’t want anyone to cross. The matter is that we have nowhere to step back.” He stressed, “They have driven us to such a line, excuse my language, that we have nowhere to move.” He pointed to the risks of new missile systems deployed at a distance of four to five minutes’ flight to Moscow. “Well, where are you going to go now? They have simply driven us to the state when we must say: stop!” Putin went on, that this is the reason Russia’s initiative on security guarantees was made public for all nations to see. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov spoke sternly on Dec. 26, saying that January “is when it will become clear whether the Americans are ready to give a substantive response, or they will opt for protracting the process and for seeking to initiate a policy of years-long talks.” We need “an urgent, concrete solution….” Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov said today, in an interview published today in the Russian Mezhdunarodnaya Zhizn (Foreign Policy) journal, among other points, that, “when we say that NATO facilities and all kinds of activities which are provocative for Russia need to be rolled back to the positions that existed in 1997, when the NATO-Russia Founding Act was signed, we are not bluffing.” Reviewing these remarks and other developments today, Schiller Institute President Helga Zepp-LaRouche stressed that our job is to make sure that a large portion of people in every country possible, understands what is going on. We are in a countdown of extreme danger, with no “wiggle room” left. We are “close to a point of no return.” The Schiller Institute posted a rush memorandum, “Are We Sleepwalking into Thermonuclear World War III?” on Christmas Eve, for circulation during the holiday period. This is currently being updated as an even more comprehensive dossier of the actual chronology of what created the dangerous strategic showdown with Russia. Zepp-LaRouche stressed the need to make known the extreme danger, and also that there are solutions. The best anti-war policy involves working together on common, urgent tasks, and that means a modern health system in every nation. Look at the Afghanistan emergency in that way. Afghanistan “is a branching point.” Either there will be the necessary interventions to save lives and save the nation, or it will be an “unmitigated disaster … that marks a decay into barbarism.” We will lose all of our humanity, knowing what is coming and not doing anything about it. Acting on this, and on other humanitarian crises, as well as on the war danger, is one and the same task, as the Committee for the Coincidence of Opposites addresses. The situation is grave. The Russian leaders are speaking out in unmistakable terms. If we co-mobilize with a growing number of people, we can bring about MAS—mutually assured survival.

Assuming that NATO has not crossed the "red line" delineated by the Russians in Ukraine, it appears there will be talks by mid-January to take up Russian President Putin's insistence that new treaties be adopted to prevent further eastward expansion of NATO. Given evidence that the U.S. has repeatedly violated pledges made in the past to Russian leaders, and that the War Hawks are pushing for tighter encirclement of Russia, what is the likelihood of a positive outcome to this crisis? It is necessary that citizens of the western nations intervene against the Military-Industrial-Complex of their nations, if the danger of war is to be averted. The chronology of events on the Schiller Institute website provides you with the intelligence you need to intervene.

Russian President Vladimir Putin, on Rossiya-1 TV on Sunday, could not have been clearer in his language to a national audience, as to what a red line actually is. “I want everyone both in our country and abroad, our partners, to clearly understand: the matter is not a line that we don’t want anyone to cross. The matter is that we have nowhere to step back. They have driven us to such a line, excuse my language, that we have nowhere to move.” Referring to his repeated emphasis on the risks of new supplies of missile systems, deployed at a distance of four- to five-minute’s flight from Moscow. “Well, where are you going to go now? They have simply driven us to the state when we must say: Stop!”He further stated that this is also why Russia’s Dec. 15 initiative on security guarantees was made public on Dec. 17. “Our proposal is open and clear. We want people in Russia, in Ukraine, in Europe, and in the United States to understand our idea that we want to implement during this negotiating process…. It sets certain limits for all participants in this [negotiating] process. But we have only one goal—to reach agreements ensuring the security of Russia and its people now and in the long-term perspective.” Then Putin made the effort to pre-empt some of the games used to preclude serious negotiations: “They will indulge in endless talk about the necessity of negotiations, but will do nothing but pump a neighboring country with state-of-the-art weapons systems and build up threats to Russia. And we will have to do something with these threats.”

“The Extraterrestrial Imperative is a driving force in the natural growth of terrestrial life beyond its planetary limits. As such, it is an integral part of the obviously expansionistic and growth-oriented pattern of life’s evolution. This drive caused life to grow from infinitesimal beginnings into a force that encompasses and transforms an entire planet through its biosphere. More basically, the Extraterrestrial Imperative expresses a ‘first message,’ a primordial imperative, bred into the very essence of the universe, driving the evolution of matter from simplest forms (elementary particles) to highly complex structures (e.g., the intelligent brain). A vast amount of cosmic energy is released by stellar matter in the initial phase of this process—the transformation of hydrogen to helium and heavier elements—and bound up in the later phases, involving the formation and evolution of living matter. By these roots, it is possible to identify the Extraterrestrial Imperative as a basic principle that can be derived from a consistent interpretation and generalization of recurring phenomena common to evolutionary processes.”These words were written in 1971 by Krafft Ehricke (1917-84), the German-American visionary and rocket scientist. His concept of Extraterrestrial Imperative asserted that it was the responsibility of humanity to explore space and exploit the resources of the Solar System, in order to sustain the development of the species. There are no external “limits to growth,” Ehricke insisted, because while the Earth is a “closed system,” the exploration of space opens the entire universe to humanity. For Ehricke, as for his friend Lyndon LaRouche, human creativity has no limits. This concept received a great boost and an inspiring confirmation on Christmas Day, 2021, with the successful launch of the James Webb Space Telescope, a project which involved the work of over 10,000 people from over 14 countries over 25 years. The telescope will be fully functional in June 2022, provided there is success in achieving the extraordinarily complex process of reaching its orbit 1 million miles away from Earth, while opening the apparatus through “50 major deployments … and 178 release mechanisms to deploy those 50 parts,” according to Webb Mission Systems Engineer Mike Menzel in a video titled “29 Days on the Edge.” The telescope will look back in time as much as 13.5 billion years. Perhaps it will discover the secret of the Star in the East on a Christmas Day 2021 years ago. But this burst of progress, and the human optimism and creativity which created it, is confronted by a dark reality on Earth, where multiple crises pose the question of whether or not the human race has the moral fitness to survive. In addition to an out-of-control pandemic, a hyperinflationary explosion and economic disintegration in much of the world, the U.S. and NATO are confronting both Russia and China with thermonuclear war. Certain madmen believe that the U.S. is still the “only superpower,” that their warped view of “liberal democracy” is indeed the perfected “end of history,” and that their threats will force these two great historic nations, both armed with nuclear weapons, to do the bidding of the would-be lords of the world. The Schiller Institute released an emergency Memorandum on Dec. 24, titled “Are We Sleepwalking Into Thermonuclear World War III?”, with a timeline demonstrating how this economic and strategic crisis point came to be, and why it is the responsibility of every citizen on Earth to work with us to stop it. Circulate this Memorandum everywhere.

The following is the introductory section of a Schiller Institute memorandum issued Dec. 24, “Are We Sleepwalking Into Thermonuclear World War III,” which is available in full on the Schiller Institute website.You are being lied to. Russia is not planning to invade Ukraine. Putin is not a “bad actor” out to recreate the Soviet Empire. Ukraine is not a fledgling democracy just minding its own business. As a summary review of the documented record shows, Ukraine is being used by geopolitical forces in the West that answer to the bankrupt speculative financial system, as the flashpoint to trigger a strategic showdown with Russia, a showdown which is already more dangerous than the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, and which could easily end up in a thermonuclear war that no one will win, and none would survive.Consider the facts as we present them in the abbreviated timeline below. Russia, like China, has been increasingly subjected to the threat of being destroyed by two distinct kinds of “nuclear war” by the bellicose and bankrupt U.K.-U.S. financial Establishment: 1) “first-use nuclear action,” as stated most explicitly by the demented Sen. Roger Wicker (R-MS); and 2) the “nuclear option” in financial warfare, measures so extreme that they would be tantamount to laying financial siege to Russia to try to starve the nation into submission, as is being done against Afghanistan. Russia has now announced, for the whole world to hear, that its red line is about to be crossed, after which Russia will be forced to respond with “retaliatory military-technical measures.” That red line, it has made clear, is the further advance of U.S. and NATO military forces up to the very border with Russia, including the positioning of defensive and offensive nuclear-capable missile systems a scarce 5-minutes flight time from Moscow. Russia has presented two draft international treaties—one with the United States, the other with NATO—which would provide legal guarantees that NATO’s eastward march will stop, that Ukraine and Georgia in particular would not be invited to join NATO, and that advanced weapons systems will not be placed at Russia’s doorstep. These are neither more nor less than the verbal guarantees given to the Soviet Union in 1990 by the duplicitous Bush and Thatcher governments, guarantees that have been systematically violated ever since. They are neither more nor less than what President John F. Kennedy demanded of Khrushchev during the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, which was successfully defused by the deft back-channel negotiations of JFK’s personal envoy, his brother Bobby Kennedy, out of sight of the pro-war military-industrial complex. It is urgently necessary that the United States and NATO promptly sign those proposed treaties with Russia—and step back from the edge of thermonuclear extinction. What we chronicle below has been happening, step by step, while most people around the world were asleep at the switch. It is time to wake up, before we sleepwalk into thermonuclear World War III. The Military Component The past 30 years of strategic relations between the U.S. and NATO on the one side and Russia on the other is littered with broken promises, beginning immediately after the fall of the Berlin Wall in November of 1989. Already in February of 1990, then-Secretary of State James Baker was in Moscow promising Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev and Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze that in the wake of German reunification, which was to come about later that year, that if U.S. troops remained in Germany, there would be no expansion of NATO “one inch to the east.” But it wouldn’t take long before the Department of Defense would be plotting exactly that, with the process getting fully underway during the administration of President Bill Clinton. The first round of post-German unification expansion of NATO came in 1999 with the admission of Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic, followed in 2004 by all three Baltic states, Bulgaria, Romania, Slovakia, and Slovenia. Four more Balkan countries joined in the years following, bringing NATO’s membership up to 30 countries. In the middle of that process, during the George W. Bush Administration, the U.S. also began to dismantle the system of strategic arms control assembled during the Cold War, beginning with the U.S. withdrawal from the 1972 ABM Treaty. The Trump Administration accelerated the process by withdrawing the U.S. from the INF Treaty and the Open Skies Treaty, leaving only the New START treaty, which was extended by President Joe Biden shortly after he took office, as the only nuclear arms control treaty remaining between the U.S. and Russia. The turning point in the current war danger came in 2014. The ongoing efforts to pull Ukraine into the EU common market through the Ukrainian-European Association Agreement, were rejected as untenable by Ukraine’s Viktor Yanukovych government in late 2013, when it became clear that it would de facto associate Ukraine with NATO and grant European goods unlimited access to the Russian market. Yanukovych’s turn against the EU led to the “Euromaidan” protests by proponents of aligning Ukraine with the European Union, which in January 2014 escalated into deadly clashes as these demonstrations were taken over by pro-Nazi elements, including those associated with the figure of Stepan Bandera, the notorious Ukrainian Nazi who worked closely with Hitler during World War II. In February, the violence escalated, and Yanukovych was driven from office, and the new government began to adopt strong measures against the Russian-speaking minority in Ukraine, especially in Crimea and the Donetsk and Luhansk regions in eastern Ukraine. All of this was done with full backing from London and Washington, with U.S. State Department official Victoria Nuland playing a prominent role. EIR published a detailed fact sheet and several in depth reports in its February 7, 2014, issue. The fact sheet is available at this link. On March 16, 2014, a referendum was held in the Autonomous Republic of Crimea and the local government of Sevastopol, asking the populations whether they wanted to join the Russian Federation or retain Crimea’s status as a part of Ukraine. In Crimea, 97% voted for integration into the Russian Federation with an 83% voter turnout; in Sevastopol there was also a 97% vote for reintegration into the Russian Federation with an 89% voter turnout. There was no “Russian military invasion of Ukraine,” nor forcible changing of any borders. All throughout this time period, Moscow protested NATO’s eastward march, but to no avail. “Despite our numerous protests and pleas, the American machine has been set into motion, the conveyor belt is moving forward,” Russian President Vladimir Putin said in his dramatic March 1, 2018 Address to the Federal Assembly, in which he publicly announced the new generation of strategic weapons that Russia had under development, at least two of which, the Avangard hypersonic glide vehicle for ICBMs and the Kinzhal air-launched ballistic missile, have since been introduced into service.

Remember the energy hoaxes of the 1970s, when alleged boycotts by OPEC oil producers were the excuse given by Kissinger and Schlesinger for soaring gas and oil prices? The same kind of fraud is being perpetrated again, by the politicians run by corporate cartels; only this time, it is not only being used to drive up prices, but to provoke a highly-dangerous military confrontation between the Trans-Atlantic countries and Russia. Putin exposed this in a national televised press conference last week. Did you read about it or hear about it in the western mainstream media?????

Dec. 25 — Following a flawless launch today at 7:20 a.m. EST of the James Webb Space Telescope from the Kourou Space Center in French Guiana, Greg Robinson, NASA Webb program director told a press conference: “The world gave us this telescope, and today we give it to the world.” Indeed, the building and crafting of this precision instrument has involved over 10,000 people from over 14 countries, working together over 25 years.NASA tweeted, “We have LIFTOFF of the @NASAWebb Space Telescope! … the beginning of a new, exciting decade of science climbed to the sky. Webb’s mission to #UnfoldTheUniverse will change our understanding of space as we know it.” Using optics that can see in the infrared spectrum, this new “gift” to humanity will examine every aspect of our cosmos history, including a look at first galaxies formed 13.5 billion years ago, as well as the atmospheres of exoplanets, and hopefully answer questions about how planets formed and evolved. It also will observe the supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way. The Webb telescope is “unequaled in size and complexity,” the Indian web daily NDTV reports. To give the reader a sense of Webb’s magnification power, “#JWST can see the heat signature of a bumblebee in the distance of the moon,” Dr. John Mather Senior Project Scientist on the James Webb Space Telescope, Tweeted. During the next “29 days on edge” the Webb will perform a series of complex tasks to ready itself for gazing into the deep space of our Universe. On day three its five-layer sunshield will begin to unfurl. It is “the size of a tennis court,” CNN reports. By day five the sunshield is expected to fully deploy, a process using 107 release mechanisms. Then two weeks into its flight the primary mirror will deploy, and its 18 hexagonal mirrors are to align into “precise positions using 126 actuators,” Florida Today reports. Once all the readying tasks are done, Webb will fire its thruster to travel to its destination, nearly 1 million miles from Earth. Reflecting the “simultaneity of eternity” and man’s role in developing the Universe, it is noteworthy that the Webb telescope’s destination is what is known as the Lagrange 2 point. Its new home is so named after Italian-French mathematician Joseph-Louis Lagrange who in 1772 discovered five unique points of equilibrium between the forces of gravity of the Sun, Earth and the Moon. This L2 point will allow for the Webb to remain in an orbit with Earth, the Sun and the Moon on the same side as its solar shield while being close enough to Earth for communications. Webb project scientist Klaus Pontoppidan pointed to the lasting import of this “gift” when he said, “Webb will probably also reveal new questions for future generations of scientists to answer, some of whom may not even be born yet.”

On Christmas Day, 1776, George Washington restored hope and optimism within the struggling colonies and the bedraggled Continental Army that the British yoke could be removed and a free nation could be established as a beacon of hope for all mankind. It meant that Christmas celebrations had to be replaced with a stealth surprise attack, crossing the ice-filled Delaware River, in order to win a victory and restore confidence that the colonies could defeat the British.Today, Christmas Day 2021, the Schiller Institute has released a timeline with a stern warning contained in its title: “Are We Sleepwalking into Thermonuclear World War III?” While Christmas is a time to give blessings and prayers for Peace On Earth and Goodwill Towards Men (Luke 2:14), we, like George Washington before us, must recognize that there can be no peace or goodwill if the current descent into war and a new dark age are not addressed and reversed, immediately. How can we celebrate the birth of the child Jesus as a savior of mankind while the trans-Atlantic nations are denying the means of subsistence to millions of children facing starvation in Afghanistan, in Yemen, and other nations as well? How can we honor the Prince of Peace while our political leaders are threatening economic destruction and even nuclear war on Russia and China? President Vladimir Putin reflected this same sentiment during his four hour annual year end press conference Dec. 23. “Mr. President,” he was asked, “what should we prepare for? What is a realistic outlook, and since the word ‘war’ has been said out loud, have we estimated the probability of war even as the result of a provocation?” Putin answered by reviewing the history of Ukraine, which was created as a nation as part of the Soviet Union in 1922-24, including regions which were historically Russian, and with majority populations which spoke Russian. With the collapse of the U.S.S.R., these Russian citizens were stranded outside their own country, both in Crimea and the Donbas, but Russia accepted this—until the U.S.-backed neo-Nazi coup against the elected government in 2014. Putin said he could not turn his back on the Russian people in Crimea who voted overwhelmingly to rejoin Russia, but when the people of the Donbas formed independent republics, he negotiated with Kiev, and with the Western powers, to not use military force against them, while peace was negotiated. But now, Putin said, “we hear: war, war, war,” with preparations to use military force against the Donbas, while “under the cover of these new weapon systems [delivered by the U.S.], radicals may well decide to settle the Donbas issue, as well as the Crimea issue.” Most revealingly, Putin concluded his answer: “This is a serious matter. I have just spoken about our plans for infrastructure development, social policy, and healthcare. But what does it all mean if we end up in the conflict you are asking about? This is not our choice, and we do not want it.” There are some positive steps, however tentative, indicating that some in the West are trying to pull back from the brink. A ceasefire was negotiated in Ukraine by the OSCE, working with representatives from Kiev, the Donbas and Russia. Talks are planned for early January between Russia, the U.S. and several European states on the security demands presented by Russia, as well as strategic stability. Putin said that “the overall response we have been seeing has been quite positive. Our American partners are telling us that they are ready to launch this conversation…. Both sides have appointed representatives.” Also indicating some steps toward sanity, the UN has agreed to lift sanctions on humanitarian aid to be delivered to Afghanistan over the next year, while former Afghan President (during the occupation) Hamid Karzai, told CNN that the world must work with the reality on the ground, meaning the Taliban government, and to “bring Afghanis together.” Asked about Taliban “atrocities,” Karzai said there were atrocities on all sides—Americans bombing villages, Taliban suicide bombers. Now there must be peace: “we must plan for the future.” He added that there had been some small aid during the war—some roads, some education facilities and so fourth, “but under the name of a war against terorism, it has been a disaster for us.” He asked for a “relationship of respect and understanding” between Afghanistan and the U.S. While we mobilize to prevent war, to reverse the financial and economic collapse, to provide modern health systems to all nations, to build independent and productive nations worldwide, to restore classical culture—these are all One, and will only be achieved as a One, a new paradigm for mankind. Let us celebrate Christmas with that dedication, that commitment to truly achieve Goodwill Towards Men.

Dec. 24, 2021 — The former President of Afghanistan Hamid Karzai (2001-2014) said on CNN Dec. 23: “The reality on the ground is that the Taliban are now the de facto authorities in the country.” He welcomed the UN Security Council action, temporarily removing the block of sanctions from the delivery of aid, saying that it is “maybe not enough, but it is a start.”Karzai became the President of Afghanistan in December 2001, following the U.S./NATO invasion. Asked whether the international community should work with the Taliban, he said: “Definitely there will be instances when they have to work with the reality on the ground.” And he was clear, the Taliban is the reality on the ground. When challenged on the UN report on instances of executions and charges of torture and atrocities by the Taliban, Karzai would not countenance such divisive techniques: “The issue of atrocities is unfortunately a part of our lives. Atrocities have been committed on all sides.... The suffering from atrocities is on all sides.” He recounted multiple examples on all sides, especially the bombing of villages by Americans and suicide bombings in cities by Taliban; and concluded that Afghanistan has been suffering for some other peoples’ designs. That has to stop. Now we must plan for our future. That is the way forward. The Taliban must invite Afghans back and must dialogue and collaborate with them. Some of the Taliban leadership had contacted him when they arrived in Kabul city. Now they need to bring security to Afghan lives, and that includes psychological security. We must “do all that is necessary to bring Afghanis together.” Pressed to criticize the withdrawal of the Americans, he admitted: “If that had been done honestly,” it would have been different. The rush to the airport, it was a disaster, “an insult to the Afghani people.” While it is appreciated that the Americans did bring some roads, education, in some form, electricity along with lots of other assistance, but under the name of a war against terrorism, it has been a disaster for us. “We want to be friends with the United States. We want to be allies. The United States is a great country.... But we want this to be a relationship of respect and understanding of two sovereign countries.”

Over the past weeks, leading US diplomats and intelligence professionals have come to the LaRouche Organization to sound the alarm that the nation is careening toward a nuclear war. They granted interviews to EIR precisely because they recognize that this organization has to unique potential to bring the world together. Leading Chinese economists, a leader from the Chinese-American community, and an Afghanistan Central Bank official have also stepped forward for interviews. Mike Billington, of EIR magazine, will review these messages, and the necessary solutions to stop the war danger and restore sanity and development in the world.

Russian President Vladimir Putin today held his annual in-depth press conference, during which he made the point emphatically that the two proposals he presented last week to the United States and to NATO, for the purpose of discussion and agreement on spelling out terms of security, are not optional. He said evenly of the U.S. reaction, “We have so far seen a positive reaction. U.S. partners told us that they are ready to begin this discussion, these talks, at the very start of next year.” But he pointed out that NATO had “cheated” Russia, with eastward expansion, and Russia needs immediate security guarantees.Putin said that there have been “five waves” of NATO movement of forces eastward toward Russian borders. This forward deployment is now at a threatening phase, and must be de-escalated and contained. Imagine, he said, if foreign forces placed missiles in Canada and Mexico. That is how it is now against Russia, with NATO in Poland and Romania. The reality of President Putin’s point—with the presence of British and U.S. personnel and weapons in Ukraine, and many other deployments, is evident to anyone, “with eyes to see.” The Schiller Institute will soon issue a concise history of the military and economic moves against Russia by the U.S., UK and NATO, and make the record irrefutably clear. This is to further the mobilization for sanity to prevail against what otherwise will be inevitable war—perhaps triggered “by accident.” People everywhere are called upon to exert leadership for the urgent, common good of peace and economic development. The same need for leadership initiative is presented by the urgent situation in Afghanistan, for which there are important updates. On Dec. 22, the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) voted up Resolution 2615, which opens the way for humanitarian aid to get around the raft of sanctions maintained by the U.S., UK, and the principal UNSC Resolution 2255 (from 2015,) and to flow into Afghanistan to avert mass death. At present, 95% of the population are in worsening poverty, 23 million of 38 million are marching toward starvation, and 9 million are in famine, as reported by the World Food Program’s David Beasley. The new measure exempts from sanctions, humanitarian aid (medicine, food, fuel, clothing, logistics and staff, remittances, cash transfers for necessities—where a market exists to purchase them), and so on, for one year. Donation announcements are coming forth from other nations, among them, Canada, Japan, Saudi Arabia. Today, the World Health Organization announced aid for a key hospital in Kandahar city, capital of Kandahar Province, in southern Afghanistan. The WHO tweeted, “Mirwais Regional Hospital in war-affected Kandahar Province has received 13 types of life-saving equipment to treat patients of mass casualty events in the region…. Who stands with the people of Afghanistan. Currently the world’s largest humanitarian emergency, Afghanistan is contending not only with COVID-19, but also acute watery diarrhea (AWK), dengue, measles, polio and malaria.” None of this aid reaches the scale required, nor does it involve concerted action among the major powers, which is sorely needed. Nevertheless, both the aid, and the UNSC unanimous vote yesterday, count a great deal right now, in terms of forward motion. On Monday, the UNSC turned down the prior draft version of the Resolution, when China and Russia voted against it, because the measure called for case-by-case judgment of each aid initiative on whether it could have a waiver from the sanctions. This would be an unworkable accommodation to sanctions that should not be there in the first place. A new text was drafted, which passed on Wednesday. Moreover, the U.S. Treasury Department then issued a statement yesterday, confirming that it will honor and apply the new UNSC measure (with provisional language), which gives some assurance that aid and related commercial activity (e.g., shipping of grain, water chemicals, etc.) can go on without U.S. retaliation. The Treasury unit, the Office of Foreign Assets Control, which is an economic hit squad, issued guidelines on how they will follow the UN Resolution. This adds some confidence, since otherwise, the word of the U.S. is no longer trusted. The moral necessity for action to save Afghanistan was strongly set at the Dec. 19 extraordinary session of the Council of Ministers of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, overriding several internal contradictions. The follow-on developments include a meeting earlier this week between Uzbek leaders and Afghan acting Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi, in which the tri-country rail project connecting Uzbekistan, Afghanistan, and Pakistan was discussed. It is notable that the OIC Council of Ministers has welcomed Uzbekistan’s offer that the city of Termez would become a new hub for transport of humanitarian aid to Afghanistan. The breakthrough required, is for the $9.5 billion in Afghan funds to be released from wrongful withholding by U.S. and European authorities and go towards stabilizing national functioning and development by Afghan institutions. The “Operation Ibn Sina” called for by Schiller Institute President Helga Zepp-LaRouche, lays out the road map for what must be done to construct a modern health system and build up the infrastructure platform to sustain it. The new 4-minute video issued by the Schiller Institute makes the point clearly, and adds to the worldwide campaign. It is titled, “Will You Allow Genocide Against the People in Afghanistan? Unfreeze the Funds.” This Christmas and holiday period is exactly the right time to get active; be a force for the good!

The Russian government is shouting from every rooftop that their strategic red lines are about to be crossed, and that they will respond unless the U.S. and NATO start negotiating seriously. Yesterday’s expanded meeting of the Defense Ministry Board served as the forum for extensive comments about this by both President Vladimir Putin and Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu. Putin also spoke by phone on Dec. 21 with India’s Narendra Modi, Germany’s Olaf Scholz, and France’s Emmanuel Macron, and hammered on the same point with each of them. Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov also had blunt comments on the matter.These developments are being widely covered by live Russian TV broadcasts, while they are by and large blacked out in the West, whose population continues to live in the Valley of the Clueless as the world careens towards another Cuban Missile Crisis. TASS reported that, after listening to Shoigu’s report to the Defense Ministry Board, Putin stated: “They [the U.S.] simply do what they want [in other parts of the world]. But what they 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.” Putin went on: “The United States does not possess hypersonic weapons yet, but we know when they will have them…. They will put hypersonic weapons in Ukraine, and then, under their cover—that does not mean that they will start using them tomorrow, because we already have Zircon [hypersonic missiles] and they do not—they will arm and push extremists from the neighboring state against Russia, including into certain regions of the Russian Federation, for example, Crimea, when they think circumstances are favorable…. 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? That is the problem: we simply have nowhere to move further, that’s the question,” Putin said. Sputnik further quoted Putin: “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.” Putin then carefully explained: "We already see that some of our detractors are interpreting them [Russia’s draft treaty documents] as Russia’s ultimatum. Is it an ultimatum or not? Of course not…. Armed conflicts and bloodshed are absolutely not our choice. We do not want to see events go that way. We want to use political and diplomatic means to resolve problems but we want to at least have clearly formulated legal guarantees. This is what our proposals are all about. We set them down on paper and sent them to Brussels and Washington, and we hope to receive a clear and comprehensive response to these proposals. “There are certain signals that our partners appear to be willing to work on that. However, there is also a danger that they will attempt to drown our proposals in words, or in a swamp, in order to take advantage of this pause and do whatever they want to do.”

In her Dec. weekly webcast today, Schiller Institute founder Helga Zepp-LaRouche called for the U.S., NATO, and the nations of Europe to immediately sign the two strategic treaties presented by the Russian government of Vladimir Putin, as an urgent first step to get the world off its current trajectory towards nuclear war.“I think it is an absolute, urgent necessity for NATO and the United States and European countries to agree to sign such a legally-binding agreement with Russia,” Zepp-LaRouche stated. “What Russia is now demanding in written legal terms is nothing more than what was promised to them in 1990 by the U.S. and NATO,” promises which were never kept. Instead, NATO kept expanding eastward up to Russia’s very borders; and defensive and offensive weapons systems, along with troops, have accompanied that expansion. “The situation is extremely worrisome,” she stated, “because there are people committed to this brinksmanship, hoping that Russia and China will back down. But I don’t think that that’s in the cards. The policy of encirclement of Russia and China is continuing, even though Russia has said that their red line has been reached… There must be a recognition that we are on a terribly dangerous road, and people must voice their opposition to this policy, loud and clear, before it is too late.” Zepp-LaRouche urged her listeners to use this Christmas period to help organize others to speak out against this looming disaster and related crises—such as the danger of starvation of tens of millions in Afghanistan as a result of British, American and NATO financial warfare—and to mobilize in favor of the policy alternatives long championed by Lyndon LaRouche.

As Putlin reiterated his warnings to the U.S. and NATO to not cross the clear "red lines" he has drawn, he said this is not an "ultimatum", but a necessary defense of Russia's national security. Are his American and NATO "partners" listening? Putin said there are "certain signals" that a diplomatic resolution is possible, and Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov affirmed that discussions will take place in the new year. Yet NATO, and especially the British, are continuing to move forces to the Russian border, leading to concerns that an attack into eastern Ukraine by Kiev neo-nazi units could provoke a Russian invasion. At the same time, energy prices in Europe are spiking, as part of an inflationary spiral which will only worsen, as the global Green New Deal is imposed -- though the Atlanticists will blame Russia for energy shortages and blackouts. There are real solutions, beginning with signing the treaties proposed by Putin; dismantle NATO; and adopt Lyndon LaRouche's economic program, which could turn 2022 into an excellent year!

Dec. 23, 2021 (EIRNS)—The EU Commission has proposed a new set of taxes to finance the grants extended by the Next Generation EU Fund to member countries. The new taxes will mostly be “Green Taxes” or “Climate Taxes,” plus a share of the new international corporate tax. The first tax is based on “revenues from emissions trading (ETS); the second draws on the resources generated by the proposed EU carbon border adjustment mechanism; the third is based on the share of residual profits from multinationals that will be re-allocated to EU Member States under the recent OECD/G20 agreement on a re-allocation of taxing rights (”Pillar One“). At cruising speed, in the years 2026-2030, these new sources of revenue are expected to generate, on average, a total of up to €17 billion annually for the EU budget,” says an EU release dated Dec. 22. https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_21_7025 The new resources should also finance the Social Climate Fund, the handouts established by the EU to alleviate the “energy poverty” the EU itself has created with its climate folly. This is especially pertinent in view of the proposed extension of the Emissions Trading System covering buildings and road transport. Johannes Hahn, Commissioner in charge of Budget and Administration, said yesterday: “With today’s package, we lay the foundations for the repayment of NextGenerationEU and provide essential support to the Fit for 55 package by putting in place the financing of the Social Climate Fund. With the set of new resources, we, therefore, ensure that the next generation will truly benefit from NextGenerationEU.” In the future, emissions trading will also apply to the maritime sector, auctioning of aviation allowances will increase, and a new system for buildings and road transport will be established. Under the current EU Emissions Trading System, most revenues from the auctioning of emission allowances are transferred to national budgets. Now, the Commission proposes that in the future, 25% of the revenue from EU emissions trading flows into the EU budget. “At cruising speed, revenues for the EU budget are estimated at around €12 billion per year on average over 2026-2030 (€9 billion on average between 2023-2030).” (Both Poland and the Czech Republic have called for abolishing the ETS, which has become a sheer financial derivatives market and is seen as the main cause for energy price increases. Instead, the Potsdam Institute for Climate research, a key center for radiation of climate insanity, has insisted that derivatives are all well and good.) Through the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism, a tariff on imports with CO₂-footprint, there will be “a carbon price on imports, corresponding to what would have been paid, had the goods been produced in the EU. This mechanism will apply to a targeted selection of sectors and is fully consistent with WTO rules,” the release says. The Commission wants 75% of the revenues generated by this carbon border adjustment mechanism, estimated at around 1 billion euro on average over 2026-2030. Of the revenues from the International Corporate Tax, which now are reallocated to member states, the Commission wants to have 15%. “Pending the finalization of the agreement, revenues for the EU budget could amount to roughly between €2.5 and €4 billion per year.” That is not the end of it: the Commission will present a proposal for a second basket of new own resources by the end of 2023. The new taxes would bring between 15.5 and 17 billion Euro per year in the vaults of the EU Commission. The proposal shall now go to the European Parliament for scrutiny and eventually to the EU Council of heads of state and government for final approval. [ccc]

After 20 years of destructive, mindless wars, which benefitted no one but the contractors of the Military Industrial Complex and the War Hawks they fund, it is urgent that the west adopt a New Paradigm, of mutually beneficial, peaceful cooperation, to rebuild the targets of those wars. What better time than now, to act in the spirit of Christmas, exemplifying the ideal of Good Will toward All Mankind? The ecumenical spirit of generosity and love must replace the Satanic geopolitics of the "war of each against all", which has typified the actions of the Trans-Atlantic powers for at least four decades. This spirit is embodied in Operation Ibn Sina, Helga Zepp-LaRouche's proposal for humanitarian aid and economic development for the people of Afghanistan. Join us in our mobilization to realize the goals of Operation Ibn Sina

As we rapidly approach “the moment of truth” in the tense dialogue concerning the future of humanity involving the Presidents of the United States, Russia and China, consider the chilling remarks to TASS by Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov, spoken with respect to the Russian proposals regarding the securing of written guarantees against further NATO expansion eastward: “I said that we would find forms to respond, including by military and military-technical means [if NATO ignores Moscow’s concerns again]. I reaffirm this.” Consider, also, the briefing given by Defense Secretary Sergei Shoigu to Vladimir Putin documenting the intention of American private military companies (PMCs) to carry out a staged provocation in eastern Ukraine using chemical weapons. Finally, note that Vladimir Putin was President of Russia at the time of the attack of September 11, 2001, and was the first head of state to speak with President George W.Bush, telling Bush that he had directed the Russian nuclear forces to “stand down” in a situation that appeared to potentially involve even a possible illegal takeover of the U.S. Presidency.Where is the sane leadership response in the United States? Competent interlocutors, speaking on behalf of the once-cogent, but now no longer trustworthy trans-Atlantic world, have to now emerge from the “dark wood” of post-9/11 neo-con/neo-liberal war diplomacy. The British-instigated “American homeland defense strategies” that have resulted in the past two decades of unprovoked conflicts and destabilizations in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, and many other locations, punctuated by the wanton killing of civilians in pursuit of dubious “geopolitical” ends, must stop. Take the unlawful, Victoria Nuland-managed “F..k the EU” Feb. 21-22 2014 coup in Ukraine. There, 100 casualties in the Maidan were the apparent prescribed “threshold level” for a public, full-throated endorsement of the Ukrainian “independence forces” by the United States and NATO, according to Professor Ivan Katchanovski, School of Political Studies at the University of Ottawa. He investigated the Maidan Massacre for four-and-a-half years, and was interviewed in Oliver Stone’s 2019 Revealing Ukraine. "There were two interviews published in a recent book by a Ukrainian pro-Maidan journalist. And in this book they produced interviews of two far-right leaders of Ukraine…. And they and Maidan leaders met with some senior western officials. And this western official told them, basically, that killings of a few protesters is not enough for western governments to change support. “They said specifically, [the] end of recognition of the Yanukovych government basically would change only if the number of the victims would be 100. The western government policy changed immediately after the Maidan massacre. Not an accident, because you have exactly 100 people who were killed.” (The total list of those killed now totals 130.) Stone’s two documentaries, the other being Ukraine On Fire, contain extensive interviews with Putin, and several scenes of Biden in Ukraine, including Biden speaking before the post-coup Ukrainian parliament in 2015. How does this inform the demands of Russia for written guarantees from the United States today? Today, death, be it through pandemic, famine, flood, or war, including potential thermonuclear war, seems to be all around us. No efficient solution from institutions of government in the trans-Atlantic sector seems forthcoming. Yet the solution to this lower-order “entropy of doom” has been advanced in the form of the persistent call for a P-5 summit (Russia, China, the United States, France, and Great Britain), in the method called the “Committee for the Coincidence of Opposites,” and in the economic and strategic outlook contained in the World Land-Bridge and “Operation Ibn Sina.” Regarding the latter, a greater familiarity with the thinking of the great Islamic physician and thinker is essential to apprehend why his name is not attached to Helga Zepp-LaRouche’s Afghanistan policy-initiative as a mere symbol. Here, we quote from section 36 of Ibn Sina’s Metaphysics to illustrate how, for example, the recent U.S. Congressional call for the unfreezing of Afghanistan’s assets, to be deployed by the national bank of that nation, in the name of the principle of justice, equity, and sovereignty, can be morally upshifted to ensure that it actually succeeds in that objective in the short term: THE ONTOLOGY OF HUMAN DIPLOMACY “Benevolence and usefulness come from one thing to another by means of transaction or by generosity. A transaction takes place in an exchange where something is given and something is received. What is received is not always concrete since it can be a good name, joy, or a prayer, or gratitude. Though the object of a transaction is called and recognized by the vulgar as merchandise which is exchanged with another merchandise, a good name or gratitude are not considered exchangeable in a transaction…. Generosity is that which is not the result of an exchange, of recompense, or of a transaction. From the will which directs generosity a good thing results, while no ulterior intention is associated with it. Since the Necessary Existent acts in this manner, Its act is characterized by absolute generosity.”—Ibn Sina, Metaphysics, Section 36 How can Ibn Sina’s philosophical outlook regarding generosity be applied, in this present moment, in Afghanistan? Linda Everett, a decades-long organizer for the Schiller Institute who played a central, most notable role in the creation of the Institute’s Club of Life (an organization created to counter the depopulation schemes of Aurelio Peccei and NATO’s Alexander King’s organization, the Club of Rome,) addressed this same matter in a recent strategy session of organizers, addressed by Helga Zepp-LaRouche. In response to Helga, Linda began by referencing the Schiller Institute’s December 18 Sunday Christmas concert, performing works by composers Antonio Vivaldi and Johan Sebastian Bach, and traditional Christmas music. “Why was the concert that we just gave so important? Because it went right to the soul of people. Some of us have lost loved ones in these last three weeks…. But for the people that we will be organizing in these several days before the holiday, when they also have losses such as this, it cannot be something that holds them back. In other words, they have lost part of their hearts. But as you have often said, we must adopt the world…. We must ask people to open, don’t feel so, as though a part of the heart has been taken. No, the heart is like the earth…. It expands to hold the necessities, the needs, of its children. Of the women, the children, the huge part of Afghanistan, and the rest of the starving that will die. The heart has to open up to that. It is as a dove, as a swan, as a crane that would open its wings to hold all of these needs within those that we are organizing. It is the fact that they have lost someone, as some of us have in these last few weeks—you can just be sure that that is out there among the people that we are organizing. It should not be something where they feel that they have no ability to celebrate, whether it is Christmas or whatever the holiday…. They are capable of doing it. Perhaps they have never had to, but they are capable. And we are the ones that have to ask…. We are able to expand our hearts, and open them to these people and move. The worst would be to say, No, I’m hurting, I can’t do it. No. The way to get beyond hurt, is to give, and that is what we need at this moment, when millions are dying.The heart has to open up to that….” It is that generosity, not only as a sentiment, but as a weapon against despair, that was the content of “the benefit of the other” policy of the 1648 Treaty of Westphalia. It is what informed General George Washington’s unique doctrine of treatment of captured Hessian and British soldiers in the American Revolution. It is the method of a truly human diplomacy, exercised especially in times of war. Lyndon LaRouche famously stated that “the content of policy is the method by which it is made.” While the State Department will obscure and dissemble, it cannot deny that to not act, now, in the Afghanistan crisis, is to condemn, unnecessarily, tens of thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands, to death in the next weeks—not only in Afghanistan, but in other areas threatened by famine and disease. Is this being done in the name of “protecting the democratic rights of the people” we have condemned to death? The content of that policy toward Afghanistan, the present policy, is depraved indifference, the same indifference reported in the killing of more than 1,500 “civilian casualties” through “precision drone warfare,” and the withholding of medical assistance to the continent of Africa for the past 18 months in order to “make sure Americans [and Europeans] are safe first.” Reversing that depraved indifference is the most efficient way to signal to Russia and the world that those that broke their word, in pledging that “NATO would not expand one inch eastward” in 1990, have now shown a willingness, if not to reverse, to at least amend their behavior, in order to move away, at nearly the last moment, from what must otherwise be deemed a self-doomed debt-driven drive toward total, unwinnable war.

Helga Zepp-LaRouche made an impassioned appeal to viewers of her weekly webcast to use this Christmas period to join with us to mobilize for a New Paradigm. She compared "the commitment to brinksmanship" of Trans-Atlantic war hawks to the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, describing this as"extremely worrisome," as it comes from a belief that Russia and China will back down in the face of threats from the U.S. and NATO. The Russians continue to deny an intent to invade Ukraine, and have submitted draft proposals, which they insist cover their minimum national security interests. That western leaders instead repeat their demand for Russian submission to planned NATO expansion which puts us on a course towards war. Mrs. Zepp-LaRouche then turned her attention to what she described as the "heart-breaking, upsetting" story of the refusal of western nations to address the humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan, which is the result of the geopolitical wars fought in that country. While the OIC has made a proposal to set up a fund and coordinate international aid, western nations are continuing sanctions and refusing to release funds, even though it is clear this threatens millions of lives. The role of the U.S. and NATO in continuing this travesty is destroying "the credibility of the West." She spoke of her commitment to Project Ibn Sina for Afghanistan, as part of a broader battle to provide a world health system for every country. She ended the dialogue with an appeal to viewers to use the next days of Christmas to reflect on the moral responsibility of citizens to act at this moment of deepening crisis. Transcript The Brinkmanship of Trans-Atlantic Cannot Be Tolerated Weekly Strategic Webcast with Helga Zepp-LaRouche, Wednesday December 22, 2021 HARLEY SCHLANGER: Hello I’m Harley Schlanger. Welcome to our weekly dialogue with Schiller Institute founder and Chairwoman Helga Zepp-LaRouche. It’s Dec. 22, 2021. And Helga, as we’ve been reporting over the recent weeks, the drumbeat for war continues coming from trans-Atlantic powers. The Russians are making proposals to try and address it. They seem to be getting little or no response from the West. What’s the latest that you have on this? HELGA ZEPP-LAROUCHE: Well, it is extremely worrisome, because it seems there are people committed to make a brinksmanship. Obviously, they hope that Russia, and China for that matter, will back down, but I don’t think that that’s in the cards. So two weeks ago, we spoke about this unbelievable statement by Sen. Roger Wicker, that he doesn’t want to take the first use of nuclear weapons off the table. Now, in the meantime, the whole thing has escalated. There was a CNN report, with an unnamed U.S. high-ranking official, the suspicion was that it was National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan, who said we only have a window of four weeks left before we have to get a breakthrough, and somehow referring to a possible plan of Russia to invade Ukraine. Which Russia has denied many times, emphatically. But if you look at the chronologically of the last several weeks—it started much earlier—but let’s take the visit of the Director of the Office of National Intelligence of the United States Avril Haines to Brussels, where she briefed the NATO ambassadors about so-called hard evidence intelligence that Russia would plan and invasion of Ukraine at the beginning of 2022. As I said, it was denied by Russia. Then there are obviously troops being gathered at the Russian side of the Ukrainian border, which has been commented on many times by Russia, that it’s their good right to do on their territory whatever they want. According to Maria Zakharova, the spokeswoman of the Foreign Ministry, there are at least 10,000 troops from NATO in Ukraine, 4,000 from the U.S. and 6,000 from other countries; and in the middle of all of that—I mean, there was the discussion between Putin and Biden on Dec. 7 on videoconference—which again looked as if this would move forward. But then, immediately, the people around Biden went back to their bellicose statements, so one never knows exactly what the U.S. policy is exactly. And then Putin proposed two treaties, to the U.S. and to NATO. Now, these are not proposals for negotiations but ready-made treaties, one for the United States to sign, that they will basically not insist that Ukraine be in NATO, and the other one for NATO to sign, that NATO will not move any farther eastward. And the Russians, Putin, they said this is not negotiable; this pertains to the very national security interests of Russia, and they insist that these treaties be signed. Now the reaction from the West, from [NATO Secretary General Jens] Stoltenberg, from Lambrecht, the new German defense minister, various other people, they said, they will not let Russia dictate what to do, and so forth, but there was no serious response so far. And various Russian spokesmen, Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov, Grushko, Lavrov, and various other people, they all said that this is very serious. If there is no response from the West, and if there is any more move to either move weapons into Ukraine, or to expand NATO in any way more eastward, there will be a military answer coming from Russia. And the bottom line has been reached, the red line has been reached. So we are sort of in a countdown, where it’s very clear that whoever is pulling the strings in NATO in the end, and sometimes one is not quite clear if it’s Biden or not, or rather not, they’re obviously set that this policy of encirclement against Russia and China continue. And Russia has said, the red line has been reached. Now, this is very, very dangerous, because — Oh yeah, then I think it was also Sullivan, said that if there is any move from Russia in respect to Ukraine, that they will punish the economy of Russia so terribly that it—anyway, so there are all these threats in the air. And there is now a very interesting statement by Leonidas Chrysanthopoulos, a former Greek ambassador, who commented on all of that, by basically saying the West should not be so hypocritical (I’m now using my own words), but that the West should recognize that all Russia is demanding, in written, legal terms, is what was promised in 1990 to them by the United States, by NATO, in the negotiations concerning the German reunification. And this is actually a matter of record: There are now documents which everybody can look up, that on Feb. 9, 1990, Secretary of State James Baker promised Gorbachev that NATO would not move “one inch eastward,” and this was also the content of the famous speech by then German Foreign Minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher, in his speech in Tutzing, where he basically said the same thing. Naturally, everybody knows these promises, which unfortunately were not made in written form, but just verbally, they were broken almost immediately and altogether 14 countries of the former Soviet Union and Warsaw Pact were integrated into NATO; and recently, and many times earlier, Russia has made the point that to have Ukraine and Georgia in NATO is unacceptable for the very simple reason that if you look at the border between Ukraine and Russia, it leaves only a few minutes, maybe as little as 5 minutes for a missile system to reach Moscow, which obviously is much too short a time to have an effective defense. So, Russia makes the point that its national security interest is absolutely threatened by these moves by NATO. So we are on a countdown. And we should just keep in mind, if it comes to any war between Russia and Ukraine, which would involve any kind of—even without Western involvement—and this would escalate, Germany would immediately be the target. And if you have such statements like that of Senator Wicker, that the first use of nuclear weapons cannot be taken off the table, people should be aware of the fact, that if it comes to this, Germany ceases to exist! So, this is one of the reasons why I have been saying NATO is no longer a security pact which is in the self-interest of Germany, because if in the case of any military conflict, Germany ceases to exist, obviously, this is not a good defense strategy. So, I think, first of all people must make themselves familiar with this danger. According to the reports, we are in a four-week countdown, and I think it is absolute, urgent necessity that NATO and the United States and European countries do agree to sign such legally binding agreements with Russia, even if Putin, in a just-conducted meeting with some of his top military people said that even a legally binding, signed document does not give full security, because the United States has now a very long record that they pull out of treaties without any problem, overnight. But there must be a recognition that we are on a terribly dangerous road, and people must voice their opposition to this policy, loud and clear, before it is too late. SCHLANGER: There have been some voices speaking out in the West, but not nearly enough, and then, instead, they’re drowned out by people like Sullivan, who said Russia must deescalate, when the escalation is coming from the West. And the U.S. has not even responded yet to this request for these treaties to be negotiated. Now, unless you have something more on that, I think we need to move on to the situation in Afghanistan, where there have been some developments with the Organization for Islamic Cooperation meeting over the weekend, a potential for possible motion on unfreezing the funds. I think 46 congress members have written a letter to Biden. What’s your sense? Is there some momentum building on this, especially given the reports of the danger to millions of people, including children, of starvation and freezing this winter? ZEPP-LAROUCHE: Yes, this is the second, absolutely heartbreaking and extremely upsetting story. You know, the West talks about moral values, value-based order, human rights, democracy, all of these beautiful words, but the reality is quite ugly. Because the World Food Program representatives, I think, the head Beasley and Mary-Ellen McGroarty in Afghanistan, visiting Kabul and Kandahar in the last several days, and they come back and say that 98% of the Afghanistan population is in dire poverty, more than 90% are food insecure, without medical supplies: 24 million people are in danger of dying this winter, 3 million children, babies are dying already—and this is the 21st century and the whole world should know about it, but if you look at the Western media, after the Taliban took over in August, there was a short period when Afghanistan was in the news, but since several months you hardly hear anything about it. Now, there was a very important conference over Friday, Saturday, Sunday in Islamabad, Pakistan, of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC); this is with 57 states, the second largest international organization after the United Nations, and they had a meeting which was addressed by the Prime Minister of Pakistan, Imran Khan. I listened to his speech and I was—not that everything was new what he said, but he said it very distinctly. He said, when the Taliban took over and the West withdrew, everybody knew that 75% of the budget of Afghanistan came from international aid, and since that aid was immediately cut—the donor countries cut the aid right away, because the Taliban had taken over—everybody knew that the entire budget of Afghanistan was all of a sudden practically nonexistent. Then you had the freezing of the funds by the U.S. Treasury, by European banks, so there was a complete cash crisis: People could not import anything, they could not pay salaries, the whole thing broke down, and this has been going on for four months, with the result I just mentioned before. But this is not the Taliban: When you hear the Western media, if they report anything at all, they say, “Oh yeah, the economy is now terrible, because of the Taliban.” It is not because of the Taliban! Because if you have, after 20 years of NATO war, NATO leaves, and the United States forces leave in a sudden fashion, the country in which they conducted war for 20 years: They leave the country, nothing has been built, no economy, no infrastructure, nothing is functioning, and then, they cut off the international lifeline, the donor monies, which make up 75% of the Afghanistan budget, they cut this off, they freeze the central bank’s funds, and then naturally a catastrophe erupts which nobody, not the Taliban or anybody else, can handle, because you have sanctions, and have a complete freeze of everything! And the West knows that! And they don’t react! I mean, this is unbelievable! If you look at the Afghanistan situation, this is the end of any credibility of the West, and just to think that because the Western media are not reporting that, people should not think that it goes unnoticed. For example, the 57 OIC nations noticed; all the neighbors of Afghanistan noticed; all the third world noticed. So I think if this is not reversed very, very quickly, this will be of a lasting impact of a demise of the West. This is why I have said that the fate of Afghanistan and the fate of humanity are much more closely linked than most people are willing to think through. I find this absolutely horrendous. What the OIC conference decided: they will set up a fund, I don’t know exactly the amounts that will be available, but they will set up an office in Kabul, and the OIC has offered to coordinate international aid. So something is being done, for sure, but the problem is so gigantic that it really requires all the neighbors of Afghanistan to cooperate, and I think that the United States and the European countries—I mean, they were for 20 years in this country, and then they walk away. This is from the standpoint of international law, completely unacceptable. So Europe and the United States have an absolute moral obligation to reverse that and cooperate with the neighbors of Afghanistan and not only have immediate humanitarian aid, to alleviate the hunger, the lack of medical supplies, but then, participate in the economic buildup of the country, which can only occur by integrating Afghanistan into the Belt and Road Initiative projects—you know, the CPEC corridor from Pakistan to Kabul to Uzbekistan; the building of the Khyber Pass, and other well-defined projects which would immediately start building up the economy. So that is what needs to be done. There are 39 congressmen who made an appeal to Biden to unfreeze the funds which are held by the Treasury: I think this is important. Obviously, this must immediately happen because the winter is already there. SCHLANGER: And toward that end of accelerated humanitarian aid, you made the proposal which you call “Operation Ibn Sina,” that is, while specific to Afghanistan, actually reflects the need for the whole world in the midst of the COVID crisis, the economic breakdown, which is the necessity for a world health system, as the front end of a massive infrastructure investment program, which could include the Belt and Road Initiative and so on. How does that look as a prospect from your standpoint? ZEPP-LAROUCHE: Operation Ibn Sina, because one has to start with Afghanistan, and Ibn Sina comes from a place nearby Bukhara which is Uzbekistan, but his father was born in Balk, which is Afghanistan, and people are very proud of him. He’s probably the greatest doctor who ever lived, so there is no better name to give this effort to build a modern health system in Afghanistan, than to call it after Ibn Sina. And there already has been great interest in this idea coming from several places in the region. But more largely, we have now a new wave of the COVID-19, the Omicron variant, and, again, there is such an unwillingness by the establishment of the Western system to recognize that we have been on the wrong track, and I said in the very beginning, when it was clear this was a pandemic, in March 2020, I said we need a world health system or else this pandemic will not go away. Since then we’ve had all these mutations, and now we have Omicron, and there is no guarantee there will not be new mutations. And it’s also clear that the idea that the rich countries are producing and hoarding vaccines, and leaving the developing countries without is not helping anybody, because if you leave entire continents without vaccinations and without modern health equipment, then this virus will mutate, as it has done so far, and it will come back and may even make the existing vaccines obsolete. So, either we go in earnest, and say that the fact that billions of people do not have modern hospitals is unacceptable, don’t have clear water, don’t have enough electricity, this is something which could be done; there is no reason why we could not immediately start to build modern infrastructure, like we have it in Germany—it may be rotting, but it’s still there because previous generations were a little bit smarter than the present crop of politicians—but there is no reason in the world why not technically, why not technologically, we could not start building hospitals: We need about 30,000 new hospitals around the world. That would be easy! We could even make these hospitals prefabricated, in the United States, in Europe, and then ship the modules to the respective countries. The Chinese proved in Wuhan that you can build a modern hospital in two weeks. It could be done this way. We could start a crash training program for medical personnel. I have called for the youth, the young people in the world to be trained to help build such an effort, like it was done by Franklin D. Roosevelt with the CCC program in the New Deal. You can train young people on the job, give them a vision and a mission in life. And I think this is really something—you know, we cannot continue this way! The idea that every time something happens, the rich countries only take care of themselves, and the developing countries are left in the dark, that has to stop and we have to start to really think in terms of a new paradigm if humanity is supposed to come out of this crisis. And given the fact that we have now the Christmas period, the holiday season, people have some days to think. And rather than just going about your business as usual—I mean, this is a breaking point of civilization: Either we really can shape up as a human species, or it may not look so great for our perspective. SCHLANGER: I think your last point, that in the spirit of Christmas, of generosity and love of mankind, peace and good will toward men, this would be the time to move ahead with the shift to the new paradigm. Helga, thanks for joining us today, and I know you wish all your viewers a merry Christmas, as do I, and we’ll see you again next week. ZEPP-LAROUCHE: Yes. I wish you a Merry Christmas, and the first topic we discussed, I really want you to think about, because what we face in Europe between Russia, Ukraine, and Europe and NATO, is like a reverse Cuban Missile Crisis. In the Cuban Missile Crisis, Kennedy pointed to the fact that an island which is only 160 miles from the coast of Florida, the idea that you could deploy nuclear missiles in such a close vicinity, obviously could not be tolerated. But nuclear missiles in NATO, in the Baltic, missile defense system in Poland, in Romania, and the idea to move lethal weapons into Ukraine, from the standpoint of the Russians, this is exactly like the Cuban Missile Crisis. So, I really want you to use this Christmas period to really work with the Schiller Institute, and help us to stop something which could really be fatal for all of humanity. And at the same time, there are all the resources, there are so many beautiful contributions to civilizations, Beethoven’s music, all the great poets, the great philosophers—read these things over these days and rethink how we should go about it, because we definitely need to change course urgently.

CNN reported a leak from the Biden administration that there is only a "four week window" to prevent a Russian invasion of Ukraine -- or perhaps, they meant to say to provoke an invasion of Ukraine! Some believe the leak came from well-known leaker Jake Sullivan, who has been exposed by special counsel John Durham as one who spread the false Russiagate story of Trump campaign links to Russia and Putin through a Russian bank -- a story exposed as a blatant fabrication. Is Sullivan pushing his anti-Putin obsession more aggressively for fear that further exposure of his role in the Clinton campaign in Russiagate could lead to his indictment?