Schiller Institute Chairwoman Helga Zepp-LaRouche made a powerful appeal to all citizens to join her to mobilize support for a conference to establish a new strategic architecture, before the crazed war hawks in the Trans-Atlantic blunder into a nuclear war. Describing the present situation as "terrible...out of control", she said the total media control has allowed governments to place economies on a war footing, which threatens to unleash mass deaths due to famine. The present sanctions regime against Afghanistan, she stated, threatens five million children now. Instead of addressing this, there is a drive by the U.S. and the N ATO powers to demonize Putin and crush Russia. I call upon you to join us, she said, to convene a conference "in the spirit of the (1648) Peace of Westphalia," to create a security architecture which addresses the needs of all nations and peoples. At the center of her proposal is to accept the offer of Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, who called for an integration of the U.S. and Europe with the Belt-and-Road Initiative.

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

Sergei Lavrov expressed the Russian disappointment with the written response from the U.S. to President Putin's demand for new treaties which guarantee Russia's security interests. While agreeing to further discussion of secondary issues, the Biden administration appears to have refused to meet Putin's demands. At the same time, the U.S. is escalating its plans for sanctions against Russia, and the media -- led by CNN -- is running false reports about Biden's discussion with Zelensky, to stoke tensions.Despite Blinken's claim of complete unity among NATO allies, fault lines continue to become visible. In Italy and Germany, businessmen and manufacturers want to speak with Putin, as they recognize that a war, or escalation of sanctions, would have disastrous consequences for western economies, which are already weak. The desperation in the west is also visible, in reports of a likely wave of debt defaults of highly-indebted poor nations, if interest rates are raised in the U.S. Helga took note of the positive potential which emerged from the meetings in Oslo with a Taliban delegation, and motion in support of her Operation Ibn Sina. She appealed to viewers to join with us to break out from under the war drive of the geopoliticians, and bring about her husband's perspective of a New Bretton Woods, which would uniquely address the common interests of all nations. Transcript War Danger Still Exists — A New Paradigm Is in the Common Interest of All Mankind Weekly Strategic Webcast with Helga Zepp-LaRouche Friday January 28, 2022 HARLEY SCHLANGER: Hello, I’m Harley Schlanger. Welcome to our weekly dialogue with Schiller Institute founder and Chairwoman Helga Zepp-LaRouche. Today is Friday, January 29, 2022. While the world was kept waiting for a couple of days for the United States’ response to President Putin’s demand that there be new security guarantees extended to Russia, the response was delivered on Jan. 26. Sergey Lavrov said that while there’s ongoing discussion there was no response to the core issues. Helga, what’s your thinking on where this leaves us? HELGA ZEPP-LAROUCHE: I think the war danger clearly still exists, because it’s very clear that there are elements who are not satisfied with the relationship between United States, and Russia, and China, for that matter, to go into a civilized direction. But because of the systemic collapse going on in the Western financial system, the desperation is big. And there are, despite what is officially being said, where always psywar ops, covert operations being threatened, it’s a very complex picture. To start off with what the Russian response has been, Lavrov, and the Russians in general, have said that they are very disappointed that the United States and NATO did not respond to the core issue of their demand that NATO should not further expand to the East, that no offensive weapons system should be placed along the Russian borders, and that Ukraine should definitely not be ever in NATO. These were the absolutely important issues, and they were rejected by both the United States and by NATO. And what was offered instead was all kinds of, what from the Russian standpoint are also useful discussions, but not the essential ones. So it’s like, make offers for arms control, for continuation of the dialogue—all of that is useful, naturally, but I think it is to be noted that the basic position of the West to not respond to the very legitimate security interests of Russia. And it’s very difficult to say where this will all end up, but the bullying coming from people like Blinken, in particular, is so blatant, and the obvious neglect of the United States, not only for the security interests of Russia, but also the security interests of European countries like Germany, or economic interests, is also so absolutely blatant, that this whole thing may end up in a complete backlash, in a blowback. Because if the United States insists on being the hegemon, and keep a unipolar world, and in then in the process of trying to ram that through, tramples over the interests of its so-called Allies, and creates an open hostility with the so-called adversary—, namely Russia and China—this may end up in not what the architects of the confrontation have intended, but it may reveal the absolutely uncivilized behavior of those who are pushing this confrontation. Now, Lavrov said that compared to NATO, the response of the United States was almost diplomatic decency, while the response from NATO was so ideologically blatant that it leaves almost no room for any civilized discussion. So we have to see. Now there are different voices. There is a lot of psywar and it’s sometimes very difficult to know what is true and what is not. The latest flareup is this CNN report by Matthew Chance who claims that in yesterday’s phone discussion between President Biden and President Zelenskyy, Biden supposedly would have said that once the ground is frozen, the Russia attack will come, and he would have told Zelenskyy that Kiev will be sacked, that he should prepare for a big impact—all language that is draconian and barbarian. The White House denied that this was said in this form. In any case, I think it’s very unlikely—there is not even an interest by Russia to occupy Ukraine! They have an interest to protect the Russians in east Ukraine, but for sure, not to overrun Ukraine, where the entire west is filled with Nazis and neo-Nazis and would be a complete mess to even think of occupying a terrible place like that. So, I think there is an incredible psywar going on. Zelenskyy himself said he does not think anything has changed, only the hype has increased. Papers like the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung say that they think there is a very low probability for a Russian attack. One has to differentiate between the confetti which is being thrown around, and the core question. And the core question is that a solution must come out of all of this which takes into account the basic security interest of Russia, and that is the bottom line. SCHLANGER: I think, Helga, for the sake of our American listeners, who don’t get any of this reporting, it’s worth noting that what CNN said was not only denied by the Zelenskyy spokesman who said that no one in the President’s office said such a thing in the discussion with Biden, and described it as completely false, but National Security Council spokeswoman Emily Horne said that CNN’s sources are leaking falsehoods. So that’s what you’re getting in the United States, with the psywar. And speaking of psychological warfare, there is the British intelligence report that came out this week which said that they have evidence that the Russians are about to try to install someone to run the President’s office in Ukraine, presumably as a coup, who’s favorable to Russia. The Russians denied this, the person whom they named said this is completely preposterous; but we’re seeing this kind of psychological warfare. Now, countering the psychological warfare, there’s been a continuing diplomatic offensive from Russia. Putin had an interesting discussion with the Russian-Italian Chamber of Commerce, and it appears that the German business and manufacturing grouping wants to have a similar discussion. And the EU has denounced this. This is part of what appears to be a growing split occurring within Europe, isn’t it? ZEPP-LAROUCHE: I think it’s deepening, and if Blinken goes around and talks about the “unity of the allies” and NATO and so forth, I think this is absolutely not true. As you say, the EU tried to pressure Italian businessmen and corporations not to go into this dialogue with Putin, and only two or three did back down, but the vast majority did have this dialogue. And in Germany, the German Committee on Eastern European Economic Relations (Ost-Ausschuss der Deutschen Wirtschaft), which is basically the core of German industry, they also came out and want to have a videoconference with Putin. And they also reminded people of the statements by former Chancellor Helmut Schmidt, that the most important good is the maintenance of peace. And they also made emphatically the point that the security interests of Russia must be respected. That is important. Then you have in the Social Democracy (SPD) an appeal circulated that Germany has to remember and return to the Ostpolitik of Willy Brandt and Egon Bahr, the détente. And there are similar other appeals circulating. So I think there is a reawakening of the peace movement in several countries, and this is a reflection of the fact that people are becoming very, very upset about the possibility of war. There is one demand coming from Vladimir Yermakov, who is the Director of Arms Control and Nonproliferation in the Russian Foreign Ministry, and he demands that the modernized nuclear weapons which are in Europe, the B61 and other types, that they all be withdrawn back to the territory of the United States, and that the five non-nuclear members of NATO who are training for the case of a nuclear attack on Russia, that that must be absolutely halted. I think this will be a demand that will be picked up by peace-oriented people in Europe, because the fact that these weapons do exist on European soil makes the countries that have these weapons prime targets if it comes to any kind of a confrontation, because it is generally very clear that conventionally there is no way how the United States and NATO could win a war against Russia. The United States may have all kinds of modern equipment, and right now both the British and the United States are having continuous transport of so-called “lethal weapons” into Ukraine; and also from the Baltic states, whom the U.S. has given permission that they can transfer weapons which they got from the U.S. to Ukraine. But if you look at the map, Russia has the advantage of territorial depth—Russia is a country with 11 time zones—and any time somebody tried to conquer Russia, starting with Napoleon, and continued with Hitler, they got such bloody noses: The great Napoleonic army was decimated to a few hundred, poor lost souls who returned from that campaign. Hitler could not defeat Russia, at a tremendous loss for the Russian people, but there was no way how Hitler could have won that war; and that would be the fate of anybody who was trying to have a war that would involve Russia. So the danger, naturally, is that it would come to the question of the use of nuclear weapons. Now, we are still sitting on a powder keg, because Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu has warned that there is evidence of American or British mercenaries operating already inside the territory of Ukraine. There are reports about private military companies, in part these are the “gray zone” people, former soldiers who now have private firms training people who have a crazy affection for military questions. So there is a big danger, because a provocation could be launched at any moment, and false-flag operations, as well, so this is something to be watched very carefully. Then there is the discussion that supposedly Xi Jinping would have asked Putin to wait until after the Winter Olympics are over before attacking Ukraine—which is ludicrous, but increases the danger, and I can only say that people must really step back from this whole question and get back to their senses. One has the feeling that the people who are pushing this confrontation have gone completely mad: They’re playing with the existence of civilization. And I can only tell people, this is something where we have to walk back from the brink of the potential annihilation of the human species. SCHLANGER: There is one other aspect I want to bring up, which you mentioned before, which is the bullying by Blinken. We’re seeing more signs of insanity from Congress in terms of sanctions that they’re talking about, new economic sanctions against Russia. “Preemptive sanctions,” which is being discussed by a number of different people—including some in Ukraine—saying the best thing to make sure that Russia doesn’t invade is to have “preemptive sanctions.” And then you have the threats against the diplomats, the fact that more diplomatic offices are being shut down—this is all part of what seems like a pre-war mobilization. ZEPP-LAROUCHE: Well, I must say that this is not civilized behavior any more. First of all, the U.S. recalling its non-essential diplomats from Ukraine is an unfriendly act. There is no reason to do that. Then there is this talk about the Russian ambassador to the United States Anatoly Antonov, that may be forced to leave in April. Now, that would be a very, very dramatic escalation, to basically force the ouster of the most important diplomat between the United States and Russia. And then, there was a readout from the White House, from unnamed “senior administration officials” discussing what the nature of potential economic sanctions against Russia would be, in the case of a Russian attack. Now, obviously, the Russians have stated again and again, they do not intend to attack, and Lavrov has said it many times, that if it is up to Russia, there will be no war. And other officials have said the only people who are pushing a war between Russia and Ukraine is the West. Russia has no interest to attack. They just put up these troops along the border to make the point that they have a security interest, and they want to have a solution to it, but they never said they intended to attack. Now, what this White House readout says, it is quite incredible. This was a meeting which took place on Jan. 25. They discussed a whole range of “severe economic measures” starting “at the top of the escalation ladder”—in other words, not moving up slowly, getting stronger and stronger, but going full blast from the beginning. And they say want to “hit Putin’s strategic ambitions to industrialize his economy quite hard,” by denying him access to all modern advanced technologies, like artificial intelligence, quantum computing, anything having to do with defense aerospace. And they basically say the aim is to prevent Putin’s intention to “diversify” from exporting oil and gas, causing an atrophy of the Russian economy. And on and on with this language. The language of this is so brutal, it’s basically saying: Look, we managed with the shock therapy in 1990s, with Jeffrey Sachs in the Yeltsin period, to turn a former superpower into a raw materials producing, third world country, and now we will deny Russia the right to industrialize, by applying such measures. Now, that is a form of a declaration of war already! How can you deny a country to develop industrially? This is really big, and I would like people to read this, because if you read the language, how this is written, it portrays a mindset which is the mindset of a party declaring war already. And naturally, I remember, there was a report by the CIA in 1991, which had similar language, which basically said Russia has more raw materials than the United States and they have better educated scientists, and therefore, any economic development of Russia must be discouraged. And that was the beginning of the shock therapy, which reduced the industrial capacity of Russia between 1991 and 1994, to only 30% of what it had been before. And the 1990s were a decade which the Russians regard as “genocide,” because the demographic curve was absolutely reduced by 1 million people per year. Naturally, this is also not very realistic, because in the meantime, the Chinese economy is in the process of overtaking the United States, and while there may still be certain areas where such sanctions would be felt in a painful way by Russia or anybody else who is affected by it, but the idea that you can deny Russian industrial development by applying such sanctions, it’s a reflection of the same kind of arrogant mindset; because China has put a rover on the far side of the Moon, where nobody in the West has, so they could not have stolen that technology from anybody—they’re the leader. They’re also the leader in terms of fusion energy research and fast train systems and many other areas. But it shows you an intention, and that mindset is the same one as Mr. Blinken thinks he can force the Europeans to go along with these sanctions, even if it would destroy their own economies, which if you go in this direction, then Russia would cut off all oil and gas supplies which would hit Europe, not the United States. So this is really wrong, and I can only say that hopefully there will be some people inside the United States who will say this is not the true character of the United States, because you cannot build peace on the basis of doing the utmost damage to whoever you want to have a relationship with. SCHLANGER: It’s also a confirmation of what your husband, Lyndon LaRouche talked about in his 1998 “Storm Over Asia” video, in which he said the attempt to deny economic development to Russia and China is part of the traditional British geopolitical doctrine, which is dictated from the City of London. And the idea, obviously, that they’re trying to stop any Eurasian integration with Europe is really one of the key, underlying features. Now, on that, there are some developments around Afghanistan: There is a Taliban delegation in Norway this week. There’s continued discussion of your proposal for Operation Ibn Sina. Why don’t you let us know what you have on developments around Afghanistan? ZEPP-LAROUCHE: I think it’s good there was this conference in Norway, where a delegation of the Taliban met with representatives from the U.S., Germany, I think France, Italy—and I don’t know the full extent of what measures came out of that. But the fact that this took place, and there are now more organizations working with the Taliban and that there is a recognition that the only way to save the 25 million people who are in acute life danger is to work with the Taliban—this is definitely a breakthrough. I think the German head of UNICEF gave a report from Kabul, where he said 1 million children are in acute danger and are actually dying; 7 million children are in acute danger. And he said this is as many children altogether as there are in Germany. I haven’t checked this figure, but it makes sense, and it shows you the incredible dimension of the need to change the thinking. And as we have mentioned on this show several times, I launched the Operation Ibn Sina, which refers to the great physician from 1,000 years ago from this region. And I’m very happy that there are now more people picking up on it and really think this is a very good idea, to use Afghanistan as a model to create a modern healthcare system for every country in the world. And the speech I gave about it, which is the cover story in the January 28 issue of EIR, which you can download and circulate it. We can also put the link underneath this show afterwards. The video of the speech I made is also available. And these are being tweeted by several influential people, and they are sending it through their social media. So I hope this will lead to a really broad discussion and becomes the basis for actually implementing a modern health system for Afghanistan and every other country on the planet! Because the pandemic is still here, and despite what people hope, new variants are still a possibility. And in any case, the conditions of many, many countries in the developing sector, they must have a development perspective, because it cannot go on that billions of people are on the verge of famine, and losing their livelihoods, and in danger of dying. So Operation Ibn Sina must be the beginning of a new paradigm. And this becomes all the more urgent, because we’re sitting on a powder keg: The reason for all the war danger is the fact that the financial system is about to blow up. There are many reports that the so-called “emerging markets” which is a synonym for the developing countries, that they may have a huge debt crisis if there is the slightest “tapering” of interest rates by the Federal Reserve. So the urgency to go with LaRouche’s Four Laws, and really go in a completely different direction, rebuilding the world economy by having actual development, starting with a world health system is of the greatest urgency. SCHLANGER: Among those issuing a warning was Guardian columnist, Larry Elliott, who pointed out that almost 50% of the debt which could be lost in a wave of defaults from poorer countries that are heavily indebted, is owed to financial institutions and investments. That means, people’s personal retirement funds are invested in this debt. David Malpass, the president of the World Bank, also warned that we could be seeing a trigger of debt defaults from the developing sector: So, in that sense, the interconnection between the war danger, the spread of disease and collapse of healthcare, and the overall economic system, really comes back to the importance of Lyndon LaRouche’s proposal for a New Bretton Woods. And I think that would be a good place to wrap this up. ZEPP-LAROUCHE: Yes. I think there are many countries in the world that clearly are preparing for the eventuality of a sudden collapse. You see it in many details: Gold buying is up again, which always happens when the population starts to get hysterical, then you have large buyers of gold. You have more and more a tendency to go out of the dollar. So, even if Russia would be cut off from the SWIFT system, I don’t think it will have that devastating an affect on Russia, but it could be a “nuclear bomb” for the Western capital markets—at least, that’s what Friedrich Merz, the new head of the German Christian Democracy has been saying, and I tend to agree with him on that point. So, I think we have to have a discussion about a new paradigm: We must completely change the orientation of colonialism, the idea to keep the developing countries suppressed. We have to replace that with a new just world economic order, along the lines with what China is doing with the Belt and Road Initiative, and we must get the Europeans and the United States, hopefully, to cooperate with the Belt and Road Initiative, in the development of Southwest Asia, of Africa, of Latin America. And you know, if we join hands, no problem could not be solved! So I think, in the same way as the relationship between Russia and China has been named by former Russian Prime Minister Medvedev, he said that that relationship has become a model of what relationships among nations should be: In other words, that each furthers the best interests of the other, respects its sovereignty, doesn’t meddle in its internal affairs. And China has offered that many years ago, already, as the model for a great power relationship between the United States and China. So, we have to have a new thinking, and the common interest of mankind must be put first. If we cannot mobilize the thinking of the population to that level, we may not make it as a species, so there is right now the urgent need to have such a debate. And if you want to help this effort then join the Schiller Institute, and we will soon have a big new conference on all of these issues, probably in the week of February 7-11, so stay tuned: Become a member, help our mobilization, and hopefully we’ll see you next week. SCHLANGER: And I would urge people, as you mentioned before, but your presentation from last Saturday’s Manhattan Project meeting of the Schiller Institute—“Can War with Russia Still Be Averted?”—was very effective at identifying what this new paradigm would be and how we would get there. So, I would urge people, go to the Schiller Institute YouTube channel and it’s the presentation from January 22, 2022. So Helga, thanks for joining us. It’s always good to get a note of optimism, but it’s also important that people face the fact, as you say, that we’re still sitting on a powder keg, and it’s a little hard to be totally optimistic when you have a powder keg underneath your rear end: So, join us now, and let’s see what we can do about it. So, Helga, we’ll see you next week! ZEPP-LAROUCHE: I hope so—next week.

In the last days, and in the next days ahead, decisions are being made which will determine whether mankind has the moral capacity to survive. In her weekly dialogue, Helga Zepp-LaRouche presented a dramatic tour d'horizon, weaving together an analysis of summit meetings, troop deployments, and positive economic developments around the Belt-and-Road Initiative, communicating both the tremendous danger of the present, and, importantly, a pathway out of that danger.She emphasized that the bluster of Blinken in Ukraine is not completely in step with the pronouncements of Biden. She also emphasized that Putin has been clear on why Russia requires strategic guarantees, and that some in the West, such as David Pyne, Gilbert Doctorow and Gen. Kujat, are openly discussing that. You have the delegation of seven knucklehead Senators blustering after a trip to Kiev, demanding that Biden toughen up, with one — whom she referred to as Sen. Wicked — saying that Putin must be given a bloody nose. At the same time, the Iranian President was in Moscow, signing a 20-year deal, and the Chinese and Syrians finalized a Memo of Understanding for collaboration on the BRI. Finally, she spoke movingly of the Schiller Institute conference on January 15 on Afghanistan, which contrasted the present threat of millions starving, with the axiom-busting decision by India to ship wheat to Afghanistan, traveling through Pakistan.

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

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

In her weekly dialogue, Helga Zepp-LaRouche proposed that we make 2022 the Year of Lyndon LaRouche. In doing so, we are not only commemorating the 100th year of his birth, but offering a pathway for solutions to the unresolved crises, which threaten humanity at the end of 2021.Zepp-LaRouche reviewed the chronology which we have compiled of the events of the last thirty years of U.S.-Russian relations, which have come to a head today. The present crisis has been deepening for thirty years, with broken promises and betrayal, a continuing series of provocations, which led President Putin to insist that written, legally-binding guarantees of security must be adopted; and that the upcoming meetings, which began with yesterday’s discussion between the two Presidents, and continue with three meetings beginning January 9, must produce results. Otherwise, the world is on a pathway to Hell! She also emphasized the shame of the West in regard to the humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan. To allow the present situation to deteriorate is to engage willfully in genocide. The Committee of the Coincidence of Opposites is taking leadership in mobilizing for not just a solution for Afghanistan, but to address the continuing danger explicit in the absence of a modern health system in every nation.

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.

Helga Zepp-LaRouche presented a sobering assessment of the global strategic situation following the Dec. 7 video summit between Presidents Biden and Putin, warning that what preceded the summit -- a war-time like propaganda campaign accusing Russia of preparing to invade Ukraine -- is continuing, with potentially disastrous consequencesThe push for further eastward expansion of NATO, with membership for Ukraine, was identified by Putin as crossing a "red line". This ws rejected by Biden, despite promises given by the U.S. in 1990 that there would not be expansion eastward. The threat of nuclear war is being raised by others besides us, including Tucker Carlson, while unhinged war hawks, such as Sen Wicker of Mississippi, are calling for consideration by the U.S. of a nuclear first strike option. Mrs. LaRouche reiterated how her initiative for addressing the horrific crisis in Afghanistan, Operation Ibn Sina, is a pathway to cooperation between the U.S., Russia and China. The other choice, ramping up geopolitical confrontation, through the phony division of the world into "democracies versus autocrats" -- which is the idea behind Biden's upcoming Summit for Democracy -- leaves humanity "sitting on a powder keg."