Stopping War with Sane Diplomacy: ‘The Content of Policy Is the (Socratic) Method By Which It Is Made’

Nov. 4—Today, Executive Intelligence Review hosts the press availability, “A Nuclear War Cannot Be Won and Must Never Be Fought.” Speakers will include Diane Sare, LaRouche independent candidate for U.S. Senate, New York; Ray McGovern, former Senior Analyst, U.S. Central Intelligence Agency; Helga Zepp-LaRouche, founder and head, international Schiller Institute; Scott Ritter, former UN weapons inspector, USMC intelligence officer, and military analyst; Jacques Cheminade, president/founder Solidarité et Progrès, France; Col. Richard H. Black (ret.), former head of the U.S. Army’s Criminal Law Division at the Pentagon, former Virginia State Senator, and others. Zepp-LaRouche and Sare, from the vantage point of their multiple interchanges with international media and institutions over the past ten days, determined that the pace at which the world continues to careen toward thermonuclear war has not lessened. With the recent “naming of the names” of some of the British operatives alleged to have supervised the attacks on Russia, despite Britain’s denials, the world has become even more dangerous.

It is a too-well-kept “open secret” that the Socratic method of discourse—inducing, by means of an idea, a form of creative tension in the mind of the participants, intended to lift them, “through the shock of thought,” above the tragic swamp of particular, even justified, but lower-order causes, to wage battle on behalf of the cause of humanity as a whole—is incompatible with geopolitics. Because of global events this October, and this year, it has now become essential to ask: “60 years later, who is prepared to talk Mankind back from the precipice of thermonuclear war?” One thing is sure; that “who,” does not include the geopoliticians.

Potential developments now unfolding in China, in discussions with German industry and Germany’s Chancellor Olaf Scholz, and in the ongoing interaction between Russia and NATO member Turkey on feeding the world, tell us that, in limited but important ways, it is recognized by those on the side of sanity that geopolitics, of any variety, has become incompatible with humanity’s continued existence. Helga Zepp-LaRouche, founder of the international Schiller Institute, appeared on the China Plus “World Today” podcast today and was asked for her evaluation of the significance of the visit of Scholz to China. (Indeed, there is great tension—not necessarily Socratic—being expressed about the nature and potential outcome of that leader-to-leader discussion, and its deeper strategic implications.)

Mrs. Zepp-LaRouche discussed that one does not have to see China as a systemic rival. Some 150 countries do not see it that way, but rather see China as a partner to overcome colonialism, and if the German media would report about the actual tremendous progress that has occurred in China, people would have a completely different view of the country. There is definitely room for improvement in China’s relations with Germany, and with Europe. President Xi Jinping has offered cooperation to the United States many times; he has talked about how important it would be for the world’s two greatest economic powers to have good relations. If they did, this would solve many problems.

Since, however, 2017, the British/U.S. strategic security doctrine began describing a systemic rivalry. But there is not one country in the “Global South” that would have said that they were ever coerced by the Chinese. This came only from the Western media. One has to understand that China learned their lesson from “The Century of Humiliation.” Now that they are strong enough, they are taking a different road. The Scholz visit is very significant, because China and Germany are the second and fourth largest economies of the world, and if they can collaborate, it will be extremely important.

Scholz went ahead, despite great pressure from the U.S., Great Britain, the Atlanticists in Germany, and Annalena Baerbock, the German Foreign Minister who is completely unreasonable in her relationship with China. His visit is occurring on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the establishment of Germany-China relations in 1972. Germany has profited enormously from the rise of China in these decades. Zepp-LaRouche expressed her hope that the meeting is also a sign to Europe, and it definitely represents that Germany has at least a semblance of sovereignty.

There was a question posed to Zepp-LaRouche as to whether the Scholz visit can be interpreted as a sign of weakness. “Is he trying to buy time to reduce dependency on China?” She responded that Scholz wants to reduce dependency on certain supply chains, but that’s different, because, as we have seen in the pandemic, it is better to not have the sort of dependency that brings you to a state of crisis. That is different from “decoupling from China.” Germany is about to go into an extremely difficult period in the fall, with inflation and the danger of deindustrialization. Germany’s relationship with China is a cornerstone, therefore. It’s very good that the industrial leaders (Volkswagen, BASF, Mercedes Benz, etc.) are with Scholz, who understand that the future of Germany is closely related to the future of China. There is a new economic system being built in the Global South, and it would be extremely important if Germany, an export-based nation, cooperates with it.

When asked about “the need for competition” with China, she said: If you are truly small-minded, and if you think every new discovery is a threat, then yes, there will be competition, but if you look at science and technology as bringing about new principles, then cooperation makes nations stronger. If Germany and China cooperate in artificial intelligence, digitalization, manned spacecraft, and new breakthroughs that go along with that, then that cooperation will then become a science driver, which will bring all countries forward. We have to bring back what Leibniz said in the Novissima Sinica of 1697—China and Germany should join hands and work together to develop all the countries of the planet.

A spontaneous, perhaps unwanted episode of Socratic dialogue unfolded at Yale University on Thursday, Nov. 3, when neocon fundamentalist and former CIA Director Mike “Last Days” Pompeo plumply pontificated to his adoring 400-person Yale audience that others, commenting unfavorably about The Great One’s stint as Secretary of State, had bitterly complained about him. “They say that I’m the worst Secretary of State in history.” He was thereupon interrupted by an unexpected and approving “Yes! You are right! You are the worst secretary of state in history! The reason is, because of the policies you implemented, we are on the brink of nuclear war with Russia and China.” The unscheduled speaker was associated with Lyndon LaRouche and the new LaRouche Youth Movement. Howls began to arise from the audience members, some of them Hallowe’en leftovers eager to get to the after-party at the Skull and Bones Club.

Importantly, Pompeo was also denounced for his and the United States’ policy of publicly-acknowledged (wink) assassinations policy. When asked why he killed Iran’s Qasem Soleimani, which itself could have, if indirectly, provoked World War III at that moment. Pompeo’s response was, “We saved countless lives, my friend,” echoing the “we had to destroy the village in order to save it” “Operation Phoenix”/Vietnam school of military strategy.

And these are the people, like former British Foreign Minister and Prime Minister Liz Truss, who may well have known of the British covert actions now being revealed, that are prepared to “use the Big One, if necessary” in a preemptive first strike? Not if we can help it.

“Just as Socrates felt that it was necessary to create a tension in the mind so that individuals could rise from the bondage of myths and half-truths to the unfettered realm of creative analysis and objective appraisal, so must we see the need for nonviolent gadflies to create the kind of tension in society that will help men rise from the dark depths of prejudice and racism to the majestic heights of understanding and brotherhood.” Martin Luther King’s words about Socratic tension, from his 1963 Letter from a Birmingham Jail, echo the policy of a new strategic and development architecture put forward by the Schiller Institute, to draw down the final curtain on geopolitics, before geopolitics draws down a thermonuclear curtain over civilization as a whole.