While some irresponsible idiots, such as Sen. Lindsey Graham, are calling for the U.S. to send troops back to Afghanistan, there are developments underway that are kept out of the western media. What, for example, are the Chinese and Afghanistan's neighbors saying and doing? China has a vested interest in seeing that Afghanistan does not become a safe haven for terrorists, nor drug traffickers. China's Foreign Minister reiterated that, while China welcomes the pledges coming from the Taliban interim government, recognition depends on following through with a commitment to tolerance, and combating terrorism and drug trafficking. Did you know that the Taliban had nearly shut down opium production by 2000? Only after the 2001 U.S.-NATO overthrow of the Taliban government did drug production take off again -- not surprisingly, especially in the province of the country under British control! Join us for this weekend's 9/11 events: Friday September 10, 7pm -- 9/11 Memorial Concert, Beethoven's Agnus Dei: Peace for ourselves, and the worldSaturday September 11, 2pm -- Manhattan Project Meeting, Afghanistan and the Surveillance State. Where Do We Go From Here?
Calls from supporters to postpone the upcoming COP26 conference in Scotland indicate that the whole fragile edifice on which the global Green New Deal is built is unraveling. As we have pointed out, few developing sector nations will surrender their sovereignty, and their development goals, to comply with the demands coherent with the fake science behind "man-made climate change"; and large nations, such as China, Russia and India are intent on advancing energy systems which will increase the Energy-Flux Density of their economies, a necessary precondition for real economic growth. It is precisely these technological advances which are under attack by the City of London-Davos Malthusians, who are promoting instead "sustainable" and "renewable" energy systems, which will assure a rapid depopulation of the planet -- which is what they intend!
After 20 years of coverup of the real story of what was behind the 9/11 terrorist attack on the U.S., Pres. Biden has ordered the declassification of documents which have been hidden by government agencies, especially the FBI. LaRouche said, as the attacks were happening, that Osama Bin Laden would be blamed, but he is a "controlled entity...not an independent force." Yet, the truth about the role of the Saudis and U.S. intelligence in creating and deploying Al Qaeda has been buried, to protect the guilty. Join us this Saturday at 2 PM EDT for a forum, "9/11/2021: The Path Forward from September 11, Afghanistan and the Surveillance State." See Helga Zepp LaRouche's statement, "Can the West Learn? What Afghanistan Needs Now"
Sept. 3—On August 31, just hours after the last U.S. plane left the Karzai International Airport in Kabul in keeping with President Biden’s withdrawal deadline, he defended that decision in an address to the American people. “The decision about Afghanistan,” the President said, “is not just about Afghanistan. It’s about ending an era of major military operations to remake other countries.” Biden’s statement, if followed through, represents what the Schiller Institute’s President Helga Zepp-LaRouche called a “phase change in international politics.” Since the collapse of the Soviet Union from 1989-91, U.S. policy has been shaped by a triumphalism predicated on the belief that America was now the world’s only superpower.Those nations which refused to surrender their sovereignty to the U.S.-led post-Cold War order were subjected to crippling sanctions and the denial of credit by international financial institutions. Acting with a hubris shaped by the belief that, in a unipolar world, Americacould impose its will as it pleased, American officials, urged on by the British, and with backing by their NATO allies, launched repeated regime-change wars against those who rejected the arbitrary rules defending the “western values” of the so-called Rules-Based Order (RBO). It was in defense of this order that the “endless wars” were launched, including the 20-year war in Afghanistan which ended this week. In a separate comment on the end of the war, Secretary of State Blinken, who routinely hoists the flag of the RBO everywhere he goes, stated on August 30, “The military mission is over. The diplomatic mission has begun.” Though he was speaking about the removal of U.S. officials from Afghanistan, it seems that, in the context of Biden’s speech the next day, he could have been speaking about the end of a foreign policy in which launching destructive wars had replaced diplomacy. Whether this is true is not yet determined. Both Biden and Blinken continue to justify disengagement from the “small wars” in Southwest Asia as a necessary precondition to concentrate on the alleged threat from Russia and China, especially to fulfill the delayed “Pivot to Asia” initiated under President Obama. Starting a New Era? The “end of an era” theme has been seized upon, by many who are critical of Biden for following through with the withdrawal from Afghanistan, to insist that on the contrary, the era must {not} end, America must {continue} deploying its military power to counter the alleged “malign, authoritarian intent” of Russia and China. Ironically, Trump, who campaigned in 2016 on the slogan of ending the “endless wars”; who negotiated the deal with the Taliban signed in February 2020 setting the timetable for withdrawal; and then tried unsuccessfully to withdraw U.S. troops; has joined with his own most outspoken critics in attacking Biden, calling on him to “resign in disgrace.”War hawks among the anti-Trump crowd, such as leading neocons William Kristol and Rep. Liz Cheney, have called for Biden’s resignation or impeachment. A common theme of those in the Military- Industrial Complex, who profited outrageously from the wars, and who are already nostalgic for the “forever wars,” is that Biden’s action means the United States cannot be trusted to stand up for “western values” in the future. This line has been pushed especially hard by key figures from the United Kingdom. Former Prime Minister Tony Blair, who should face a war crimes tribunal for his role in launching the wars in southwest Asia, attacked not only Biden but Trump, and the American public, saying that the decision was made “in obedience to an imbecilic slogan about ending ‘the forever wars.’”Going a step further was British Defense Minister Ben Wallace, taunting America by saying it is no longer a “superpower.” A superpower, he declared, “that is also not prepared to stick at something, isn’t probably a superpower either. It is certainly not a global force, it’s just a big power.” The present preoccupation of the War Hawks and their sponsors from what former CIA analyst Ray McGovern calls the “Military-Industrial-Congress-Intelligence-Media-Academia-Think-Tank Complex” (MICIMATT) is advancing a military counterweight to Russia and China. This includes the push for NATO expansion, to incorporate Ukraine and Georgia in NATO; escalating the Color Revolution against Belarus; establishing a “Pacific NATO” to defend Taiwan and counter China in the South China Sea; continuing the regime-change drive against Syria with Caesar Sanctions and occupation of territory; continuing the war in Yemen; etc. Given the now-acknowledged failure of the 20-year war in Afghanistan, such a bold global agenda would be laughable, except that there are many indications of serious intent including statements in the last days by both Biden and Blinken on Ukraine and China.Zepp-LaRouche insists that this agenda, based on British geopolitics, must be ended now. In posing the question, “What’s next?” she has put the Schiller Institute (SI) in the forefront of the mobilization for an alternative that represents a decisive break with the British geopolitical doctrine behind these wars. She has campaigned relentlessly for a shift to peaceful cooperation for economic development. In two recent SI conferences, one before and one after the fall of Kabul to the Taliban, a panel of experts was convened to discuss a development perspective, predicated on a mobilization of Afghanistan’s neighbors to support the extension of China’s Belt-and-Road Initiative into Afghanistan and Southwest Asia, with corridors of development, as the key to peace for the long-suffering war-torn region.*1
What does it mean to say that we have reached the "end of an era"? It's good we are no longer putting U.S. troops in harm's way in Afghanistan. But was this merely a way of shifting troops to beef up the military deployment to contain and confront Russia and China? Or is it possible to really end the era of geopolitical provocations, and live in a world committed to peace and economic cooperation? What the war hawks and proponents of empire fear is that the American people will rally behind a rejection of the policies of the last thirty years, of a "unipolar" world controlled by U.S. military power deployed under City of London and Wall Street direction, and instead restore the American system of physical economy at home, and collaborate with other nations for mutual benefit.
With all the hand-wringing and finger-pointing over events of the last two weeks in Afghanistan, two pivotal questions are not being discussed: Why were we there?; and what comes next? The LaRouche Organization insists that, until the truth about what happened on 9/11 becomes known, the same disastrous mistakes will be made again, next time on an even larger scale. Further, were these wars really mistakes, or instead were they deliberately designed, to keep the U.S. permanently ensnared in "endless wars"?
President Biden declared yesterday that the decision to leave Afghanistan is about "ending an era of military operations to remake other countries." This raises the obvious question, what will replace this era, which has been characterized by "endless wars"? Will the U.S. and NATO continue to pursue, unilaterally, an arbitrary Rules-Based Order, demanding submission to the failed neoliberal policies insisted upon by globalist financial and corporate cartels? Or will civilization advance to policies based on economic cooperation among sovereign nations, committed to mutual benefit?
Most of those involved in dissections of "What Went Wrong in Afghanistan?" are missing the obvious point. What was wrong is the system, which placed the American military in a series on no-win wars, in defense of a "unipolar" world order which benefitted the few, i.e., those who run the global central banks and financial institutions on behalf of City of London and Wall Street interests. That system should be buried, and replaced by a new system, which can bring lasting peace through economic development. The era of "endless wars", of "Color Revolutions" to conduct "regime change", has been exposed on a global stage by the western military withdrawal from Afghanistan. Good Riddance to that system -- we can now enter the era in which Development Is the Name of Peace.
August 27 -- Even before the bloody ISIS-K terror attack on Hamid Karzai International Airport on August 26, there was a proliferation of calls for President Biden to resign, be removed under the 25th Amendment, or be impeached. Leading the charge in the U.S. are war hawks and neoconservatives, including supporters of former President Trump, such as Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, who said, "I think Joe Biden deserves to be impeached" for leaving behind Americans and Afghans who worked with U.S. forces. Graham seems to have missed Biden's pledge to evacuate as many as possible by the August 31 deadline, and the effective evacuation underway by the U.S. military of more than 100,000 since the Taliban marched into Kabul on August 15. Joining Graham is Texas Rep. Ronny Jackson, and the unhinged Congresswoman from "Q-Anon", Marjorie Taylor Greene, who announced that she will file impeachment charges on August 27. Sen. Rick Scott, a Florida Republican, was among the first to suggest that the 25th Amendment be used to remove Biden; the amendment calls for removal when a President is incapable of conducting his duties, and was previously promoted by anti-Trumpers such as Nancy Pelosi and the London Spectator.Former President Trump released a statement on August 22 saying, "It is time for Joe Biden to resign in disgrace for what he has allowed to happen in Afghanistan." Trump is trying to distance himself from the deal he made with the Taliban to withdraw U.S. troops, negotiated directly by his Secretary of State Pompeo and signed in February 2020. Trump intended to finalize the deal by bringing Taliban officials to Camp David, but backed away from that when the "optics" of such an event were met with sharp criticism. However, ending the "endless wars", which included withdrawal of U.S. forces from Afghanistan, had been a consistent theme for Trump, even though he was unable to use his position of Commander-in-Chief to accomplish it, due to enormous opposition from the War Hawks of both parties. Others calling for Biden's resignation are former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley and Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri -- both of whom are considered possible presidential candidates in 2024 -- and Tennessee Sen. Marsha Blackburn. Joining them is Rep. Liz Cheney, who emerged as the leading anti-Trump Republican in Congress, voting in favor of his impeachment in January 2021, and is the daughter of one of the key sponsors of the "endless wars", former Vice President Dick Cheney. While representatives of the U.S. Military Industrial Complex are heaping abuse on Biden, an even more virulent attack has come from the United Kingdom and NATO, led by former British Prime Minister Tony Blair. Unapologetic over his responsibility for promoting the wars, under the imperial doctrine of the "Responsibility to Protect", Blair used the withdrawal from Afghanistan to launch an attack on the American political system and population, not just on Biden. "We didn't need to do it," he wrote. "We choose to do it. We did it in obedience to an imbecilic political slogan about ending 'the forever wars'." The decision to leave, he continued, was not driven by "grand strategy, but by politics." He asks, "Has the West lost its strategic will?...If the West wants to shape the twenty-first century it will take commitment." Blair is referring to the commitment of the British Empire, a "commitment" demonstrated by its willingness to go to war, and to induce others to fight wars which it instigated, since the 18th century. The withdrawal from Afghanistan is especially bitter for apologists for Britain's "Great Game", the contest over control of Afghanistan which dates back to the mid-19th century, and was the model for Zbigniew Brzezinki's "Arc of Crisis" doctrine, which first brought the U.S. into Afghanistan's civil war beginning in July 1979, months before the Soviet invasion at the end of that year. The damage is compounded by Biden's rejection of the gang-up against him, at the G7 meeting called by Boris Johnson, to convince Biden the U.S. must remain in Afghanistan. Blair commented that Biden's rejection of the British demand poses the risk that the U.K. will be relegated "to the second division of global powers." This theme was reiterated by numerous British commentators, typified by Andrew Rawnsley, who wrote in the {Observer} that "Mr Johnson's capacity to influence Mr Biden was less than that of the President's dog." Rawnsley made clear why this decision was such a blow to imperial Britain, which is accustomed to deploying American military strength to back up British global policy, stating that the U.K. has "lots of vital interests around the globe, but not the means to safeguard them by itself" -- thus, the shock and rage which has greeted Biden's betrayal of "Global Britain". The Issue Is The U.S. "Presidential System" The deeper, underlying issue exposed by this outburst of impotent rage is the long-term British project to transform the U.S. from a "Presidential system," in which the president is mandated to defend the "General Welfare", above partisan and special interests, into a "Parliamentary system", in which the president is captive to special interests, represented by political parties which serve global corporate cartels -- especially those aligned with British imperial interests. The British have intervened repeatedly in U.S. politics, usually through their allies among Wall Street financial interests, to undermine this unique feature of the American system, including the empire's support of the Confederacy against Lincoln during the U.S. Civil War, and its role in coordinating assassinations of American system leaders, beginning with Alexander Hamilton, and including Lincoln, McKinley and Kennedy. Today, they have added scandal mongering, run by intelligence agencies through media cartels, to their tools for destabilizing governments, scandals which are completely fabricated, as in the case of Russiagate against Trump.
Many questions were raised by viewers about our coverage this week of the hysterical British reaction to the decision to withdraw troops from Afghanistan, and Biden standing firm in that commitment, despite the attacks on him. Would the British unleash a terror attack to change the policy? Could they? It has happened before! Whether that happened yesterday, it is interesting that several viewers stated that there should be an investigation of whether the British played a role in the attack, noting that if they were so sure an attack was coming, why could they not prevent it?
As unfolding developments in Afghanistan have captured most people's attention, Federal Reserve officials will hold their annual Jackson Hole, Wyoming confab on Friday, during which they will confer on how to proceed with the Great Reset swindle without tipping off too many people as to their real intent. While they engage in "Fed-speak" on such topics as "transitory inflation" and "tapering", what they really are doing is consolidating a global central banker's dictatorship, to hand the biggest banks and financial institutions control over fiscal, i.e., spending policy. The only way to counter this drive for depopulation, is to mobilize for the implementation of LaRouche's "Four Laws", to revive physical production as an alternative to a bankrupt neoliberal speculative system.
Listen to the whining coming from mouthpieces for the City of London imperial financial swindlers, such as war criminal Tony Blair, or former Ambassador Kim Darroch, who said it will take "quite a long time...to recover from all this, to recover our reputation." The truth is that Boris Johnson's "Global Britain" is a cover for continued British imperial looting, which depends on U.S. military backing to succeed. With the G7 leaders unable to convince Biden to remain in Afghanistan, they are preparing other traps -- such as Ukraine -- to keep the U.S. engaged in "forever wars." Instead, the U.S. must break with geopolitics and neoliberal trade and economic policies, and join with other nations to build up the capabilities of physical goods production, based on scientific and technological progress, to address mankind's needs for the next fifty years.
What really happened on 9/11? Why did the U.S. go to war in Afghanistan, and remain for 20 years? Why in Iraq, in Libya? Who is the Patriot Act supposed to protect? Is it not important to note that the same networks in the U.S. responsible for these wars and violations of American liberties are the ones who have benefited most from these failed policies? And are the ones most hysterical about the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan? NOW is the time to answer these questions, so Americans will never again die, and kill, to preserve the British Empire, the City of London, and the U.S. Military Industrial Complex. harleysch@gmail.com
The individual who is among the most culpable for ongoing geopolitical confrontations which could lead to nuclear war, the Queen's Privy Council member Tony Blair, blasted Joe Biden for his "obedience to an imbecilic political slogan about ending 'the forever wars'." Blair was not criticizing the way the U.S. left, but ending the war, saying that leaving Afghanistan shows the West has "lost its political will." Clearly, this apologist for endless imperial wars has not lost his commitment to unleash genocidal catastrophes. Not surprisingly, Dick Cheney's war hawk daughter Liz agrees with Blair, telling NBC News that proof the U.S. should not have withdrawn is that British parliamentarians and NATO officials are furious about the U.S. withdrawal! Keep in mind that when Blair talks about commitment, the British have been playing the Great Game in Afghanistan on-and-off since the 1830s -- with consistently disastrous results.
Two weeks before the fall of Kabul, the Schiller Institute presented a dialogue on how the U.S./NATO failure in Afghanistan can be turned into the basis for a New Paradigm of peace and development for the world. Events since then have shown how prescient the speakers were, especially in emphasizing that there is no military solution to end the "endless" wars. While the war hawks yearn for more war and unresolvable conflicts -- and the booty they can steal for their corporate war machine -- it's time for them to shut up, and get out of the way. This Saturday, August 21, the Schiller Institute will sponsor a follow-up event, on how to replace the era of failed regime change wars, with one of mutually beneficial cooperation. You can watch the event here.
As the usual lying media, intelligence and military officials, and politicians debate "Who Lost Afghanistan?", the people of the U.S. and the E.U. must demand full accountability for those responsible for the Afghan debacle. This begins with a commitment to end the idea of imposing a unilateral Rules-Based Order backed by U.S. and NATO military force. We must never again demand that nations surrender their sovereignty to that order. And it should include a commitment to aid the government that is constituted there in a process of economic development, with full cooperation among Afghanistan's neighbors, along with Russia, China and the U.S. It is not adequate for American officials to admit "We didn't have the foggiest idea" of what we were doing there -- we must overcome the damage by doing what should have been done years ago, recognizing that peace comes from development, not war.
The most important lesson from the chaotic retreat of U.S. and NATO forces from Afghanistan is that we must end the era in which geopolitics determines foreign policy. The present nervous uncertainty surrounding Afghanistan is not simply the result of an intelligence failure, of Trump's negotiations with Taliban, or a mistaken decision by Biden: It is the result of the domination of U.S. and western thinking, for the last fifty-plus years, by the intentionally deadly principles of British imperial geopolitics! Will we use the crushing defeat of geopolitics as an opportunity to reject the axioms of a global imperial power, and replace them with the prospect of cooperation for development, which is the true legacy of the American revolution? For more details on what is now possible, contact us to order from the Executive Intelligence Review, “Will Afghanistan Trigger a Paradigm Change?”
Thanks to an admission by former Treasury Secretary John Connally, made nearly 17 years after Nixon moved to break the Bretton Woods system, we know that the real perpetrators were not the former Texas Governor, but global operators George Shultz and Paul Volcker. Their manipulation of Connally and Nixon launched the world financial system toward its present demise, by downgrading the power of sovereign governments to invest in the physical economy. Instead, increasing power was put into the hands of central bankers, who today are running a disintegrating casino economy, based on floating exchange rates. The "inside story" of how this happened confirmed Lyndon LaRouche's late 1960s forecast of an intention to impose Schachtian/fascist austerity regimes, while turning productive industrial and agricultural centers into decaying rust heaps. For more on this, watch "So, Are You Finally Ready to Learn Economics" at the LaRouche Legacy Foundation website.
This is the transcript of the presentation delivered by Harley Schlanger to the August 14, 2021 conference of the LaRouche Legacy Foundation The conference was titled "So, Are You Finally Ready to Learn Economics?", and was dedicated to inspire the study of the rich body of work done by Lyndon LaRouche. In particular, it was to commemorate LaRouche's late 1960s forecast of the coming end of the Bretton Woods monetary system, which was launched with the decision to break the relationship of the dollar to gold, done by Richard Nixon on August 15, 1971; and LaRouche's subsequent forecasting of the accelerating devolution of the world financial system, which was done by the same oligarchs who persecuted LaRouche, in a vain attempt to eliminate his influence. You can watch the proceedings here: www.LaRoucheLegacyFoundation.com John Connally On August 15, 1971: Shultz Did It! An Eyewitness Account Of The Decision-Making Process Behind The Take-Down Of The Bretton Woods System by: Harley SchlangerAccording to the vast majority of journalistic and historical accounts of the process leading up to the Aug. 15, 1971 decision to sever the relationship between the dollar and gold, the most forceful advocate for this action was Treasury Secretary John Connally. Wikipedia, for example, says that Connally "presided over the removal of the U.S. dollar from the gold standard," and reports that President Richard Nixon "relied heavily on the advice of Connally" in reaching that decision. Economic historian William Greider, in his book, "Secrets of the Temple", writes that it was Connally, along with Paul Volcker, who "engineered the most fundamental change in the world's monetary system since World War II." Connally, a former Governor of Texas, who had built a reputation as a tough, no nonsense wheeler-dealer in the best tradition of "independent", rugged Texans, had just been appointed Treasury Secretary by Nixon, as the dollar crisis was peaking. Though he had limited experience in, and knowledge of, international financial policy, it is said that Nixon admired him greatly, and especially respected him for his self-confidence and commanding presence.
REGISTER for tomorrow's event At the end of a fifty-year period of the deliberate dismantling of the western world's physical economy, by a criminal cabal of oligarchs and their flunkeys, now is the perfect time to "finally" learn economics. Lyndon LaRouche was defamed and persecuted during that period, not for any crimes he committed, but because he never gave up his commitment to create a new Renaissance, to mobilize people from every nation to defeat that cabal. Join us on August 14, at 9 AM EDT, here on the website, or on www.larouchelegacyfoundation.com, to learn what made LaRouche a heroic figure in the battle to overcome the oligarchy, and defeat their efforts to bestialize mankind, to preserve their self-proclaimed elite status.
The announcement by the White House that it will convene a "Leadership Summit for Democracy" in December, based on themes approved by the Davos billionaires, confirms once again, that it is unable and unwilling to leave the world of British imperial geopolitics, even as that world is undergoing an accelerating process of disintegration and plunge into new wars. Instead of addressing the question raised yesterday by Helga Zepp LaRouche, of "Why is the world in such a horrible condition?", the establishment continues to speed along a pathway toward Mutual and Assured Destruction. We have been on this path for the last fifty years, as we shall demonstrate in a conference on August 14, "So Are You Finally Willing to Learn Economics?" Find out how what LaRouche knew fifty years ago offers the opportunity to escape the world of permanent war and depression.
The IPCC report released this week was intended to panic government officials and populations into embracing the insanity of decarbonization. Instead, it demonstrates the panic of the imperial Malthusian supporters of the fabricated theory behind "man-made climate change", as resistance is building to their increasingly hysterical warnings. From Australia, Germany and India, and even from Great Britain, the birthplace of Malthusianism, leading officials are rejecting the narrative from the latest IPCC report.
The latest report from the IPCC, which claims climate change is occurring at a rate "faster than predicted", is designed to panic policy makers into reaching insane decisions related to energy production and use. It was issued just days after many leading scientists decried the use of models which are producing numbers "that are insanely scary -- and wrong", according to the Director of the Goddard Institute for Space Studies. Whether reading about climate change, or articles about "transitory inflation", keep in mind that the authors producing these reports are attempting to justify policy decisions that are wrong, and dangerous! Register for next weekends conference: ON THE 50TH ANNIVERSARY OF LAROUCHE'S STUNNING FORECAST: Now Are You Willing To Lear Economics?
