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"Humanitarian Sanctions" Are Killing Syrians, While New Sanctions Threaten To Crash The Russian Economy: They Must Be Overturned! April 16 -- As the Biden administration is recklessly expanding the sanctions regime which has become the routine response from Anglo-American officials to any government they accuse of violating the "rules-based order", Helga Zepp-LaRouche issued a call to end this practice, beginning with lifting the "Caesar Sanctions" against Syria. Zepp-LaRouche, the founder of the Schiller Institute, released a statement on April 15, as an "Urgent Call to Stop the Genocide in Syria and Yemen: The Moral Collapse of the Western System Cries Out for a New Paradigm". Her call, which is intended to alert the world to the deliberate mass murder imposed on the Syrian people through the Caesar Sanctions, coincided with the announcement by the White House of new sanctions against Russia, the most damaging of which is an assault against Russia’s ability to issue ruble-denominated debt, with the stated purpose of triggering massive capital flight and wreaking havoc on the Russian economy.By prohibiting American companies and financial institutions from purchasing Russian public debt offerings as of June 14, 2021, a senior administration official admitted that the intent of this latest attack is to destroy the Russian economy: “This is the main market that funds the Russian government… Removing U.S. investors as buyers in this market can create a broader chilling effect that raises Russia’s borrowing costs, along with capital flight and a weaker currency. And all of these forces have a material impact on Russia’s growth and inflation outcomes.” Biden justified the measures, which included the expulsion of ten diplomats and other sanctions, by “declaring a national emergency with respect to the unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security, foreign policy, and economy of the United States” purportedly posed by Russia. His Executive Order also threatens to impose additional measures in the future: “We are prepared, going forward, to impose substantial and lasting costs” on Russia if they do not behave as they are told. The new sanctions against Russia are a response to allegations of Russian hacks against the networking software company, SolarWinds, and "interference" in the 2020 U.S. presidential election. As is so often the case in such allegations, no hard evidence has been produced to back these charges, which come from anonymous sources in the intelligence community, producing the same type of false narratives which have been exposed as blatant lies presented in the "Russiagate" case against Presidents Trump and Putin. Schiller Institute Intervention In her statement, Zepp-LaRouche points to an intervention by Apostolic Nuncio to Syria, Cardinal Mario Zenari, who has alerted the world to the acute humanitarian emergency that has been deliberately imposed upon Syria, in the aftermath of nine years of war, through murderous “sanctions” measures imposed by the U.S. State Department and irresponsibly supported by a number of other governments, most emphatically the British. Instead of acting to increase the poverty and death rates of Syrians, Cardinal Zenari urgently calls for an end to sanctions, and to pursue a pathway of Peace through Development, in reversing the moral indifference which increasingly threatens to unleash this scale of calamity throughout the planet. In her weekly Schiller Institute webcast discussion on April 14, Zepp-LaRouche demanded that the world come to the aid of the Syrian people. As Cardinal Zenari has stated, more than 90% of Syrians are below the level of extreme poverty, and many are in danger of losing their lives due to famine. The last decade of war, the unjust sanctions, and the COVID-19 pandemic have created an absolutely intolerable condition of suffering for the Syrian people.Similar horrors confront Yemen, where the agonizing reality of hunger is conveyed in the powerful documentary “Hunger Ward,” referred to by the head of the World Food Program, David Beasley, who saw children dying before his very eyes in the hospital, and he was unable to help. There is nothing “humanitarian” Zepp-LaRouche stated, in starving children and shutting down hospitals and medical care, based on fraudulent narratives cooked up by British and American regime-change advocates, in and out of government. “This must stop and the Caesar Sanctions must be lifted. And all the members of the U.S. Congress who do not lift these sanctions make themselves complicit in every death that occurs in the region.” Zepp-LaRouche continued: “This has reached the point where either the world wakes up and we start to remedy this, or we will not survive, because of our own moral failure as a human species. I call on you: Work with the Schiller Institute. Work with its Committee on the Coincidence of Opposites, which is working to get aid programs and reconstruction. I appeal to you: Get in contact with the Schiller Institute and respond to the call by Cardinal Zenari.” What Are The Caesar Sanctions? Having failed in efforts at regime change in Syria, which were launched by the Obama-Biden administration through their support of "moderate rebels", who conducted a bloody civil war in the country, Trump's Secretary of State Pompeo mobilized international support for regime change through economic strangulation. To do this, a bill was introduced in the Congress, as part of the National Defense Authorization Act, which imposed sanctions on Syria. It passed in June 2020. It was called the "Caesar Act", named after a mysterious figure who claimed to have been a photographer employed by the Syrian Ministry of Defense to take photographs of victims killed in the civil war. Described as a "defector", he delivered more than 58,000 photographs to the Syrian National Movement (SNM), which is funded in part by Qatar, to oppose the Assad government. The SNM then turned the photos over to Human Rights Watch (HRW), which produced an 86-page report in 2015, which included more than 28,000 photos. The report, titled "If the Dead Could Speak: Mass Deaths and Torture in Syria's Detention Facilities", was used to push the sanctions through the Congress. In a detailed exposure of the fraud behind this report, investigative journalist Max Blumenthal from the GrayZone outlines how the usual cast of characters from the human rights mafia were involved in using this falsified report for the purpose of regime change. 1) "Caesar" was brought before the House Foreign Affairs Committee in a private session in April 2014, and again in a public session in August of that year, to present the "evidence" of Syrian government murders. According to HRW, their investigators "meticulously verified dozens of stories" of civilians they claimed to have been tortured and murdered by Syrian government officials.

Harley Schlanger, a spokesman for the Schiller Institute and The LaRouche Organization, gave the following presentation at the Schiller Institute Conference on January 22, “A Difference in Leadership – Can a War with Russia Still Be Averted?”, following presentations by Russian Ambassador Dmitry Polyanskiy and Schiller Institute President Helga Zepp-LaRouche. HARLEY SCHLANGER: What I will show is that the U.S. official position -- that Russia is the cause of the problem, and Russia has to back down, Russia has to move back its troops and so on -- is either based on ignorance of history, or an arrogant view of the U.S. as the unilateral enforcer of a “rules-based order.” What I intend to show is that it’s the latter.Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov said the other day, that ignoring Russia’s legal concerns over the eastward expansion of NATO to include Ukraine and a deployment of forces, including weapons, near the Russian border, will have the most serious consequences. In stating this, he was repeating the formulation that I think is the most clear from President Putin, from his annual press conference on December 23rd. I want to read the quote from President Putin: “Our actions will not depend on the negotiation process, but rather on unconditional guarantees for Russia’s security concerns. In this connection, we have made it clear that any further movement of NATO to the East is unacceptable. Is there anything unclear about this? Are we deploying missiles near the U.S. border? No, we are not. It is the U.S. that has come to our home with its missiles, and is already standing on our doorstep. Is it going too far to demand that no strike systems be placed near our home? What is so unusual about this?” In listening to that, it’s very striking the similarity to the argument made to the American people on October 22, 1962 by President Kennedy, as to why he had to adopt a quarantine—which was actually a blockade—of Cuba, to stop the import of further Soviet missiles, during the 13 days of the Cuban Missile Crisis. Here’s what Kennedy said in that speech to the American people: “In the world today, due to the destructive power of nuclear weapons and the swiftness of ballistic missiles, any substantially increased possibility of their use, or any sudden change in their deployment may well be regarded as a definite threat to peace.” He talked about the build-up of the Soviet Union’s missiles in Cuba, and added:“In an area well known to have special and historical relationship to the United States,” and I might add parenthetically, exactly as Ukraine does with Russia today, “the sudden clandestine decision to station strategic weapons outside of Soviet soil, is a deliberately provocative and unjustified change in the status quo which cannot be accepted by this country.” I think you’ll see in his language, something very similar to what President Putin is saying today, which is why many people, including Helga, have called this a reverse Cuban Missile Crisis. I want to give you a quick view of what the idea of a “unipolar world” is, and what it means. The people who argue for the U.S. to be the main power, start from the standpoint that we’re “democratic,” we’re “good.” Therefore, when we deploy missiles, it’s for the good. As Dr. Andrey Kortunov (of the Russian International Affaires Council) told us: when the Russians deploy the missiles, since they are “bad,” these are “bad missiles” and have to be opposed. From that standpoint, we have to look at where this idea comes from. The underlying issue today, which is called into question by President Putin’s insistence on legally binding security guarantees, is that the construct of a unipolar world is dead. The whole idea that there’s only one nation on the planet which, because of its immense military power and economic power, can dictate the rules to the rest of the human race, and use satraps such as the European Union and NATO to help enforce it, no longer applies. The Western financial system is collapsing. There’s a further point, though. In reality, this idea never really existed, except in the minds of those who enforced it and tried to convince the rest of the world that it had no choice but to accept it. They believed that the collapse of the Soviet Union left them with no military obstacle to impose their unilateral decisions on strategic and financial matters. We’ve talked about this before. Helga brought it up again this afternoon. What is the “rules-based order”? Well, for the unilateralists, it’s the rules that sustain their control over the global economy. This goes back to a merger during the George Herbert Walker Bush administration, and actually before that. It occurred during the Reagan administration with the emergence of the Democratic Leadership Council taking over the Democratic party with its so-called “Third Way,” which became the approach of the Clinton administration. The idea of the neoconservatives and neo-liberals essentially joining as an American force to impose this unipolar world. In particular, it was the neo-cons who were the most arrogant, with their Project for a New American Century, in which they insisted that the United States had emerged as the only power on the planet. Therefore, they created a narrative to explain why everyone else has to march to the tune of the United States. The narrative starts with, “We won the Cold War.” Second, the victory in the Cold War was one of “democracy” and the “free market.” The third point: This means that every nation must submit to those who won the Cold War, because we’re the good guys; we did what was right. The fourth point, which is usually not expressed, is that this means there’s no more sovereignty, no morePeace of Westphalia, as Tony Blair blatantly stated repeatedly in trips to the United States. The idea that there’s a common good is no longer acceptable. The idea that there should be no interference in other nations’ internal affairs, which was part of the Peace of Westphalia, is no longer valid. That the “common good” is whatever the unipolar power insists on. I want to give you a sense of what the so-called “democratic order” that this “rules-based order” has done in the world in the last 30 years.

In her weekly webcast, Helga Zepp-Larouche said that in spite of a potential for de-escalation of tensions between Russia and U.S./NATO resulting from Tuesday's video summit between Putin and Biden, we are "still sitting on a powder keg." Biden said he will speak to allies about Putin's request for a guarantee of no further NATO expansion, and putting pressure on Kiev to stick to the agreements they signed at Minsk. However, Sullivan and Blinken, who flanked Biden during his talk with Putin, continued to make threats against Russia, including that there would be a "blistering response" if Russia invades Ukraine. This was backed up by threats to Russia from Democrats and Republicans, including one Republican Senator who called for considering a first strike with nuclear weapons against Russia. In contrast, Tucker Carlson called such talk a "bipartisan sort of insanity." Zepp-LaRouche concluded her comments by calling for reasonable voices to speak up now, and join her in pursuing multilateral cooperation through such projects as "Operation Ibn Sina."

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

March 26 -- A series of recent events has increased tensions between the nations of the Transatlantic region and China, in a way which was characterized by Schiller Institute leader Helga Zepp-LaRouche as "increasingly worrisome." Tensions were raised in the opening of a summit in Alaska between U.S. officials, Secretary of State Antony Blinken and National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan, and Chinese foreign policy officials Wang Yi, the Foreign Minister, and the Director of the Central Committee for Foreign Affairs Yang Jiechi, as Blinken read through a standard laundry list of allegations against China, leading to a sharp counter from the Chinese.