EIR LEAD EDITORIAL FOR SATURDAY OCTOBER 7, 2023
Oct. 6, 2023 (EIRNS)—It is crystal clear to the world that the weapons flow to Ukraine from the United States, the biggest supplier, has been disrupted by last weekend’s tumult in the House of Representatives, unseating the Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy (R-CA). There is gnashing of teeth by the NATO warhawks. In Europe, chief of the EU diplomacy Josep Borrell appealed for the U.S. to soon, somehow “retake its role” in arming Ukraine. He spoke at an Oct. 5 summit of the European Political Community in Granada, Spain, attended by Ukraine President Zelenskyy as well. In the U.S., warhawk circles are mooting various ways to get around Congress, which means evading the Constitutional authority of Congress on war powers. For example, there is talk of “reprogramming” Pentagon expenditures already approved by Congress, to divert funding to Ukraine, from other non-Ukraine purposes.
The imperative this tumult in the Trans-Atlantic creates, is for all nations and persons of reason and good will to utilize it to the hilt, to shift the U.S. and entrapped EU in the direction of peace-making. The vaunted “counter-offensive” by Ukraine has failed against Russia. Hundreds of thousands have been hurt and died. Negotiations must start now. Opposing that by committing to warfare indefinitely is the short road to escalating to a nuclear exchange and annihilation.
Today at the weekly meeting (online) of the International Peace Coalition, representatives of many networks from around the world, conferred on how to escalate world forces towards Ukraine negotiations and onto the path of a new world economic architecture for security. In the works is an “open meeting” of the IPC to soon rapidly augment its impact. In the U.S. we have the mobilization underway of citizens giving orders to Congress to stop the funding of warfare in Ukraine.
There are no grounds for complacency. The London—Chatham House—crowd, after all, recommends a so-called tactical nuclear strike against Russia in the Ukraine theater, because—according to their chicken game fantasy—Russia won’t respond. Russia will be vanquished.
Yesterday in Sochi, Russia, at the Valdai Discussion Club annual meeting, Sergei Karaganov, a founding member of Valdai, raised the option to President Putin at the plenary open discussion, about Russia modifying its nuclear use doctrine to lower the threshold for resort to nuclear action, a proposal Karaganov advocates. Putin restated Russia’s policy stance carefully, that the two circumstances remain, in which Russia would counterstrike with nuclear weapons: In the case of a nuclear attack, or in the case of an “existential” conventional attack on Russia. “Do we need to change this? Why would we?” He went on to remark, “I do not think anyone in their right mind would consider using nuclear weapons against Russia.”
The necessity for negotiations, not escalation, was put forward specifically at a NATO event today in Copenhagen. EIR correspondent Michelle Rasmussen directly asked the participants at a pre-event press conference of the 69th session of NATO’s Parliamentary Assembly, to respond to the proposal for resolution of the Ukraine conflict by four prominent Germans, issued Aug. 28, “Ending the Ukraine War by a Negotiated Peace.” She asked, “Do you think that there will be a possibility for the NATO Parliamentary Assembly to discuss a road to a negotiated settlement before, as the authors say, it is too late?” In a follow-up question, Rasmussen pointed to the suffering, and necessity for a strategy other than escalation. The speakers stuck to their “back Ukraine” stance. The attendees all received copies of the Germans’ statement.
At today’s IPC meeting, Schiller Institute founder and leader Helga Zepp-LaRouche, calling for accelerated circulation of the German proposal worldwide, stressed that we have to understand the “root cause” of the war-making compulsion we are up against. The old order is expiring. It’s the end of a colonialist financial/economic system. It is essential for the Global North to go with the Global South. Our task goes beyond “stopping war,” to making conditions for peace.
Look at the United States. The current mass strikes of health care and auto workers dramatize that across whole core sectors of the U.S. economy, the system is what is failing. The 75,000 health care workers of the Kaiser Permanente medical care network, whose three-day action ends Saturday morning, Oct. 7, plan continued protests. The United Auto Workers are striking, in a situation where auto workers’ pay, since 2003, has dropped further than any other of the 166 industries tracked by the U.S. Census Bureau. Depending on what “tier” a worker is in (the system penalizes workers in different ways, whether they are new hires, or long-time employees), the auto worker’s real wages have dropped 30 to 60% since 2003!
The worsening social-economic situation in the Global North calls out for collaboration with programs of the Belt and Road Initiative—whose 10th anniversary will be celebrated at an international forum in China, at the end of next week. What is in order is the LaRouche World Land-Bridge approach, completely consistent with the Belt and Road Initiative, with the new means of credit, and re-regulated banking and currency systems to match. This is at one with the existential battle to stop the war.
One bright note in this picture, is the joyful, official ceremony this week in Bangladesh, marking the delivery of Russian-made nuclear fuel to the Rooppur Nuclear Power Plant’s No. 1 Unit. Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and President Vladimir Putin took part by video conference. The complex is under construction by Russian State Corporation Rosatom, in the Pabna District, which will have two reactors, with a total capacity of 2,400 megawatts. Over 20,000 specialists, including 4,000 Russians, are at work onsite for the project, which was agreed upon in 2011.
Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina said:
“Today will go down in history, and I would like to remind you that the Father of the Nation gave Bangladesh a constitution nine months after we gained independence. Article 16 of our Constitution, titled Rural Development and Agricultural Revolution, says: The State shall adopt effective measures to bring about a radical transformation in the rural areas through the promotion of an agricultural revolution, the provision of rural electrification, the development of cottage and other industries, and the improvement of education, communications and public health.”
