`Most Terrifying of Terrors':
World War by Miscalculation?
by Helga Zepp-LaRouche
This article was translated from German.
Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has accused the United States of being behind Georgia's attack on Russian peacekeeping troops and civilians in South Ossetia, and says that he has proof that U.S. military advisors participated in the combat actions, and that this could only have been carried out on orders from a higher level. That is quite close to a state of war. And if, on top of this, you consider the insanity of sending U.S. naval formations into the Black Sea, where the potential for incidents with the Russian Navy is extremely high, it becomes clear how dangerously close the world is to a confrontation, which can easily spin completely out of control.
The high-ranking Russian military advisor Gen. Col. Leonid Ivashov (ret.) has meanwhile warned that the Georgian crisis could lead to a new Cuba Missiles Crisis like in 1962, and he connected this to the systemic crisis of the world financial system: "We see that certain strategic preparations are under way in the United States and NATO countries. At what point they will stop, is difficult to say. The local Georgian conflict was not an end in itself. This is merely the trigger mechanism of a big and complex game, a geopolitical operation. That it is anti-Russian in its nature is beyond doubt. Creating instability and chaos in other regions is becoming Washington's main policy. Some American leaders are already talking about that openly."
General Ivashov then presented an additional argument, one which is difficult to dispute, and fraught with implications which we would do well to examine thoroughly:
Another sign that the West does not exclude the possibility of solving the existing problems through military cataclysms, is that even at the G-8, the problem of the financial crisis was not discussed.
And indeed, even though Alan Greenspan has spoken of a once-in-a-century crisis, and there is talk of thousands of banks being under threat of insolvency, the systemic crisis was not an agenda item at the last G-8 summit meeting in Japan.
British Geopolitics
Lyndon LaRouche, commenting on Ivashov's assessment, pointed to the British authorship of the geopolitical confrontation strategy against Russia, an authorship which is evident, not only from the composition of the puppet regime in Tbilisi, which utterly and completely owes its existence to George Soros, but also from the special role of Dick Cheney in the U.S. Administration.
Russia's Ambassador to NATO, Dmitri Rogozin, has compared Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili to Gavrilo Princip, the assassin who shot Archduke Franz Ferdinand in 1914. Such parallels to the run-up to World War I are, unfortunately, all too clear. Just as then, today the political landscape resembles a chessboard, with all the hallmarks of British geopolitics. The activities of Prince Albert Edward of Wales, later, King Edward VII, in crafting the Entente Cordiale, the Triple Entente, and the Balkan wars, correspond to Margaret Thatcher's and François Mitterrand's role in crafting the Maastricht Treaty, which started the EU off on its imperial course, and to Tony Blair's role in rigging evidence to create the basis for launching the Iraq War—and those are only two of many such elements.
It's scarcely believable: Anyone with common sense can see that the world is now racing toward a potential catastrophe, and yet our governments are acting like chess pieces following a script, apparently without thinking on their own, and without it ever occurring to them that they can throw the chessboard into the trash can and put another game onto the agenda, with entirely different rules. One example is the insane proposal to impose sanctions on Russia, coming from some masochists who apparently prefer to spend this Winter in the cold and darkness.
LaRouche has warned that the British and their U.S. lackeys are pursuing a policy not unlike the U.S. Armed Forces' reaction to the 1968 Tet Offensive by North Vietnam and the Vietcong. Then, Defense Secretary Robert McNamara and Gen. William Westmoreland committed the strategic blunder of grossly underestimating the enemy's strength, and, as a result, the United States was defeated. This same mentality grips not only the Bush-Cheney Administration, but also both designated Presidential candidates, John McCain and Barack Obama—the only difference being that today we're dealing with the threat of nuclear war.
The Chinese Perspective
This ideologically benighted wishful thinking became evident, for example, in the interpretations of what was claimed to be the refusal by members of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) to support Russia. The Financial Times took the sentence from the SCO's joint declaration which says that all sides should seek to resolve problems through peaceful dialogue, and pulled it completely out of context, as if it were a Chinese criticism aimed at Russia. In reality, the Chinese Ambassador in Moscow, Liu Guchang, made it quite clear during his meeting with Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Aleksei Borodavkin, that China understands Russia's political and legal reasons for recognizing South Ossetia's and Abkhasia's independence.
It shouldn't be surprising that China, whose territorial integrity is likewise being threatened by British-inspired destabilizations in Tibet and Xinjiang, has been very careful in its formulations. But anyone who thinks, with the same mentality as the reaction to the Tet Offensive, that if one wages war against Russia, one won't also have to contend with China, is simply blind to reality.
The strategic partnership between Russia and China, as well as with the SCO, is, admittedly, not on an offensive footing; but if attacked, they pose a combined military might which would shatter the attacker's teeth, not to mention the impossibility of an attacker occupying all these countries. It didn't even work in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Saber-Rattling and Delusions
However much the hypnotized masses who idolized Obama in Berlin were deluded when they chose to believe his promises of a "change" in policy: By the time Obama voiced his reaction to Georgia's aggression, at the very latest, it became clear that he has placed himself firmly on the aggressor's side. It became even more clear when his chosen Vice Presidential candidate, Joe Biden, speaking at the Democratic Party Convention in Denver, summarily characterized the Georgian invasion of South Ossetia as "Russia's invasion of Georgia," and then conjured up a purported Russian threat:
For the last seven years, this Administration has failed to face the biggest forces shaping this century: the emergence of Russia, China, and India as great powers; the spread of lethal weapons, the shortage of secure supplies of energy, food, and water; the challenge of climate change; the resurgence of fundamentalism in Afghanistan and Pakistan, the real central front against terrorism.
In recent days, we've once again seen the consequences of this neglect, with Russia's challenge to the free and democratic country of Georgia. Barak Obama and I will end this neglect. We will hold Russia accountable for its action, and we'll help the people of Georgia to rebuild.
Thus, as far as Biden is concerned, the Bush Administration's reaction has been too mild. And after Russia recognized South Ossetia's and Abkhasia's independence, Obama hurriedly beat the White House and McCain to the punch, demanding that the UN Security Council be convened for a special session to condemn Russia's actions.
David Miliband, Great Britain's Foreign Minister, and probable successor to Gordon Brown, escalated the situation even further during his visit to Kiev, when he called upon Ukraine to rearrange its relations with Russia. The Financial Times, writing in connection with Miliband's visit, proposed that the EU immediately offer Ukraine membership in the EU, in order to smooth the way toward its assimilation into NATO, since the majority of Ukrainians favor entry into the EU, whereas they are split on the issue of NATO membership.
The Financial Times' assertion that entry into the EU would be less provocative than joining NATO, is a flat lie: The Lisbon Treaty, whose adoption would mean the full militarization of the EU, includes an explicit solidarity clause, according to which, in the event of a crisis, all EU member states would have a military responsibility, which even those countries inclined to reject such a course, would not be allowed to shirk. German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Nicolas Sarkozy continue to be dead set on getting the Lisbon Treaty adopted, even though the Irish "No" referendum vote rendered it a dead letter; and thus, if Ukraine joins the EU, any future Ukraine crisis could be used to usher in the Lisbon Treaty through the back door, as it were.
The so-called "New Europe"—the Baltic states, Poland, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Romania, and Bulgaria, still well-remembered for their support of the war against Iraq—wanted to work out a common position for the Sept. 1 special EU summit on the Caucasus crisis. "Old Europe"—Germany, France, Italy, etc.—should meanwhile make it crystal clear that there is no alternative to partnership with Russia.
If we don't want the lemmings to march over the cliff, then we will have to abandon the British Empire's geopolitical chessboard, and act jointly with Russia, China, India, and other nations, in putting a new financial architecture onto the agenda. What role the United States will play in this, is still an open question, because aside from Obama's and McCain's nomination, nothing has been decided—and it's still a long time until November. But one thing is certain: The role of the LaRouche movement—the LaRouche Political Action Committee in the United States, and the Civil Rights Solidarity Movement in Germany—has become more important than ever before.
