This editorial appears in the August 14, 2020 issue of Executive Intelligence Review.
EDITORIAL
The Next Hiroshima Before November?
We Need a World Order of Peace!
[Print version of this editorial]
Aug. 8—I’m sounding the alarm! Underestimated by most of our contemporaries, the U.S. campaign against China is escalating and could lead to a military conflict before the U.S. presidential election in November, Chinese analysts fear. Former Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd warns in an article in Foreign Affairs with the fateful title: “Beware the Guns of August—in Asia,” with a clear reference to the outbreak of the First World War: “The once unthinkable outcome—actual armed conflict between the United States and China—now appears possible for the first time since the end of the Korean War. In other words, we are confronting the prospect of not just a new Cold War, but a hot one as well.”[fn_1]
Current Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison shares this fear that war between the U.S. and China was “previously inconceivable and not considered even possible or likely in terms of those types of outcomes” but “is not considered in those contexts anymore.”
The same concern is also coming from the Russian side: On the 75th anniversary of the use of nuclear weapons in Hiroshima, Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov warns against a change in American military doctrine, which now regards nuclear weapons as “usable.”
Only 75 years after the end of the Second World War, which left large parts of the world in ruins, how could the world arrive at this point of potential extinction? Because that would be the consequence of a third, thermonuclear world war. It started with the method of Schrecklichkeit (“frightfulness”), with the demonstration of an act so terrible, that one convinces the potential opponent that only unconditional submission can save him.
Lyndon LaRouche had already condemned this use of nuclear weapons as militarily unnecessary 25 years ago, in a comment on the 50th anniversary of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Japan had long been defeated and had explored the possibility of a surrender and an end to the war as soon as possible through negotiations between Emperor Hirohito and Cardinal Giovanni Montini, who was then secretary to Pope Pius XII and later became Pope Paul VI. These reports, which LaRouche had received through contemporary witnesses, have now been confirmed by documents available in the National Archives in Washington, and raise the question of whether it is not high time that this unprecedented act be treated and discussed as an extraordinary war crime, this act which was committed with the endorsement of Great Britain, and because of which, more than 200,000 people, mostly civilians, perished, while as a consequence countless more suffered and died.
“There was no need for a military invasion of the islands of Japan. There was no military reason for dropping those nuclear weapons on two cities, Hiroshima and Nagasaki, of a Japan which had been utterly defeated; there was only a British geopolitical motive, which had almost nothing to do with Japan as such,” LaRouche wrote.[fn_2]
The war was practically over. Japan was cut off from its supply lines by the American naval blockade and the Russian occupation of Korea and northern China. “In this situation,” emphasized Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov, “this nuclear bombing by the USA was actually just a show of force and a test of the effect of nuclear weapons on civilians.” Scott Ritter, former UN weapons inspector in Iraq, wrote in a commentary on this anniversary that Truman’s inner circle, including Secretary of State James Byrnes and Secretary of War Henry Stimson, were in favor of the deployment of nuclear weapons because they believed it would help to scare off the Soviet Union from a future war.
‘Frightfulness’ as Method
Behind this was the whole strategy that H.G. Wells had stressed repeatedly, even before the Second World War, and that Bertrand Russell published in his 1946 article, “The Atomic Bomb and the Prevention of War,” namely, to make the experience of war so terrible that every possible opponent, and especially the Soviet Union, could be forced to give up its sovereignty and submit to a world government.
Ritter also quotes General Leslie Groves, the director of the Manhattan Project that produced the two nuclear weapons, who told the scientists involved: “The purpose of the whole project was to subdue the Russians.” So it was not about saving human lives and ending the war in the Pacific in the most humane way possible, as the previous, official version about Hiroshima and Nagasaki had claimed, but as the theorist of the containment policy against the Soviet Union, George Kennan put it, it was about orchestrating the post-war era “in our image.”
In an August 5 article in the Los Angeles Times, Gar Alperovitz called for an “honest national conversation” on the fateful first use of nuclear weapons, which “continues to threaten our survival.”[fn_3] What is really needed is an international debate that includes the role of Churchill, who dominated Truman, and the Anglophile circles around Averell Harriman.
Correctly identifying the intention behind the initial use of nuclear weapons against a civilian population is not an academic exercise, as it appears that the current U.S. establishment has reverted to using “frightfulness” as a method of advancing its interests, not only against China.
What else can it mean, when the three U.S. Senators, Ted Cruz, Tom Cotton, and Ron Johnson, write in a letter to the management of the ports of Sassnitz and Mukran on the German island of Rügen that they either terminate cooperation with the Northstream 2 gas pipeline, or else the U.S. will take measures that will destroy the financial viability of the ports. The pipeline is already 90 percent complete and is important for the energy supply not only in Germany but also other parts of Europe, but the letter says: “The sanctions are mandatory and there is no discretion in imposing them ... If you continue providing goods, services, and support for the Nord Stream project, including by provisioning the [pipelayer vessels] Fortuna and Akademik Cherskiy, you will destroy the future financial viability of your company.”[fn_4]
If that is the tone when speaking to the so-called “allies,” what should countries think when the U.S. has officially declared them to be “strategic adversaries” and “enemies”?
The British Terror Offensive
After Pompeo called for the creation of an international alliance against China and issued a de facto call for an uprising of the Chinese people against the government, the deployments of the U.S. Navy in the South China and China Seas, as well as of U.S. fighter jets along the Chinese coast, increased. Health Minister Azar’s visit to Taiwan again provoked the PRC. This is the highest-ranking visit by the U.S. since 1979 and is viewed by China as a clear violation of the “one-China policy,” which has so far been the foundation of the U.S.-China relationship. The official reaction from Beijing was that the visit endangers peace.
With Obama’s policy of a “pivot to Asia,” the expansion of military bases in the Pacific region was accelerated, which today represents a complete encirclement of China by over 400 such bases from Australia to Japan, Korea to Afghanistan and India. Various war plans by the Rand Corporation, including one entitled, “War with China: Thinking Through the Unthinkable,” conclude that the sooner it is waged, the fewer American losses there would be in such a war. The more China could expand its A2AD (anti-access area denial) capacities, the fewer the Chinese losses would be, which would reduce U.S. strike capability. Amitai Etzioni, who wrote a book three years ago about avoiding war with China, expresses concern that the ongoing preparations for war could convince China that a pre-emptive strike to eliminate its nuclear weapons could be in preparation, which could present China with a terrible choice of whether to strike first, which would lead to a nuclear war.
How far we have come on this road becomes clear in an article by the editor-in-chief of Global Times on August 7. Under the headline, “If war breaks out between China and the U.S., which side will have the upper hand?” Hu Xijin discusses the question of what happens if Taiwan, which is one of China’s core interests, is encouraged by the U.S. to step across the red line and there is a military trial of strength.
Regardless of the fact that the overall military power of the USA is the stronger, when it comes to China’s core interests, what counts is the combination of military clout, morality, and the will to fight. Who would be stronger in a war on the coast of China? China would by no means fire the first shot, but China is well prepared to fire the second shot in response to the first. When it comes to China’s core interests, it will not back down.
The narrative that has been orchestrated by former MI6 bosses Sir Richard Dearlove and John Sawers, the Henry Jackson Society, and Niall Ferguson, that China was responsible for the worldwide spread of the coronavirus pandemic, was designed to determine the campaign themes of the current presidential election in the USA. This narrative is black propaganda intended to serve as the backdrop for the military confrontation with China.
The Summit Solution
In view of the unprecedented combination of crises mankind is currently facing, the summit of the five permanent members of this UN Security Council initiated by President Putin is possibly the last chance to deviate from the current suicidal course and to attain a new higher level of cooperation among the nuclear powers. This summit must remove the real reason for war—the bankruptcy of the transatlantic financial system—by establishing a new credit system, a New Bretton Woods System, and establishing a new platform for international cooperation in combatting the pandemic. This summit must resolve an order of peace that begins with the construction of a modern health system in every single country on Earth, and which focuses on the common goals of humanity, such as, for example, the imminent realization of nuclear fusion, and international cooperation in space travel.
Every person and every nation with an interest in human survival should actively support the success of this summit. This is nothing less than a touchstone for our moral fitness to survive.
