DISCUSSION SESSION

Undo Injustice, Mobilize for the New Silk Road

The following are selected exchanges from the discussion period of Panel 3, “Southwest Asia: Pivot for War, or Peaceful Development with the New Silk Road,” which included six speakers, the moderator Diane Sare, and Helga Zepp-LaRouche. Panel 3 was held on March 21, 2021, the second, concluding day of the international Schiller Institute conference, “World at a Crossroad: Two Months into the New U.S. Administration.”

Moderator: I would like to ask Helga Zepp-LaRouche, the founder of the Schiller Institute and the convener of this conference, if she has some thoughts that she would like to express now.

Helga Zepp-LaRouche: I want to express my gratitude to all the speakers, who I think portrayed a very important picture about this region of the world which I wish very, very much would again have the glory it had during the time when Baghdad was the most developed city in the world—the Abbasid Dynasty period. I think we are on a good way of accomplishing that.

But I want to thank especially Senator Black and Ambassador Raimbaud, because what you said is so urgent to be heard. What you told the whole world, and hopefully we get the message out to as many countries and people as possible, is not known. It may be known among certain circles and people in the region, but if you ask people in the United States or Western Europe, they have never heard—and we got several messages to this conference—they have never heard a live voice out of Syria or out of Yemen.

I want to really thank you, because it was mentioned several times that crimes are being committed which remind us of what happened to be set as the standard in the Nuremberg trials. One could add a lot of things. I think the underdevelopment, the denial of the right to development for every single human being on this planet, fits the same category, because it is as murderous as if you kill people in any other way.

So, I really want to thank you, and we make a solemn commitment to get this message out as widely as possible with the idea to change this policy and replace it with one where all the neighbors of the Southwest Asian region are working together to undo this incredible injustice which has occurred with the New Silk Road.

I call on all the people in Europe, Russia, China, India, Egypt, all countries to join hands and help in this development project, and then it can be done. I also want back up what Jacques said. We need a call to action and a big mobilization.

Moderator: Dr. Arbache, if you have something you would like to say now, please go ahead.

Dr. Zaid Arbache: Good afternoon! I believe that everything is clear. And the caliber of the speakers—they’re all fighting for the goal of your conference. I am very happy with the conference.

South and Central Asian
Post-Pandemic Strategy

Moderator: We now go to the first question, which I think could be answered by both Hussein Askary and Mr. Ramay, and Helga may have things to say. It comes from Mr. Sayed Mujtaba Ahmadi, who is the Deputy Chief of Mission from the Embassy of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan in Canada. He writes:

1. How could the United States develop a new, post-pandemic strategy in coordination with the South and Central Asian countries to support political and economic stability and prosperity in this region?

2. What would be the role of major infrastructure projects to improve connectivity, foster socio-economic development, and economic cooperation among the regional countries?

Hussein Askary: Concerning what the United States and other Western powers can do in the region: actually we don’t need to reinvent the region or the mechanism. There is already a mechanism which is evolving; more and more nations are joining it. It’s the Belt and Road Initiative. Most countries, including Afghanistan, but almost every country in that region except for India, has joined the Belt and Road Initiative. It’s working, as Mr. Ramay explained to you about what is going on in Pakistan itself.

So, what is needed is that the United States and the EU join China, with or without joining the BRI formally; [understand] that there is already the method of work which is accepted by all nations as equals, and join that system without this supremacy complex, and admit that their policy was incorrect, as we have heard today; it has been destructive. And that the people in these regions really don’t hate the West. And people don’t envy your economic and social system where one percent of the people enrich and empower themselves at the expense of the others. They are not envious of your system. They want you to contribute with technology, with know-how, to improve their lives and work with them as equals. China has been doing this. That should be the model to be pursued.

Shakeel Ramay: I think there have been initiatives already, on which we can build. For example, the Heart of Asia. A number of European countries and Western countries, including the U.S., are part of these negotiations and these activities, and in the Heart of Asia we have a special window for economic cooperation and infrastructure building in Afghanistan.

But if we specifically look toward China and the BRI and CPEC [China-Pakistan Economic Corridor], Pakistan has already extended its hand towards Afghanistan to be part of CPEC.

Because if you look at the infrastructure Pakistan has built, especially from the Gwadar port, it can facilitate the trade with Afghanistan if we keep politics outside of it. Because it is the shortest route, one thing; second thing: when Afghanistan people travel to Pakistan, they don’t have any cultural differences. There are a number of Pashtuns living in Pakistan, especially in the border areas. If you talk about the newly multi-districts export area, or you talk about the Chaman border, or you talk about other parts of Balochistan, where the Pashtuns are living, this can be done.

But most important would be if we keep politics out of it, one thing. And second thing, if we design the program according to the needs of Afghanistan. Because if we look at one of the statistics, that I already have presented, that is really bad. If we include the ease of doing business indicators … [there is a] worse picture.

So, how we can bring Afghanistan into the CPEC, and in other dual initiators, it depends how carefully we understand the dynamics of Afghanistan in the field of government and economy and institutions. It should not be like market competition. In market competition you need layers who have some singular capabilities. Afghanistan does not have vast capabilities, due to the war going on for the last more than four decades.

So, whatever we have to decide, we need to decide with the prism of Afghanistan, not the prism of any consultant or some other international institution that was there last, so “these reforms that are required, these reforms are required.” If they can do it! But immediately, we have to take care of their own status. What is their status? If we are just talking about the big thing, they are doing nothing. Then we can continue it, and there will be no use. That is what Pakistan is doing right now. Pakistan is trying to offer them what they need. Pakistan is not trying to tell them what they should do. Pakistan is trying to work with them on what they need, and trying to provide it to them.

So, I think that would be the immediate question, if we want to build any meaningful cooperation with Afghanistan. Thank you.

British Policy of Divide-and-Conquer

Moderator: Perhaps Helga and Ambassador Raimbaud would like to answer the next question. It is a question from a young Syrian on “the American divide-and-conquer strategy against Russia and China.” The person writes about the question from the young Syrian questioner earlier in the conference. This questioner writes:

An earlier questioner asked the Russian and Chinese diplomats about the Trump focus on war with China, while pursuing peace with Russia; the Biden focus on peace with China and pursuing war with Russia. And then asked them to comment on the American policy of divide and conquer.

The policy of divide and conquer toward Russia and China is a British policy. It is consistent with Mackinder’s geopolitics policy to prevent Asian development and circle the continent. Biden, a complete instrument of Britain’s BlackRock, neo-cons from both parties trained in British geopolitics and British cancel-culture menticide, has deployed all U.S. intelligence and warfare capabilities to apply pressure to China and Russia to break up all nations in the Middle East and destroy their economies through financial warfare and propaganda warfare, vaccine warfare, food warfare, etc.

Colonel Black’s speech, as an old Marine warrior, is greatly appreciated. However, without clarity indicating the British role in running the entire operation, we are addressing the United States, which is certainly as guilty as hell. But what about the role of the British, and how would we make that more clear?

Michel Raimbaud: [For technical reasons, he did not get the whole question.] So, I don’t know exactly, but it was between China and Russia, and U.S. policies with those two countries.

But what I can say—my purpose was to say—is that, finally, when we take into consideration the change at the White House between President Trump to President Joe Biden, nothing could be expected very important about when policy with the Middle East countries or Near East countries or with the Arab and Muslim worlds at large. I think that there was quite the same strategy was being expected, and I think that it was confirmed by the first weeks of Mr. Biden on that.

But Russia and China, I think that the global result is the same. I understood what was said about Donald Trump and the priority of Joe Biden, it was exactly one for Russia, and another two for China, and the other way around for Mr. Biden. The objective research rests on China having the same attitude towards, for example, the Syrian conflict, as it was said by the [UN] Security Council, maybe a dozen times with a double veto for the two countries.

I think that we cannot expect any change if, at first during Donald Trump’s mandate, well, there was some better attitude towards Russia, but with China it was enemy number-one. And with Joe Biden, it’s exactly the opposite, but the results are the same. I think with these couple of countries, the tension will remain very high, and it will be an aggressive diplomacy between the United States and Russia, or between the United States and China. But the results will be the same.

And as concerns the Middle East problem, and especially we are talking about the Syrian conflict—it was the subject of my intervention—what happens is that Syria was just a part, or maybe at the center of the conflict, not only in the Middle East and the Middle East of George Bush, but it was the epicenter of the conflict between the Atlantic Empire—that’s the Western camp—and the Russian and Chinese bloc, I think.

That normally to some extent, a country like Syria that has been devastated, that has been under sanctions, under blockade, and so on, that was the victim of a war of aggression in the first period for ten years; and that for the last period is well, being passing under the regime of sanctions under an invisible, silent, and endless sword, as I was saying when my intervention was cut off.

I think there is no change at the global result: The war will continue. We are entering the 11th year of the war, and Syria is being devasted more and more. The Syrian people are living a real tragedy, being hungry, and escape is not possible because of the sanctions, because of the embargo. They are dirty, they are hungry, they are sick, they are hurt by the coronavirus pandemic, and there is no visible solution for the time being. It seems that in the global geopolitical prospect, for the time being, Syria will continue to be the epicenter of the conflict between Russia and China on the one side, and the United States and the Western countries on the other side. I don’t know if I am wrong or right, but I think it is in the short-term future, it will be the situation of Syria.

And about the details between China and Russia, and Russia and China, with the United States, apart from the change of President in Washington, and the change of enemy number one for Donald Trump and for Biden, I think that the result and the sanctions for Syria will be exactly the same. I think that the future of Syria won’t be finally traced by the Western policy or American policy. That is what I had wanted to say.

I think that the solution in Syria will depend on the geopolitical balance of forces and the new geopolitical balance of forces between the Atlantic bloc and the Eurasian bloc, for the time being. I think that, if we wait for ten years or a dozen years, there has been a big change in this balance in favor of Russia and China, and against the Western and American countries’ forces. I think the advantage is not in the same camp as it was ten years ago when the war in Syria started. That’s my first remark. I’m not sure that I was very clear, but that was what I wanted to say.

Zepp-LaRouche: The question about the role of the British is extremely important, because if you look at almost every conflict in the world right now, you find the footsteps and the fingerprints of the British. One must actually say that British intelligence is remarkably good in destruction. If you think about what they did in India; the Opium Wars which the Chinese really had to wake up hard when the Hong Kong issue came up.

Or look at any conflict involving the Skripal affair, you know, the cui bono, and this was the hands of the British. The Navalny affair: The effort to topple Putin by sponsoring this fake operation. RT had this program showing that one of the campaign managers of Navalny spoke already several years ago with a British diplomat who was an MI6 agent, asking him for $10-20 million per year in order to organize street demonstrations in Russia. I could make the list longer and longer.

But I think the lesson —and here I politely disagree a little bit with the ambassador—that I think we cannot sit out the problem and wait until the balance of power shifts in such a way that the ability of this British destabilization become less, because I think this, for a variety of reasons, has incredible dangers.

I think we have to really educate the world population to end geopolitics. Geopolitics is what caused two world wars, for which the British, by the way, had the main responsibility.

We made a whole documentation of how the British manipulation of the landscape in the years between the ouster of Bismarck and the actual shots of Sarajevo. You can actually prove that this was a chess game manipulated by the British. Look at Sykes-Picot. Look at the Great Game. The whole idea of geopolitics from Mackinder, which then was taken over by Haushofer. I think we need to write a history about geopolitics, and why we have to overcome it.

How does it work? Every country has a conflict with some other country. A neighbor, or—and there are historical, ethnic reasons because wars happened, injustices happened. And this is being played upon. You can put your hands in the wound, like between India and Pakistan, the Kashmir issue: All of these things are being manipulated.

And this is why we have been saying from the very beginning that the New Silk Road as a concept of the World Land-Bridge, which brings development to all, is the only way you can overcome geopolitics. Because how do you overcome the conflict between Japan and China, or South Korea and China? Well, if you have total development for the whole Eurasian continent, including the Americas, including Africa, so that everybody has an advantage. But this needs to be put on the table as a totality.

I think the lesson out of the pandemic and now the famine, is that we have to organize—and that’s what the Schiller Institute really wants to accomplish—that we put this idea of overcoming underdevelopment for everybody, for every nation, on the agenda. Then, you can see that there would be an advantage, even for the United States, which the biggest problem obviously is the military-industrial complex. But they could change; they could retool and produce some useful things.

So, I think we need to have a world mobilization to have a new world economic order and the blueprint for it is the World Land-Bridge. That way, you overcome geopolitics. I think that people have to understand that as long as they say, “This country is my enemy because they did this”; and then the other one says, “Yeah, but you did that.” That was the lesson from the Peace of Westphalia, where they said, “For the sake of peace, we have to stop this listing of crimes of the one and the other side.”

We should prove that Henry Kissinger was not only supporting this genocidal policy with his NSSM-200 document in 1974, but he was also wrong when he said that the Peace of Westphalia does not apply to Southwest Asia. So, we need to educate the population that geopolitics itself is the enemy, and it’s a British concoction. And it should be put on the scrapheap of history for good.

Moderator: Thank you. I will say as a New Yorker, there is certainly a great deal that the United States could be spending money on which would be very productive, like the infrastructure which is disintegrating as we speak.

Unipolarity, and the
Military-Industrial Complex

Sen. Richard Black: You mention infrastructure: It’s amazing how many years we have spoken about infrastructure, and one administration after the other has said, we’re going to some huge infrastructure project. And we print money by bushels full and none of it has ever gone to infrastructure. So, it seems to be more of a red herring than anything.

There’s no doubt that the U.S.-British alliance is very much the most powerful alliance on Earth. We view the British in a much different light than we view our other allies in Europe. We still have sort of an occupation mentality towards Germany, and toward the other countries of Europe. The fact that we are imposing sanctions on German companies for engaging in free and open trade with Russia by completing the Nord Stream 2 pipeline is sort of a graphic example of the attitude that we have that Germany is really not out of the occupation stage. They really are subservient to us, and we should be able to punish them, just as you would a child. It’s a very negative thing.

In talking about the Silk Road, you draw back, and you look at the American paradigm for foreign policy, and in so many places, it follows a certain sequence, just as it did in Libya: The U.S. goes in, they befriend the leader; then they covertly undermine the leadership. Eventually, they murder that leader, they destroy the nation, and they leave it in a smoking ruin. That is the American paradigm right now.

If you look at the Chinese paradigm, they accept the existing government, they do not interfere unduly with it. They go in; they build infrastructure, they conduct trade with [audio loss] sometimes, because it’s legitimate trade. They don’t expect to just make it a welfare program; they expect to benefit from the trade they engage in. Which is the only long-term solution—it’s got to be a two-way thing.

But I think more and more countries look, and they say, “What do we want? Do we want the American paradigm, or do we want the Chinese paradigm?” “Well, I’d rather not have the Americans come in and execute me, and then bomb the country to oblivion. Maybe I’ll go with the Chinese and have some airfields and roads and dams and bridges built instead.” I think the U.S. has got to reject this paradigm; it’s very self-defeating. It not only damages other countries, but it damages the United States itself. [Box: Wang Yi in Southwest Asia: ‘Accelerating Development Cooperation’]

There is no evidence presently that suggests that the U.S. and NATO wish to ever see peace in the Middle East. I believe that perpetual war is now viewed as a means of weakening the Arab nations vis-à-vis Israel and Saudi Arabia, and this is what we intend to do. We have this covert alliance with terrorists, which seems to have had its genesis when we were trying to oust the Soviet Union from Afghanistan. At that time, we had under arms a radical jihadist army of 300,000 troops in the field, under the direction of and being armed by the Central Intelligence Agency.

We eventually did drive the Soviet Union out, but in the process, we established a group of madrassas, where we used Saudi Arabian imams to teach the most radical, bloodthirsty vision of Islam, not shared by other countries. Later, this gave rise to al-Qaeda, which attacked the Twin Towers and the Pentagon.

So, it’s a failed strategy. I think the U.S. role in the world is changing, and somehow subtly—we can’t just simply come out and say, well we’re not on top anymore. But I think we need to gradually begin to accommodate a multipolar world. The American monetary system is still quite dominant, and there’s not a radical change, but there is slowly a weakening of the American dominance, which is what allows us to print money without any constraints. We’re supporting a vastly bloated, corrupted, unsustainable military force.

Oddly enough, we’re always touting our free-market values and how efficient they are. Yet, I have no question that the Russian defense industry is able to produce fighter airplanes for vastly less than what we can, and I think they’re on the verge of producing more effective weapons that we are.

Now, I’m not big on the whole weapons industry, but I’m just saying that we have to reduce the size and the drain from this. We’re spending as much as the ten biggest military spenders behind us, including Russia, China, Saudi Arabia, Germany, India, just a tremendous number of nations. And yet, we have this huge force. I think there’s global discomfort over the U.S. interference on the high seas; the fact that we have arrogated unto ourselves the entitlement of being able to pull over ships of other nations and confine their crews, and the ships themselves, and do what we would like with them.

This type of thing used to be called piracy. Now we have a different patina on it. But I think there are a lot of countries that are not particularly fond of the fact that we allow ourselves to do something that, if another country did it, would be considered an act of war.

I think there is anger over the unilateral sanctions that are being imposed both on friends and foes. During the past 30 years, we have ramped up this regime of sanctions to where it’s become almost out of control. It seems like anything that’s introduced in Congress that has the name of sanctions will pass very quickly. People want to pound the table and say, “We’re going to punish this one. No, we’re going to punish that one.” There are approximately 30 countries right now that have some sort of export controls imposed on them.

I think what we have done with Nord Stream 2 by sanctioning companies that are servicing the completion of the last 1% to 2% of that pipeline, it’s an outrage. It certainly belies the idea of any sort of an alliance of equals.

I think there is this gradual recognition among nations that the U.S. global dominance is gradually coming to an end. I think it’s important for us, rather than simply being intransigent and maintaining this dominance, this unipolar world at any expense, it’s appropriate for us to do as other mature nations have done, and say OK, there are changes afoot, it’s time to accommodate. We now are going to have to resort more to diplomacy and less to bullying, in order to manage our affairs with other nations.

But I think what I’d very much like to see—now I’m a military man, I believe in having a very strong military. But it doesn’t need to be nearly what it is. We need to have a high quality and strong military, but at the same time, I think we could cut back on the size and the number of weapons considerably. I don’t think there should be any trouble in cutting a quarter out of the defense budget, so long as we don’t take it out of personnel. We have a tendency to always say, we’ve got to have a zillion F-35 fighters. Well, we don’t need that. We need to pay our troops adequately; we need to have them well-disciplined, and so forth, for the protection of the United States, and not for the projection of aggressive military power overseas.

Ramay: I have two quick observations:

Number one: Can we use or build some mechanisms to conquer the industrial-military complex? It has been expanded in the past. You can say it’s an industrial-military, Senator John Bright also included academia. Also, we can include think tanks and the media. Because actually, it’s that industrial-military complex and its arms, which are creating the problem. As a nation, if we talk about the people of the U.S. and the Western countries, I think they can advise us: They can tell us that you don’t want to kill the people. But there is something wrong with that complex. Can we build some mechanisms, or we can counter the influence of that complex, so we can bring back the normality?

Number two: on economic security. I think we have to bring back the economy from the security. If we are too much obsessed with the world of security, maybe we have to redefine the security economics. That security should be based on the well-being and the benefit, not the militarization of the economy. What we are doing at this point of time, in the name of economic security, we are bringing in the military and the militarization of the economy.

Maybe if we can work on these two things, this is my thinking, maybe we can do with some good mechanisms to counter this existing influence. Thank you.

Build Your Economy; Build the Future

Askary: I really want to thank Senator Black for what he said, but while he was speaking, I started receiving messages from some Iraqi friends, saying that this is the kind of American we want to have as a partner. So, maybe you should become an ambassador of good will for the United States, to repair the damage which has been caused.

But there are funny ironies in the way the U.S. military functions. Last year in relationship to China, specifically. Because last year, the Joint Chiefs Chairman Mark Milley was in a hearing in the U.S. Congress—I don’t think many people noticed that. But he was asked, “How much are our military forces dependent on China when it comes to medicines?” He said, and I quote:

You rightly pointed out that it is a vulnerability to have a country such as China manufacturing a high percentage—I don’t know if it is 97%, 98% or 80%, whatever it is, but I do know it is a high percentage of the ingredients for the American pharmaceutical industry across the country, both military and civilian.

So, most of the medicines—antibiotics, vaccines—that American soldiers use around the world in their bases are produced by China. Now, after the hearing, did the United States say, well we have to shift this and start producing our own medicines? No! Because the ideology is a free-trade ideology, which says if it comes cheaper from China, let’s buy it from China. So, there is something wrong with the American way of fixing the economy.

I have a friend in Iraq, he said he had some job to do fixing stuff at an American base. Iraqis, when they meet Americans as individuals, they like them. They have no problem with the American citizens. But he said, if you go to the supermarket in a U.S. base in Iraq, the supermarket is full of Chinese goods. So, I think the Americans should think a little bit about this issue and try to fix their economy. Mr. LaRouche had been fighting for this for many years—it’s not like it’s anti-Chinese to build your economy or infrastructure and produce your own medicines. That’s the natural thing a sane people would do. But at the same time, they can work with other nations—like people in Iraq.

The reason Iraqis have survived not only the last few decades, but thousands of years or wars, is because they are willing to forgive and forget. Maybe they will not forget everything that has happened to them, but they are willing to forgive, if, on condition they are provided with a future. The reason the Iraqis survive, is that they are always thinking that tomorrow will be better. “We will have a solution to these crises. Our children will have a better life than we do.” It’s in that sense that if we have our mind in the future, then we will be able to think much more clearly when dealing with the problems we have today. So, thank you, Senator Richard Black, you really made a great contribution.

Sare: I appreciate what you said Hussein. I think this is a cultural question, which we started to get at in the first panel yesterday, because I’m sort of amazed by the speakers we’ve had from Yemen, Syria, Iraq, and others, that we have this quality of optimism; where we in the United States, and perhaps Western Europe as well, who have not nearly suffered the same hardship, are much more pessimistic about the ability to change the future. And I think that’s something we should think about.

Difference Between an Empire and a Republic

Moderator: A questioner asks, for Jacques Cheminade: “Has any European nation now distanced itself from the comments of President Biden, his attack on the President of the Russian Federation Putin, as a ‘killer’? Is there any word from any European government distancing itself from this remark?”

Jacques Cheminade: It is a very, very important question that you ask. I would take it in a certain more in-depth way because I think it’s very important to understand that: It’s the difference between an empire and a republic. If you look at what an empire is, and this is part of all the things we have discussed, an empire has no constitution, it has no principle, it has rules based on habit and based on conservation of things. So, this creates in a population, naturally, pessimism, because there is no creation; by principle there is no creation. And the expertise in an empire is not based on searching for truth, but on establishing the causes logically of an already-existing universe.

So, you rule over an empire by dividing people. Internationally, it’s geopolitics, as Helga mentioned. Inside the empire, you divide according to religions, to origins, or whatever, and you create a sort of cancel culture, the war of all against all, based on things that would prevent a sense of a common good. And then, it goes even inside the minds of people, and there I reach the former republics in Europe, who still have an imperial way of thinking.

So, the lack of opposition comes from this imperial way of thinking, where you have in the minds of people, a division between science and art, action and let’s say, inaction, and so on and so forth. In such a mind, you have a difference, and François Mitterrand, once a French President, said it bluntly: a difference between what you think, in what you say; and in what you do. So, you have a divided self. So, it’s not only divide and rule as your politics, divide to rule within groups inside the nation, it’s divide to rule within the mind.

Then you have a lack opposition and you see, typically, the French President Macron would say “at the same time,” “at the same time.” This “at the same time” means that you don’t take a forceful action. The call of action is very important. Because these people in the European way of thinking, based on still an imperial behavior which leads them to not intervene or to intervene on the side of the criminals. And this is what happens. That’s the first thing to say.

Then the republic. The republic is made of citizens, and as Helga said yesterday, an individual citizen that makes and develops a republic. This is based with the idea of freedom, as inscribed in the American Constitution. This freedom is not only to not harm the other—you are still there with enemies and friends. It’s not even to do to the other all the good that you would like the other to do to you. It’s to unleash in the other all the creative potentials. And this is the basis of agapē.

So, this you don’t have in Europe…. [In Europe] our work to create that and to recreate that. So, there is a semblance of opposition to the Biden Administration at a certain level, but absolutely nothing substantial comes out of it, because there is this impotence of the divided self.

I think it’s very important to understand when you look at Western Europe, because as Diane said before: You look at Ibero-America, you look at Africa, you look at the Mideast and you have people who are much more forceful, because they don’t fear a conflict. They don’t fear … [opposition] if they are intellectually committed, they have been morally committed to the other, to the advantage of the other, they have been raised to take a conflict not with anger, but with hope.

And this is why I mentioned the importance of poetry: Because poetry in that sense is to explore the unknown as we have to explore this unknown to organize a much better world. And this is the basis of our commitment in the Schiller Institute.

This is exactly something that European leaders—Western leaders, but European leaders in particular—fail to understand, because they are ruled by an imperial bureaucracy, which is called the European Union. And this is what it has become. It does not have the appearance of it, but the reality of it is that.

So, we have to free ourselves inside our minds, inside our institutions and inside of our own countries, of this imperial weight that we still have. And I think this is key for us to understand what freedom and what happiness means.

Declaration of China Experts
From All Over the World

Zepp-LaRouche: Well, I have a little project…. I believe since a very long time that the key strategic conflict which has to be solved is the one between the United States and China. If these two countries can be won to work together, then I think that all the conflicts can be solved. If they don’t work together, I think we’re heading for a catastrophe.

Now, a couple of weeks ago, I decided to launch a little initiative, like a call, an appeal to China experts from all over the world—people who know China either from their own experience, because they worked there or lived there, or have business there; and they should sign a little appeal. [Zepp-LaRouche read the text of the Declaration of China Experts. The text and China’s reaction to it appear in last week’s EIR.].

Now, that call has already been signed by about 30-40 influential, important experts from all over the world, and I would appeal to you, the participants and viewers of this conference that you help me to spread that, because I think if people from every single country would express that, I think we could counter the anti-China propaganda.

I’m sorry that I’m using my position here, to launch this initiative, but I think it’s really important. And while I don’t want to distract from the absolute necessity to address the plight of the people in Yemen and Syria, and solve the problem of the whole region, I think if we counter this anti-China campaign internationally, we have made a major step forward in also solving the problem of Southwest Asia. So, I would ask all of you, sign it, spread it, help to make it really a powerful avalanche of statements.

NATO—Threat to World Peace

Moderator: Three last questions:

First Question: “Do you view NATO, as is sometimes alleged, as an armored organization arm of the EU? Or is the EU a means to an end, i.e., rather an economic NATO, as was stated by Hillary Clinton, they say, et al.?”

“Secondly, on the hybrid eternal warfare of the self-declared empire for decades against Iran and North Korea, [since] 2001 against terrorism, then against Russia, then against China; in the meantime, even against what they call the fellow passengers of the empire, too? This conflict is often inconsiderately named “an existential power struggle for the U.S.” The person asks: “Isn’t it rather recognizable that this permanent warfare is fought exclusively in the interests of the financially powerful? The big central banks, and some bureaucrats, while flagrantly using the power of, as well as the disunity of the U.S. citizenry?”

Second Question: “Is the U.S. being induced to destroy itself, that the current policies of the United States seem to be diametrically opposed to the policies of 75 years ago, that is, when we were under Franklin Roosevelt and allied with China and Russia, defeating fascism in Europe? And who would benefit from the United States changing its identity in this way?”

Sen. Black: Thank you very much. Let me just touch on NATO for a minute. It’s ironic that NATO, which was originally and genuinely established as a defensive alliance against the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact, has evolved to where it is now one of the greatest threats to world peace. NATO has moved, despite a solemn promise to the Soviet Union that we would not move one inch to the East, we have moved a thousand miles to the virtual border of Russia, and we’re now flying missions of nuclear-capable bombers, where they charge up towards the border, and only at the last instant do they peel off, forcing the Russians to alert all of their forces, and prepare for a defensive maneuver. It’s extremely reckless. It is extremely dangerous. And we have people in NATO who are willing to risk a nuclear war! And it’s become quite, quite dangerous!

Now, who benefits from all of this? Yeah, there’s no doubt that there are global backers—I always think of the boys from Davos—the globalists, the international oligarchs—who really have no national allegiance to any people. Their goal is allegiance to the one-world order. And it is true that they benefit tremendously from disunity, and I think some of the things happening in the United States: We have a division of troops defending the Capitol against the American people, and meanwhile, no troops defending the southern border which has virtually collapsed.

And I think there is a plan to basically reduce nations, and particularly the United States, to groups of squabbling, bickering individuals and nationalities, and religions and so forth, to where the people can never be a countervailing force against evil. And I think that is not accidental. And I think it does lead toward the ultimate self-destruction of the United States, and I suspect that similar things are happening to the nations of the European Union, where all of the defenses of the individual countries making up the EU have been abolished by the bureaucracy in Brussels. And the people have no voice in their government, any more than, today, the people in the United States have very little confidence in our elections any longer, very little ability to influence our government in any way.

I want to go back to one thing, and then I’ll conclude, but someone mentioned that what do we do with the military-industrial complex, which is so vast and powerful? The only possibility that I see is, under the current Administration, to set up a tension between the increased military expenditures, and the desire, perhaps, to actually carry out this infrastructure project. The only way that you have any chance of diminishing the military-industrial complex is to set it in competition with another political force, and the political force would be infrastructure and the building of roads, dams, bridges, highways, railways—this type of thing. I would like to see that attempted.

I would like to see the Biden Administration seriously consider, instead of the continuing warfare in the Middle East, and in Africa, to draw back and to use those funds for construction within the country. And I think there is some possibility of doing that. And who knows, there might be some way that we could make a proposal through the Schiller Institute to do something like that—but I just throw that out as a possibility.

Unless there is a countervailing political force, the military-industrial complex will continue to be utterly dominant in American foreign affairs.

And thank you very much for having me. I’m going to have to sign off, now, but I very much appreciate the remarks of all of your guests here. They have certainly enlightened me. And my prayers are always with the people of Yemen, that Saudi Arabia and the United States will eventually stop the utterly criminal war against the people of Yemen. And likewise, we have made war on Iraq for 30 years, starting with the Gulf War in 1990. Time to end it: We talk about the Thirty Years’ War in Europe. We’ve now fought the Thirty Years’ War in the Middle East and it’s time for it to come to an end. We need to pull people out. We need the Iraqis to stand up an independent government without the heavy hand of the United States.

Anyway, God bless all of you. My best wishes and thank you very much, Helga, for putting this on.

Optimism from Real Economics

Askary: I find it challenging to say anything meaningful, after what Sen. Richard Black just said. But I want just to remind people of one thing, and also conclude by that:

The late Mr. Lyndon LaRouche, in talking about the endless wars, produced a video in 1999—I very clearly remember that day, also—it’s called “Storm Over Asia,” in which he warned that there might be a series of wars launched all over Eurasia. But he said that conventional war has become obsolete. You can no longer win conventional wars. The only way you win a war today, unfortunately, is by using nuclear weapons.

He not only is warning against that, so we can have demonstrations in the streets against these wars, but he, at the same time, developed an economic alternative to this, which we now call the New Silk Road, the Eurasian Land-Bridge, but also for the reconstruction of the U.S. economy itself. So therefore, rather than using a lot of our energy and time, trying to figure out who’s behind the wars and everything that’s important, but we need to equally think about learning about economics, as Mr. LaRouche has taught us and tried to get them to the people, and also educate other people—especially young people—but even people in power. [Box: LaRouche’s ‘Development Corridor’ Economics Closely Followed in Iraq]

Because we think about human beings, they can change. Nobody will be evil forever or stupid forever: They can improve, and they can change. And therefore, it’s very important that we learn these things and be able to deliver it to others.

I think one of the reasons we have, not only by myself—in Iraq, I know many Iraqis, some of whom we’ve become friends now; they are activists, but they are on social media, they’re not in power. One of them is even called Qareem Silk, because he talks so much about the Silk Road, trying to educate people in Iraq. But what they appreciate most—those young people in Iraq, and others I talk to—is the optimism that is generated by understanding how real economics works. How to build a nation, how to sustain a development process; where does wealth come from, which is the human mind? These things are giving an enormous injection of optimism to those people in Iraq I talk to, and I’m sure the same applies to other places.

Now, there are some young people who don’t [agree, but say,] “Look, we should overthrow this government. They are working against the Silk Road.” I say:

Look, stop this regime-change nonsense. You have to educate yourself. That’s how you take power in your country. And I’m willing to help you understand these things, but also, you can educate your politicians, your leaders, and others in these things.

And I think it’s very important, even for people in the United States. I was very happy to hear the discussions going on in Ibero-America, in yesterday’s panel—all this education going on, because that would be extremely important for the American people to shift this terrible, disruptive culture—and the same applies to Europe. That’s what I would like to conclude with.

Recreate International Law

Raimbaud: Just two remarks before ending my intervention. I do agree about what was said about the basic necessity to recreate, reorganize a much better world order. Of course, it is true. But I think we cannot do that when we ally it with—reach this goal without creating a new international law.

But the problem if you happen to listen to a meeting of the Security Council of the United Nations, and when we have the delegates of the Western countries on the one hand, and for example, the Russian delegate, or the Chinese ambassador on the other side, you have no common viewpoint, you have no common background. I think we have the impression that those five permanent members of the Security Council of the United Nations don’t live in the same world. They don’t speak about the same thing. The speech is quite different, not only in the contents, but about the basics.

There is no international law anymore, it is obvious. And we need to recreate an international law. Because we cannot continue and create a consensus between when the big powers in the world, even taking into account the new political balance, geopolitical balance in the world, without creating this new order. That was existing in the time of the Cold War. I am not nostalgic for the Cold War, but I think that there was some kind of balance, and some kind [of] common understanding to avoid war.

For the time being, we cannot. And I think that the first big things other countries—the Arab countries; domestic countries, for example, Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Libya—I don’t know what—Saudi Arabia, all the countries in the region, for example, that are the victims of these permanent tensions with the two blocs that I have mentioned.

I think that geopolitical balance is very, very important, but geopolitical order in the world does need to create or to recreate a new international law. Because when we note that the President Biden, for example, accused President Putin to be a killer, to be a murderer, or to be a criminal—a head of state—I think it was not possible when there was an international law, because international law is not only “law,” but it’s a kind of language, what you might call language—the customs, the comportment, behaviors, and, I should say, the protocol: what can be said and what cannot be said.

And I think as far as we have not recreated this common understanding between the nations, there will be no peace in the world. No military solution, but a political solution: up to the diplomats to create a new political world, not to the military and to the armies, because the tension will be permanent. For the time being, it is not possible, because there is no common understanding.

This is the reason why I rely I think the geopolitics is not a kind of entertainment for intellectuals, it’s a reality, because the policies of geography, indeed, the policies of the country are duly related to the geographical position on Earth. You have not the same policies in the United States that is far from the theater, for example, from the Middle East, that have suffered the world wars, of even the warfare in its land. But I think that for the European countries there should be more attention to this problem. But in fact, for ideological reasons, I think that Western countries, the Western European countries, are very close to the United States, they are linked together with ideological links, and they cannot get very far from the U.S. positions.

I think that in this situation there will be no political solution, for example, for Syria for the Syrian people. For example, for the Iraqi, I was noticing in that period that for Iraq, a period of 30 years was needed in order to recognize what happened in Iraq, the number of victims, the tragedy for the state that was destroyed, for the people of Iraq, for the children of Iraq, we needed 30 years to understand and to recognize openly what happened, that it was a criminal operation, and a kind of plan to destroy Iraq.

Will we need 30 years to recognize what is happening for the time being in Syria, destroying the country and the state, destroying the people of Syria—well, this criminal aggression, this international crime of aggression par excellence, well, will we need 30 years to recognize when there is no Syria anymore?

I think this is the problem, and I say that about Syria and Iraq, but I should say that about Yemen, about all the other missing countries in the region, and maybe other things; all the drama, the tragedies in the world.

So, we need a new international order, but a new international law: International law is not just a declaration. It’s a necessity, for a much better, new world.

Economic Security—Welfare of the People

Ramay: I will end by talking a little bit more about economic security. That is a very important area to break, that complex. Because this is an area where they play with the common people: They say, “your economy is endangered, so we have to do something militarily, to control something.” So they use that fight among the people. Rather than trying to do something for the people, they try to blame other people, like what was going on in France with the Yellow Vest movement. What was the output? The media ignored it, to a large extent. They just tried to keep it at the lower level. So again, they are blaming it on somebody else.

So, CPEC, which is the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, again, the hostage, you can say the victim of this logic of the economic security. It has been presented to the different countries, “Look, if the CPEC will be completed, your economic security will be at stake.” That is not the case! Actually CPEC is an opportunity to connect, it is an opportunity to help Pakistan; it is [liberation from the] alliance of the last four decades. We sacrificed for the alliance for the last four decades. Even after the War on Terror, we lost more than 70,000 people. We also, you can say, picked up a loss of $120 billion of our economy. But, still! If something is happening, you are criticizing in the name of economic security of your own self-defined parameters.

CPEC is also an opportunity for Afghanistan, as I presented already. Afghanistan really needs economic help, which can create economic opportunities, not aid! Because there are 30 million people there, you cannot give the aid to 30 million people: You need economic opportunity. That’s why I was talking about Afghanistan in an Economic Integration Project.

So, we need to talk about, for that purpose to break the nexus, or to weaken the nexus, we have to bring back economics from the jaws of the security of the military. We have to bring it back to the welfare and the wellbeing—as China did. Look at China! In the last four decades, they brought out more than 750 million people from poverty, because their economic security was defined on the basis of well-being and the welfare of people, not on the economic security defined on the military terminology. So this is a strong difference. And think, that is the same reason the industrial and military complex is against China, because China is not providing them the same opportunities which they can have from other parts of the world.

I will conclude here: We have to bring back economic security from the jaws of the military and security divide. We have to refocus the economic security in the terms of welfare and wellbeing of people. Thank you so much.

Free Ourselves from the Division of the Mind

Cheminade: Our enemy is, of course, the financial British Empire which has mutated into an Anglo-American form. And this is a … force against all, and also against the British people, and mainly the American people. So we have to free ourselves, and that would, in our action, solve the problem of the division of our mind. We have to be clear about what we are doing, not with anger or resentment, but with the joy of bringing something to our populations.

The second point is that the European Union has become one branch of this empire, and attacks as such with the Global Green Deal, the Green New Deal, which is against the very conception of populations. It’s criminal in its intent.

Then, NATO is a military branch of this Imperial system, and remember that NATO was a weapon for the Club of Rome: “There are limits to growth”—what Lyndon LaRouche opposed, there are no limits to growth, and he said how to proceed to make it work. So this being said, it has to be understood that China is a key part of the solution, and Helga’s Declaration is key, including for Southwest Asia, because, to give justice to China is to give justice, by the same token to the Middle East; and what Hussein wrote, and what was developed by our speakers from that region, it’s now very clear.

So what happens for us Western countries? Our countries should change because we are part of the problem. So the solution is uproot the evil planted in us by this Empire notion. And remember, the punishment for us, was—the punishment on the empires in World War I, what was the British Empire mainly, as Helga said, but remember, France was also an empire, Germany was an empire, there was an Ottoman Empire, and all these empires created conditions of war.

So this should be remembered, and then if you are a republican, your mind is no longer divided, because you are a citizen committed to the universal good, to the common good. And this is inscribed in the American Constitution, and it is a way, as was stressed [in Panel 2] by Alejandro Yaya or Daniel Marmolejo, and in particular, Carolina Domínguez [Panel 1]: It’s to create a youth movement, where this freedom, this liberation of the heavy weight of the empire—we are freed, and then our mind is straight.

And that’s a challenge. And the challenge, I am optimistic that we are going to advance very fast, because the moment of history is tragic and, in these moments, there is the chance to change things. Together we can change it, and I am all already seeing the resonance of what we are doing in our diverse countries, and we should keep going. I think there is a sense of poetic hope for the future because we are ready to explore the unknown, which is a commitment to do better than those who inspired us from the past, and to bring to Lyndon LaRouche the gift that he deserves.

Wang Yi in Southwest Asia: ‘Accelerating Development Cooperation’

China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi visited six nations in Southwest Asia March 24-30, bringing the prospect of international collaboration for regional rebuilding and peace. He toured Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Iran, UAE, Bahrain, and Oman. At his first stop, in Riyadh, he issued five points for “achieving security and stability in the Middle East,” the last of which focused on “accelerating development cooperation.” Wang elaborated:

China has signed documents on Belt and Road cooperation with 19 Middle East countries and carried out distinctive collaboration with each of them. China is working with all regional countries in fighting COVID-19. It will deepen vaccine cooperation in light of the needs of regional countries and discuss with them trilateral vaccine cooperation with Africa. As it fosters a new development paradigm, China is ready to share with Middle East countries its market opportunities, work with Arab countries to actively prepare for the China-Arab states summit, promote high-quality Belt and Road cooperation, and expand new areas of growth such as high and new technologies.

In Tehran on March 27, a 25-year “Comprehensive Strategic Partnership” agreement was signed between Iran and China, by Wang Yi and Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, to further economic and transport cooperation, and deepen trade. Areas for expanded activity range from mining and oil, to manufacturing and agriculture. Importantly, Wang met the same day on the topic of nuclear power, with Iran’s nuclear envoy Ali Larijani, as well as meeting with President Hassan Rouhani.

This initiative with Iran, comes just days after important consultations in China, between Wang Yi and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, on advancing mutual interest policy diplomacy. [back to text]

LaRouche’s ‘Development Corridor’ Economics Closely Followed in Iraq

April 2—In an Arabic Facebook broadcast immediately watched by more than 3,000 people in Southwest Asia, primarily Iraqis, Hussein Askary, the primary organizer of this third conference panel, presented Lyndon LaRouche’s concept of the Development Corridor (not trade) as the cornerstone of the Belt and Road/New Silk Road strategy. The April 1 broadcast focused on what Iraq’s strategy for development should be amid building tension between the U.S.-British axis and Russia and China, had 6,600 views by April 2.

Askary advised Iraqis to focus on peace and reconstruction but accept the only serious offer, which is from China. If the United States and NATO countries are willing to respect Iraq’s sovereignty and offer to build infrastructure, Iraq should accept that and encourage it, he said. But they should have no illusions about the Blinken Administration. He reviewed the importance of Russia’s and China’s reacting to Biden calling President Putin a “killer,” when prominently participating in the Schiller Institute March 20-21 conference and promoting the Schiller Institute campaign to stop the vilification of China. China and Russia also reached out to the nations of Southwest Asia providing important initiatives for common security arrangements and economic development.

The broadcast otherwise described Lyndon LaRouche’s physical economics, tracing back the genesis of the Belt and Road Initiative corridors idea to the 1990s work of the LaRouches and EIR’s special reports. Askary gave a detailed explanation of how development corridors works and why heavy investment in infrastructure, while monetarily “not profitable,” is economically so. He took the example of iron ore as it travels across Sweden’s 1,500 kilometers from the mines in the north to the machine and auto industries in the south and southwest. At each hundred kilometers of the journey of the iron on rail or roads it is transformed into new products, adding more value to it, increasing the productivity and prosperity of the societies along the way. Even if the Swedish government has spent billions on these railways and roads, it profited much more from the industrial capacity it enabled. In LaRouche’s words, “the cost of infrastructure becomes less than zero.”

Askary told the audience that they should join the LaRouche Arabic school he has founded, and learn real economics, instead of going to American, British, or French universities where they learn how to become “bookkeepers.” Such a bookkeeper is the current Iraqi London-educated finance minister (who is a British citizen as well) who is selling the country piece by piece to the IMF and further ruining the living conditions of the Iraqi people.

Askary reported a positive response, a large number of questions, and the fact that some high-level officials, including a former prime minister, are among those following these classes. Campaigning for the October general elections in Iraq is starting, and there is discussion of a “Silk Road” coalition developing in parliament where members of different parties might make a joint declaration to activate the China-Iraq “oil for reconstruction” agreement and join the New Silk Road. [back to text]