EDITORIAL

The Homicidal Empire that Wants You To Forget How We Got Here

Sept. 22—Many are baffled at how the seemingly “civilized” West has arrived at the current state it exists in today. Although likely an underestimate, it is now reported that the U.S. homeless population exceeds 650,000. Add to this the rate of drug addiction and overdose, which has killed hundreds of thousands over the past 20 years; the number of train derailments—among those trains and railroads that still exist; the skyrocketing national debt and the far more dangerous, though not discussed, problem of financial derivatives. To these, dozens of other specifics could be added from across the U.S. and Europe, all illustrating in gruesome detail the collapse of the trans-Atlantic system.

Of course, the most immediate reality of this collapse, which demands our complete attention today, is the fact that the nations of the trans-Atlantic have abandoned international law, revoked countless agreements and arms control treaties, and are now rushing headlong into a nuclear showdown. As the former UN weapons inspector Scott Ritter put it on Sept. 20, if U.S. President Joe Biden and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer had agreed to give Ukraine permission to use precision-guided long-range missiles to strike Russian territory last Friday, Sept. 13—as had been hoped by many in the war party and media—then “on Saturday the 14th, we would all have been dead.”

However, to understand this dilemma one must see it within the ongoing process of history. Go back to when the United States was still an anti-oligarchical nation. Remember, it was Indonesia’s President Sukarno who, in 1955, called the American Revolution “the first successful anti-colonial war in history.” Sukarno himself along with the Non-Aligned Movement was determined to spread the anti-colonial principles underpinning the American Republic, and evoke the best in every nation to participate in a new, free world. But this potential was intentionally deployed against by that Anglo-Dutch oligarchical system, which has always seen the original intention behind the United States as a systemic threat to its rule. What remains today of that potential? What, for example, would Sukarno say today about America’s war in Ukraine, or Gaza?

However, despite the ensuing tragedies which have evolved—especially in the post-9/11 world of surveillance states and endless wars—the world has now changed. Back in 2009, in a presentation reprinted in this issue of EIR, Lyndon LaRouche forecast that the commitment by Russia and China to develop Russia’s Far East would be a “fundamental change in the direction of history.” Speaking to a conference in Moscow, in reference to the news that Russia and China had agreed on an initial plan to develop Siberia, LaRouche said: “The world is now going to have a trans-Pacific orientation, as opposed to a trans-Atlantic orientation…. Because combining the populations, which are numerous, but underdeveloped, with a process of development of the raw-materials areas of Siberia and related places, is the solution for the present world problem.” Winston Churchill slightly shook in anger from his grave.

That forecast has now been borne out, as the world is beginning to see the impact of the BRICS, Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU), and the broader discussion of a new financial architecture built around the need to develop the world. But in response, that empire has mobilized to prevent any meaningful collaboration with this emerging dynamic, declaring all-out war against it as a threat to their “rules-based order,” as the continued expansion of Global NATO—now moving to encircle China—illustrates.

We have now entered the most dangerous period in history. Yet we also stand on the threshold of the most transformative shift into a new era. As Sukarno and many others understood, the U.S. and the West must join hands with the majority of the world if a “solution for the present world problem” were to be found. Russia’s recent agreement to revive the largest steel plant in Nigeria, in what will only be Africa’s third such facility, gives an indication of this potential.

Wishfully-great Britain, on the other hand, is again exposing its own role in this unfolding historical process, as it is now leading the attempt to ignite a full-scale war between NATO and Russia. The UK’s top officials and mouthpieces are frantically barking that the U.S. must give the green light to Ukraine to use U.S. and European guided long-range missiles against Russia.

For those foolish enough to continue following the path set by today’s imperialist-driven war machine, it is undeniable that the end result will be thermonuclear extinction of humanity. However, a different option for mankind is now on the table. The question remains whether we will accept it or not.