EIR LEAD EDITORIAL FOR MONDAY, MARCH 15, 2021

Hypocrisy and the ‘Cockpits for War’

March 14 , 2021 (EIRNS)—The Schiller Institute Conference this coming weekend, March 20-21, will include on Sunday morning a panel on the rapidly escalating danger of war, focused on the most dangerous “cockpits” for war, which are being intentionally stoked by the trans-Atlantic war party—the Middle East and East Asia. Spokesmen from these regions, as well as American military experts who are warning against this madness, will present both the danger and the necessary solutions, based on development of the sort represented by the Belt and Road Initiative.

Look at the madness: Jens Stoltenberg, Secretary General of NATO (emphasis on “North Atlantic”), speaking virtually to the CFR March 11, described NATO’s importance in terms of confronting the rise of China, which, he said, “poses challenges for our security and way of life. That is why we should deepen our partnerships with countries like Australia and Japan.” President Joe Biden’s Defense Secretary Gen. Lloyd Austin (ret.), who is now travelling to Japan, South Korea and India, told reporters on March 13 that while the U.S. was focused on fighting terrorism, China was modernizing its military forces. Austin claimed the “competitive edge that we’ve had has eroded. We will maintain that edge. We are going to increase that edge going forward.” Note that China’s annual defense budget for 2020 was $178 billion, compared to the U.S. budget of $721 billion.

A very wise retired French General, Grégoire Diamantidis, addressed this NATO madness in an open letter to Stoltenberg released on March 11 (see below). NATO’s new posture, called “NATO 2030,” the General says, is based on presenting Russia and (increasingly) China as severe threats to the Western nations. “Two major ideas emerge from this study,” he writes.

“The first is the enlistment of Europeans against China’s planetary domination, in exchange for American protection of Europe against the Russian threat. The second is the circumvention of the consensus rule [in NATO’s command], in several ways: operations in ‘coalitions of the willing’; implementation of decisions that no longer require consensus; and above all the delegation of authority to SACEUR (Supreme Allied Commander Europe, an American general officer) on the grounds of efficiency and speeding up decision-making.” He stated that the Russian “threat” was “ patiently created and then maintained, so as to ‘bring to heel’ the European allies behind the United States, in the perspective of an forthcoming battle with China for world hegemony.”

NATO, initially a defensive alliance, he continues, is being transformed into “an offensive alliance against an enemy that does not exist for Europe.” He concludes that the new posture “would seek to justify the military tool of this alliance in the future by transforming it into a political instrument, unavoidable, for the management of vast international coalitions, for the benefit of a true planetary governance, even going so far as to override the decisions of the UN and crushing national sovereignties!”

Look then at Syria, where the Biden administration appears to have decided to keep the American military presence indefinitely, blatantly breaking international law while also stealing the nation’s oil, and now even their food. The official Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA) reported yesterday: “During the past two weeks, the U.S. occupation forces have stolen large quantities of wheat from the silos of Tal Alou through more than 112 trucks and sent them to northern Iraq.” Syria is a nation the UN has declared to be facing famine. One is reminded of the British exporting food from colonial India during the recurring famines which killed over 60 million citizens.

In China, the government party’s newspaper Global Times correctly characterizes the Biden administration’s policy regarding vaccines as extreme selfishness. “What is widely known,” today’s editorial reads,

“is that the U.S. has purchased a large quantity of vaccines. Europe hopes the U.S. could share with it some AstraZeneca vaccines, but the White House has refused. What makes the public even angrier is that the U.S. has not yet authorized the AstraZeneca vaccine and it is just stockpiling them in reserve. Many European countries have approved the AstraZeneca vaccine, but do not yet have it. Despite the enormous difference in their situations, Washington has refused to offer a helping hand, so how could developing countries count on the U.S.?...

“Besides its hypocrisy, Washington also smears China’s efforts to share its vaccines with developing countries and mobilizes its opinion mechanism to accuse China of engaging in deliberate ‘vaccine diplomacy.’ China’s timely vaccine program has saved many countries and groups of people who are most at risk. Washington has not reflected on its absence in this emergency aid, but described the aid as a geopolitical competition, which is terrifying.”

The final panel at the Schiller Institute Conference, on Sunday afternoon, will address the mobilization led by Helga Zepp-LaRouche to address the pandemic and the mounting famines around the world, in what she calls the “Committee on the Coincidence of Opposites.” Only if the perceived “opposites” of the U.S., Russia and China join forces, as they did in World War II, to mobilize the agricultural resources, the medical resources, and the vaccines desperately needed in the nations of the Middle East, Africa and South America, and mobilize the necessary military and other government-sponsored institutions to deliver these goods where needed, and build modern health capacities in all these regions, will the world escape from the unfolding biological holocaust, the threat of nuclear war, and the economic disintegration now being imposed under the Malthusian Green New Deal.