EIR LEAD EDITORIAL FOR SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 18, 2021

Australia-U.K.-U.S. Strategic Alliance—‘No Good Deal’

Sept. 17, 2021 (EIRNS)—The strategic agreement announced by Australia, the U.K. and the U.S. (AUKUS), involving both nuclear submarines and nuclear technology for Australia (which continues to reject the use of peaceful nuclear power despite its abundant supplies of uranium) and other high-tech cooperation, has sounded the death knell for NATO—which was already on its deathbed following the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan without getting “permission” from Britain or the EU. Helga Zepp-LaRouche today, speaking on her strategic Schiller Institute webcast, said:

“They claim it is not directed against any one particular country, but that’s not very credible, because it’s clearly against China. They claim this is supposed to increase stability and peace in the Indo-Pacific. The Chinese response to it was that this is creating more instability. And with that goes the fact that the Australian government cancelled a deal they had with France under negotiations for 12 conventional fuel submarines.

“So this is obviously a no good deal. No ally, no NATO member was informed. The French were completely caught by surprise. The deal [for submarines] between Australia and France was supposed to be signed at the end of this month. Without forewarning, the deal was cancelled, and it’s causing complete havoc in the relationship between Australia and France, and the United States, and Great Britain.”

French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian this evening announced the recall of French ambassadors from the U.S. and Australia, and without reason, left out the U.K., despite the fact that Boris Johnson, Scott Morrison and Joe Biden had announced the deal jointly. Are the French again submitting to British dominion?

A planned celebration of the 1781 victory of the French fleet against the British fleet in Chesapeake Bay—a victory which provided Gen. George Washington the margin to defeat Cornwallis at Yorktown and achieve victory over the British Empire in the American Revolution, was to take place at the Ambassador’s residence this evening, but was cancelled.

Zepp-LaRouche continued:

“Again, you have the creation of a new security arrangement involving the United States and Great Britain, which are both NATO members, with a third country, Australia, and they’re not informing their NATO allies! This is now the second time something like this has happened. It happened with the sudden withdrawal of the U.S. from Afghanistan, where the United States pulled out overnight, without even telling the Afghan allies there, never mind the NATO allies. So this does not speak well for the cohesion and the trust within NATO, and I think this is another blow. And the consequence of that is that NATO is an obsolete alliance. It should have been disbanded when the Soviet Union collapsed. Or, it should have been offered to Russia to become part of it, which Russia would have accepted at that time.”

The danger, Zepp-LaRouche observed, is that this no good deal “tends to confirm what many experts had considered and were worried about, that one aspect of the Biden policy to end the endless wars, by pulling out of Afghanistan, has been to shift all attention to the containment of China in the Indo-Pacific, and this could very well be one reflection of it.”

In a “two plus two” meeting today between the U.S. and Australian foreign and defense ministers, the joint communiqué issued a direct threat to China by calling for both nations to improve relations with Taiwan as a “leading democracy” and a “critical partner,” even asserting that “statehood was not a prerequisite” for these relations. China, of course, views this as a red line, an attack on Chinese sovereignty based on the “One China” agreement which has defined U.S. relations with China since the establishment of official relations. Zepp-LaRouche reported:

“The Chinese press has had two scenarios, that if it comes to war between the United States and China over the South China Sea, or over Taiwan, in each case, if it came to war, the Chinese would win. And we had various whistleblowers, including Daniel Ellsberg, who several months ago had insisted that there should be a new whistleblower who would reveal the very worrisome discussion in the Pentagon about the possibility, if in such a case that there would be a war between China and the United States, conventionally, and the Chinese would win, would the United States then consider the use of nuclear weapons?

“Now, again, these are hair-raising issues, because, I have said many times that I fully believe that if you go to nuclear weapons, that it is the logic of nuclear war that all weapons would be used, and that the likelihood that this would be the end of civilization is very high. And in light of that, if you look at the fact that the commander of the Strategic Command, Adm. Charles Richard, already last February, changed the likelihood of the use of nuclear weapons from ‘not likely’ to ‘very likely’—and this is still sitting there!

“So I can only say, we need urgently to go in a different direction, because if you do not leave the field of geopolitics it is a question of time, when, by intent or by accident, this thing will go wrong. So this is why we have to campaign for the replacement of geopolitics with a new paradigm of cooperation among nations for the common aims of mankind. If we as a human species cannot muster that kind of rationality, we may not make it.”

The critical event in which this new paradigm can, and must, be achieved, is over the fate of Afghanistan. Zepp-LaRouche pointed to the absolute devastation of the conditions of the population in Afghanistan after 20 years of occupation by the U.S. and NATO forces. And yet, “the Western forces basically say, as long as you have the Taliban in power, we will cut off all financial cooperation. The U.S. Treasury has frozen $9 billion which belongs to the Afghan population. The IMF froze $400 million Special Drawing Rights. So the result of it is that there is absolutely no cash in Afghanistan. Banks have no money, people can’t take money out of the bank; therefore, they cannot buy food, they cannot buy medicine, they can’t import anything. As a result, you have now—and obviously this condition existed before, because NATO has only been out for a month—there is now food insecurity for 14 million people, and 14 million more having just a little bit of food. This is the warning by World Food Program director David Beasley. So, the population is about to starve.

“On top of it, you have a health crisis, because the donor countries have cut off their previous help, as a result of which, more than 90% of the population is without medical attention. About 4,000 medical facilities are being closed down, because they have no fuel, they have no electricity, they cannot even keep the COVID-19 vaccines refrigerated, because the refrigerators don’t have power. This is threatening the lives of pregnant women, of malnourished children. And I can only say, if you hear this, and then hear the hypocrisy of people saying, ‘We are so concerned about the rights of women, the Taliban does not respect the rights of women, and these people are killing pregnant women! What about that? I think the hypocrisy on this issue is so incredible—but what we are doing right now, from the Schiller Institute, and also the Committee for the Coincidence of Opposites, we are trying to mobilize the conscience of the world that that attitude has to stop!

“So I think the Western countries, the United States and the other NATO countries that walked away, have an absolute responsibility to join hands with Afghanistan’s neighboring countries, with Russia, with the Central Asian republics, with Pakistan, Iran, India, and China, and help in this humanitarian crisis, and create real development. I think this is the absolutely urgent need of the time.”

Today, Russian President Vladimir Putin, speaking to the SCO Summit in Dushanbe, explicitly pointed to the critical necessary solution to the crisis in Afghanistan, saying that the optimal approach is “through the mechanism of the Extended Troika on Afghanistan.” This group of four involves Russia, China, Pakistan and, importantly, the United States. Also importantly, Putin said that “this work is already in progress.”

This is the issue: Will the countries which carried out the mass destruction through the “endless wars” simply walk away, or will they join with the rest of humanity in building a new paradigm, beginning with the development of Afghanistan. This is an issue facing not just certain world leaders, but all nations, and all citizens of the world.