EIR LEAD EDITORIAL FOR FRIDAY, OCTOBER 15, 2021

An Act of Conscience—Prevent Mass Death in Afghanistan: Return the Nation’s Assets

Oct. 14, 2021 (EIRNS)—Collaborators of the international Schiller Institute staged rallies and public street events today in many nations, in a “Day of Action” demanding that the U.S. release the funds belonging to the people of Afghanistan, which have been frozen in the U.S. Treasury, while the Afghan people face starvation. The rallies also got out the message: “A Wake Up Call: The Danger for Mankind Is Not the Climate, but Toleration of a Devious Policy that Uses Climate To Destroy Us!” which is the title of the statement released Oct. 12 by Helga Zepp-LaRouche and Dr. Guus Berkhout, the initiator of the CLINTEL, an organization of international scientists who refute the fake science on carbon and climate change. These documents were distributed at key sites in places from Colombia, to Germany. They included New York City; Houston, Texas; Montreal, Canada; Mexico City; Paris; Berlin; and Wiesbaden. In Washington, D.C., dozens of the international delegations in town for the annual IMF and World Bank sessions received the statements. In the Midwest, activists with the LaRouche Organization hit the campus of the University of Michigan.

It is a test of conscience to take the urgently needed action in Afghanistan: muster and deliver the large-scale emergency aid—food, fuel, winter materiel, etc.; start the longer-term infrastructure building as fast as possible; and immediately, release the $9 billion in assets wrongfully being withheld by U.S. authorities, which belong to the people of Afghanistan, and are needed in restarting daily life.

This is the only moral, the only reasonable approach. The same power of reason is the only sane response to the rapidly deteriorating economic crises in the Trans-Atlantic and related economies. Look at two examples of the most recent headline situations:

In Europe, the same electricity and gas hyperinflation and shortages which were expressed most dramatically weeks ago in Britain, are now spreading across the continent. This week, a German energy retailer declared bankruptcy. In the Czech Republic, an energy company suddenly cut off its 90,000 customers, telling them to seek alternatives with a state company. The situation clearly calls for collaboration across Europe to freeze spot markets, stop speculation, work out contracts to keep supplies moving, make the needed logistics arrangements, and get moving on stopping the green transition to unreliable, so-called renewables.

Instead, EU authorities met yesterday, and came up with an energy Tool Box, with no tools. They simply OK’d some stop-gap measures, as, for example in Spain, for governments to aid households and companies facing unpayable energy bills; and they made a vague commitment to one day having an EU-wide energy market.

In the United States, the delays in goods production, spare parts, shipping, and related functions are worsening by the minute, with rising energy prices part of the mix that otherwise includes decades of lack of transport and other infrastructure. In agriculture, threats to the Fall harvest, crop shipment, and storage, come from lack of spare parts for machinery, and rising fuel costs. The situation clearly calls for interim emergency measures, sector by sector, to keep vital production and services going, from healthcare delivery, to food processing; while stopping speculation cold, reorganizing banking and credit, and preparing for full-scale economic rebuilding.

Instead, President Biden issued a King Canute executive order yesterday, that goods shipments will henceforth be speeded up, because the Long Beach-Los Angeles port complex, the biggest in the nation, will henceforth work 24/7 and no longer take night-time and weekends off.

In Washington, D.C., the Group of Seven finance ministers also met yesterday on the subject of the supply-chain crises, and issued a decision to form a task force on supply chains, rather than take any meaningful action.

Meantime, the situation is untenable for millions more people each day. There are major labor actions now almost daily in the U.S. This morning, 10,000 workers of the John Deere machinery manufacturer went on strike. The workforce of Kellogg’s cereals processor are on strike. Alabama coal miners are on strike for the seventh month.

There is no other recourse in the interest of nations and peoples, than for citizens to step forward and see the “big picture,” as it is described in the joint statement being circulated internationally today, and to act accordingly. The premises and policy recommendations of what must be done are presented clearly in the report, “The Coming U.S. Economic Miracle on the New Silk Road,” the 55-page report by The LaRouche Organization, now available online, and in print.

Doing what is right for Afghanistan is the act of conscience necessary to make economic development happen everywhere, for everyone.