EIR LEAD EDITORIAL FOR MONDAY, DECEMBER 6, 2021

Has ‘Democracy’ Become a Dirty Word?

Dec. 5, 2021 (EIRNS)—Globally, does democracy—rule by the people—include all people, or only the manipulated opinions of those who reside in nations possessing enormous military, logistical, and informational power? If the world took a vote, would it endorse current U.S. policy?

Following the video summit between Presidents Biden and Putin—which comes just days after a flurry of breathless claims that Russia is preparing to invade Ukraine, the United States on Dec. 9 will open its “democracy” summit, in which that word will be twisted to mean whatever the purveyors of color revolutions wish it to mean.

Hysterical and numerically impossible claims about Russia mounting an army to invade Ukraine sound like the intended outcome of a scheme under which Ukraine, with U.S. and other military or at least (im)moral support, launches an attack to retake the eastern provinces of Donetsk and Luhansk. Were these regions to request (and receive) Russian support, the entire operation would be reported as though it were an unprovoked Russian attack on Ukraine’s sovereignty. This would parallel the situation in Crimea, in which a complex situation created following a coup backed by the U.S. and U.K. was presented as a simple matter of a Russian invasion of that peninsula. How should Russia respond to such an action by Ukraine? And how should you act today to prevent such a situation from unfolding?

The ongoing assault on China comprises several flanks: hypocritical claims of human rights abuses in Xinjiang, promotion of a drive for Taiwan independence, and attacks on the upcoming Olympics beginning in February 2022.

These destructive strategies of conflict are coming from the supposedly “democratic” leaders of the trans-Atlantic world, who have left a disaster in Afghanistan and cruelly deny the humanitarian and development assistance that nation so desperately needs.

An op-ed in Al Jazeera, written by an international group of supporters of Afghanistan, sums it up: “The Afghan people should not be denied vital healthcare and be abandoned without food because the international community sees economic starvation as the only available tool to influence the Taliban regime. The international community is effectively punishing Afghan civilians for the actions of a regime brought upon them by force.”

The op-ed concludes, “The international community that 20 years ago promised to support Afghans in their pursuit of peace, prosperity and human rights has a moral obligation to stop its freefall towards starvation and death. And the time to act is now.”

Is “democracy” practiced by murdering the people of Afghanistan? Are the “democratic rights” of the people of Russia supported by pursuing a reckless policy that threatens military engagement? Are the aspirations for “freedom” of the Chinese people advanced by stirring up trouble for them and their country, to prevent its growth?

The paradigm that drives this cruelty and fosters the cultivated indifference that tolerates it must be replaced. But how?

The economic success of China’s development and its willingness to bring its infrastructural know-how, hard capabilities and financing to projects around the world through its Belt and Road Initiative is a promising reference.

The ongoing Covid situation presents an opportunity to address the pitiful state of health infrastructure in much of the world, including significant portions of what are considered to be “developed” countries.

Can an initiative to partner with long-suffering Afghanistan to develop a modern health infrastructure in that nation force a rethinking of national goals and serve as a catalyst to bring into being a new paradigm of statecraft?

Will the conflict between what is promised under a Green New Deal, and the physical economic despair that that policy’s implementation would necessitate, be used to provoke a deeper understanding of power density and infrastructure platforms?

The answers to these questions lie in our hands.

Lyndon LaRouche and his movement have, over decades, developed, fought for, and succeeded in realizing policies capable of reversing economic collapse and inflation, cultural decay and division, geopolitics, and scientific stagnation.

Will you ensure that those efforts succeed?