EIR LEAD EDITORIAL FOR MONDAY JUNE 12, 2023

Peace for All Time

June 11, 2023, 2022 (EIRNS)—The topsy-turvy world of the West is becoming more unglued by the day, while the new, non-unipolar paradigm exemplified by the work of the BRICS is expanding in potential. Will the war for peace be fought and won?

With Trump’s coming arraignment on June 13, will his fellow Republican candidates, and all Americans, speak out against the clear use of the “justice” system for political ends? The 37-count indictment—in which each of 31 documents is repeated as an individual count (did the Department of Justice consider making each sentence its own count?)—is shocking for its use of the unconstitutional Espionage Act and for the selective nature of the prosecution overall. The principled application of the law is as important as fairly conducted trials to determine its breach. Some trumpetted that Trump’s indictment shows that “no one is above the law,” but the prosecution of the person overwhelmingly expected to be the incumbent President’s opponent in the 2024 election hardly supports this claim! If the DOJ were to investigate Hunter Biden on the other hand...

What’s more, allegations, filed with the relevant court by the lawyer involved, claim that DOJ officials attempted to extort the attorney for Trump’s main assistant (also indicted in Florida), suggesting that his application for a judgeship would depend on how he advised his client.

A recent story based on the Twitter Files shows the cooperation between the corrupt FBI and the Security Service of Ukraine (the SBU) in targeting accounts—including at least one American journalist—for “spreading fear and disinformation.” March 2022 demands for the shutdown of the accounts and the provision of the personal information of those who created them were relayed from the SBU to Twitter via the FBI, which made the request on the SBU’s behalf.

Meanwhile, one of the most important U.S. roadways, Interstate- 95, has collapsed in Philadelphia and been shut down following a fire there. A tanker truck fire was the reported cause of the collapse of the four lanes in one direction of an overpass of I-95 and the weakening and shutdown of the four opposite lanes, too. How long will it take to repair?

On the other side of the world, Honduran President Xiomara Castro has visited the New Development Bank in Shanghai, and has applied for Honduras, which recently shifted its recognition from Taipei to Beijing, to join the institution.

Afghanistan’s enormously successful eradication of opium cultivation has drawn the ire of the international dope lobby. “The Taliban’s Successful Opium Ban Is Bad for Afghans and the World,” is the title of a report by former World Bank country manager William Byrd, now working for the U.S. Institute of Peace, founded and financed by the U.S. Congress. Byrd, who supported freezing the Da Afghanistan Bank’s $9.5 billion in central bank assets, is weeping crocodile tears for the poor Afghans harmed by now producing wheat rather than deadly drugs: “The economic shock from the opium ban is enormous ... Afghanistan’s farm-level rural economy has lost more than $1 billion per year worth of economic activity.”

On the war front, Russia has reported that it thwarted attempts to use drones to destroy a Russian ship active on a Black Sea mission to protect the TurkStream and Blue Stream gas pipelines. And Russia has been invited to participate in China’s “Northern/Interaction-2023” military exercise. This will be the second time Russia has participated in such an exercise within China, with the first having been in August 2021.

If you haven’t yet seen and shared the Schiller Institute’s conference of June 10, “The World Needs JFK’s Vision of Peace!” be sure to do so!

It is only through a recognition of the interests of all that it will be possible to create, as Helga Zepp-LaRouche quoted President Kennedy from 60 years ago that day in her keynote, “genuine peace, the kind of peace that makes life on Earth worth living, the kind that enables men and nations to grow and to hope and build a better life for their children—not merely peace for Americans but peace for all men and women—not merely peace in our time, but peace for all time.”