EIR LEAD EDITORIAL FOR MONDAY, FEBRUARY 21, 2022
Short-Term Action for Long-Term Survival
Feb. 20, 2022 (EIRNS)—FLASH: The Elysée Palace released a statement early Feb. 21 Paris time, stating that President Joe Biden and Russian President Vladimir Putin are prepared, in principle, to meet in a summit over Ukraine. The statement indicates that this follows the initiatives of President Emmanuel Macron to promote the “security and strategic stability in Europe.” The text states, “Presidents Biden and Putin have both accepted the principle of such a summit,” contingent on there being no invasion of Ukraine by Russia. No response from Washington or Moscow is known by EIR at the time of this Alert.
The title and theme of the keynote given by Schiller Institute President Helga Zepp-LaRouche, “Long-Term Survival: A New International Security Architecture,” at the Institute’s international conference Feb. 19, provides the way to look at key events in today’s fast-breaking, dangerous situation. There will be no “long term” for humanity, without curbing and ending the dangerous push by the U.S./U.K./NATO bloc for confrontation with Russia over Ukraine, to the point of igniting nuclear conflagration. We are called to act in the short term.
Similarly, without short-term action, the deadly march of famine and disease are reaching the point of mass kill-off, and the end of any “long-term” survival for humanity, as of our present-day ranks of 7.8 billion people.
On the war push, the weekend updates include the following. Today, French President Emmanuel Macron held calls with President Putin, Ukraine President Zelenskyy, and President Biden. In Washington, Biden met in the Situation Room of the White House for a special National Security Council, with an expanded, in-person attendance, including heads of the Departments of Defense, Treasury, and State, the CIA, the NSC, and other agencies. The two-hour session, according to the read-out, concerned dealing with alleged Russian aggression against Ukraine.
Before the meeting, Secretary of State Tony Blinken went on three Sunday morning network news programs to stress Biden’s announcement Feb. 18, that “intelligence” confirms that Putin has “made the decision” to attack Ukraine, unless diplomacy prevails. Blinken repeated that he will meet in person with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov Feb. 24, in Europe, if “Russia does not invade Ukraine” before that time.
The G7 will also meet Feb. 24, hosted by Germany, current G7 chair, for the purpose of heads of state and government to discuss “the geopolitical situation related to the situation on the Russian-Ukrainian border.” This was announced Feb. 18, and also a joint G7 statement was issued Feb. 19, with the line, “Russia’s threatening military build-up around Ukraine.”
In Donbas, escalated shelling and violence are continuing. Today, the Foreign Ministry of Belarus announced that certain of the joint exercises with Russia called “Union Resolve,” which were to have ended Feb. 20, will instead be continued, given the increased tension. Yesterday, President Putin, joined by Belarus President Lukashenko, observed a successful exercise of the nuclear-capable triad of air, submarine and ground missile launching.
On the pandemic and famine front, the situation worsens. Look at the resurgence of well-known diseases, recently controlled, if not conquered. In Africa, Mali is the latest location of polio spreading; the African Union has announced plans to combat it, but resources are desperately short. In Afghanistan, measles is spreading, in addition to the impact of COVID-19.
On COVID-19 itself, WHO Executive Director Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus warned Feb. 18, of the “dangerous narrative that the pandemic is over,” saying it is not true.
“Not when 70,000 people a week are dying from a treatable and preventable disease.... Not when 83% of the population of Africa is yet to receive a single dose of vaccine. Not when health systems continue to strain and crack under the caseload. Not when we have a highly transmissible virus circulating almost unchecked, with too little surveillance to track its evolution.”
Plus, conditions are ideal for the emergence of “more transmissible, more dangerous variants.”
For the world food supply, there are huge shortfalls, from the combined impact of general hyperinflation, lack of infrastructure (covered up as “climate change”), cartel domination, and lack of concerted government action. There are absolute shortages in fertilizers, herbicides and fuels, among other key inputs. Beside the fact that the world 2022 wheat harvest is expected down by 10 million metric tons, the 2022 oilseed harvest will be down for the fourth year in a row. The South American Soybean Belt of Brazil, Paraguay, and Argentina projects its harvests, starting soon, will be down by millions of tons. In China, major soy-processing facilities run by the cartels—Bunge, Louis Dreyfus, Cargill etc.—have just announced temporary closures for several weeks, because of hyperinflation and short soy supplies. Chinese leaders can be expected to do something about this. But millions will die, in the “market democracies” of the dying Western casino system, unless we force nation-serving measures, as Lyndon LaRouche laid out in his development-economics programs so clearly.
These are the situations requiring a vision for a new architecture for “long-term security,” and the courage for short term, emergency action. We can take up the call sounded in the Schiller Institute Feb. 19 conference, “100 Seconds to Midnight on the Doomsday Clock—We Need a New Security Architecture!” During the conference, in one of the video clips of Lyndon LaRouche, he spoke about the nature of man being to solve problems. Doing it, he said, brings joy. We have the opportunity for great joy right now, given the severity of the problems.
A note of hope was sounded today at the close of the Beijing Winter Olympics. The music at the beautiful ceremony featured the Ode to Joy, by Ludwig van Beethoven and Friedrich Schiller.
