EIR LEAD EDITORIAL FOR TUESDAY AUGUST 9, 2022

Blacklist from Ukraine/Global NATO? ‘They Have Unmasked Themselves!’

Aug. 8, 2022 (EIRNS)—The speed of dangerous events is quickening—such as Pelosi’s Taiwan provocation against China, and also note today’s unannounced FBI raid on former President Trump’s Florida residence—but, at the same time, a critical counter is gaining force to bust up this process and its sick “democracy” cover narratives. Attention and disgust are growing to the Ukraine/U.S. State Department/NATO issuance in July of a blacklist of 70-some individuals internationally, whom Kiev has denounced as “information terrorists” subject to “war criminal” treatment, because these individuals have been engaging in dialogue about solutions to the crisis, for which they are denounced as “propagandists for Russia.” The issuing agency is the Center for Countering Disinformation, of President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s National Security and Defense Council.

Thirty people on this list happen to be names from the speakers list of participants on panels at international dialogue conferences held since February by the Schiller Institute. Schiller Institute founder and leader Helga Zepp-LaRouche, named on the list, said today of Kiev, “They have unmasked themselves.” The others named are likewise leading figures from many nations.

The Kiev government, as Zepp-LaRouche reviewed, is blatantly opposite from democratic. It has banned 16 opposition political parties, shut down all media critical of the government, and they have “disappeared” leading figures. This is all now coming into the spotlight. No matter how blaring are the lies from London, Washington, Brussels and Kiev, about how Ukraine stands for democracy, Western values and the rest, the truth is cutting through, and individuals on the infamous blacklist, and others are speaking out and demanding government and institutional action against the Kiev operation.

So far, demands for government attention to the Kiev threats have been raised from New Zealand, to Denmark, the United States and Italy. Many individual statements have been released denouncing the Kiev action, as well as a joint statement. This week’s EIR, cover date Aug. 12, posted on Thursday, Aug. 11 will have a full compendium of statements as of today.

In the last 24 hours, new initiatives include a strong statement in RT by senior Greek former Ambassador Leonidas Chrysanthopoulos, an interview on a top Danish radio program with Jens Jørgen Nielsen, a leading Russia expert, and a very tough statement today from Dr. Wolfgang Bittner in Germany, who is a jurist, and spoke at a Schiller Institute conference in June. Dr. Bittner states that the “persecution of dissenters in connection with the Ukraine war is taking the form of unbridled fascism. It is unacceptable that state terrorism is being carried out here under the eyes of the world public. The persecution of critics and opposition figures by Ukrainian government organizations must be stopped immediately.”

Nielsen, who spoke at a Schiller Institute event in Denmark in May, and gave EIR an interview in December 2021, said that he is not spreading Russian propaganda, but he is critical of sending weapons to Ukraine, and also of the narrative that Ukraine is a flowering democracy. That the leader of the Center for Countering Disinformation called the people on the list “information terrorists,” who should be tried before a military court, is absurd. That office is supported by the U.S. State Department. Nielsen asserts that he disagrees with the Russian military operation, but there has to be a serious discussion, because this is the most dangerous crisis since World War II.

The Big Lie just isn’t going down anymore about “democracy vs. autocracy,” meaning “Global NATO vs. Russia and China.” Still, the U.S. State Department is pushing it hard. Today, Secretary of State Antony Blinken was in South Africa—part of a three-nation African tour this week—to assert that Africa must reconsider how it has been too friendly with Russia and China, and instead, “realign” itself with the U.S./NATO/U.K. In the South Pacific, Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman is pushing the same message in the Solomon Islands, Tonga and Samoa, and bolstering it in meetings with New Zealand and Australian officials.

Meantime, just what is being offered by the “democracy” axis in concrete ways to supply the means to life—food, water, power, health care, infrastructure, at a time when millions are suffering in Africa, and many other places? Insults, not action. The State Department Fact Sheet released today on “U.S. Food Security Assistance to Sub-Saharan Africa” is mostly an “aura” of action. The list includes such help as satellite ways to predict bad crop weather, ways to more precisely apply fertilizer, so as to not “overuse” it (in the midst of fertilizer shortages and hyperinflation!) and harm the planet, crop risk insurance for agriculture losses, etc. No projects for water, power, health systems or any major infrastructure, steps that could actually solve the crisis.

This kind of evil incompetence characterizes the domestic policies as well in the trans-Atlantic, as seen in the new U.S. monster bill for green projects, passed Aug. 7 by the U.S. Senate, titled “Inflation Reduction Act of 2022.” It characterizes the insanity over cutting energy use to “stand up for democracy” in Ukraine, and the EU Green Deal “Farm to Fork” dictates to cut fertilizer, chemicals, land use, livestock and other fundamentals of agriculture, in the name of mitigating climate change and protecting biodiversity. In fact, these measures will cut food production, ruin farmers, cause famine and mass death. That is their intention.

Farmers in Europe are now taking the point worldwide on fighting this immorality and insanity, as a world food production emergency issue. After staging protests over the past three winters, European farmers are now demonstrating during the height of crop season, in the Netherlands, Germany, Italy and elsewhere. In the Netherlands, the leading farmer groupings last week refused to acquiesce to the government’s demand to meet and negotiate, until the government drops its insistence that food production and farms must be cut.

In Germany, a farmer protest action is now in the works for Berlin on Aug. 26, and designed to be a “365” demonstration—that is, to continue as long as necessary, to force the backdown from the green shutdown and economic breakdown policies. A chief organizer of the action explained that the current crisis in food, power and the means to life goes way beyond an electricity blackout; we are in an “economic blackout” right now, of disappearing supplies of fuel, equipment, everything. And soon, world famine. We must stop this.

The Schiller Institute will be collaborating shortly on an international statement of support for the farmers in Berlin, as a leading flank in the world fight for a new system.

“Food is not a ‘farmers’ issue,’ ” was the strong reminder today from Mrs. Zepp-LaRouche!