EIR LEAD EDITORIAL FOR SATURDAY NOVEMBER 5, 2022

A Nuclear War Cannot Be Won and Must Never Be Fought. Walking the World Back from the Brink

Nov. 4, 2022 (EIRNS)—On Saturday, Nov. 5, Executive Intelligence Review will host the press availability, “A Nuclear War Cannot Be Won And Must Never Be Fought.” Speakers will include Diane Sare, LaRouche independent candidate for U.S. Senate, New York; Ray McGovern, former Senior Analyst, U.S. Central Intelligence Agency; Helga Zepp-LaRouche, founder and head, international Schiller Institute; Scott Ritter, former UN weapons inspector, U.S.MC intelligence officer, and military analyst; Jacques Cheminade, president Solidarité et Progrès party, France; Col. Richard H. Black (ret.), former head of the U.S. Army’s Criminal Law Division at the Pentagon, former Virginia State Senator; and others. Zepp-LaRouche and Sare, from the vantage point of their multiple interchanges with international media and institutions over the past ten days, determined that the pace at which the world continues to careen toward thermonuclear war has not lessened. With the recent “naming of the names” of some of the British operatives alleged to have supervised the attacks on Russia, despite Britain’s denials, the world has become even more dangerous.

It is a too-well-kept “open secret” that the Socratic method of discourse—inducing, by means of an idea, a form of creative tension in the mind of the participants, intended to lift them, “through the shock of thought,” above the tragic swamp of particular, even justified, but lower-order causes, to wage battle on behalf of the cause of humanity as a whole—is incompatible with geopolitics. Because of global events this October, and this year, it has now become essential to ask: “60 years later, who is prepared to talk mankind back from the precipice of thermonuclear war?” One thing is sure—that “who,” does not include the geopoliticians.

Potential developments now unfolding in China, in discussions with German industry and Germany’s Chancellor Olaf Scholz, and in the ongoing interaction between Russia and NATO member Turkey on feeding the world, tell us that, in limited but important ways, it is recognized by those on the side of sanity that geopolitics, of any variety, has become incompatible with humanity’s continued existence. Helga Zepp-LaRouche, founder of the international Schiller Institute, appeared on the China Plus “World Today” podcast today and was asked for her evaluation of the significance of the visit of Scholz to China. (Indeed, there is great tension—not necessarily Socratic—being expressed about the nature and potential outcome of that leader-to-leader discussion, and its deeper strategic implications.)

She discussed that one does not have to see China as a systemic rival. Some 150 countries do not see it that way, but rather see China as a partner to overcome colonialism, and if the German media would report about the actual tremendous progress that has occurred in China, people would have a completely different view of the country. There is definitely room for improvement in China’s relations with Germany, and with Europe. President Xi Jinping has offered cooperation to the United States many times; he has talked about how important it would be for the world’s two greatest economic powers to have good relations. If they did, this would solve many problems.

A spontaneous, perhaps unwanted episode of Socratic dialogue unfolded at Yale University, Nov. 3, when neo-con fundamentalist and former CIA Director Mike “Last Days” Pompeo plumply pontificated to his adoring 400-person Yale audience that others, commenting unfavorably about The Great One’s stint as Secretary of State, had bitterly complained about him. “They say that I’m the worst secretary of state in history.” He was then interrupted by an unexpected and approving “Yes! You are right! You are the worst secretary of state in history! The reason is, because of the policies you implemented, we are on the brink of nuclear war with Russia and China.” The unscheduled speaker was associated with Lyndon LaRouche and the new LaRouche Youth Movement. Howls began to arise from the audience members, some of them Hallowe’en leftovers eager to get to the after-party at the Skull and Bones Club. Importantly, Pompeo was also denounced for his and the United States’ policy of publicly-acknowledged assassinations policy. When asked why he killed Iran’s Qassem Soleimani, which itself could have, if indirectly, provoked World War III at that moment, Pompeo’s response was, “We saved countless lives, my friend,” echoing the “we had to destroy the village in order to save it” “Operation Phoenix”/Vietnam War school of military strategy. And these are the people, like former British Prime Minister Liz Truss, who may well have known of the British covert actions against Russia now being revealed, that are prepared to “use the Big One, if necessary” in a pre-emptive first strike? Not if we can help it.

“Just as Socrates felt that it was necessary to create a tension in the mind so that individuals could rise from the bondage of myths and half-truths to the unfettered realm of creative analysis and objective appraisal, so must we see the need for nonviolent gadflies to create the kind of tension in society that will help men rise from the dark depths of prejudice and racism to the majestic heights of understanding and brotherhood.” Martin Luther King’s words about Socratic tension, from his 1963 Letter from a Birmingham Jail, echo the policy of a new strategic and development architecture put forward by the Schiller Institute, to draw down the final curtain on geopolitics, before geopolitics draws down a thermonuclear curtain over civilization as a whole.