Two events of import took place today. First, in Japan, a somber ceremony was held in Nagasaki, marking the 75th anniversary of the nuclear bomb dropped on the city by U.S. President Harry S Truman, at the behest of Winston Churchill and the British, for an evil show of imperial force, when the War was already all but over. Over 74,000 people were killed.
Secondly, early today a virtual summit was held to organize relief aid after the terrible Aug. 4 Beirut explosion. Leaders participated representing 15 nations and 15 institutions, with many heads of state, including U.S. President Donald Trump. The event was convened on short notice by French President Emmanuel Macron, who visited the disaster scene two days after it occurred, and then thereafter spoke with Trump and others directly. The UN co-hosted the event, and some $300 million was pledged.
The impulse to help shown in this meeting is exactly the human leadership response needed to deal with the worldwide economic breakdown crisis, the pandemic and famine, and moreover, to put down today’s war-pushing madness, whose provenance traces back directly to those behind the Nagasaki and Hiroshima atrocity. Truly moving on aid to Lebanon embodies what can be momentum for great power discussion, as called for by Russian President Vladimir Putin in his P-5 Summit invitation, for the heads of state of the Permanent Five of the UN Security Council—Russia, United States, China, France and the U.K. In fact, today, four of the P-5 nations participated, with Presidents Macron and Trump in person, and Britain and China represented by other officials. Macron announced in his opening remarks, that Russia has promised aid, though the nation was not in attendance today. Other leaders participating included Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi.
But there are those acting in the legacy of the worst British Empire war-mongering, to prevent any kind of great power leadership discussion that could take both emergency measures, and also initiate new economic and foreign policy arrangements. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is among the leaders of the pack on this, and is working overtime against his boss. Just hours before Trump was to join the Beirut relief summit, at 8 a.m. Eastern time, Pompeo tweeted against China’s presence in the Middle East. Pompeo spoke of Iran specifically, but the generalized point was clear. He tweeted, “China’s entry into Iran will destabilize the Middle East. Iran remains the world’s largest state sponsor of terror, and to have access to weapons systems and commerce and money flowing from the Chinese Communist Party only compounds that risk for that region.”
In reality, China and Iran have been working on economic accords involving oil for big infrastructure (rail, port facilities, power) and with extension to Syria and Central and South Asia. This is just the kind of development desperately needed throughout the region, and extending most particularly through to Lebanon, and across the whole Arabian Peninsula to Yemen and to North Africa. Syrian, Iraqi, Iranian, and lately, Lebanese leading figures have spoken of this in terms of hooking into the Belt and Road Initiative of China. The Schiller Institute has blueprints, in its World Land-Bridge approach, advanced for decades by Lyndon and Helga Zepp- LaRouche for development corridors throughout Southwest Asia. In particular, LaRouche promoted his “Oasis Plan” plan for nuclear power, water, rail and other infrastructure, to upgrade the entire region, and once and for all, end the strife long fomented by the British Great Game.
This development—and the credit system, scientific and cultural progress that go with it— is exactly what British geopolitics has been deployed for centuries to stop. Not surprisingly, a geopolitical flare up occurred today at the Beirut Summit, in the sense that certain donor nations demanded “reform” in Lebanon, but divorced from dealing with the economic devastation there, which was terrible long before the explosion, and not surprisingly, included corruption.
Now is the time to do everything possible to support the P-5 Summit to happen, and fast. “It may be our only chance,” as Schiller institute President Helga Zepp-LaRouche warns.
In Nagasaki today, at exactly 11:02 a.m.—the time the bomb dropped August 9, 1945— the entire city fell silent for a minute of remembrance. Among today’s many statements and gestures, came one from the UN High Representative for Disarmament Affairs Izumi Nakamitsu, who said that we “must return to the understanding that a nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought … there is an urgent need to stop the erosion of the nuclear order. All countries possessing nuclear weapons have an obligation to lead.”
