The Lead

Ascending from the Maelstrom of War

by Dennis Speed (EIRNS) — Jun. 27, 2024

“I looked dizzily, and beheld a wide expanse of ocean, whose waters were of so inky a hue as to bring to mind the Nubian geographer’s account of the Mare Tenebrarum”—Edgar Poe, “A Descent into the Maelström”

“Mare tenebrarum” means “the sea of shadows.” Poe’s image of being plunged into the center of the vortex of a great whirlpool of darkness, captures the mental paralysis of people who, despite their rejection of the political direction of their nations’ “elites,” are held hostage by the impending descent of the trans-Atlantic world—Europe and the United States—into a maelstrom of insanity. As in Poe’s story, however, not only is the descent into the maelstrom survivable—it is readily navigable, but only by those that have spent a lifetime studying the stars, and the seas, and can lead others to safety.

What must happen, is that there must be convened an assembly for negotiations for a new international security and development architecture, the very idea that Schiller Institute founder Helga Zepp-LaRouche proposed two years ago. We must stop the axiomatic failure of four decades of neocon/neoliberal policies by scrapping the axioms, abandoning the policies, and therefore stopping the madness.

Look at it. The NATO war staged in Ukraine is lost, along with the “financial nuclear war” that was to destroy Russia through sanctions two years ago—yet we continue. The “Mideast conflict,” and its depopulation of Gaza, has strengthened, not weakened Hamas, according to Israel Defense Forces spokesman Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari, who told Israel’s Channel 13 TV, “This business of destroying Hamas, making Hamas disappear—it’s simply throwing sand in the eyes of the public. Hamas is an idea, Hamas is a party. It’s rooted in the hearts of the people—whoever thinks we can eliminate Hamas is wrong.” Yet, we continue.

American officials call for Chinese students to not be allowed to study science in the United States, even as China carries out, in its space program, successful landings on the far side of the Moon and returning rocks from there, for the first time in mankind’s history. Yet we continue to enforce the Wolf Amendment which restricts cooperation with China, including in the manned and unmanned space program.

Finally, the greatest expression of the systemic failure of the past five decades-plus of American policy, the financial “everything bubble” that totals well over $2 quadrillion in debt, is also being superseded, in principle, through developments with the Brazil/Russia/India/China/South Africa BRICS-Plus process, with over 59 more countries on the verge of joining that which, 60 years ago President John F. Kennedy would have been, even with some possible qualifications, nonetheless in the center of supporting and advancing. Today, the very “Belt and Road Initiative” policy that points the way out for the world, including the United States, is denounced as a “security threat” by those who, through their stupidity and lack of a positive vision for the future of the United States itself, pose the greatest security threat to the United States, and the world, since the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis.

Col. Larry Wilkerson (ret.), former chief of staff to United States Secretary of State Colin Powell, and a participant in the June 12 Schiller Institute National Press Club press availability, knows too well the costs of entering into war precipitously, under false pretenses, and destroying nations and millions of people as a consequence. He recently said that the “U.S., NATO, and other Western allies’ support for the war in Ukraine against Russia is insane. It is killing Ukraine’s soldiers for a hopeless cause—other than making money for U.S. and European defense contractors and generating a brutal attempt through proxies to bleed Russia…. In fact, Russia is clearly winning. … If a ceasefire is not declared and a genuine peace conference convened soon, there will be little left of Ukraine to salvage.”

Yet, as Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov pointed out today at the Primakov Readings forum: “The current situation, indeed, has no easy solutions and no easy way out. Of course, our Western adversaries’ underestimation of Russia’s readiness to defend itself and ensure its own interests in any situation is risky. I do not even want to speculate that this underestimation may turn out to be tragic, even fatal.”

The way out, the ascent from the maelstrom, is outlined below in a statement from New York Independent candidate for United States Senate Diane Sare, in her statement, “Don’t Repeat the Mistake of December 2021: Putin’s Ukraine-Russia Peace Plan Is Our Best Option.” Through that campaign, the Jose Vega for Congress Campaign (New York CD-15), and through the campaigns by LaRouche co-thinkers presently running for office in the June 30/July 7 French elections, including French voters residing in multiple nations in Asia, Africa, and other areas of the globe, a crucial, if marginal factor of sanity has successfully leveraged itself on behalf of humanity. That will work, because of the power of Reason, provided that we find, in time, those who will join us and choose, despite personal consequences, to fight now, in these next weeks, to restore the principle of the General Welfare, and the Benefit of the Other to the halls of power. In this way, we may still dispel the sea of shadows that will otherwise, one unsuspecting day, swallow the whole world in thermonuclear darkness.

Contents

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• U.S., Russian Defense Ministers Speak by Phone (↓)

Strategic War Danger

• Moscow Has No Doubt U.S. Behind Sevastopol Attack (↓)
• U.S. Rattles Its Nuclear Sabre (↓)

LaRouche movement

• Sare Campaign Statement Supports Putin Peace Plan (↓)

Strategic War Danger

• Wilkerson Terms U.S.-NATO Support for Ukraine ‘Insane’ (↓)
• Deep Space Communications Facility Reportedly Hit by ATACMS Missile on June 22 (↓)
• U.S. Directed Attack on Crimea: One Step Closer to War Between NATO and Russia (↓)

New World Paradigm

• China To Hold Conference on the Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence at 70 (↓)
• Modi To Meet with Putin in Moscow, Says Kremlin (↓)

Collapsing Imperial System

• Military Coup Attempt in Bolivia Fails, President Arce Names New Military Command (↓)

U.S. and Canada

• Israeli Leaders Urge Americans, Don't Let Netanyahu Speak Before Congress! (↓)

Collapsing Imperial System

• Kurt Campbell Demands That Chinese Students in the U.S. Should Not Be Allowed To Study Science (↓)
• U.S. Secretary of Defense and Israeli Foreign Minister Discuss Israel’s Tensions with Hezbollah (↓)

Harley Schlanger Update

Watch The Daily Update with Harley Schlanger, a short video update available every weekday morning from The LaRouche Organization.

In-Depth