The Lead

World Hanging from a Thread—Will You Become a Voice of Leadership?

by Stewart Battle (EIRNS) — Jul. 18, 2024

In her weekly dialogue today, Helga Zepp-LaRouche said that the failed assassination attempt on Donald Trump last weekend demonstrated on how thin a thread the world currently is hanging. If Trump hadn’t made the quick turn of his head, effectively causing the bullet to graze his ear instead of ending his life, this would have unleashed a catastrophic crisis, not only within the United States but in the world as a whole. Further, given that Trump is expected to push for immediate negotiations between Russia and Ukraine, strategically his death would have almost certainly meant World War III in the near term.

“I think this image about Trump, if he would have not moved his head, he could have been shot in the head and be dead, demonstrates on what an accidental—almost one-in-a-million—chance this whole thing was hanging. And it demonstrates, as I said, we should use this, people should imagine that that is how far away we are from World War III.”

Representative of the danger is the self-destructive madness ongoing in Europe, as, for example, the re-election Thursday of Ursula von der Leyen as President of the European Commission. Von der Leyen is indicative of the worst impulse in Europe in the West—on one hand mindlessly committed to economic and Green Deal policies which are bringing destruction upon Europe itself, while on the other madly escalating the drive toward war with Russia. During the EU Parliament session Thursday, von der Leyen started by attacking rotating Council of the EU President Viktor Orbán for his recent series of meetings with Zelenskyy, Putin, and Xi regarding a peace plan for Ukraine, saying this was actually an “appeasement mission,” not a “peace mission.” She then announced that Europe needed to take the next step in creating a “European Union of defense,” a “single market” that would make Europe less “dependent on foreign allies.”

That is part of the plan to “Trump-proof” the West and make its economies “war ready” in the years to come, which is as laughable as it is crazy. The fact that Orbán is being attacked for merely practicing diplomacy shows that it is the European establishment, itself, which is against peace! “What we’re seeing right now is an absolute war path,” Zepp-LaRouche said in response to the news about von der Leyen. “There are some factions in Europe right now who are absolutely mad, because they are not thinking. They don’t think that Europe would be the first victim—if it comes to this war, which will be a global war… then Europe will be destroyed. So these people are not clear in their minds anymore.”

In contrast, there is a clear determination issuing from various parts of the world who see this madness and are working to outline an alternative path. The peace proposal coming from China and Brazil, and re-emphasized by Hungary’s Orbán, is a case in point. Additionally, South Africa’s Foreign Minister revealed on July 17 that the peace delegation consisting of seven African nations is considering resuming its own peace mission and paying visits to Moscow and Kyiv in the near future. In another indication of this, Russia’s Foreign Minister hosted a UN Security Council hearing on July 17, which took up the horror unfolding in Palestine. Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov called for a “frank and honest conversation” about ending the violence in the region, and blamed the U.S. in particular, which has become “directly involved in the conflict” yet takes no concern for the interests of the future of the region.

The slight murmuring which is spreading across the U.S. and Europe in opposition to the policy of endless imperial war, needs to become a roaring outcry. Yet part of what is holding people back is a subjective question—a cultural question. Zepp-LaRouche pointed out that while America’s founding fathers were “educated, passionate, and well-prepared for the job of creating a new republic,” today’s citizens “have become so small—they let themselves get distracted.” Comparing this to the packed arenas and screaming stupor into which people descend with sports, Zepp-LaRouche said: “If people could develop the same kind of emotion over those issues which determine the fate of humanity, or even the fate of the nation, we’d have no problem. But people allow themselves to be distracted by ever-more-banal entertainment, by vacation fantasies, by all kinds of distractions which allow the cultural level to go down and down and down. And therefore when it comes to politics, they basically leave it to those people who are the present establishments—who are obviously in the pockets of big money, of Wall Street, of the City of London.” So, don’t catch yourself wondering who will be the “good” candidate, and come to save us, because it is only with an educated and responsible citizenry leading the way that we will get out of this.

So we must get people off the sidelines and to instead engage in a way that can change the current course humanity is on. In the wake of the assassination attempt against Trump, Zepp-LaRouche has called for any remaining Elder Statesmen and Stateswomen in the West to form a “Council of Reason” to explore a way out of the current war dynamic facing the world:

“We have to have a change in the debate. We have to have a discussion where elder statesmen … people from all nations should step forward and appeal to the world to go on the road of peace. And in my view, and I have said this already two-and-a-half years ago, after this military operation in Ukraine started…. That in my view, given all the factors—NATO, the rise of China, the demonization of Russia, the many, many other things going on—that I think the only way how you can have peace is to have, in the tradition of the Peace of Westphalia, a new security and development architecture, which, indeed, takes into account the interests of every single country on the planet. Because whenever that principle was applied, as with the Peace of Westphalia, it led to peace. When you neglected that, like not taking into account the interests of everyone, it led to the next war: And the worst example of that is the Versailles Treaty, where both the interest of China was left out, the interest of Germany was left out, and therefore, it was only the prelude to World War II.

“Now, given the fact that diplomacy right now is almost a forgotten word, the idea that you have to have negotiations to settle conflicts, in the time of thermonuclear weapons, is nowhere to be found, not in the mainstream politics, not in the mainstream media. And that is why I thought one should really try to appeal to those people who may be coming from an older generation who still have some memory of what the Second World War was, or who would have served in functions where they had to seriously confront what it means to be at war, to send your children, your grandchildren to the front, have them die. Because one very clearly has the feeling that the present cast of politicians in leading positions, seem to have no such memory any more, and that is why I issued this call.”