Daily Alert: EIR Roundtable: an Alternative to the Madness

The Lead

EIR Roundtable: an Alternative to the Madness

by Stewart Battle (EIRNS) — Sep. 04, 2026

The world is currently sitting in one of the most dangerous situations in modern history. On one hand, a Nero-like Trump administration is blundering into crisis after crisis in its war against Iran—being cheered on by the worst neocons across the Anglo-American establishment. On the other, “liberal” European governments are plunging brain-last into a direct war with Russia, as their Ukrainian proxies adopt a policy of literal state terrorism. In the backdrop of all this, the U.S. Treasury market is becoming shakier by the day as global supply chains are being choked and a speculative financial system is questioning whether its debt can be rolled over for yet another month.

All three are powder kegs with the potential to explode into civilizational crises. All three also have the same proximate cause: The lack of rational leadership in the West capable of guiding their nations through a period of global historic transformation.

On Friday, Sep. 4, EIR and the International Peace Coalition convened a roundtable dialogue with global experts, titled “An Alternative to War and Looting in the Americas.” The event began by hearing a short excerpt from the late economist and statesman Lyndon LaRouche speaking at an event in Brazil in June, 2002:

“There are some people who do not yet believe that the present world monetary-financial system is doomed. There’s a tendency which has two aspects to it: One is fear as such, and the other is conditioning, which causes people to deny the existence of a problem which their intelligence would tell them exists…. [W]here can you find the leaders who will avoid denial; to look the ugly truth in the eye… and say, ‘I’m going to do whatever is necessary to save this nation and civilization?’”

The panelists each attempted to look the situation in the eye in addressing the systemic crisis facing the world. Roberto Amaral, former Brazilian Minister of Science and Technology, described the position Brazil and the entire Global South find themselves in as the Trump administration’s overt threats to their sovereignty have necessitated a new level of leadership. Gen. (ret.) Edwin Patterson Monsalve, professor of geopolitics and geostrategy in Peru, discussed the importance development projects have in a region under assault by geopolitical powers, and elaborated on Peru’s Chancay port on the Pacific coast and the planned bi-oceanic rail corridor that will link it to Brazilian ports on the Atlantic. Paulo Nogueira Batista, Jr., former Executive Director in the IMF for Brazil and former Vice President of the BRICS New Development Bank, noted that the Western policy of war and unilateralism directed against Russia, Iran, and China, has now added Brazil to its list, fundamentally changing the situation in Ibero-America. And Col. (ret.) Pedro Baños, a geopolitical analyst from Spain, described the NATO policy of confrontation with Russia following the end of the USSR, noting that Spain should have no part of it and that this policy must be defeated at all costs.

At the same time, the current historical transformation is becoming harder to ignore. EIR’s roundtable took place at the tail end of two major summits—the Shanghai Cooperation Organization in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan and the Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok, Russia—where growing portions of nations of the Global Majority are orienting toward mutually-beneficial collaboration as the only way forward for a world twisted in knots by centuries of British geopolitics.

The EIR event was held with a special focus on the situation surrounding the upcoming October presidential elections in Brazil, where President Lula da Silva has increasingly come under attack by the Trump administration and Wall Street and the City of London. However, as EIR has reported, the real target of these operations is not Brazil as such, but rather Brazil as a leading member of the BRICS and Lula as a key driver of an entirely different policy in the Americas. This alternative is epitomized by the recent completion of the Chancay Port in Peru—built with the help of China—and the growing discussion of finally building the bi-oceanic railway corridor between Brazil’s Atlantic coast port of Ilhéus and Chancay on the Pacific. This project, if constructed, would have profound implications for the economies of Ibero-America, further advancing the rejection of colonialism underway throughout the world.

Helga Zepp-LaRouche, founder of the Schiller Institute and co-initiator of the IPC, pointed out that, if Brazil takes a leading role in the promotion of a landmark development project like the bi-oceanic rail corridor, it would be an important signal for other countries in the region to “join together in a development strategy benefiting all people of the continent.” She concluded with the following:

“As the old colonial order is crumbling, which was based on dominance and suppression, a new order is being built, based on the five principles of peaceful coexistence, the UN Charter, and the idea that all nations have an equal right for development. With it crumbles the barbaric, typically brutish conception of Winston Churchill, that countries don’t have friendships but only interests. The new paradigm will be based on true friendship among nations and respect for their unique contribution to the universal history of mankind. After all, we are the only creative species in the universe known so far.

“If the nations of Ibero-America can unite for their own development, bringing together those countries who would otherwise be involved in a geopolitical confrontation, they can be the initiators of a new era of mankind, where the barbaric idea that conflicts will be resolved by war can be put aside forever!”