No More Towers of Babel: The Fight for Peace Through Development
As Schiller Institute Chairwoman Helga Zepp-LaRouche made clear at the 160th gathering of the International Peace Coalition on Friday, the world is still sitting on the “absolute edge of abyss” with two regional wars—Ukraine and Iran—far from being settled. The City of London, the command center for the bankrupt trans-Atlantic financial system, is now putting into operation a Nazi-style militarization of Europe against Russia, pumping unheard of amounts of finance capital into military production. This plan was announced by Prime Minister of Canada Mark Carney, former Governor of the Bank of England and the Bank of Canada, in a new article headlined “Credible deterrence requires a new NATO bank.” Carney explains, “The essence of deterrence is credibility. Since Russia’s unlawful invasion of Ukraine, NATO allies have come a long way in strengthening their military capabilities. But it is not enough… Our ability to mobilize capital must be just as reliable as our armed forces. The answer is a bold multilateral solution: the creation of the Defence, Security, and Resilience Bank (DSRB).”
This buildup will require 850 billion euros per year, just shy of one trillion dollars. Helga Zepp-LaRouche explained to the 160th weekly International Peace Coalition meeting that this is exactly what Adolf Hitler’s Finance Minister Hjalmar Schacht did with the so-called “MEFO” bills to rearm Nazi Germany. She said, “You create money out of thin air to finance a war machine, but then as these monies become due, the pressure to actually resolve it with war increases, and it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.” The Coalition of the Willing—Germany, France and Great Britain—seem to be bent on fulfilling the City of London’s plan for a nuclear war against Russia (and China), supporting a dying Ukrainian regime now resorting to campaigns of drone attacks inside Russian territory, the most recent being in Crimea, the purported aim being to force Russia to end the conflict. These attacks will not inflict a Russian defeat as Ukraine stands no chance of winning. If incursions deep into the territory of Russia continue, as senior Russian officials have signaled as a red line, there may be no other option but a massive retaliation against military facilities in Europe which have aided Ukraine in the production of drones.
In Southwest Asia, the U.S. military struck targets along Iran’s southern coast last night, despite the Memorandum of Understanding signed by the two countries last week. Reports indicate that the strikes were carried out in response to Iran’s targeting of a commercial vessel in the Strait of Hormuz on Thursday night—an area in which Article 5 of the memorandum grants Iran full authority to regulate navigation. Iran immediately responded by launching strikes against U.S. military bases, hitting naval bases in Bahrain.
With one disaster after another, there is no correction being made by anyone in the trans-Atlantic elite. To the contrary, they are increasing their efforts to control the narrative, and build up support for war. There is still a moment to inject solutions, as some are currently doing. Pope Leo XIV’s call to world leadership to replace the aspirations for a modern Tower of Babel with a Civilization of Love, providing productive jobs and a dignified standard of living to people all around the world, aligns with Helga Zepp-LaRouche’s call for a new security and development architecture to solve the world’s problems, while putting on the table an Extended Oasis Plan for economic development in Southwest Asia. It is the job of citizens, not the trans-Atlantic elite, to make these policies hegemonic. That should be the task for the United States today, celebrating its 250th anniversary of its Declaration of Independence.
Speaker: Harley Schlanger