Don’t be distracted by the indigestible news-feeds and blog posts coming your way on every variety of topic today. Of course, there are events that “everyone is talking about,” such as the announcement of more weapons to be sent to Ukraine by the Trump Administration and NATO. These, however, no matter how important they may momentarily be, operate within the realm of entropic, predictable tragedy. Such, however, is not, and will hopefully never be, our focus.
We must be clear-eyed about unfolding tragedy, in order to avoid it. The tragi-comedy in Ukraine, with its Wal-Mart Pagliacci, is now coming to a close, no matter what the headlines say, and the weapons shipments, real and merely promised, are. Yesterday, a new deadline, 50 days, by which time the war in Ukraine must conclude, was decreed by President Trump. As with the famous story, “The Monkey’s Paw,” however, we should not only wish for the Ukraine war to end in 50 days, because that wish might be granted in ways that neither the United States, nor Russia, nor anyone else in the world, except for haters of the human race, would intend.
Annie Jacobsen, author of Nuclear War: A Scenario, in an interview, July 10, which also included as a guest former CIA intelligence officer Andrew Bustamente, told the following story. "So, this goes back to your terrifying point about miscalculation or mistake. I think that the mistake is where the real threat lies. People at this table may remember, in November, the U.K. gave—and I’m talking about the Ukraine-Russia conflict right now—the U.K. gave the Storm Shadow to Ukraine…. Ukraine we gave the ATACAMS. These are systems, missiles systems essentially, to be able to go further into Russia, to allow Ukraine to fire further into Russia. And Russia was pissed off.
“And in response, they fired an intermediate range ballistic missile, capable of carrying a nuclear warhead, OK? This is the first time in history that a ballistic missile was used, in this kind of a kinetic war, a hot war. And I was on an airplane, leaving London, and I went, ‘Oh my God, is this that situation, where I’m not going to land because there’s a nuclear war?’ Because that is precisely the kind of thing I write in Nuclear War: A Scenario, where something’s launched, and the United States, because we have a ‘Launch On Warning’ policy, launches before it lands, because we’re not willing to wait to see what was in that warhead.
“Now, what was in the warhead, was nothing! The Russians launched an inter-range ballistic missile into Ukraine, with nothing in the warhead. Why? I mean, this is so terrifying. Well, we learned later, when Lavrov went on television, he said that he had notified his American counterparts in advance. I was taken to the State Department to see where that advanced notice came into. And it’s called the NNRRC—the”national nuclear security center" in the State Department—I’m messing up the name, but it’s known as the NNRRC. (This may refer to the National and Nuclear Risk Reduction Center of the State Department.) It’s inside the State Department.
“And it’s basically, the ‘Hello, We’re Not At War’ room. Meaning every 90 seconds you hear, ‘bing, bing, bing,’ and that’s all you hear. And I was with the Assistant Secretary of State, who said ‘Annie, that’s the Russians telling us we’re not at war.’ And she explained to me that Lavrov, the Russian Foreign Minister, when he said on TV, which went over everybody’s head, including mine, ‘oh, we notified our American counterparts,’ what did that mean? Well, what Mallory Stewart, the Assistant Secretary of State told me, was what it meant was that Lavrov rang up the NNRRC, and said, ‘you know, we’re launching, and it doesn’t have a nuclear warhead.’”
Andrew Bustamente: “That was such a big deal. And I don’t think the average person understands how big a deal that was. I think it was called the Oreshnik.”
Jacobsen: “It was called the Oreshnik.”
Bustamente: “The Oreshnik was the newest, most modern version of an ICBM, intermediate ballistic missile, that the Russian inventory had. We had never seen it deployed. It’s never been seen before. And it reminded the whole fucking world, you do not want to go down this road.”
The interview has 2.9 million views as of this writing.
Meanwhile, regarding Ukraine, an intriguing, if unconfirmed report from Alexander Mercouris of The Duran was filed yesterday: “This (involves) a Ukrainian commentator who published, apparently, a plan, details of a plan, which he says he was given by Ukrainian officials, in which there are now apparently serious preparations planning for a relocation of the Ukrainian government to the West. In other words, away from Kyiv. Now, the Ukrainians immediately said, ‘This is fake. This is not an original document.’ But the Ukrainian commentator who is apparently a well-regarded one, stood his ground, and he said that that simply isn’t true. It is an absolutely real document. And he has absolute confidence in its authenticity, especially given the people who gave it to him.”
As in Shakespeare’s Anthony And Cleopatra, the veracity of the rumor is less important than what the very existence of the rumor itself expresses. Nothing done by anyone in NATO, including the United States Presidency, can reverse defeat on the battlefield there, which was inevitable. This includes escalation with more weapons being sent to Ukraine, or with sanctions, for reasons contained in Annie Jacobsen’s story. Loss of the fragile trust that now exists between Russia and the United States can mean that the slightest miscalculation, or careless dismissal of an evaluation provided by officers that go against prevailing opinion, including that of the leader of a nation, can cost humanity everything.
Instead, we invite you to challenge the hidden axioms that underpin tragedy. We investigate reality, not “virtual reality.” We rely on our real ideas, and not others’ “artificial intelligence.” We stand for the sovereignty of principle, not “the rule of law.” Our forces have just addressed, over July 12-13, the international community, particularly the BRICS nations, with the Schiller Institute’s Ten Principles for a New International Security and Development Architecture, placed at the center of the world dialogue.
This dialogue and call to action consists of our organizing a series of presentations, now in the ascendancy, including conferences, seminars, classes. The purpose is to fashion a new system of international and intercontinental congresses, in person and online, focused on the method of discovery and re-discovery of new ideas, and old ideas that have been lost. In doing this work, we are walking in the footsteps of thinker Lyndon LaRouche, and the mission expressed in the life’s work of the late economist and statesman.
A clean break with our recent past, particularly the past 55 years since August 15, 1971, must be made by a United States that has not only de-industrialized itself, de-populated itself, and pauperized itself, but is now tearing itself down. Technological progress through mass employment in mining, manufacturing and agriculture, has to be returned to the United States. The promise of a future must be given to the nation’s (and the world’s) youth. And a new security and development architecture must be composed by Russia, the United States, China and other nations, with which this Presidency must engage.