Nuclear Carrier Crisis—The War Party Can Be Crushed

The courage of the Commander of the USS Theodore Roosevelt nuclear aircraft carrier, Capt. Brett Crozier, in defending his crew against COVID-19, has forced into the public eye the evil of those who have driven the United States into a military confrontation with China and Russia. Captain Crozier simply told the truth—we are not at war, and there is therefore no reason to risk the lives of the crew to the virus.

The Acting Secretary of the Navy Thomas Modly flipped his lid. It was not so much that the Captain had (inadvertently) made public the medical crisis on board the carrier, but rather that Captain Crozier dared to say that “we are not at war.”

After relieving Captain Crozier of command, Modly flew out to Guam where the ship was to chastise the crew for cheering for their captain as he left the ship. In the process, Modly let the cat out of the bag: “One of the things about his email that bothered me the most was saying that we are not at war, that we aren’t technically at war. But let me tell ya’ something, the only reason we are dealing with this right now, is a big authoritarian regime called China was not forthcoming about what was happening with this virus, and they put the world at risk to protect themselves and to protect their reputations.” Later, amidst cat-calls from the crew, he said that the crew had to do its “duty—not to complain,” to show it can “knock down this virus, just as it would knock down the Chinese or the North Koreans or the Russians if any one of those nations were ever so stupid enough to mess with the Big Stick.”

Dr. Strangelove couldn’t have said it any more clearly.

President Barack Obama launched his anti-China “Pivot to Asia” in 2011, and orchestrated the neo-Nazi coup against Ukraine in 2014, then imposed sanctions and launched a military confrontation with Russia. Since that time, the war party within the Pentagon and within both political parties has dominated U.S. strategic policy. Despite President Donald Trump’s repeated pledge during and after the 2016 presidential campaign that he wanted to be friends with both Russia and China, the war party issued a National Security Strategy in December 2017 which named Russia and China—not terrorism—as America’s primary adversary, and a threat to our “way of life.”

Now, that National Security Strategy is exposed, like the naked Emperor facing the truth-telling child, unafraid of “popular opinion” or “societal pressure.” We are not at war! The population is furious at the firing of Captain Crozier; sailors and soldiers everywhere are furious; and President Trump said April 6 that Captain Crozier has an excellent record, “so I’m going to get involved and see exactly what’s going on.”

As reported below, Secretary Modly is a leading spokesman for the war party, and an advocate of “hyperwar,” in which it is proposed to place the decision to launch military attacks in the hands of a computer program, taking human cognition out of the process. (Note: Modly resigned late in the afternoon, April 7.)

The President has been on the phone with both Presidents Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin over these past weeks, addressing the threat of the pandemic as well as the economic and strategic crises. This organization has called for him to meet with them, now, to address the existential threat to mankind—the conflux of the pandemic, the financial breakdown, the economic breakdown, and the continued danger of war. This is the moment for that summit. The American people will support it, the vast majority of the world’s nations will welcome it.

As the pandemic moves into Africa and South and Central America, the populations of those nations, weakened physically by generations of colonial and neo-colonial “neo-liberal” looting, face death on a scale not seen since the great Black Plague of the 14th century. Helga Zepp-LaRouche has issued a call for a “Health Silk Road,” the mobilization of productive forces in every nation on Earth to produce the hospitals and public health systems required in every country, now, to meet this scourge, and the health needs of all people. This mobilization of the good in peoples and nations has no time to waste. The Schiller Institute International Conference, to be held online on April 25-26, is the “must attend” event to galvanize that spirit of humanity inherent in all people, and set the Health Silk Road in motion.