“Never since the beginning of human civilization has the danger been as great, that we will cause our own extinction as a species.”

“If it does come to this threatened thermonuclear exchange with Russia and China, the majority of humankind is exterminated within approximately one and a half hours, and the dead will be the fortunate ones in comparison to those who will only perish some days later.”

– from a Schiller Institute release published by LaRouchePAC on Sunday, March 9, 2014 and reproduced on pg. 18 of AMANDALA of Sunday, March 16, 2014)

52 years ago a nuclear war almost broke out just north of us. In Belize, we would have looked up into the sky and thought that God had decided to end the world. But in October of 1962, it would have been mortal men, in the form of Americans and Russians, who had so decided.

The people of Crimea have just voted to secede from the Ukraine, where the people recently overthrew a democratically-elected president and set up a new government. Ukraine’s democratically-elected president had been pro-Russian, whereas Ukraine’s new government is pro-European Union (EU). The EU nations are military allies of the United States in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) treaty.

U.S. President Barack Obama, under pressure from Arizona’s Republican Senator, John McCain, who was the Republican Party’s candidate in the 2008 presidential election and recently accused Obama of having the U.S. look “soft” in the Ukraine/Crimea matter, has loudly declared that America will not accept the secession vote in Crimea.

In Venezuela meanwhile, pro-U.S. elements have been trying to overthrow the democratically-elected Nicolás Maduro government for weeks now. Even though the methods used by the opposition to Maduro have been violent and undemocratic, if a new government takes over in Caracas you can bet Washington will recognize such a government immediately, because the new government would be pro-American. Incidentally, petroleum is the real issue here.

What happened in Cuba in 1962 was that the Fidel Castro government had invited Russia to install thermonuclear missiles on the island because the Americans had organized Cuban exiles, trained in Guatemala and Nicaragua, to invade Cuba in April of 1961. The Cubans expected the Americans to send more invaders. The Americans discovered the missiles and gave the Russians an ultimatum. The world was on the brink of nuclear Armageddon for a couple days.

China and Japan have recently been arguing about some islands in the sea between the two countries. The danger with their argument is that the United States is bound by military treaty to come to Japan’s assistance in the event of a war.

The world is a more dangerous and explosive place than it has ever been, and the reason is the large amount of nuclear missiles in underground silos, the large amount of nuclear missiles flying around the world 24/7 in bombers, and the large amount of nuclear missiles cruising beneath the sea 24/7 in submarines. These nuclear missiles are owned by the United States, Russia, China, the United Kingdom and the European Union.

The abovementioned nations are all states whose populations use more of the world’s natural resources than they themselves possess within their national borders. Because these dominant nations want to maintain and improve their high standards of living, they believe they absolutely need to control resources which are outside of their borders. A concept we may call “spheres of influence” comes into play. In defending their spheres of influence, countries like the United States and Russia will do the same abusive things to the smaller nations in their orbit, and then turn around and condemn each other for their behavior.

In line with their sphere of influence, as explicitly expressed in the Monroe Doctrine in 1823, the United States invaded the Dominican Republic in 1965, financed armed insurgency in Nicaragua in 1979, invaded Grenada in 1983, and invaded Panama in 1989. Now the Americans are financing the attempted overthrow of Venezuela’s Maduro. But when the Russians defend their own sphere of influence in the Crimea, the Americans condemn that. This is, to quote Zach Randolph once again, “big boys’ game.”

There was a time, and 1962 was such a time, when the world was far away from Belize. But now, because of jet planes, television, and the Internet, the world is very close to Belize. In a sense, it doesn’t help Belizeans any to be informed about the true nature of the regional and international conflicts taking place on planet earth. At this newspaper, nevertheless, we are philosophically and unconditionally opposed to ignorance in any of its manifestations. That is who we are.

The United States announced the Monroe Doctrine in 1823, just a couple years after Mexico, Central America, and most of South America declared their independence of Spain. America was announcing, then, that the Western Hemisphere now comprised the United States’ sphere of influence, and they would not tolerate European interference therein. With respect to the status quo in Belize’s Caribbean region, where the British, the French, and the Dutch all owned colonies, the Monroe Doctrine did not seek to overthrow that status quo.

So then, Guatemala entered Washington’s sphere of influence in 1823, and Guatemala remains therein. Belize did not really enter Washington’s sphere of influence, as such, until our independence in 1981, but because Belize was always of so much concern to Guatemala, then Belize, by implication and by extension, was always within the United States’ sphere of influence. This is the most important thing to understand about the Guatemalan claim to Belize: Washington is where this game is being played.

One of the most fascinating stories in the Old Testament is the story of the Tower of Babel. Mortal man’s ego can grow as large as it wants to, but man is not God. Today, when man has the nuclear power to destroy the planet, man is actually worried about looking “soft.” With all his thermonuclear missiles, man has become like God. This is bad news for humanity. You don’t want to hear this, but we’ve been saying the exact same thing from the very first issue of this newspaper on August 13, 1969: this world crisis is about white supremacy. Their madness endangers humanity.

Power to the people.