The 116th meeting on Friday, Aug. 22 of the International Peace Coalition (IPC) featured intense warnings against nuclear war, optimism about U.S. relations with Russia, and reports on the unrestrained genocide of Palestinians and the insanity of the Ukrainian and European leadership insistence of continuing the already lost war in Ukraine.
Helga Zepp-LaRouche began by emphasizing our campaign to activate the UN General Assembly Resolution 377, Uniting for Peace, to intervene against the horror unfolding in Gaza and the West Bank. A person connected to the UN told her that a deployment of Blue Helmets in the region under Resolution 377 would have a significant impact regionally and globally, to bring action against Israel’s atrocities. She asserted that Trump’s tariff wars were forcing the BRICS nations to get even closer, pointing to Indian Foreign Minister Jaishankar’s visit in Moscow and China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi in India. The September 3 military parade in Beijing, celebrating the end of World War II, and the related meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) in Tianjin, and the Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok, if they bring the leaders of Russia, China and the U.S. together for development of the Bering Strait tunnel and related great infrastructure projects, could, and must, mark a turning point in history towards a new international security and development paradigm for all nations.
Professor Ted Postol, the world’s leading expert on nuclear weapons, said that the Israeli and U.S. bombing in Iran has resulted in two nuclear powers now confronting each other in Southwest Asia, with Iran joining Israel as a nuclear power. He explained that Iran had 13,000 kg of 60% enriched uranium before the bombing, but still has 400 kg, enough to produce 10 nuclear bombs of the size of the Hiroshima bombs within 4 or 5 weeks, if they should decide to do so. “That was created by the U.S. attacks,” he said, noting that the 400 kg had been under the inspection of the IAEA, but after the bombing, the IAEA was thrown out. Iran will not announce any decision to make the bombs, but will prefer “strategic uncertainty.” Zepp-LaRouche asked him about Iran’s fatwa against producing a bomb. Postol answered that the authority of the fatwa was based on the stature of the supreme religious leader, but that it was not a law, and could be lifted according to Islamic law.
Scott Ritter described his just-completed trip to Russia, which was “citizen’s diplomacy,” aimed at capturing the reality in Russia for the American population, who lack any sense of that reality. Postol noted that he had been in discussions with Ritter, and that Ritter was understating his impact within Russia. Ritter concurred, reporting that a leading Russian political figure had told him that his trip had created a “political nuclear explosion” in the country, due to an American telling the truth about the crisis. He said that he was about to publish a public letter, co-signed by Ted Postol, Dennis Kucinich and Ray McGovern, addressing the issue. Asked by Zepp-LaRouche to comment on the state of the war in Ukraine, Ritter said the Russian view was that the war will be won by the Russians, that they have not changed their demands (neutrality, de-Nazification, freedom of language), and that they do not care about the European bluster, knowing that they have no capacity to continue the war against Russia without the U.S. He said that the territories taken over by Russia “will be Russian forever.” Neutrality, he said, will be “under a Russian umbrella.”
Zepp-LaRouche asked about the recent arrest in Italy of a Ukrainian supposedly part of the operation which blew up the Nord Stream Pipeline in 2022. Postol said he was very close to Sy Hersh, and that when Hersh was writing his exposé accusing the U.S. military, under the direction of President Joe Biden, of carrying out the Nord Stream attack, Postol questioned him with serious questions about the “underwater acoustics” in the incident, adding that he was an expert in the field. Hersh took the questions to his source, whose response fully convinced Postol, who changed his mind and led him to concur with Hersh’s analysis.
Postol also added his view on the reported 1.7 million dead or missing Ukrainian soldiers, noting that this number, with the (mostly young) men and their partners, means that about 3 million child-bearing youth had been eliminated. This, he said, would leave a devastating impact on the nation, virtually wiping out a generation of Ukraine’s population. He said the callousness of Zelenskyy’s continuing the war in this condition reminded him of Hitler’s refusal to concede when Russia was closing in on Berlin, a “racist and hateful” leadership.
Garland Nixon, a blogger with a large following, described the importance of social media, especially as the commercial media is failing. He described something called “stream yard,” which is groups of 8-10 platforms coming together to further expand their reach. He said that meetings like the IPC need to be mass-distributed in a manner that can be understood by the growing audience of social media. He was asked about his viewership in Russia, which he said was the result of a group called “Russia Accent,” which had requested permission to translate and broadcast his shows in Russian, and which has resulted in millions of views throughout Russia.
Zepp-LaRouche added that the same has to be done with people in Africa, Asia and elsewhere, to get the world unified around the September 3 events, demanding “Never Again” to fascism and war.
Dennis Speed added that, like the “Continental Congress” by the Founding Fathers, we need an “International Congress” today, to change the global paradigm.
In the discussion period, Postol was asked about something called “super fuse technology.” He responded that this was something he had discovered by accident, which is a new technology allowing far more accurate targeting of missiles in silos. His concern is that the Russians and Chinese who see this multibillion-dollar technology being built would convince them that the U.S. is preparing for a first strike. Putin, he added, knows that such fantasies about “winning a nuclear war” cannot work, but worries about Western leaders who think they can.
Zepp-LaRouche responded that Rear Adm. Thomas Buchanan, a Director for the Plans and Policy Directorate at USSTRATCOM, had argued in public that the U.S. could win a nuclear war, but should be certain to retain enough nuclear weapons to assure continued world dominance. Postol said that such a person was “ignorant” and should have no position of authority in the U.S. military. He had worked with many three- and four-star generals with more sense than that. He noted that Putin had fired a general who was leading the Russian forces in Ukraine, but who called for using nuclear weapons.
A woman from India issued a call of support for the IPC, and for all people to join the fight for development and infrastructure. Zepp-LaRouche strongly endorsed her call, emphasizing that building infrastructure was critical for the new world paradigm, including education, so that we can “create billions of geniuses.”
A question about the U.S. military forces in the Caribbean led Dennis Small to insist that this had nothing to do with countering drugs, despite the argument made by the U.S.. Any real war on drugs would start with the shut down of the banks running the drug financing, while the claim of fighting drugs was just an excuse for military intervention by those who want to continue the dying colonial system.
In her conclusion, Helga Zepp-LaRouche said, “Right now we are in the most important next period, because if we get this global development of the Bering Strait as a corridor for the World Land-Bridge, if that becomes the motor, then you can have peace between the United States and Russia. I think no other force in the world can stop it, because as Putin said, they are neighbors; it’s just a few kilometers. If that bridge or tunnel is being built, and then you start to develop Alaska and Siberia, a tremendous wealth of ideas and creativity could come from that.”
