Final Call Before World War Three–Or First Steps To A New Peace Paradigm?

Speakers include

• Helga Zepp-LaRouche, Founder Schiller Institute
• Col. (ret.) Lawrence Wilkerson, retired United States Army Colonel and former chief of staff of Secretary of State Colin Powell
• Dennis Kucinich, served as the United States Congressman for Ohio’s 10th Congressional District from 1997 to 2013, independent candidate for Congress in 2024
• Jack Gilroy, Veterans For Peace, Pax Christi, Ban Killer Drones
• Dr Gershon Baskin, Israeli Peace Activist and Negotiator
• Ray McGovern, former CIA analyst and co-founder of the Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS)
• Steven Leeper, Chairman, Peace Culture Village, Former chairman, Hiroshima Peace Culture Foundation, Former US rep, Mayors for Peace
• Prof. Steven Starr, Professor, University of Missouri, expert on nuclear war
• J.R. Heffelfinger, Director at Runaway Horses, ‘8:15 Hiroshima

ANASTASIA BATTLE: Hello, thank you everyone for joining us. My name is Anastasia Battle, I’ll be your moderator today along with Dennis Small and Dennis Speed. We have a very important discussion ahead of us, especially given the incredible breaking developments which have led us, I believe, the closest we have ever been to thermonuclear war on two fronts; in both Palestine and Ukraine. We wanted to unite the entire peace movement around the world above ideologies, above people’s differences. There are all these various reasons why people don’t like one another, but if we’re actually going to accomplish true peace on the planet, we have to unite everyone under one umbrella in order to accomplish this. So, we wanted to have this meeting today on the anniversary of the Nagasaki atomic bombing, to remember and commemorate those who died in this crime against humanity. This should never happen again. We have people in official layers of government not just in the United States but around the world, who are actually talking about using nuclear weapons. This should never, ever be a thought that this could happen ever again. Human beings were obliterated and annihilated out of existence; they no longer existed. That is what a nuclear war means. This is not just a war on the ground where people die and you have casualties. This is the lack of existence of human beings; they no longer remain on this planet. We do not ever want to see that happen again. We thank all of you for joining us; we have nearly 300 people on the line right now. If you have any friends or organizations you’d like to invite, please bring them on now.

I put the agenda in the chat so you can see the line-up for today. To get us started, we’ll go to Helga Zepp-LaRouche, who is the founder of the Schiller Institute and the founder of the International Peace Coalition. It’s my pleasure to have you on; thank you for joining us today.

HELGA ZEPP-LAROUCHE: Thank you. Hello to all of you. As you just said, today is the anniversary of the Nagasaki catastrophe, and it is more urgent than ever before that people indeed remind themselves. Unfortunately, many people have completely gotten that out of their mind what the use of nuclear weapons can do. Unfortunately we are very close to the two major crises going out of control simultaneously.

Let me start with the situation around Ukraine, where on the one side there were some hopeful signs that maybe a dialogue solution can be found. There was the very important journey of Prime Minister Orbán of Hungary; there were signs that Zelenskyy would be willing to talk to Russia. But that’s not the whole picture. On Sunday, the Deputy Foreign Minister of Russia Sergei Ryabkov made an unusually stern warning by saying that the “era of unilateral concessions” from the side of Russia is over; that the situation has deteriorated in such a way that there are no more circuit breakers. As if to prove that, two days later, the invasion of the Kursk region inside Russia occurred with about 1,000 elite Ukrainian troops, armored vehicles, tanks. Now, it is very clear that this could not have been done without support from NATO, from the United States giving them intelligence that this was obviously a weak spot in the border defense of Russia. Why are the Ukrainian elite troops—and we heard subsequently from various analysts that these troops are an elite brigade trained to NATO standards, having NATO-standard equipment—while at the same time, the casualties in the other contested regions in the Donbass are horrendous? The latest figures are that in the last two months, 120,000 Ukrainian troops were killed, basically because they’re poorly trained. They just have a couple of days training, and then they are being sent to the front. Naturally, they don’t last long. So, with a casualty rate of 60,000 a month, why is Ukraine then deploying these elite troops to the Kursk region?

Obviously, there are all kinds of narratives that this is just to get territorial negotiations material for future settlements, but I don’t think that is really the official story, because we have seen step-by-step how the provocations are being escalated. The latest, according to various American press outlets, is that ATACMS should be used there. Russia has called a federal emergency, and obviously the casualties which have been inflicted on these elite troops are significant—the latest figure was 940. Well, if there were only 1,000 troops to begin with, then the question is, how many are left? In any case, this is an extremely dangerous escalation.

If you look now at the second crisis spot, the whole world is still waiting to see if Iran is going to retaliate against the two assassinations? There have been several days now, where obviously, supposedly, the United States is talking to everybody to prevent a wider war. For sure, there was the deployment of the former Defense Minister and now Secretary of the Russian Security Council Sergei Shoigu to Tehran, delivering a letter from Putin to the new President of Iran, urging him not to go into a massive strike and offering that Putin would mediate between Iran and Israel. At the same time, the head of the U.S. Central Command Kurilla was in Tel Aviv. This also demonstrates this is not just a wider regional war, which could involve Iran, Hezbollah, the Houthis, Türkiye, Syria, the Kurds, but given the fact that the Russians have deployed S-400 air missile defense systems which—according Colonel Macgregor—this means that very likely also Russian technicians are also on the ground in Tehran and that China has a vested interest not to allow any major attack on Iran. It shows you that we are sitting on a complete powder keg which potentially could involve the big nuclear powers. The situation in Israel is hard to describe, at least for a German, and I beg your sympathy. Others may help to describe the situation. The fact that Finance Minister Smotrich publicly said that the best would be to starve the 2 million Palestinians in Gaza to death, and that there was no public outcry by the international community about such a proposition, shows you what the state of affairs is.

Now, that brings me to the other element in the situation, and that is that the whole diplomacy, everything has gotten completely out of control. Ryabkov, in his statement, basically referred to an appeal that the United States should refrain from any assassination attempt against Putin or any other leaders. There was this article in Foreign Policy magazine with the headline, “Would the U.S. Consider Assassinating Putin?” There followed a description of a lot of regime-change operations by the United States. Then, going through a very detailed description about the personnel in the environment of Putin who could be involved in such an assassination. I find this a complete breach of all order of diplomatic relations among nations, which should cause people to get really upset. This goes along, obviously, with either a wartime or pre-wartime kind of control of the narrative. There was the raid by the FBI on the home of Scott Ritter on Aug. 7, accusing him of having violated the Foreign Agent Registration Act, against which Scott Ritter, who is one of the most powerful critics of the present U.S. policies, is referring to the First Amendment and his right as a journalist to do his work. That is a sign of the times that there is obviously an effort to suppress any kind of discussion of what the implications are of these policies. Then similarly, Tulsi Gabbard, who after all was a Congresswoman, a Presidential candidate, and still has a U.S. Army Reserves rank as lieutenant colonel, she was surveilled by U.S. intelligence as a terrorist threat on her air flights. There are similar efforts going on in various European countries, where there is a very clear effort to completely muzzle any criticism of these policies. We know from history that this is what happens when there is either a war about to break out or is already in motion.

I don’t want to go through more elements of the strategic situation. I think what I said so far makes it more urgent than ever that we really unify the international peace movement in ways it has not yet been done, even if the IPC has made tremendous progress in the year that we have been doing this. But I think we absolutely urgently have to have a New Paradigm in the thinking, what I have said from the beginning of the special military operation: We have to overcome geopolitics, because as long as we define in the case of NATO, Russia and China as the existential threat, we are in a dynamic which sooner or later will end in a catastrophe of the annihilation of the human species. We have to find a New Paradigm, where we replace geopolitical confrontation with the Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence, with the UN Charter, with the principle of dialogue that we are the intelligent species who can settle any conflict through diplomacy and dialogue. That is why I think we need to have a new international security and development architecture which takes into account the interests of every single country on the planet. That is why I have called for the creation of a Council of Reason of wise people stepping forward from every country to discuss what the policy options are for mankind to get in a more human domain. That’s all I wanted to say.

Remarks during the Discussion:

Zepp-LaRouche: I just want to thank both Colonel Wilkerson and Mr. Kucinich for what you said, because it confirms what my deepest belief is; namely what Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz said. He said that the universe is made in such a way that every evil causes an even greater good to emerge. I think what you both said is what is giving hope to the rest of the world that America can be saved; so thank you very much.

Zepp-LaRouche: I think we have to operate on two levels, simply because the crisis is so enormous. I think we need to really have the serious idea of building mass movements much bigger than in the 1980s, when the middle-range missile crisis existed and people in Germany knew that the warning time was 4-7 minutes between the SS-20 and the Pershing II. Everybody was aware at the time that we were on the verge of World War II. Even Helmut Schmidt, we heard from a close friend of his, that he once threw Zbigniew Brzezinski out of his office, accusing him of bringing the world to World War III. So, we need that kind of a mass movement. In Germany it’s an existential question, because if these long-range missiles are deployed in 2026 (provided we get to 2026), Putin already said that Russia will put symmetric responses to these weapons, not asymmetric, but the target will be Germany. If it comes to war, there will be nothing left of Germany, not even a rubble field for somebody to look at, because nobody will be left, elsewhere in the world, either.

So, I think mass action. The 1st of September is coming up, which is International Peace Day. We must have mass demonstrations everywhere. I don’t know now with Scott Ritter’s idea of having a big demonstration on September 28th is still on the table. If it is, we should absolutely try to amplify it. October 3rd there will include nationwide demonstrations in Germany by the peace movement. We should have that replicated in every country that we can. I think that is definitely something to be really concerned with. Get everybody into the streets, because that is the message without which it does not function.

But I also think we need to have this Council of Reason. I have issued this call, and we have started to organize for it already. We’re talking to people, asking “Who do you know who in your country has been in a government position and has shown care for the common good instead of selfish motives? Who has intellectually contributed something important in the field of science, strategy, beautiful art? Outstanding individuals who could constitute such a Council of Reason. I gave three examples in history of this—there are many more. One is the Council of Florence, which was able to unite the Catholic and Orthodox churches at least for some time; being an important part of the beautiful Golden Renaissance of Italy. Second example is the Peace of Westphalia, where the war parties came together and negotiated for four years in Münster and Osnabrück, ending with the Peace of Westphalia, which was the beginning of international law. Lastly, the Commission for Truth and Reconciliation in South Africa, which helped to overcome the wounds of apartheid. So, these are three examples of when mankind is confronted with an extraordinary crisis, the wise people are asked to step forward to bring in a difference element into the discussion and offer solutions coming from a wiser approach than that of the current leadership.

So, my appeal to all of you would also be, if you know such people, please bring them to our attention, help them to get into contact with us, and let’s form such a Council of Reason in a relatively short period of time, because I know that there are such outstanding individuals. If they would collectively make their voice heard, it could help to wake up those many sleepwalking people who are listening to the mainstream media and think that that is the only truth there is. So, to have this other voice come into being as quickly as possible, I think is also very important. That’s what I would ask you.

Concluding Remarks

Zepp-LaRouche: I hope I can address at least some of the points raised, if not, we will for sure review it and address it next week. I think that the difficulty, obviously, is that we have two exploding regional crises which have the potential to go global. Then we have in addition the kinds of problems which President Ramotar was mentioning in terms of the poverty levels and a lot of sub-problems, like what happens with the Palestinians in Gaza right now, who are in danger of being made extinct? I think that there is one concept which I would like all the listeners and participants to reflect on. I think we are looking, as a human civilization, at an unprecedented crisis. I think there were many Dark Ages in history, many empires which went under with great damage to the people. But never, ever, have we been in a crisis which is of such profound danger. Because of the existence of nuclear weapons, if it goes wrong this time, there will be nothing left for all the reasons Prof. Starr and others were saying. That’s why it is emphatically my view—and I think that of most people in the Schiller Institute and IPC—that you have to have a concept which addresses all the problems at the same time. Because if you are trying to solve only the Ukraine crisis, or only the Middle East crisis, or only this crisis, or that crisis, the danger is that these other ones will come up behind your back and eat you up, before you notice what has happened.

I think we have to address the systemic nature of what is causing all of these problems as a derivative. That is why I think we have to really think about this new global security and development architecture which should include every country on the planet. It should include Russia, China, the United States, Iran, North Korea, and all the other countries of the planet. It has to be designed in such a way that each of the countries can say, “My interest has been taken care of.” Because I don’t think that, unless we come up with an approach, will it be sufficient. It’s like when you have a cover on your bed which is too short, and you pull it over your head to warm there, then your feet get cold. It doesn’t work this way.

This is why I have designed these Ten Principles which could be the starting point of such an architecture. Deliberately, these are not programmatic points: These are principles, and there is a huge difference between programmatic points and principles. I have tried to come up with Ten Principles which are sort of the foundation for all the other programmatic points to be coherent and fall in line. The first seven principles address the immediate changes in the world system, like sovereignty, overcoming world hunger, a new credit system—all of these things, which I would urge you to read. But the last three principles, I deliberately added as those which pertain to the method of thinking which is required in the New Paradigm. I can for brevity mention only the last principle, because it’s also the most debated: That is that the new architecture has to proceed from the assumption that man is good by nature, and that therefore all evil is a lack of development and can be overcome by more development, more perfection, more improvement of the soul and the mind, the aesthetic education. In another place, I talk about the cohesion of the laws of the human mind and the laws of the physical universe. And that there is such a cohesion is easily proven, namely, that something which is completely immaterial—namely a new scientifically valid idea or artistically valid idea—has an impact in the physical universe by enlarging the potential and the degrees of freedom in the physical universe. So, there is a correspondence between an immaterial idea created by the mind and the impact this has on the physical universe. If such a coherence would not be there, it would not be efficient. You could have plenty of ideas, but they would have no impact on the physical universe.

So, I think we have to address this question in a very profound way, and in a certain sense, draw on the wisdom which humanity has produced in the different cultures up to the present development. I have found that you find the answers needed, if you do that kind of research. So, I think that that is a very important conception, and I would like to invite people to really discuss these matters deeply. That also has something to do with the answer to the global resources limit, because this global resources limit does not exist, because it goes against the laws of the universe. The universe has, according to the James Webb Telescope, we are aware of at least 2 trillion galaxies. We have maybe explored a tiny fraction of our planet Earth, which is a tiny, tiny planet in a galaxy which is too big to imagine. But just imagine 2 trillion galaxies, and then you get a sense that in terms of exploring the richness of the universe, we are only taking the first baby steps. So, we should not be pessimistic, and say we have reached the end of things and the limit of all things. It’s actually an intellectual challenge, which I think is very exciting, but that’s a long discussion.

In the meantime, I want to say that one of the members of the International Peace Coalition, who could not be here today for time reasons because he lives on the other side of the Earth in Asia. Mr. Chandra Muzaffar, who heads an organization called JUST [International Movement for a Just World], has just made a proposal which I would like to also bring to your attention. It is the idea that if the UN Security Council is blocked because of vetoes by one of the permanent members and you cannot come to any conclusion, or if you come to a conclusion then one of the members says “This resolution is not binding,” even if it is binding. So, there is clearly a problem. Therefore, the proposal which Chandra has made is to shift the discussion to have a resolution of the situation in the Middle East to the UN General Assembly. There is a clause which is called “Uniting for Peace”; and that mechanism can be used if it is being adopted I think by a majority of the nations. So, we will post all of this, and we ask you to help distribute that to all the UN countries, all the embassies, consulates, and just make sure that there is pressure to do that. Because I think a general debate in the UN General Assembly to address all the issues we addressed here today, I think that would be the gremium [commission appointed to carry out a specific task] which could act in the short term to address the problems we discussed.

Otherwise, I would like to thank you all for having been part of this. I think we will make the video available for the most part. I would say we can agree to that. And then you could take that, and take the passionate speeches—there were about 12 or so absolutely fantastic speeches highlighting different aspects of the world crises. If the 400-500 people who participated today, many of whom represent organizations with many members, get it out to as many organizations worldwide. Then bring those people to next week’s meeting, and then we can really start to become a force which has to be counted on. So, with that, I want to thank you. Be courageous and be loving.