Cynthia Pooler interviews Diane Sare and Scott Ritter on the Ukraine CCD Hit List and Afghanistan.
This is EIR’s second collection of responses to the release of a blacklist on July 14 (mistakenly dated July 25 in Part 1) by the Center for Countering Disinformation (CCD) at the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine, which listed prominent individuals from around the world as “Russian propaganda” assets, while the Center’s acting director on the same day declared them to be “information terrorists,” and “war criminals.” The mobilization by EIR and others to denounce this Nazi-like attack by a Ukrainian government institution—which is funded by the U.S. and other NATO countries—has forced the Center to take down the list from its website. Nonetheless, the threat to those targeted is not thereby abated, and the call for investigations of the governments that are financing such threats to their own citizens from a foreign nation is expanding.
Part One of this compilation is in the August 12, 2022 issue of Executive Intelligence Review.
GREECE
Former Greek Ambassador Leonidas Chrysanthopoulos, a member of the Schiller Institute, in an interview on RT television regarding the Amnesty International report on the Ukraine military using civilians as human shields, added that Ukraine had invented a new term, “information terrorists.”
Referring to the CCD hit list, he said that the list targeted “mainly the Schiller Institute as ‘information terrorists’ and [said] that they should be accused as ‘war criminals.’ This is an invention. If it is taken up in the West, anybody having a different opinion about this war could be considered as a terrorist and be punished according to the laws regarding terrorism. This is very dangerous, because it is leading the West and the European Union toward fascism.” (It was actually the director of the CCD who had said that those on the list should be tried as war criminals.)
Amb. Chrysanthopoulos noted that he and two other former Greek ambassadors had issued a call for negotiations to begin between the West and Russia, adding, “Presumably we will also be considered information terrorists—the next generation of information terrorists.”
DENMARK
Jens Jørgen Nielsen, a former Moscow correspondent for the major Danish daily Politiken, and author of several books about Russia and Ukraine, spoke at the Danish-Swedish Schiller Institute Conference on May 25, 2022, and subsequently appeared on the CCD hit list. He was interviewed Aug. 3 on Radio 24/seven, the leading Danish national private radio channel.
Nielsen said that he is not spreading Russian propaganda, but he is critical of sending weapons to Ukraine, and critical of the narrative that Ukraine is a flowering democracy. “That the leader of the disinformation office called the people on the list ‘information terrorists,’ who should be tried before a military court, is absurd. Zelensky has banned 11 parties, and put people under house arrest without a court decision. It is not, as the narrative goes, a battle between democracy and dictatorship.” Nielson asked: “Will agents come to my house to bring me before a war criminal tribunal? The fact that Ukraine is threatening Western citizens with being brought before a war criminal tribunal is crossing all red lines. Putting us in connection with war criminals from Yugoslavia and Rwanda, mass murderers, is absurd…. I was accused of saying that Ukraine had sent 30 times the previous amount of bombs into the Donbass in the week before Feb. 24. But I have this figure from the OSCE [Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe]. Are they saying that the OSCE is on Putin’s disinformation pay list?”
“What are the consequences of being on the list? I want to go to Ukraine at some point. Will they let me in? Will I be arrested? Will I be attacked by Ukrainians who live here [in Denmark]? Sometimes I translate for Ukrainian refugees. I can’t imagine that they will come to my house and attack me.”
Jyllands-Posten, one of Denmark’s three leading national newspapers, posted an editorial on Aug. 11 denouncing the Ukraine hit list. Although the editorial began with full support for arming and funding Ukraine against “Russia’s brutal attack,” it then switched tone, noting that if Ukraine is to become a member of the EU, “there are conditions to be met. Among them is the fundamental acceptance of free speech….
“The Centre for Countering Disinformation sounds like something out of George Orwell’s ‘1984,’ but it is a center under Ukraine’s National Security Council. The center presumably has a central function during the war, but it has also recently been used to blacklist 72 international politicians, thinkers and researchers, including four Danes…. What the four Danes have in common is that they took part in a seminar at the end of May on alternatives to the current security policy structure in the world in order to reduce tensions and the division of countries into, for example, members and non-members of NATO…. [T]he theme of the seminar and the questioning of Western sanctions policy are of course perfectly legitimate in a free and open society.
“It is therefore worrying when Ukraine blacklists researchers and others who have a different view of the conflict. For it can hardly be seen as anything other than an attempt to silence them and label any angle other than the pro-Ukrainian one as pro-Russian, and thus on the wrong side of history…. [I]n rejecting free speech, free research and free debate, it is precisely Ukraine and its President who are in danger of moving to the wrong side, far from the ideals that they will hopefully pursue on the other side of the war, to emphasize that they are part of us, as we now see their struggle as ours.”
GERMANY
On August 2, Andrej Hunko, a German member of the Bundestag in Die Linke Party, posted the text of an official question to the German government concerning the Ukrainian hit list. Hunko is a long-standing federal parliamentarian; a member of PACE (the Permanent Assembly of the Council of Europe), and an election observer for the OSCE.
His official question reads: “Has the federal government so far reacted to the listing of German citizens, including public figures such as Alice Schwarzer [a journalist] or Dr. Rolf Mützenich [chairman of the SPD parliamentary group in the Bundestag], as disseminators of Russian propaganda… (if yes, how?), and was this listing put on the agenda for the Ukrainian government by Federal Minister Nancy Faeser (SPD) as well as the Federal Minister of Labor Hubertus Heil (SPD) during their Ukraine visit? (if yes, please specify the circumstances such as date and level of contact).”
In another post, Hunko points to the fact that he had been placed on the “infamous Myrotvorets List,” a list issued two years ago by the Ukraine government of “enemies of the State.” Hunko says that “at least two of those on the list were murdered in the meantime. The [German] federal government condemned the list, but never became seriously active to eliminate the list.”
Following the article in the widely read German newspaper NachDenkSeiten by esteemed jurist and author Dr. Wolfgang Bittner (see the first compilation of responses in the Aug. 12 issue of EIR), who spoke at a Schiller Institute conference and was placed on the Ukrainian hit list, the newspaper received many letters of support for Dr. Bittner, mostly from members of the SPD, the government party. The editor, Albrecht Müller, posted this note and several of the letters on Aug. 12:
Wolfgang Bittner refers in this post to a process in which, “if the Foreign Minister is unlikely to be relied on, the Chancellor” should intervene and stop the “discrimination against German nationals” by the Ukrainian government. “The Ukrainian Center for Combatting Disinformation (CCD) has published a blacklist containing 72 ‘public figures’ who take a critical position on the Ukraine conflict. These would be persecuted, ‘threatened with violence’ and would have to fear for their lives. “The persecution of critics and members of the opposition by Ukrainian government organizations” assumes “forms of unbridled fascism,” which one must assume is taking place “with the support of U.S. authorities.” This “state terrorism” and support for the Ukrainian government must be stopped immediately. Thank you for the interesting letters to the editor, which also contain new, enlightening information.
A selection from the letters:
Letter to the editor
Dear Mr. Müller, With the publication of the blacklist of the Ukrainian Center for Combating Disinformation, you and Wolfgang Büttner [sic] have succeeded in stabbing another hornet’s nest. One only wonders what actually still has to happen for the public to finally open their eyes and recognize the kind of fuse that was laid in Ukraine. There wafts an explosive mixture of understandable fears, wounded pride, helplessness and arrogance, driven by political interest. The pressure has to go! This applies to all sides, including the Russian one.De-escalation and negotiations are the order of the day. It is frightening when, of all people, the advocates of such a path of understanding find themselves on blacklists along with their likenesses….
With solidarity greetings from Thuringia, Bernd A. Thomas
Letter to the editor
Dear Mr. Bittner, In case the Chancellor does nothing: I offer you shelter at any time and give NachDenkSeiten permission to give you my contact details. Thank you very much for your effort!
LM
Answer by Wolfgang Bittner: Dear Ms. Mund, Thank you for your generous offer. I hope I don’t have to take advantage of it, and I’m glad that there are still good people like you with perspective. Cordially, Wolfgang Bittner
Letter to the editor
Dear Albrecht, dear enlighteners,
I sent this email to the SPD leadership:
Dear party leadership,
I have learned that in Ukraine there is a “black list” of enemies of Ukraine, including the leader of the ruling SPD party in the German Bundestag, Rolf Mützenich, a party that you lead…. I haven’t heard a word from you about this monstrosity. Are these the Western values that Ukraine is so valiantly defending against the “onrushing subhumans”? I haven’t heard from you yet that Zelensky has banned all opposition parties in Ukraine and that some of their leaders are imprisoned. Which sister party in Ukraine, in the sense of a socialist international, do you feel connected to?… [W]hom do you support when you deliver heavy weapons? I firmly believe that you will support our opponents, even if they act like Banderites [the current followers of Stepan Bandera, Hitler’s Nazi ally in Ukraine] and keep our sworn enemies in power.”
Solidarity, Herbert Krueger, OVV Winkelhaid
Letter to the editor
Dear NachDenkSeiten team, Dear Mr. Bittner,
Thanks for discussing this topic (finally!). The “black lists” do not even seem to be the climax, but perhaps only the beginning of systematic fascist state terror. As can be read today in Die Junge Welt, the public threats continue to escalate, apparently in particular against those people who are in favor of armistice negotiations instead of brutal war…. In a supposedly democratic republic, shouldn’t it be publicly stated that, as a citizen and as a human being, we wish and demand that at least our government seriously advocates peace, instead of constantly pouring fuel on the fire with arms deliveries, etc.—without being personally seriously threatened? Where is the state, where is the care for its citizens? Beautiful democracy … it’s all just unbelievable, we run into all catastrophes faster and faster with our eyes wide open.
Kind regards, Peter Langhammer
Letter to the editor
Dear Nachdenkseiten team, dear Wolfgang Bittner,
That I have to witness state black lists with the names of international, also German, critical intellectuals shamelessly published on government websites, this time from Ukraine, without an immediate sharp reaction from German politicians and/or journalists (there are few exceptions) is a slap in the face to all peaceful and democratically committed people. I see this as nothing less than an invitation to manhunt. I understand it all the less, since as a child I had to experience the horrors of World War II up close. I have therefore written a letter to some public institutions and persons [the letter and the names of officials addressed followed].
Uwe Strohmeyer
UNITED STATES
Glenn Greenwald, the American journalist and lawyer, issued a statement in late July in response to his inclusion on the Ukraine hit list:
“Before Russia’s invasion and since, Zelensky has abolished basic liberties: shuttered opposition media, outlawed parties, imprisoned dissidents. As Ukraine demands money and arms from the West, they now want to export this repression to our countries with McCarthyite blacklists.
“War proponents in the West and other functionaries of Western security state agencies have used the same tactics for decades to demonise anyone questioning the foreign policy of the U.S. and NATO. Chief among them, going back to the start of the Cold War, is accusing every dissident of spreading ‘Russian propaganda’ or otherwise serving the Kremlin. That’s all this is from the Ukrainians: just standard McCarthyite idiocy.
“The Ukrainians have the absolute right to pursue whatever war policies they want. But when they start demanding that my country and my government use its resources to fuel their war effort, then I, along with all other Americans, have the absolute right to question that policy or to point out its dangers and risks….
“Observing the grave danger of a proxy war involving the two nations with the largest nuclear stockpiles, ones with a history of coming very close to annihilating the planet, does not require Kremlin messaging; it only requires the most basic common sense and moral compass.”
Tulsi Gabbard, a former four-term Member of the U.S. House of Representatives and an Army Reserve officer, responded to her appearance on the list on July 26 on the Tucker Carlson show on Fox TV:
“It is the peak of hypocrisy. The Biden-Harris Administration and the Washington elite, both parties, are impoverishing the American people and people around the world, while pushing us closer and closer to nuclear war and holocaust, all to ‘protect democracy and defeat autocracy’ in Ukraine. All this is happening as the Ukraine President is exposing that there is no democracy in Ukraine. He is silencing all dissenting voices, imprisoning political opponents, banning all political activity from the opposition parties, taking control of all national media under his ‘unified information’ policy, and now he is turning his sights on Americans. Not only myself, but a sitting U.S. Senator. The danger of this goes to the cost that our leaders are willing to exact as they continue this façade of a push for so-called democracy and defeat[ing] autocracy. The whole thing is so hypocritical, and we need to hold our leaders to account for it.”
Tony Magliano, an internationally syndicated Catholic columnist who spoke at a conference of the Schiller Institute and was included on the Ukrainian hit list, posted an article on The Southern Cross, The Catholic Magazine for Southern Africa on Aug. 12, asking: “Why is an internationally syndicated Catholic social justice and peace columnist on such a list?” Since he was among thirty people at the top of the list who had spoken at a Schiller Institute conference, the answer was unavoidable: “Just a few days before the Russian invasion of Ukraine, I participated in an international Zoom conference hosted by the Schiller Institute—which sought to warn against possible imminent nuclear war, and to inspire a fresh non-violent, just, egalitarian approach to the never-ending wars and economic injustices experienced by the world’s poor and disenfranchised.
“My small contribution was a concise presentation entitled, ‘War is not inevitable! We have a moral obligation to save Afghans from starving! The need to create a new, human-centred paradigm.’
“In my presentation, I highlighted the moral necessity of the U.S.—considering its 20-year history of waging war in Afghanistan—to significantly increase emergency and ongoing developmental aid to Afghanistan ensuring that all Afghans, especially the children, do not starve to death—a tragedy still unfolding. Additionally, I attempted to highlight the obvious catastrophe of the imminent war between Russia and Ukraine, hoping to help avoid that preventable armed conflict.”
This, he concludes, was enough for Ukraine to decide that “I am a promoter of Russian propaganda. But truth be told, I am a promoter of the nonviolent Gospel of Jesus Christ!”
POLAND
Łukasz Marcin Jastrzębski, editor of Mysl Polska (Polish Fatherland) in Poland, published an article in their Aug. 14-21 edition titled “Schiller on the Ukrainian List,” with a picture of Schiller Institute founder Helga Zepp-LaRouche. Jastrzębski reports that a Pole who writes for his journal, Tomasz Jankowski, also appears on the Ukraine hit list, adding: “A significant number of those mentioned on the aforementioned list are associates of the Schiller Institute, headed by Helga Zepp-LaRouche (pictured).” He notes that Lyndon LaRouche, the deceased leader of the movement, had been subjected to similar attacks “by supporters of global liberalism… when he strengthened his actions both in the USA and Europe for peace in Ukraine. The allegations against the Schiller Institute come back like a boomerang every now and then. It doesn’t really matter that there is no logic in them. For many years I have been reading materials published by the Schiller Institute…. We also published interviews with… Lyndon H. LaRouche (1922-2019) and the legendary warrior for Negro rights in the USA, the collaborator of Martin Luther King, Amelia Boynton Robinson (1911-2015), in the Mysl Polska.”
Jastrzębski describes at length the impact of the LaRouches’ meetings with himself and several hundred other Poles in the 1990s, and concludes: “There are no great secrets, huge amounts of money, training centers, conspiracies or other products of Styrofoam minds associated with the Schiller Institute. I recommend everyone to visit the Schiller Institute’s Facebook pages. Today we respect the calls of the Schiller Institute for a peaceful solution to the Russian-Ukrainian issues.”
Schiller Institute Press Release
August 18, 2022
Americans Threatened by the U.S.-Funded Ukrainian Center for Countering Disinformation as “Russian Propaganda” Agents and “War Criminals” Demand Congressional Investigation
Sixteen prominent Americans whose names appeared on the infamous Black List issued by the U.S.-funded Ukrainian Center for Countering Disinformation, under President Zelensky’s National Security and Defense Council, have called on six committees of the U.S. Senate and the U.S. House of Representatives to investigate the use of taxpayers money to finance these overt threats to the right to free speech and the personal security of U.S. citizens. Those on the list are accused of being Russian propaganda assets, “information terrorists” and “war criminals” by the Center and its Acting Director Andriy Shapovalov.
The six committees are:
Senate: Foreign Relations; Judiciary; Select Committee on Intelligence
House: Foreign Affairs; Judiciary; Select Committee on Intelligence
The letter follows:
Call for Congressional Investigations of Threats to American Citizens by U.S. Funded Ukrainian Government Agency —
August 13, 2022
The Honorable Richard J. Durbin, Chairman
Committee on the Judiciary
United States Senate
Washington, DC 20515
Dear Chairman Durbin,
We the undersigned American citizens, all of whom were included on the “Black List” issued on July 14 by the Ukrainian government office, the Center for Countering Disinformation (CCD) under Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council, have been accused of promoting “Russian propaganda,” and declared to be “information terrorists” and “war criminals” by this foreign entity. The CCD is being financed by the U.S. Government, including from H.R. 7691, “The Additional Supplemental Appropriations Act of 2022,” which provides funding for the Ukrainian government and its Center for Countering Disinformation. We strongly protest these threats to our constitutional right to free speech, to academic freedom, and to the threat of physical harm coming from a nation at war with the nation we are falsely accused of representing, in our speech and our writings.
We call on your Committee to exercise your oversight of the use of taxpayer funds by investigating the funding of this foreign government agency and their role in directly threatening Americans’ rights and safety. We note that those American citizens targeted on the Black List include a sitting member of the U.S. Senate; a former member of the U.S. House of Representatives; a former member of the Virginia House and Senate; two candidates on the November ballot, one for the U.S. Senate and one for the U.S. House of Representatives; four former leading U.S. intelligence professionals; an internationally syndicated columnist in the Catholic Church; prominent academics and journalists and more. See the list, attached. We are prepared to offer our full assistance in the investigation by your Committee.
Sincerely,
Col. Richard H. Black (ret.): Former Marine, former head of the U.S. Army’s Criminal Law Division at the Pentagon, former member of the Virginia House and Senate
Graham Fuller: Former vice chairman of the National Intelligence Council, 25-year CIA operations officer, author of numerous books
Ray McGovern: Former Army infantry/intelligence officer, CIA analyst/Presidential briefer
Scott Ritter: Former Marine Intelligence Officer, former UN Chief Weapons Inspector in Iraq
Dr. Clifford Kiracofe: Former Senior Staff Member, U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, and President, Washington Institute for Peace and Development
James Jatras: Former diplomat, former advisor to U.S. Senate Republican leadership
Harley Schlanger: Former spokesman for Lyndon H. LaRouche, spokesman for the Schiller Institute, and The LaRouche Organization
Diane Sare: LaRouche independent candidate for U.S. Senator from New York
Geoff Young: Democratic Party nominee for U.S. Congress from Kentucky, CD 6
Jason Ross: Secretary-Treasurer, The LaRouche Organization and Science Advisor to Lyndon H. LaRouche
J. Michael Springmann: Former United States diplomat with the State Department’s Foreign Service, with postings in Germany, India and Saudi Arabia
Bradley Blankenship: Journalist and columnist
Dr. George Koo: Retired business consultant specializing in U.S.-China Trade and Chairman, Burlingame Foundation
Tony Magliano: Internationally Syndicated Catholic social justice and peace columnist
Mike Callicrate: Kansas; Owner Ranch Foods Direct
Caleb Maupin: Journalist, Founder & Director of the Center for Political Innovation
In discussing the tremendous potential to move to a new financial and strategic architecture, Helga Zepp-LaRouche highlighted comments by President Putin at the Moscow Security Conference, in which he said the world is going through a transition. The attempt to criminalize honest debate demonstrates the desperation of the establishment to silence opposition. As reality strikes, she said, it becomes impossible to “gag the entire population.”
She elaborated aspects of the transition: the strength of the Russia-China alliance; the rejection of nations in the Global South of the Unipolar Order; and the growing mobilization of citizens in the developing sector, in Europe and the U.S. seeking fundamental changes, away from the wars which derive from geopolitical division into Blocs. It is a moment of great danger, but also potential for the kind of change which Lyndon LaRouche devoted his life to. She urged people to join her this Saturday, when she addresses the Manhattan Project meeting, celebrating the 75th anniversary of Indian Independence.
Read and sign our call for a New Bretton Woods
As the call for an Ad Hoc Committee for a New Bretton Woods is circulating and picking up endorsers, Helga Zepp-LaRouche presented in her weekly webcast the argument why this is the only avenue that can work, if mankind is to move toward peaceful cooperation and development. There is a growing concern about World War III and, while people are against war, they are not looking at the cause. It is the collapse globally of the neoliberal system which is responsible for the war drive coming from the G7 and NATO. While ridiculing the dog-and-pony show of their summits, she pointed to the serious discussion at the BRICS-Plus summit as an example of the potential to achieve a global bankruptcy reorganization.
As to why connect her call with Bretton Woods, she said it represented a precedent. The hijacking of FDR’s original proposal prevented the full decolonization he intended, but that is now on the agenda. The G7 and NATO are launching a global operation which does not address any of the immediate threats facing mankind. Our proposal does.
She urged people to join this fight after presenting a summary of how it was Bismarck’s rejection of neoliberal free trade policies and embrace of the American System which led to the industrial development of Germany. This story is kept out of the history books. It is up to us to carry out a mobilization which reintroduces people to this approach to overcoming poverty and underdevelopment on a global scale.
Helga Zepp-LaRouche, founder and leader of the International Schiller Institute, will give a special online presentation in celebration of the 75th anniversary of Indian independence, Saturday, August 20. Joining Helga Zepp-LaRouche will be Sam Pitroda, an innovator, entrepreneur, and policymaker. He has been a Cabinet Minister and advisor serving over the years seven Indian prime ministers.
This presentation will advance the Schiller Institute’s proposal for the creation of a new world security and development architecture, rejecting the “Global NATO” perpetual war practice. Zepp-LaRouche has long discussed this approach, including in “Gandhi’s Vision for a New Paradigm in international Relations, a World Health System, and Direct Non-Violent Action In Times of Social Breakdown,” a paper delivered at the online International Conference of the Association of Asian Scholars on “Revisiting Gandhi: Peace, Justice and Development,” October 30-31, 2020.
The relationship to India of Zepp-LaRouche and her husband, the late statesman and economist Lyndon LaRouche, was a bedrock influence in how the Schiller Institute was formed. Lyndon LaRouche, presenting testimony to an international tribunal of legislators, legal experts, diplomats and civil rights leaders conducting Independent Hearings to investigate misconduct of the United States Department of Justice, described how he began his political career.
A number of these students who participated in [my] classes, became associated with me, and out of this association came the birth of a nascent political organization, as much a philosophical organization as political. Our essential commitment was to Third World issues and related issues – that is, economic justice for what is called the Third World, is essential for a just society for all nations. I became particularly attached to this during military service overseas in India, where I saw what colonialism does to people…. and that if we allowed the circumstances to prevail that I saw to prevail in the Third World, we will bring upon ourselves some kind of disaster, either war, or something comparable down the line. And that was essentially our commitment as an association.
— Lyndon LaRouche, 1995 speech
On August 6, The Hindu, a major Indian newspaper ran an article, “Schiller Institute Calls for New Bretton Woods to End War, Economic Crisis,” illustrated with a prominent photograph of a 2001 meeting of Mr. and Mrs. LaRouche with then-Indian President K.R. Narayanan at the presidential offices.
Zepp-LaRouche and the Schiller institute are organizing a two-day weekend conference September 10-11, celebrating Lyndon LaRouche’s 100th birthday and demanding that a scientific and cultural dialogue among India, the United States, Russia and China supersede the drive toward war now dominant in the world, and that the spiritually civilized standpoint of Gandhi’s vision for a new paradigm in international relations become, through such conferences, the means for peace through economic development worldwide.
Zepp-LaRouche will also announce the first-time-ever publication of a January 1985 “India paper” by LaRouche, “The Implications of Tilak’s Theses for the Scientific Potential of India Today,” soon to be available through Executive Intelligence Review. Other LaRouche documents on India include “A Fifty-Year Development Policy for the Indian-Pacific Ocean Basin” and “The Present Scientific Implications of Vedic Calendars from the Standpoint of Kepler and Circles of Gauss.”
Join Helga Zepp-LaRouche and Sam Pitroda to discuss!
In Panel 4, “Classical Culture and the Dialogue of Civilizations”, of the June 18–19 Schiller Institute Conference, “There Can Be No Peace Without the Bankruptcy Reorganization of the Dying Trans-Atlantic Financial System,” Dr. Zaher Wahab, Emeritus Professor of Education, who taught at the American University of Afghanistan (2013-2020), and served as an advisor to the Afghan Ministry of Higher Education, spoke in his presentation “Dialogue, Not a Clash, of Civilizations”, of the need to establish a new paradigm of cooperation among nations and cultures, which renounces the Western legacy of colonialism and the Samuel Huntington thesis of “Clash of Civilizations”. He begins by thanking the Schiller Institute for keeping the issue of Afghanistan, his native country, ” up front in the news”.
Dr. Wahab insists that the U.S. and its allies have a a responsibility to rebuild Afghanistan, instead of causing mass starvation through its economic sanctions and seizure of Afghanistan’s Central Bank reserves, stating very clearly that “The U.S. is on trial, humanity is on trial, and history will judge us.” In response to a question about the role of the 10th Century Central Asian philosopher and world famous medical expert Ibn Sina in building a new dialogue of civilizations and saving Afghanistan, Schiller Institute Founder Helga Zepp-LaRouche discusses the concept she developed of Operation ibn Sina to restore the greatness of Afghanistan in building a modern health system and new economy.. This issue has assumed even greater significance since the horrific effects of the recent devastating earthquake in Afghanistan have exposed the lack of the necessary infrastructure and health care system which NATO’s 20 year occupation of Afghanistan never built, and the further economic destruction of Afghanistan caused by U.S. policy since the U.S. pulled out of Afghanistan in 2021.
As the result of a vigorous, surgical, and rapid international mobilization, largely catalyzed by the Schiller Institute, but also taken up on their own by like-minded, though politically distinct individuals, sometime on Thursday afternoon Aug. 11, the infamous Ukrainian Center for Countering Disinformation (CCD) was forced, probably under advisement from increasingly nervous NATO interests, to take down its blacklist of over 70 international figures whom head of the CCD denounced as “information terrorists” deserving to be charged as “war criminals” for deviating from the NATO/Ukrainian official narrative on the Ukraine-Russia conflict. The violence of this rhetoric lends weight to the charges of Scott Ritter, former UN weapons inspector, himself named by the Center, that the blacklist constitutes a de facto “hit list”. Even just calling for a negotiated solution to the conflict earned prominent international public figures a place on the blacklist.
To see the list of withdrawn names, which led with 31 leaders of the Schiller Institute and distinguished speakers at recent international Schiller conferences, but also included a sitting U.S. Senator, a former U.S. Representative, a leading former state legislator, two active candidates in current U.S. elections, leading investigative journalists, four senior retired figures from the U.S. intelligence community, and more than 30 other prominent international figures, click here.
Intelligence contacts, including former NSA and CIA analysts, remarked that the successful publication of exposés denouncing the very idea of the blacklist in India, Germany and Denmark, played a major role in the list’s suppression. Prominent elected officials and others have obliged the Danish foreign minister to make an official response to the Ukrainian efforts to silence any deviation from the NATO/Ukrainian narrative. Pressure is building for such action in Germany, India, Mexico, Italy, New Zealand, and the United States. For details, see “No” To Global NATO Hit List Around the World, a two-part report in the Aug. 12 and 19 issues of Executive Intelligence Review (EIR).
It is now essential, however, to widen that breach, and to energetically demand the deeper exposure and shut-down of the dense network of censorship initiatives being assembled by top psywar offices in the UK, NATO and US, under labels of “fact-checking”, “misinformation-tracking”, and “countering Kremlin disinformation”. The Schiller Institute, in conjunction with Executive Intelligence Review, is completing a special series of reports on this network, to be released shortly.
Everyone is urged to add new signers to the Call for an Investigation of the Ukrainian CCD Hit List, and read and disseminate the emerging fuller picture of the Orwellian apparatus of which Ukraine’s CCD is only a cat’s paw.
Governments and individuals around the world have responded to the Nazi-like Blacklist, released July 25 by the Center for Countering Disinformation at the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine, with outrage, anger, and, in several cases, demands for government action to stop financing the Ukraine government.
The Blacklist, characterized by many as a “hit list” and even a “kill list,” targeted 78 leading individuals from every part of the world as Russian propaganda agents, declaring them to be “information terrorists” and threatening legal and other actions as “war criminals.”
This threat was issued for even the slightest challenge to the official “narrative” coming from Global NATO regarding Ukraine and Russia. The first thirty people on the list were leaders and friends of the Schiller Institute. See the article, “Ukraine Labels Schiller Institute Leaders and Others as ‘War Criminals’,” in EIR, Vol. 49, No. 30, Aug. 5, 2022, pp. 5-6.
Here is a sampling of the responses.
GERMANY
Helga Zepp-LaRouche, founder of the Schiller Institute: While the Center was created in 2021, with the idea of becoming a “vital hub of counter-disinformation strategy and resources not just domestically, but internationally,” it had “been brewing since 2014,” according to a briefing by Andriy Yermak, Head of the Office of the President of Ukraine for President Zelensky.
That, interestingly, places it in the immediate context of the Western-backed Maidan Coup, the prehistory for which Victoria Nuland claimed the U.S. had spent $5 billion dollars…. Otherwise, the poor authors of the Center seem to suffer from the syndrome of belief in conspiracy theories, since they assume that such a wide array of speakers representing top institutions from around the globe are all Putin agents and can’t think for themselves.
The widely read German website NachDenkSeiten (Pages of Reflection) posted an article on Aug. 8 by Dr. Wolfgang Bittner, a well-known jurist and author who spoke at a Schiller Institute conference and appeared on the Ukraine hit list. The article, under the title: “Ukraine’s Blacklist—The Federal Chancellor Must Act,” notes that in addition to himself and Helga Zepp-LaRouche, the list includes Rolf Mützenlich, the Chairman of the Social Democratic Party caucus in the Bundestag. (Chancellor Olaf Schulz is a member of the SPD.) Dr. Bittner writes: “The political situation is appalling, and the persecution of dissenters in connection with the Ukraine war is taking the form of unbridled fascism. It is unacceptable that state terrorism is being carried out here under the eyes of the world public. The persecution of critics and opposition figures by Ukrainian government organizations must be stopped immediately. The federal government is called upon to lodge a protest with the Zelensky government against the discrimination against German nationals … and to stop all aid for Ukraine. The list of the CCD must be deleted immediately.”
DENMARK
On Aug. 1, Danish parliamentarian Marie Krarup (independent) submitted questions to Danish Foreign Minister Jeppe Kofod regarding the Ukraine list, to be answered during a parliamentary “consultation” (samråd). Every Danish member of parliament has the right to require any minister to verbally answer written questions previously submitted. The parliament’s website announced the consultation request, and the two questions. The date is not set yet. Here are the questions posed:
Consultation Memo to the Minister for Foreign Affairs on the Ukrainian list of foreigners who “promote” the Russian narrative, etc.
Consultation questions:
Will the Minister comment on the Ukrainian list of foreigners who “promote” the Russian narrative, including that the Minister is asked to answer whether, in the Government’s view, the list is an expression of respect for freedom of expression, democracy, and other values, which the Minister believes Denmark should promote in the world?
Does the Minister believe that Denmark can continue to justify its support for Ukraine with arms and money by saying that Denmark is thus helping to support democratic values outside Denmark?
See the Danish Foreign Affairs Committee document, Consultation Question from Aug. 1, 2022.
See “Ukraine Publishes List of Foreigners Promoting ‘Russian Narrative’ About the War in Ukraine, Three Danes Appear on List,” published on MR East, July 29, 2022.
On July 30, the Danish peace policy leader Jan Øberg (on the Ukraine hit list and a speaker at a Schiller Institute conference) described the Ukraine blacklist as being in the “best Joe McCarthy 1950 style.” Under the title: “Ukraine Smears People Around the World as Part of the Disinformation War,” Øberg wrote the following on his Jan Øberg website:
The government of Ukraine runs a Center for Countering Disinformation. It seems to be tasked with telling the world who carries the truth and who are spokespeople who are pushing a rhetoric that is in tune with Russian propaganda. I’m included in a list issued by the Center together with around 70 people, many of whom I am honored to be grouped with…. I distanced myself from the Russian invasion of Ukraine but also believe that the present arming of Ukraine is utterly counterproductive and will have unspeakably destructive consequences for Ukraine in particular.
But, sadly, the U.S. and NATO countries are united—so far—in (mis)using Ukraine as the battlefield to weaken Russia and “win” over it. That is, as a proxy—fighting for itself and Ukraine to the last Ukrainian….
In summary, it is one of those intellectually and morally poor attempts, of course, to smear people who have a balanced view or are not 100% on your side.… The whole thing appears bizarre, hilarious. Unintentionally comic.
The foremost Danish News media, Danish Radio, on Aug. 1 featured an interview with Professor Li Xing, a Professor of Development and International Relations and a researcher at the Research Center on Development and International Relations at Aalborg University in Denmark. Prof. Li and the other three speakers from Denmark and Sweden who addressed the Schiller Institute’s conference on May 25 were on the Ukrainian hit list. The online conference video is available here.
Prof. Li confirmed to DR that he is critical of the sanctions against Russia, which are not working as intended, because many countries are still deeply dependent on Russian gas and oil, and because the sanctions could risk hitting EU countries harder than Russia. He said,
[The targeting of critics by Ukraine is a] fundamental violation of the right of researchers to think and speak freely. In this way, any criticism of Ukraine will be regarded as pro-Russian. It’s crazy…. As an academic, the only thing I try to find out is the truth about the war and to give an explanation.
INDIA
Sam Pitroda, a high-tech specialist from India who lives in the U.S., but also served as an advisor to Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, responded strongly to his appearance on the blacklist. Pitroda had participated in two Schiller Institute conferences this year. In a July 29 interview with Indica News, “Sam Pitroda Hits Back at Ukrainian Agency that Tied Him to Russian Propaganda,” Pitroda called the report “stupid, misinformed,” adding that it appeared to be politically motivated.
I am surprised, shocked, puzzled and perplexed by the allegation from a high-level Ukraine government agency…. I feel sorry for Ukraine and other intelligence agencies involved in this propaganda…. Does the Ukraine agency really know who Sam Pitroda is, what he values, what he stands for, and where he comes from?
Do not be in a hurry to label people based on a conference or a comment taken out of context. Do not believe what you want to believe from your narrow perspective for propaganda. We all value our freedom to speak. Respect it…. I did not say Russia is right or Ukraine is wrong. What I am trying to say is this whole design of NATO, UN, IMF, etc., doesn’t work anymore. My message is that in the hyper-connected world, we need to design a world that is collaborative, cooperative, and not command and control.
On July 30, The Hindu of India ran a story titled, “India Silent on Ukraine Blacklisting Three Nationals,” featuring, in particular, the matter of former Ambassador P.S. Raghavan being targeted. Raghavan is now the Chairperson of India’s National Security Advisory Board. Ironically, it appears that the only reason the high-ranking Indian civil servant was on the list is that he was scheduled to speak at a Schiller Institute Conference—even though he didn’t appear!
The newspaper’s “sources” indicated that the “Ukrainian government should clarify its intent, given its potential impact on relations.” The Hindu notes that Mikhailo Podalyak, “Mr. Zelensky’s chief advisor and negotiator,” stood by the list in remarks to the The Print of India, and threatened sanctions against those named therein.
An important note on India’s response: As should have been the case in every country whose citizens appeared on the threatening hit list, The Hindu, the “newspaper of record” and the second-largest circulation English-language paper in India, called on Helga Zepp-LaRouche, clearly the primary target of the hit list, and published an honest interview with the Schiller Institute founder. The article, “Schiller Institute Calls for New Bretton Woods to End War, Economic Crisis,” explored the close relationship between Mrs. Zepp-LaRouche and her late husband Lyndon LaRouche in India, including their close relationship with Prime Minister Indira Gandhi and President K.R. Narayanan, as well as the role of three prominent Indian citizens who were on the Ukraine hit list due to their connections to the Schiller Institute.
ITALY
In a July 26 article, “Kiev Publishes Black List on Alleged Philorussians,” ByoBlu, a leading multimedia outlet in Italy, reported:
[The Ukraine hit list’s] intimidating method closely resembles those used by Mafia gangs against future victims…. Italian names also appear on the compiled list: General Leonardo Tricarico and MEP Francesca Donato [both were speakers at a Schiller Institute conference —ed.]. For now, it is not known what steps Zelensky’s government intends to take against the people on the list. In any case, it is necessary to put one’s heart at rest about the fact that there is no accomplished democracy on Kiev’s side.
UNITED STATES
Former U.S. Marine Corps intelligence officer and UN weapons inspector Scott Ritter, who is on the Ukraine hit list, issued an Open Letter to his Congressional representatives in the State of New York, U.S. Senators Chuck Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand, and Congressman Paul Tonko. The letter, posted on July 27 on Consortium News under the title, “U.S. Should Not Fund Ukrainian ‘Blacklist’,” called on them to:
Take the appropriate action necessary to ensure that funds appropriated by the United States Congress are not used to suppress the free speech rights afforded to citizens of the United States, including myself, by the First Amendment of the United States Constitution.
Ritter notes that they all supported H.R. 7691, “The Additional Supplemental Appropriations Act of 2022,” which provides funding for the Ukrainian government, and its Center for Countering Disinformation.
As a constituent whose name has appeared on a so-called “blacklist” published by the Ukrainian Center for Countering Disinformation,” Ritter wrote, “my personal and professional life has been, and continues to be, detrimentally impacted by the chilling effect of being labeled a “Russian propagandist” for simply exercising the right to free speech guaranteed by the United States Constitution. Moreover, Ukraine has a history of converting “blacklists” of this nature into “kill lists,” where those who speak out against the policies of the Ukrainian government are being murdered or threatened with violence.
I am certain you agree with me that Congress cannot be in a position where, through its actions, foreign governments are provided the means to intimidate citizens of the United States from exercising their Constitutionally protected rights regarding free speech….
Congress cannot be allowed to bypass Constitutionally imposed constraints on its actions by allowing a foreign government to do that which would not be permitted here in the United States. By paying the salaries of the civil servants employed by the Ukrainian Center for Countering Disinformation, who have prepared and disseminated the so-called “blacklist,” you and your fellow Senators and Representatives appear to be doing just that—allowing the government of Ukraine to suppress the right of free speech guaranteed to United States citizens under the Constitution.
In a second article in Consortium News, “Chuck Schumer’s War on Free Speech,” on Aug. 3, Ritter focused on Senate Majority Leader Schumer, noting first that in the debate over H.R. 7691, when Sen. Rand Paul proposed appointing an inspector general to monitor the way the $40 billion being handed over to Ukraine would be spent, Schumer called the request “repugnant,” as an effort to “obstruct Ukraine funding.” Rand Paul then ended up on the hit list.
Ritter then addressed the fact that Schumer’s opponent in the November election, LaRouche candidate Diane Sare, was also smeared by the hit list:
Diane Sare was singled out by the Schumer-funded, State Department-supported Center for Countering Disinformation as an “information terrorist” who should be prosecuted as a “war criminal” because of her public stance challenging the narrative about the Ukraine conflict.
That’s right—Chuck Schumer helped create the organizational structures which have attacked the reputation of a challenger for his Senate seat, threatening her with political violence and more for the “crime” of challenging Schumer on the issue of Ukraine.
LaRouche independent candidate Diane Sare issued her own statement on her campaign website, www.sareforsenate.com, noting that inclusion on the list—
has obvious security implications for myself and each of the individuals listed, who include former U.S. Representative Tulsi Gabbard, current U.S. Senator Rand Paul, and notably 30 of us who spoke at conferences sponsored by the Schiller Institute.
She offered her support for the statements from Scott Ritter (see above), and issued a public question to her opponent Sen. Schumer:
Is it your intent to silence my voice in an indirect, but menacing fashion, by voting to fund Ukrainian Civil Servants who have stated that I should be arrested for war crimes?
Sare concluded:
Given that Americans are very sensitive about foreign governments meddling in our elections, as the Ukrainian Center for Countering Disinformation appears to be doing, I would urge that our Representatives launch an investigation into whether U.S. taxpayer money is being used to support agencies which would seek to curtail our First Amendment rights and alter the outcome of upcoming elections. Senator Schumer owes me an explanation.
David T. Pyne, a retired military officer, advisor to Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT), and currently the Deputy Director of National Operations for the EMP Task Force on National and Homeland Security, who is also on the Ukraine hit list, signed on to the Joint Statement titled, “Call for an Investigation of the Ukrainian CCD Hit List,” issued by people on the Ukraine hit list and others, and circulated by the Schiller Institute. In his own statement, Pyne posted a response, given here in part, on his David T. Pyne website July 29:
The Ukrainian government has alleged, with insufficient supporting evidence, that we, a group of distinguished Americans consisting of America First patriots, elected leaders, retired military officers, national security strategists and leading foreign policy scholars and statesmen, have engaged in efforts to disseminate Russian disinformation.
However, the truth is that the only offense we have committed has been our unfailing determination to loudly, publicly and courageously advocate a realist foreign policy that not only serves to champion U.S. national security interests in the face of tremendous public opposition by the mainstream liberal media establishment and liberal political elites, but as a visionary and enlightened policy of peace through strength which we believe to be very much in Ukraine’s national interest as well.
Similarly, neoconservative Republicans, led by former Vice President Mike Pence, have been marching in lockstep with President Biden, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi in trying to demonize principled America First conservative voices of opposition to Biden’s undeclared proxy war against Russia in Ukraine as “apologists for Putin” without any real evidence to support their claim….
We have opposed continued U.S. lethal military assistance as we believe it is in opposition to U.S. national security interests to provide it, as it has caused Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to refuse to negotiate a compromise peace agreement with Moscow, which both sides were close to finalizing in late March and early April before Zelensky decided to break off all peace talks with Moscow, at the cost of tens of thousands of Ukrainian civilians and military personnel, whose lives might have otherwise been spared.
Our primary objective has been and will continue to be to identify the best course of action from the perspective of advancing the paramount U.S. national security interest of ending this terrible war as swiftly as possible in order to avert an unnecessary world war with Russia that could very possibly escalate to the nuclear level without warning and lead to the destruction of the U.S., NATO and very possibly of Ukraine as well.
The CATO Institute, a libertarian think-tank in Washington, D.C., posted an article on July 25 on its website titled, “Ukraine’s Disinformation Board: Terrible Idea, Terrible Results,” after CATO Senior Fellow Doug Bandow appeared on its hit list. The article denounced “disinformation boards” in any country:
Government “truth bureaus” are simply incompatible with the very idea of a free society and liberal democracy, [the statement read, naming the Ukrainian Center as] a compelling example of this in real time.
It’s absolutely wrong for Bandow’s prolific output on Ukraine, Russia, and the current war to be labeled disinformation or “Russian propaganda.” Bandow has been writing for years about how continued movement towards bringing Ukraine into NATO’s security orbit was not in the interests of the United States, and—by heightening Putin’s perception of threats close to Russia’s borders—risked a serious Russian reaction.
Furthermore, he and many others have cautioned against deepening U.S. involvement in the conflict, given the significant risk of sparking a broader conflagration: especially a war between the United States and Russia or increased risk of a nuclear exchange….
This kind of action—the establishment of ill-advised truth and disinformation bureaus, and the unfair smearing of eminent scholars—does nothing to burnish Ukraine’s reputation as an aspiring liberal democracy. Nor is it likely to help its war effort. Accordingly, Kyiv should retract its charges of disinformation and apologize for having leveled them.
FRANCE
Eric Denécé, the General Director at the French Center of Research and Intelligence (CF2R), was a speaker at a Schiller Institute conference and is also on the Ukraine hit list. He and associates Olivier Dujardin (also on the list) and Alain Charret, posted on the CF2R website a joint response to the Ukrainian attack. Titled, “Another Example of the Zelensky Regime’s Information Warfare,” they write that the arguments used to label them as Russian propaganda agents were “stupid and baseless,” that the authors were “acting like a start-up seeking funds to function,” using “any and all arguments to get the necessary money from its Western donors, in order to continue its war.”
The article adds another purpose for the issuance of the hit list: corruption, including doing dirty business with weapons being provided by the Americans and others.
In fact, two points are worth noting.
First, the number of round-trip flights between Burgas Air Base in Bulgaria and Rzeszów Air Base in Poland, is particularly high. For the day of July 10 alone, aircraft made three round trips…. This is all the more astonishing since the Bulgarian government has repeatedly denied supplying arms to Ukraine, and Rzeszów is the main platform where most of the weapons are delivered to the Ukrainian army. If Bulgaria is telling the truth—and given the various reports of black-market sales of some of the Western weapons delivered to the Ukrainian army—it is possible that the [planes] in question would have transported some portion of them from Poland to Bulgaria, whence they could then be reexported by air or sea.
[Other flights to] Nassau (Bahamas)—a Commonwealth territory—can only raise questions. It is unlikely that arms were transported to that tax haven, which is known to host offshore companies and other banks that are not very careful about the source of funds deposited in their accounts. So the stopover could have had another purpose. It is possible that cash in dollars was deposited there.
Washington has been “funneling pallets of dollars in the same way [as in Iraq and elsewhere], in order to remunerate, in particular, all the foreigners who have fought in the ranks of the Kiev army. Thus, part of these funds could have been diverted and transferred to the Bahamas to be deposited in accounts belonging to certain members of the Ukrainian government or to Western politicians, but also as kickbacks to American government agencies or weapons corporations.
NEW ZEALAND
Matthew Robson, the former New Zealand Minister of Disarmament and Arms Control and Associate Minister of Foreign Affairs, responded to his appearance on the hit list with a powerful blast, calling for the New Zealand government to investigate. His statement, provided to EIR, reads, in part:
I am quite flattered to be in the company of such an eminent list of people with widely varying opinions on the nature of the war in the Ukraine. But all of them are engaged in the time-honored tradition of scholars and democratic societies of honest and open debate rather than the “group think” demanded by NATO governments.
He quoted the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act, which assures:
Freedom of expression: Everyone has the right to freedom of expression, including the freedom to seek, receive, and impart information and opinions of any kind in any form.
The [United Nations] Universal Declaration of Human Rights to which New Zealand and, I presume, the Ukraine are signatories, guarantees the same. I am writing to the Prime Minister of New Zealand to ask her to take up with the government of the Ukraine this breach of my right, under both New Zealand and international law, to freely express my opinions, and my being on a list that endangers my safety.
Helga Zepp-LaRouche opened her webcast today with an impassioned appeal to citizens to join with her in a campaign to overturn the narratives pushed by western governments and their blatant censorship, which are designed to protect their collapsing system. The discrepancy between what people want, and what governments are doing, is pointing towards a hot autumn, especially in Europe, as European governments are committing economic suicide, under pressure from the U.S., the U.K. and NATO, by continuing the war against Russia, and moving to decouple their economies from Russia and China.
Most of the rest of the world is moving in a different direction, toward economic collaboration. This new direction has been shaped by the life-long work of her late husband, Lyndon LaRouche. It is therefore not surprising to see that the campaign to shut down any efforts at deliberation among nations being run through the Ukrainian “Center to Counter Disinformation”, has targeted her and the Schiller Institute and its collaborators. She urged viewers to join our mobilization against such censorship, and to support the Schiller Institute campaign for a New Bretton Woods, and a new security architecture.