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Webcast: Biden Regime Prepares for Three Front War as Germans Vote for Peace.

Join Helga Zepp-LaRouche September 4, 11am Eastern/5pm CET in her Weekly Live dialogue and help usher in the Year of the New Paradigm for all Humanity. Send your questions, thoughts and reports to questions@schillerinstitute.org or ask them in the live stream.

The results of the Sept. 1 elections in Thuringia and Saxony indicate the re-emergence of a peace movement in Germany, even if not definitive nor widespread. The points in common across winning parties in eastern Germany yesterday were: No, to continued weapons to Ukraine; and Yes, to restoring diplomacy to resolve the crisis.

Helga Zepp-LaRouche, leader of the Schiller Institute, said today, “The election results in two of the eastern German states are a whopping demonstration that the war party can be caused to suffer a setback, and it should be an encouraging sign for everybody who wants to oppose the direct road to World War III, on which we are very far gone already. I think that that is, for sure, the most important event over the weekend, and also, I should say, it is the re-emergence of the peace movement in Germany, which I think is also quite hopeful.”

In the U.S., now that universities have resumed the school year, students are again demonstrating against genocide in Gaza. In the last week, actions occurred at the University of Michigan, Cornell, and in Southern California.

Yesterday demonstrations took place across Germany for Sept. 1 “Anti-War Day,” marking the date in 1939 when Hitler invaded Poland. Most anti-war actions were a few hundred people, with a few thousands in some cities, including Berlin and Munich.

A special cross-link action between the U.S. and Europe is shown by the video-message to the German people, played at the Munich rally, from Scott Ritter, former U.S. Marine and UN weapons inspector. It was very well received among the crowd of some 3,500. Saying, “Look back to your history,” Ritter reported in detail on the huge demonstrations in Germany in the 1980s against placement of U.S. missiles in Germany, and what led to the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty. He ended by addressing today’s extreme danger of allowing U.S. missiles in Germany in 2026. He received spontaneous applause. “Do not allow these missiles on German soil! Do the right thing. Take to the streets! It worked then. It will work today!”

On the side of the Western war paradigm, on Sept. 6, the Ukraine Defense Contract Group meets in Ramstein, Germany, hosted by U.S. Defense Secretary Gen. Lloyd Austin, to pow-wow on how to make more weapons, kill more Ukrainians and attack Russia. We are at the danger point of provoking nuclear war.

It must be stopped. The platform is at hand in the International Peace Coalition, with its weekly world conference sessions, for the breakout into the force needed to draw back from the threat of nuclear extinction, into a future of beautiful growth.

Join the International Peace Coalition and the Schiller Institute to build a platform for the force needed to create a future of economic progress and cooperation among all nations within the framework of a new security and development architecture based on Zepp-LaRouche’s Ten Principles.

Join Helga Zepp-LaRouche September 4, 11am Eastern/5pm CET in her Weekly Live dialogue and help usher in the Year of the New Paradigm for all Humanity. Send your questions, thoughts and reports to questions@schillerinstitute.org or ask them in the live stream.


“Can the U.S. Nuclear Doctrine Get More Threatening?” Col. Richard H. Black (ret.)

Remarks by Col. Richard H. Black (ret.) originally delivered to the International Peace Coalition (IPC) on August 23, 2024


Interview: Promote Humanity To Defeat the British Empire — Chandra Muzaffar

Recorded August 21, 2024

Mike Billington: This is Mike Billington, with the EIR and the Schiller Institute. I’m very pleased to have with me Chandra Muzaffar, a long time friend of the LaRouche movement, an international Islamic scholar and political scholar from Malaysia. Let’s begin. Chandra is the founder and the president of the International Movement for a Just World, which is just known internationally as JUST, since its founding in 1992. I noticed on your website says: “For the first time in history, a global empire has emerged.” So let me ask you to say a few words about JUST, its purpose and its history, and to explain that statement.

Chandra Muzaffar: Thank you, Mike, for this invitation, this opportunity to discuss certain issues which are important to both of us. This is an important moment in history to look at these issues in the larger context of what is happening in the world. Let’s begin with JUST. JUST is a registered society in Malaysia. It has a small membership spread across the globe, people from different parts of the world, from something like 40 odd countries. The membership is not large. It’s multi-ethnic, multi-religious in terms of its composition. Gender wise, it’s quite balanced. The whole purpose of JUST is to raise consciousness amongst people everywhere of, number one, the danger of a demonic power, the consequences of hegemonic power, what it means for all of us, including people who are living within countries that see themselves as hegemons. This is something which we see as part of our agenda, to raise people’s awareness and to articulate an alternative, a multi religious, multi ethnic alternative, in a sense multi civilizational alternative that draws out the values from the different civilizations, cultures, and articulates these values as the foundation for a different type of global order. That’s the whole purpose of JUST.

First, a critique of the existing global system, which is largely demonic. And number two, an articulation of an alternative which is egalitarian, which emphasizes human dignity and justice for everyone. And also articulates an alternative which is the antithesis of hegemony, by which an alternative that enriches, enhances the contribution of each and every human being, and of the different cultures and communities, to a world that is just beginning to emerge.

Now, that statement that you quoted just now, Mike, about global empire — that it emerged for the first time in history — is a reference to the first part of JUST’s mission. The hegemonic world we’re talking about, that’s the global empire, led by the US, with certain other countries in the West. Elites from the West and from the non-Western world, too, were part of this hegemonic pattern of power. And it’s a global empire, because if you compare it to the empires of the past, whether it was the Roman Empire or the Persian Empire or the Ottoman Empire, none of them had the same sort of global reach in terms of the tentacles of the Empire stretching everywhere, encompassing the whole world. They didn’t have that sort of reach. So I think it’s right to say that this is the first global empire, in that sense, the American led empire, in terms of its reach, its impact. Right. It is not an attempt to judge the Empire. All that we say is that there is such an empire. We are concerned about it because it is hegemonic and therefore has a certain impact upon people. And that’s what we are concerned about.

Mike Billington: You also created another organization, or participated in its creation, called SHAPE, Saving Humanity And Planet Earth,together with Richard Falk — I think many people watching this will know Richard Falk — and Joseph Camilleri from Australia, as Co-conveners. You’ve sponsored several international conferences addressing the growing danger of war and of nuclear war. How do you see the purpose of that organization? 

Chandra Muzaffar: Very similar in many ways to JUST, which is why JUST is a an active supporter of SHAPE. We have helped SHAPE in some of its programs. The differences: the emphasis which SHAPE gives to the danger of a nuclear war. We are also concerned about it. But I think SHAPE has made one of its principal goals to look at the question of nuclear weapons and its impact upon the world.

Mike Billington: Well, it’s certainly the case that the world has come closer to global war right now than perhaps any time in history. This includes the escalation of the war in Ukraine, with the recent invasion of Ukrainian forces into Russia proper; the continuing and escalating slaughter of innocents in Gaza; and the escalation of the US confrontation with China in Asia, which could explode into another war. Let me ask you first about Palestine, because I know you’ve spent a major part of your work in your life on the Palestinian issue.

Chandra Muzaffar: Mike, for me and for many of my friends, Palestine is our central concern. Why? Because if you look at global injustices, there are perhaps few injustices that can match the injustice related to Palestine. Here you have a situation where a people, the Palestinians, that lived together in peace and harmony, Jews, Christians and Muslims, for quite a long while. And then you had the British Empire came up with this idea of creating an exclusive Jewish homeland in Palestine, which is the root of the problem. I tell people all the while, Mike, that the problem is not these different religious communities living together. That is not an issue at all. It’s not an issue for the people there in the past. The problem is this notion of an exclusive homeland, which is what the British had proposed, the famous Balfour Declaration of 1917. It fits in with the pattern of British colonial rule everywhere, which is to divide people, to create animosity amongst different communities, and use that animosity as the basis for domination, which is what the British had done in India, in parts of Southeast Asia, parts of Africa, during its long colonial rule. Palestine is very much part of the same thing from that perspective. It is a colonial project, and like other colonial projects, it resulted in the expulsion of the indigenous people in wars and bloodshed, and it has not been resolved to this day.

So this is why I think Palestine is so important. It is perhaps the one challenge which stains our conscience as a family first, because of the way in which the issue was manipulated and how it became an issue through colonial manipulation. And then, of course, what it did as a result of that to the people, and how it is continued for more than 76 years. It’s difficult to resolve this partly because of the powerful vested interests linked with the creation of Israel and linked with Zionism, the fact that this is a racist ideology, Zionism, which has nothing to do with Judaism, and that is something that we keep emphasizing over and over again. Zionism is Zionism. Judaism is Judaism. It’s totally different. And so you have this Zionism parading as the ideology of the Jews, when actually it is a betrayal of the Jewish religion itself. And we would like to make people know this. We would like them to be aware of this, so that they would see the issue in its proper perspective. What had happened in history, the annexation, the usurpation of land, the expulsion of people. People have to understand all this. And I think there is a lack of understanding when it comes to these issues.

Mike Billington: The second major front is the Ukraine – Russia situation, which is moving very rapidly towards what could be a full scale war between NATO and Russia, which would certainly be nuclear and could very well mean the end of civilization. So your thoughts on that?

Chandra Muzaffar: I agree with what you just said about what the Ukraine war could lead to, but I don’t know whether that’ll happen. One can argue that if all of us, the Global South and in other parts of the world, got together and told the US and its allies, and the government in Ukraine, that there is no reason to prolong this war. Ukraine is not going to gain anything. It’s not going to win. NATO, I don’t think, would be able to win this war. This is what they’re hoping will happen. If the aim is to defeat and to pulverize Russia, to create a situation where Russia as a state and a society is totally destroyed, that’s not going to happen either. People forget that we are talking of a very resilient society. Russia has proven by its resistance to Nazi occupation, to Napoleon in history. It’s very resilient. Now, why are they pursuing this goal? I think people should tell them, look, this is futile. You don’t pursue goals like this in international relations if you want a peaceful world. I think if enough people spoke up and persuaded the US and the others — I’m not saying that they’re going to change their course, but it may be possible to sort of check them. Not enough people are speaking out on this question. I am particularly saddened by the way in which Europe had rallied around the United States. Is it in Europe’s interests? It’s a very important question to ask. Is it in Europe’s interests for this war to be perpetuated between Russia and Ukraine? Because at the end of the day, the Ukrainians just become cannon fodder. You’re not going to achieve your aim of destroying Russia. And by strengthening NATO in this manner, you’re not helping Europe either. Look at the impact of the war as far as relations between Germany and Russia go, and how it has impacted upon other European economies. Is this something which Europe wants? Is it in Europe’s interests? I think these are very important questions that Europeans in particular should ask and try to answer.

Mike Billington: And then, of course, China, you’re sitting in the middle of Southeast Asia. It clearly is the intent of the US to find some way to destroy China, and to destroy Russia and the BRICs phenomena, which is a threat to their ability to control the former colonial countries. I want to ask in particular, that Beijing and Jakarta just concluded a high level meeting between both military and political leaders, which was the first so-called “two plus two” cooperation between China and one of the ASEAN [Association of Southeast Asian Nations] countries. This, of course, is the largest of the ASEAN countries, Indonesia. So I’m very interested in how you think this is going to impact the rest of ASEAN, the internal relations within ASEAN, and ASEAN’s relationships with China.

Chandra Muzaffar: It’s a good question, Mike. If the various parties concerned adopt a mature attitude towards this issue, meaning by which they look at this as a challenge that we must all respond to in a positive manner. It is good for ASEAN that there is this tie up between China and Indonesia. I think generally, ASEAN has been supportive of this, and Indonesia is the biggest of the ASEAN states, and it is the most important. There would be no ASEAN without Indonesia. And so this attempt to strengthen relations between China and Indonesia, especially in matters pertaining to security, economic development and so on, I think this is something that is most welcome. There would be people who would try to wreck this. This is for certain. Those who would would not want to see these countries coming together, and it’s a pity that they continue to harbour intentions which smack of colonial mentality, of the colonial mentality of dominance and control. If they had a different sort of approach and different sort of mindset, they would allow this relationship to flourish between ASEAN and China, the former colonies, and China and Russia. China and Russia are very important in terms of world politics, as you had hinted just now, because taken together, they control this vast area of the world, the Eurasia region. And Eurasia is vital to the globe.

He who is in Eurasia and is able to set the tone and tenor of the development of Eurasia, will have a very big impact upon the world. Which is why I think the US and Britain and so on are very concerned about this. You know, Britain has been obsessed with this issue for a long while. It goes back to the colonial period, the emergence of cooperation between Russia and its neighbors, and so on. And given what the British Empire has done in the past and what it is doing today, and will continue to do in the future, they will do all they can to wreck this attempt at forging stronger ties between China and Russia, countries like Indonesia, and perhaps even countries which are not part of Southeast Asia, but in between South Asia and West Asia. Russia and China are very cognizant of this. They want to strengthen these relations. And I think it is for the good of people in this region and for the good of people everywhere if this happens.

Mike Billington: How do you think the internal relations within ASEAN are being affected by this question of the US effort to bring about a confrontation with China, and the Philippine situation, for instance?

Chandra Muzaffar: I think Philippines is something which concerns all of us, the neighbors of the Philippines and others. One hopes that the Philippine government will be sober in its response to this, and shouldn’t fall into the trap that the Americans have prepared for all of us. It’s not only the Philippines to fall into this trap. The Philippines should assert its independence and it should give greater priority to its own sovereignty. That is what is important. The issues which separate the Philippines from China, which have led to some of the recent skirmishes, I think these are issues which can be resolved very easily through diplomacy. There is no need to flex your military muscles. You can resolve them through diplomacy. Yeah, it’s true that they arise from a number of different factors, but they can be resolved. And I hope the Philippine government, and we have — I suppose I know what people would say about this — we have the example of.Duterte, when he was at the helm, the president of the Philippines, he tried to establish a different sort of relationship with China.

So one can argue that that offers some sort of hope, if the Philippines can see things that way, if it values its own tradition of sovereignty and independence. After all, the Philippines was in the forefront of the struggle against colonialism. If it understands that and tries to develop a different sort of relationship, would be good for the Philippine people. You should not be subservient to anyone. I’m against that. I don’t want to see a Philippines as subservient to China or Russia, or anyone else for that matter. But the Western powers in particular should also respect Philippines own independence and sovereignty. That is the right to shape its own destiny. It is the right to forge stronger ties with China, Russia, other countries. It would be to everyone’s well-being if this happens.

Mike Billington: You’ve had a long history of participation in Malaysian politics, including your close relationship at one point with the former prime minister Dr. Mahathir Mohammad, and with the current prime minister, Anwar Ibrahim, from somewhat different factions. But nonetheless, you’ve had collaboration with all of these. What do you see as Malaysia’s role right now in in the global geometry that we’re facing.

Chandra Muzaffar: If I may, Mike, begin by saying that I’ve had a long history of involvement in civic political action, in other words, political action related to non political parties. And that is very important. We’ve made the distinction. I was involved in a political party for a very, very short while. In 1999, I became the deputy president of the Justice Party in Malaysia, established in the aftermath of Anwar’s jailing, in the jail sentence and so on. We responded to that situation and we were there at that time. I was there only for a very short while — two and a half years. And then I quit politics completely, both Keadilan [a party run by Anwar Ibrahim – ed] and the larger political scenario in the country. So I wouldn’t see myself as someone who’s been part of politics. I articulate certain positions in relation to issues that are political, but that’s what citizens should be doing. I regard that as citizens responsibility. So that sort of responsibility I was trying to fulfill. But being in party politics and seeking political office, I’ve never really been part of that.

Now, coming back to the main thrust of what you asked. Doctor Mahathir, yes. there were times when I was supportive of what he was doing. Foreign policy, or even in domestic policy on certain occasions. But there are also times when I was very critical. And that’s the attitude that I have adopted, the approach that I’ve adopted to everyone in power. It doesn’t matter what party they come from, what their affiliation is, and what their inclination is. If there’s something good from the point of view of the larger society, we support it. And I would come out and support it, and if it is something which I think is going to be detrimental, I would criticize it. That has been my approach. Unfortunately, it’s not appreciated very much. Sometimes they would expect you to be totally on the side of one person or the other, and I am not keen on that sort of approach to politics where you support one blindly and oppose others blindly. I think one should retain this freedom to evaluate, retain freedom to try to understand the situation and come to your own conclusion. So that’s how I see the present Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim. Likewise, the former prime minister, Mahathir. The present prime minister, if he does something good, like when he took a very strong stand against what the United States and its allies were doing vis a vis Palestine, we were supportive. I was very supportive.

If, on the other hand, he seeks to strengthen the hand of the biggest American fund manager, BlackRock. If that happens and you allow BlackRock to gain control over our airports indirectly, I would be very concerned and I would speak out against it, which is what I’ve done. So it depends on the issues and the situation. On BlackRock, I think it’s very obvious if you look at the way it has entered into the Malaysian economic arena. We know that the 39 airports in the country, they are not in need of funding. In fact, last year and the year before, those airports made huge profits. So they don’t need money as such from BlackRock. Why is BlackRock involved? Why is it involved in the management of our airports? Isn’t that a security issue, a strategic issue that one should address? And these are some of our concerns. So it depends on these actors, whether it’s Anwar Ibrahim or anyone else. If they do things which we feel are in the larger interest of the Malaysian nation, or the interest of the human family, we would certainly endorse what they are doing. But if, on the other hand, we find that it is detrimental, we would speak up.

Mike Billington: The title of a recent article you published was “BlackRock — No Compromise With Evil.” So you’re not compromising with what you recognize to be BlackRock’s intention, which unfortunately they are carrying out in countries all over the world. Do you expect any change as a result of addressing this?

Chandra Muzaffar: A lot of people are addressing this issue outside Malaysia. A lot of people, some Malaysians. But I don’t think it’s going to change that easily because BlackRock is undoubtedly a major actor and closely linked to the centers of power in the US and elsewhere, Britain. We have to be realistic. I don’t think things are going to change. But nonetheless, we must speak up. That is our duty. We cannot fail to speak up. We must. 

Mike Billington: On another side of of your role, you’re known internationally as an Islamic scholar, even though you’ve been very critical of some factions within Islam. Could you comment on that and on the role of the current rise of Islamophobia in the Western world today?

Chandra Muzaffar: Two different issues here, but perhaps interrelated. The first thing is about who wants a role in Islam. I don’t see myself as an Islamic scholar, I’m not an Islamic scholar in the sense that I’m well versed in the scriptures and all the rest of it. I’m not, But I’m a student of society, and I see my role as a political commentator. And among the things that I comment upon are issues pertaining to Islam and politics. And my concern has been with the way in which Islam is perceived by others, and even by some Muslims. That’s part of my concern. And you alluded to it. Islamophobia is something that I’ve been very concerned about for a very long while, and I’ve written quite a bit on this subject. I find that Islamophobia has deep roots in history. It goes back to the period before the Crusades. This attempt to demonize and to project Islam in a certain manner in the West. This has continued, even though the West has also produced some very fine scholars on Islam, open minded, who see the goodness in Islam and who are able to relate to it. So that’s also been part of Western history and the Western interaction with Islam. So there are different dimensions to it. But Islamophobia is a product of a lot of factors. It goes back to the rise of Islam, the early confrontation between Islam and the West, and later colonialism, because that had a very big impact. 

Most of the Muslim countries that interacted with the West were colonized by Western society, so also others who were not Muslims were colonized. But colonialism played a very big role. And in the post-colonial era, that’s our era, after the Second World War, you find that this is continued partly because one of the major resources that is so vital to the industrial world, oil. The major producers of oil are Muslim States, and because oil flows beneath the feet of Muslims, you find that the centers of power in the West have never been comfortable with this, because they want to control oil. They want to control its production and its export and distribution and so on. And they find that independent minded Muslim countries, they are an obstacle if they don’t want to just do the bidding of the US or Britain or some of the other Western powers, they will be targeted. And this is what has been happening for quite a long while. But let me also add very quickly, it’s not just Muslim countries that are targeted. A lot of non-Muslim countries have been targeted too, for strategic reasons, for reasons connected with resources, reasons connected with global economic or political power. So that’s the challenge that we face, and one hopes that Muslim countries and Muslim groups that respond to this challenge, they will do it in such a manner that they would help people resolve these challenges for the benefit of everyone, that they will do it in such a way that it does not smear relations between Muslims and others. And I would regard those who seek resort to arms, who use violence. I would regard Muslims who do that as individuals who are doing something that is detrimental to Islam. But let me also add very quickly, as many people know, that many of these so-called terrorist groups are actually linked to Western intelligence in some way or other. Like what had happened in the case of Turkey and countries around Turkey some years ago. And it’s still continuing. You have Islam being tarnished as the terrorist religion merely because it serves the interests of people who want to project Islam that way. If you look at the history of ISIS, if you look at the history of al Qaeda, especially al Qaeda and ISIS,if you look at their histories closely, very strong links to the Western centers of power and especially to their intelligence networks. This is a fact that has not been highlighted often by the mainstream media. We know of some of these groups that have controlled, oil in Iraq, for instance, and in Syria, they were selling oil to the terrorist groups, while claiming to be fighting the terrorists, but they were selling oil to them and helping them to indulge in the terrorist activities. This is something which I think people should look at very carefully, with the manipulation of terrorism, like the manipulation of many other things by the colonial and neocolonial centers of power. 

Mike Billington: What do you think about the Iran situation now. And what do you think they’re going to do in these circumstances?

Chandra Muzaffar: The Iranian leadership, by and large, is quite rational. They calculate very carefully. They look at the various options. Look at what they did in April 2024 after what had happened to Iran in Damascus. It was a rational calculation. They didn’t want an all out war, but on the other hand, they wanted to send a message. I think that is their thinking even now, after what had happened recently, the killing of the Hamas leader in Tehran. They didn’t just react emotionally. They’ve been calculating, looking at various options, because you have to think of Gaza. You have to think of Lebanon. They have to think of the Houthis and Yemen.  You have to think of all these actors, and they have to look at the United States of America, too. You get the impression that the US understands certain dimensions of this, at least certain individuals, which is why the US, in a sense, worked hand in glove with the Iranian government in the situation that emerged after the recent episode, where people thought Iran would act very strongly against Israel, but they didn’t. I think it’s partly because the US also did not want that sort of rash action to happen. All parties concerned, with the exception of perhaps Netanyahu. I think all the other parties concerned were quite measured in their response. The Iranian leadership, if one had to describe them in a sentence, I think they will continue to be measured and careful in the way in which they respond to situations. They will not start a war.

Mike Billington: They might be dragged into one anyway.

Chandra Muzaffar: Yeah.

Mike Billington: The last thing I was going to ask is that Helga Zepp-LaRouche has issued what she calls the Ten Principles, which she proposes to be the basis for a new global security and development architecture for all countries, for a world which is in desperate need of such a new paradigm. These ten principles cover the global economic breakdown crisis that we’re living through, the social crisis, but also the cultural decay which is dominating the Western world today and which is pretty obvious to the rest of the world. I’ll read you her 10th principle, the last of the Ten Principles. “Man is fundamentally good and capable to infinitely perfect the creativity of his mind and the beauty of his soul. And being the most advanced geological force in the universe, which proves that the lawfulness of the mind and that of the physical universe are in correspondence and cohesion, and that all evil is the result of a lack of development and therefore can be overcome.” This has provoked many different kinds of responses from people. And I’m interested in what you think.

Chandra Muzaffar: In principle, Mike. I support this notion of linking peace to development and the underlying principles behind Helga LaRouche’s thinking and the thinking of the Schiller Institute, including this clear vision of the human being as inherently good, capable of developing his or her goodness. The tremendous potential for this is something which I agree with. I’m very comfortable with this sort of thinking, because it is the sort of thinking which coincides with, runs parallel to, what all the major religions tell us about the inherent goodness of the human being. All the major religions, if you look at them in great depth, that is what they also believe in, and you lead to a better world if we can help that inherent goodness to shape our public policies, our attempts at ameliorating the human condition. But that’s not happening, because there are always other forces that are opposed to this. Nonetheless, I think it is a very good model. This model of linking peace with development and most of all, anchoring this model in the goodness of the human being. It is something that is worth pursuing. We have been supportive of this, as you know, Mike, and I hope it’s something which we can continue to work on in the future.

Mike Billington: You’ve agreed to participate yourself in what Helga is calling for, the building of a Council of Reason, of senior citizens who have made a mark, through their work in the world, to come together to effectively try to counter the kind of madness that’s leading the world to economic and military disaster. Do you have any other thoughts on that?

Chandra Muzaffar: Any attempt to respond to the challenge we face, the insanity that’s taken over, and the insanity which is so prevalent in certain capitals of the world — any attempt to respond to this, to provide an alternative, to offer concrete, tangible instances addressing this challenge, is welcome. It doesn’t matter where it comes from. And I think the Schiller Institute and the LaRouche movement, they have been at the forefront of some of these attempts. It’s something that we welcome, and it’s good they brought different people together. I’m aware of the IPC [International Peace Coalition -ed] meetings and so on and participated in a few of them. It is an attempt to respond to the challenge of the hour. It is for that reason, something that we should all encourage. We should support this endeavor.

Mike Billington: I encourage you to attend as often as you can. Everybody always appreciates your contributions at those meetings. You may not know that the last two meetings have been quite explosive. We had over 500 people both last week and the week before from over 50 countries. And in the last meeting, Scott Ritter spoke. I’m sure you know what happened to Scott Ritter when first he had his passport taken away, when he tried to go to Russia, and then had his house raided. But he appeared on our forum last Friday, along with Helga, and we went back and played a clip from back in the 1990s, with Lyndon LaRouche and Ramsey Clark, who was, among other things, our lawyer in our case that was brought against Lyn and myself and others by the government. They addressed that in a very powerful way, which we showed during the IPC  meeting. It’s a very powerful demonstration of both the danger of the fact that this permanent bureaucracy within the Justice Department in the US, which launched the original attack on LaRouche and his associates, are still very, very much alive. And we can see it very clearly in the raid on Scott Ritter’s home. And then you probably know Dimitri Simes, a leading Russian American also had his home raided by the FBI. We’re looking at a full scale war against free speech, including the use of the Justice Department to crush it. Of course, we also had an attempted assassination against former President Trump, which was barely avoided.  So we’re looking at, at a general breakdown of civilization. Which we have to address. And it’s something we should be frightened of. I think people are frightened. But on the other hand, we have to inspire a sense of optimism along the lines of what you’ve just been discussing, that this is the character of man, to do good and to be good, and we have to inspire people that this is the basis on which they can act in common with others all over the world, not just in their own country, but globally.

Chandra Muzaffar: If you can make people aware that there have been instances where people have worked together, where they have stood up against the tyranny of the hegemons. If we can show them that this is something that has happened, that people are capable of standing up and articulating what is just and true and noble in the midst of all the challenges that confront us, we can convince people that this is possible and people have done this. You know, Scott Ritter is an example, and various other individuals and movements that are examples of people have stood up. And if we can tell them, look, you know, this is possible. I think it is one of those recent, uh, articles written about the situation confronting the world that I read this quote from Margaret Mead, you know, about changing things. You know, Margaret Mead, the anthropologist, she had said that “All change that has taken place is due to the work of a small number of people who are prepared to place the interests of the larger community of the whole over their own interests and the interests of small little, pragmatic elements. We can do that. We can look at the larger interests and work together. Then I think it would be something worthwhile, even in opposing what is happening today. I feel sad that even the peace groups are not able to work together, you know, and they are all committed to the same goal, and they are all sincere in different ways. They should learn to work together

Mike Billington: I agree that was the purpose of the International Peace Coalition, which Helga stated when she  basically brought that movement into being, she said, there’s many, many different peace organizations, but they have different politics. But if we have a nuclear war, it’s not going to matter what your politics were. There won’t be anybody left to celebrate victory or loss. And therefore, we have to bring people together around the fundamental question of whether mankind is going to destroy itself or if we are going to find an alternative based on the idea that man is fundamentally good and has the creative power of reason, born in the image of God, to change these bad things, these evil things.

Well, thank you very much, Chandra. I appreciate this. I will get it out widely,of course. Uh, I invite you to attend our our IPC meetings. They’ll continue. We’ve had 63 now, 63 weeks of Friday afternoon International Peace Coalition meetings, and we’ll have another one this Friday, which your input would be very, very much appreciated. I might ask if I could just play a portion of what you had to say in this interview for the meeting?

Chandra Muzaffar: That’s fine. By all means yes.

Mike Billington: Well. Very good. Thank you very much. It was very good to see you again after all this time.


IPC Endorses Romanian Appeal for Peace

On the International Peace Coalition #60, it was decided to endorse and publish a special appeal from Romanian Peace Activists the termination of any agreements in the Romanian Parliament, and other nations, the support of Military Aide to Ukraine. Below is the petition that is currently in circulation.

STOP THE MADNESS TOGETHER! STOP THE WAR! Make peace!

To the citizens of: Belgium, Canada, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Iceland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Spain, Sweden, Slovenia, United Kingdom, United States of America, Czech Republic, Japan

READ YOUR COUNTRY’S AGREEMENT WITH UKRAINE AND ANALYZE THE IMPLICATIONS!

In the year 2024, Ukraine signed bilateral treaties at the state level with 24 countries and the European Union.

In all of these agreements there are clauses of ”consultations within 24 hours”, at the request of Ukraine or the signatory state, to react to the current conflict between Russia and Ukraine, in case of a new armed attack by Russia or in case of an armed attack by Russia after the end of the present hostilities.

Three of the countries that have signed bilateral agreements – ROMANIA, POLAND AND LITHUANIA – have expressly mentioned in the agreements that “in the event of a significant escalation of the current aggression” they will support Ukraine to counter or limit the aggression. 

If these agreements are put into practice, the Russian-Ukrainian war could expand regionally or globally, if only one NATO country officially joins the war.

The content of these treaties and the declarations of the 2024 NATO Summit show that the aim is not to achieve peace between Russia and Ukraine, but to maintain the war and expand it. 

At the same time, from a legal point of view, the “24 hours of consultation” clauses in the 24 treaties:

– are contained in different articles, which apply under different premises, have different wording and different effects from country to country;

– the names of the articles in some treaties are misleading – ‘future armed attack’, ‘future aggression’ – but their content suggests that they can also be applied to the current armed conflict; 

– the wording is ambiguous, unclear and leaves room for interpretation, thus helping to counter any current criticism by claiming that the interpretation is in fact different;

– concerning between whom the “24-hour consultations” take place: the treaties contain different provisions. Some don’t mention anything, meaning that they will take place between Ukraine and the signatory country. Others mention that the two signatory countries will also consult with representatives of other interested states that have concluded agreements with Ukraine. Others mention that the two signatory countries will consult “in a bilateral format or through other channels as they both deem acceptable” (not sure what could mean channels that are considered acceptable as an alternative to bilateral consultations); 

– regarding the assistance to be given to Ukraine following the “24-hour consultations” in some treaties it is mentioned that the signatory state will act in accordance with its legal, constitutional requirements, in accordance with international and European law. In other treaties there is no such mention, which would mean that the treaty is applied “directly” without further internal “analysis or approvals”; 

– on the purpose of the “24-hour consultations”: in some treaties it is mentioned as being to “counter or deter aggression”, in others to determine the necessary steps.

Only in the bilateral treaties concluded by Ukraine with 3 states (Romania, Poland, Lithuania) there are express provisions that “consultations within 24 hours” apply to the current Russian-Ukrainian military conflict. 

 In the other treaties: the case of application of this clause is clearly defined in some (in case of a future armed conflict or new aggression by Russia, after the cessation of current hostilities), and ambiguous in others (a future armed attack by Russia, without mentioning whether in the framework of the current conflict or a future conflict).

Please consider the content of the treaty concluded by your state and let us together oppose the extension of the Russian-Ukrainian war, call for an end to this war and for peace.

The appeal features excerps from every treaty with the internet link to the original text here: 

In Romania, a petition was launched by Radu on the 22nd of July and a law proposal was made by independent Parliamentarian Dumitru Coarnă, supported by 25 others, asking for the cancellation of the Romanian agreement. Mr. Coarnă also filed a criminal complaint against the President of Romania, Klaus Iohannis, and the members of the Romanian Security Council (CSAT) for committing the crimes of high treason and subservience to a foreign power, provoking war against the country and facilitating foreign military occupation and undermining the economic, political or defense capacity of the state.  The petition, as well as the law proposal are being supported in Romania by a national mobilization of a small, but determined minority of civil rights activists.

Excerpts from the Romanian online petition launched on the 22th of July by Elena Radu:

To:

The Romanian Parliament 
Representatives of all Romanian state authorities 

We, the citizens of Romania, request the Romanian Parliament and all Representatives of the Romanian state authorities:

1.      To convene, as a matter of urgency, an extraordinary session of the Romanian Parliament for the approval of the “Legislative proposal on the declaration of nullity of the Agreement on security cooperation between Romania and Ukraine, signed in Washington, on July 10, 2024”, registered at the Permanent Bureau of the Chamber of Deputies under no. 471/15.07.2024;

2.      The adoption by Romania of a neutral position towards the armed conflict between Russia and Ukraine;

3.      The termination of any agreements/treaties/conventions by which Romania has engaged to provide military aid, military technology or any instruction and training of Ukrainian military personnel;

4. Romania to take the necessary steps, at the diplomatic level, in order to start negotiations on a peace treaty on feasible terms between Russia and Ukraine and to cease any steps and actions which could widen and perpetuate the Russian-Ukrainian conflict;

5.      Non-involvement of Romania in any diplomatic and military/armed conflict anywhere in the world;

6. The respect by senators, deputies, prime minister and ministers, the President of Romania, the Romanian armed forces and by all representatives of public authorities in Romania of the will of the Romanian people expressed in points 1-5 »

The petition explains then, with extended technical details, that what the Romanian President signed was no agreement, but a treaty and that treaties have to be ratified by the Romanian Parliament. This important step was omitted by the Romanian president, Klaus Iohannis, and in consequence this agreement/treaty can not come into force and has to be cancelled.

It goes on as follows: 

We note from the content of the Agreement:
1. that Romania undertakes to cede part of the national defense system and to make financial expenditures to support Ukraine in the war with Russia, while Romania’s public budget is in excessive deficit and the public debt has increased exponentially in the last 4 years, with a major impact on the quality of life of the Romanian people;  

2. that Romania’s national defense system is becoming non-existent, with the Agreement focusing only on helping Ukraine to develop its industrial and national defense system;

3. that the agreement is bilateral but contains obligations only for Romania;

4. the granting of aid to Ukraine, under the conditions mentioned in the Agreement, in order to defend Ukraine against Russian aggression until Ukraine wins the war;  

5. in view of the provisions of the Agreement stating that Romania will help to counter Russia’s aggression against Ukraine (which has been constant for more than 2 and a half years), this aid may be interpreted by Russia as a declaration of war by Romania. In such a situation, there is an imminent risk of an extension of the armed conflict and the declaration of a state of war on Romanian territory, with the consequence of mobilizing citizens to participate on the front line, given Romania’s constitutional obligations to defend itself.  

All this has created negative reactions in the public space and in the Romanian society, because this Agreement endangers peace in Romania, affects the national defense and the economic stability of Romania, involving unacceptable expenses and sacrifices for the Romanian people.

We recall that according to art. 118 para. (2) of the Romanian Constitution, Romania’s army is subject exclusively to the will of the Romanian people.

In conclusion, it is necessary to respect the will of the Romanian people, who want peace and not the extension of wars, and to declare null and void the Agreement on security cooperation between Romania and Ukraine, signed on behalf of Romania by the President of Romania with Ukraine on July 10, 2024.

On 15.07.2024 was registered at the Permanent Bureau of the Chamber of Deputies a “Legislative proposal on the declaration of nullity of the Agreement on security cooperation between Romania and Ukraine, signed in Washington, on July 10, 2024”, under no. 471/15.07.2024.

Given that the Romanian Parliament is on holiday until September, it is necessary to urgently convene an extraordinary session to vote on the legislative proposal registered at the Permanent Bureau of the Chamber of Deputies under no. 471/15.07.2024. 

(…)


International Peace Coalition Meeting #62

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.


Founding Statement of the International Peace Coalition

Please email questions@schillerinstitute.org if you are interested in joining the International Peace Coalition, Fridays at 11am Eastern Time.

June 2, 2023

The danger of nuclear war has escalated to a point that no thoughtful person on the planet can ignore any longer. Yet, in this atmosphere, there are still some who think there should be more weapons, more sanctions and who think that a nuclear war can be won against Russia. It is very clear that those who have provoked the war, and continue to escalate it, do not care about the lives of the people of Ukraine or any other nation on the planet for that matter. This is NOT acceptable to those of us who care about the well being of ALL of humanity —Those who do not wish to see the human race wiped off the face of the earth.

We, the citizens of the world, therefore bring together all of our forces for peace, as a unified coalition above ideologies, to stop nuclear war now unfolding. We refuse to let humanity perish at the hands of insanity.

As his holiness Pope Francis recently stated : “I think that peace is always made by opening channels. You can never achieve peace through closure.”

We believe the fundamental principles to bring lasting peace is through the security of every nation and dialogue toward the common aims of humanity — the end of poverty, hunger, and the increase of development. We must bring together governments, international organizations and religious organizations to create an opening toward this lasting Peace.

We come together to accomplish these goals not a moment too soon. Let us mature humanity into a new paradigm of cooperation and peace to end the old paradigm of imperialism and geopolitics.


Webcast: Reason, Not Weapons – Join the International Peace Coalition

Join Helga Zepp-LaRouche August 14, 11am Eastern/5pm CET in her Weekly Live dialogue and help usher in the Year of the New Paradigm for all Humanity. Send your questions, thoughts and reports to questions@schillerinstitue.org or ask them in the live stream.

In a discussion with collaborators Helga Zepp-LaRouche said on Monday, August 12:

“I can only say that the war danger is clear and increasing, and the situation is fragile, with the situation absolutely on the brink. Therefore, we absolutely have to increase our activities of the IPC meeting: I think last Friday’s meeting on Aug. 9, gave us excellent ammunition and tools. The video of the speeches is on the Schiller site. We can use that video and the speeches of individual speakers for massive outreach. And I think for the next Friday, Aug. 16, we should use those videos to contact as many parts of the peace movement domestically and internationally, to try to keep the process of expansion, and simply tell people, it is not good enough to demonstrate for peace: We have to make the international peace movement more vocal, more visible, so that we reach the people who are influenced only by the narrative of NATO and the mainstream media via a different voice, and that can only be done by unifying the international peace movement. And to present solutions: It’s not good enough to just be against the war, but we have to offer solutions for how to remedy the causes for the war, like the Oasis Plan, the International Security and Development Architecture, the Peace of Westphalia approach applied to today, and the Council of Reason.”

Join Helga Zepp-LaRouche August 14, 11am Eastern/5pm CET in her Weekly Live dialogue and help usher in the Year of the New Paradigm for all Humanity. Send your questions, thoughts and reports to questions@schillerinstitue.org or ask them in the live stream.


Prof. Richard Falk: Western “Liberal Democracies” Responsible for Genocide in Palestine

Mike Billington : This is Mike Billington with the Executive Intelligence Review and the Schiller Institute. I have the pleasure of having an interview today with Professor Richard Falk, who has done another interview with us earlier. He is a professor emeritus at Princeton, among other positions he holds in institutions around the world, mostly peace related. Between 2008 and 2014, he was the UN Special Rapporteur for Palestine. So, given the circumstances that we have today in the Middle East, it’s a very timely moment to have a discussion with Professor Falk. So let me begin with that. Professor, the assassination of Haniyeh today in Tehran is clearly a sign that Israel is trying its best to get an all out war with Iran started, but also, it’s the fact they just killed the person whom I believe was the leading negotiator with Israel for peace in Palestine. So what are your comments on that?

Prof. Falk: I agree with your final sentences that this is certainly either gross incompetence or a deliberate effort to provoke a wider war. And from Israel’s point of view, to stimulate the engagement of the United States in their struggles in the region. One should also mention the double assassination. Not only Haniyeh, but Nasrallah’s right hand assistant and prominent military commander, Fouad Shaqra, who was killed 2 or 3 days ago, in Beirut. And so now Israel in successive assassinations has attacked the two capitals of Lebanon and Iran, certainly signaling an almost intentional search for some kind of response. The Supreme leader of Iran has already said that that Iran will arrange — he didn’t go into detail — arrange a response, a punishment for this criminal act. In the Lebanese context, Nasrallah and the Hezbollah deny the Israeli justification for the attack, which was the missile that landed in the Golan Heights a few days ago, killing a bunch of Syrian children on a soccer field. It is almost certainly not intended as the target by whoever fired the missile, and it’s still being denied by Hezbollah. The very explosive situation in the Middle East — perhaps it is a distraction from Israel’s failures in Gaza and Netanyahu’s unpopularity in Israel. A very dangerous way of proceeding because a war of this wider character will bring widespread destruction and probably involve attacks on Israeli cities, something Israel has avoided pretty much over the course of its existence. So it’s a dramatic turning point in the whole experience of Israel’s defiance of international law, international morality and just plain geopolitical prudence.

Mike Billington : You have been a very outspoken supporter of the role of the International Court of Justice, ICJ, and their rulings, including the decision on the South African petition that Israel is guilty of genocide in Gaza; the issuing of arrest warrants on both Israeli and Palestinian leaders; and more recently, the verdict that the entire occupation of the Palestinian territories has been illegal from the beginning, ordering it to end the occupation and withdraw the settlements. But of course, Israel has ignored them totally, while the US and the EU have equally ignored them. As you pointed out in one of your articles, Bibi Netanyahu even said “No one will stop us,” from driving all the Palestinians out or killing them. What can be done overall to deal with the Gaza genocide?

Prof. Falk: Well, it is, of course, a terribly tragic moment for the Palestinian people who are faced with this massively sustained and executed genocide, that has now gone on for more than nine months on a daily basis. As your question suggests, Israel has been backed up throughout this process by the complicity of the liberal democracies, above all the US. And so long as that power relationship persists, it’s very unlikely that an effective intervention on behalf of Palestine, or in order to stop the genocide, can be organized and implemented. So from that point of view, these judicial rulings, although they give aid and comfort to the supporters of Palestine, are not able to influence the situation on the ground. At the same time, the rulings are important in depriving Israel and the West of complaining about Palestine and Hamas as violators of international law. In other words, by finding that Israel is in gross violation of international law and issuing arrest warrants, the judicial procedures deprive these aggressive countries from opportunistically using international law as a policy instrument the way they have against Russia in the Ukrainian context. It also has an effect on civil society, particularly activists throughout the world, who feel both vindicated and challenged to do more.

There are is a variety of initiatives underway in civil society that not only brand Israel as a rogue state, but also propose nonviolent boycotting, divesting, and shows of opposition, including the activism of students in university campuses around the world. Which is a quite distinctive phenomenon — even during the earlier activist periods involving South African apartheid and the Vietnam War, there wasn’t nearly as much passion or spread of this kind of Civil society activism. This is the most universal reaction, including of the people in the country whose governments are complicit in supporting the genocide.

And it has uncovered a very unusual gap between what the citizenry wants and what the government is doing. Highlighted and dramatized by the scandalous, honorific speech that Netanyahu gave last week to a joint session of Congress, where he received a hero’s welcome, standing ovations, applause and a meeting in the White House with Biden and Kamala Harris, although it was notable that Harris didn’t attend the joint session of Congress, where ordinarily the vice president presides when a foreign leader is speaking at that sort of event.

Mike Billington : Your friend, and mine, Chandra Muzaffar, who is the founder and the head of the International Movement for a Just World based in Malaysia, has written a letter to all member nations of the UN noting, as you have also, that the West is ignoring the evil in Gaza, and called on the UN General Assembly to act upon Resolution 377, which, as I understand it, allows the General Assembly, when the Security Council fails to take action to stop a disaster against peace, to act in its own name, to deploy forces, I think un-armed forces, to intervene. You are, among other things, a professor of international law. What is your view of this option?

Prof. Falk: There is that option, that was adopted in the context of the Korean War. It was thought initially to give the West a possibility of nullifying the Soviet veto and mobilizing the General Assembly in that sort of situation. But as the anti-colonial movement proceeded, the US particularly became more and more nervous about having an anti-capitalist General Assembly empowered to act when the Security Council was paralyzed. To my knowledge that Resolution 377 has never been actually deployed in a peace – war situation. I think there is a reluctance to press the West on this kind of issue, because it would require, to have any significance, a large political and financial commitment, as well as a difficult undertaking to make effective. So I’m not too optimistic. I think the law can be interpreted in somewhat contradictory ways, as is often the case, particularly where there’s not much experience. But I don’t think the political will exists on the part of a sufficient number of governments to make the General Assembly act. In this context, though I think in general to have an effective UN, this empowerment of the General Assembly is a very important option that should be supported by people that want to have a more law governed international society.

Mike Billington : On that broader issue, do you have any hope or any expectation that the UN in general will be reformed in the current crisis situation internationally?

Prof. Falk: I’m more or less skeptical of that possibility. There is this Summit of the Future on September 22nd and 23rd. That is an initiative of Secretary-General Guterres which seeks to have at least discussed fairly ambitious ideas about reform, civil society, enlarged participation in the UN and a more democratic, transparent UN. But my guess is that the Permanent Members, and probably including China and Russia, will not push hard for that kind of development, because they’re both very conscious that their interests are better protected in a state-centric world than in a world which is more centralized in its authority structure and therefore would be more susceptible to Western domination and manipulation.

Mike Billington: On the US situation, you issued a public letter to Kamala Harris soon after Biden dropped out of the race. There and elsewhere, you have denounced what you called the “diluted optimism” of President Biden, who talks about American greatness and the great future America is looking forward to, and so forth. You called it: “a dangerous form of escapism from the uncomfortable realities of national circumstances and a stubborn show of a failing leader’s vanity.” you express some hope that Kamala Harris will dump the Biden team of Blinken and Sullivan. Who do you think could possibly come to be her advisors? Who could, in fact, change the failed direction of the Biden-Harris administration?

Prof. Falk: Well, it’s a difficult issue, because it’s hard to govern. And I think Harris would know, if you go too far outside the Washington Consensus and therefore the choices are somewhat restricted because those that are prominent enough to be eligible for confirmation in the top job are either conforming to this geopolitical realism, or they’re too controversial to get through the congressional gatekeepers and the media gatekeepers. So in fairness to her, or any leader for that matter, it’s a difficult undertaking to make American foreign policy particularly more congruent with the well-being of people and more oriented toward sustaining peace in a set of dangerous circumstances that exist in different parts of the world. And, of course, the Israeli domestic factor is probably also at least a background constraint. So the best that I think I could hope for, realistically, is some critical realist personalities like John Mearsheimer or Anne-Marie Slaughter, or possibly Stephen Walt. These are people that have been more enlightened in their definition of national interest and more critical of the Jewish lobby and of other manipulative private sector forces. But they’re strictly, properly, categorized as realists, A more progressive possibility, but probably too controversial for serious consideration, would be Chas Freeman, who has a distinguished diplomatic background. Obama wanted to give him an important position in the State Department. But he was perceived at that time as sufficiently controversial as to be blocked, and the proposed appointment was withdrawn. Obama himself is an outside possibility. He’s privately let it be known that he’s quite critical of the way in which Israel has behaved in this period. He is more oriented toward domestic policy and would like to promote a more peaceful, less war oriented world. But whether he would be willing to play that kind of role, having been previously President is uncertain, and whether she would want such a strong personality within her inner circle is another matter of doubt. Possibly, if he was willing, he could be the US Ambassador at the UN or some kind of other position. But it’s strange that in a country of 330 million people, there so few that are able to do the job and get through the gatekeepers, who make sure that more progressive voices are not allowed to do the job. So, for instance, someone like Chomsky or Ellsberg, if he had lived, would be perhaps amenable to serving in a Harris government. And she might be eager to chart a somewhat independent path and give more attention to foreign policy and more support to the people that have been suffering from inflation and other forms of deprivation resulting from a cutback in social protection that has occurred in the last decade or so.

Mike Billington : In a more general sense, you’ve been critical of what you call the “incredible stance of Democratic Party nominees to be silent this year about the world out there, beyond American borders, at a time when the US role has never been more controversially intrusive.” As you know, Helga Zepp-LaRouche, the head of the Schiller Institute, has initiated an International Peace Coalition (IPC) which is aimed at addressing that problem, bringing together pro-peace individuals and organizations from around the world, many of whom have different political views, but to put aside those differences in order to stop the extreme danger of an onrushing nuclear conflict with Russia, and also possibly with China, and to restore diplomacy in a West which has fully adopted the imperial outlook of the British Empire, which they now call the “unipolar world.” How can this movement be made strong enough to make those kinds of changes in the paradigm?

Prof. Falk: That’s an important challenge. There are other groups that are trying to do roughly parallel things. I’ve been involved with SHAPE [Save Humanity And Planet Earth], the group that Chandra Muzaffar is one of the co-conveners along with Joe Camilleri [and Prof. Falk himself]. But it’s extremely difficult to penetrate the mainstream media, and it’s very difficult to arrange funding for undertakings like your own, that challenge the fundamental ways that the world is organized. The whole point, I think, of these initiatives is to create alternatives to this kind of aggressively impacted world of conflict, and to seek common efforts, common security, human security, that meets the challenges of climate change and a variety of other issues that are currently not being addressed in an adequate way. But it depends, I think ultimately, on the mobilization of people. Governments are not likely to encourage these kinds of initiatives. So the question needs to be rephrased: how does one mobilize sufficient people with sufficient resources to pose a credible challenge to the political status quo in the world?

Mike Billington : In that light, Helga Zepp-LaRouche has also called for the founding of what she called a Council of Reason, reflecting back on the Council of Westphalia, which led to the Peace of Westphalia, where people of stature, as you indicated, are brought to step forward and speak out at a time when that kind of truthful, outspoken approach is sorely lacking and very, very much needed. What’s your thought on that?

Prof. Falk : I think all such initiatives help to build this new consciousness that is more sensitive to the realities of the world we live in. There has been, as you undoubtedly know, a similar Council of Elders composed of former winners of the Nobel Peace Prize and a few selected other individuals, but it hasn’t had much resonance either with the media or with government. It’s very difficult to gain political space the way the world is now structured, through a coalition of corporate capitalism and a militarized state. It’s hard not to be pessimistic about what can be achieved. But that doesn’t mean one shouldn’t struggle to do what at least has the promise and the aspiration to do what’s necessary. And the Counsel of Reason, presumably well selected and adequately funded, and maybe with an active publication platform, could make a difference to international public discourse. It’s worth a try, and I would certainly support it.

Mike Billington : I appreciate that. What are your thoughts on the peace mission undertaken by Viktor Orban?

Prof. Falk: Well, I don’t have too many thoughts about that. It seemed to uncover what many independent, progressive voices were saying. In any event, the interesting thing is that he’s a head of state, and therefore his willingness to embark on such a journey and to seek ways of ending the Ukraine conflict is certainly to be welcomed. He, of course, has a kind of shadowy reputation as a result of widespread allegations of autocratic rule within Hungary. I don’t know how to evaluate those, I haven’t been following the events in Hungary, but he’s seen as an opponent of liberal democracy. And for that reason, he doesn’t get a very good hearing from the media or from Western governments as a whole. The message may deserve wider currency, but whether he can deliver that message effectively seems to me to be in fairly significant doubt. I think the Chinese are in a better position to make that point of view more influential in the world.

Mike Billington : You’re saying that he is accused of being against “liberal democracy.” Do you think criticism of liberal democracy is wrong?

Prof. Falk: No, no. And I consider myself a critic of liberal democracy. But I think it’s powerful because it’s linked to corporate capitalism on the one side, and the most militarized states on the other side. So it’s an ideological facade for a rather repressive phase of world politics.

Mike Billington : You’re generally very pessimistic about the US election, saying that you saw the choice — this was before Biden dropped out — but you saw it as “a warmonger and a mentally unstable, incipient fascist.” That’s pretty strong. You welcomed Biden dropping out, but do you see any improvement in the choices today?

Prof. Falk: Yes, I see at least the possibility of an improvement, because we don’t know enough about how Kamala Harris will try to package her own ideas as an independent position. It’s conceivable it would even be to the right of Biden, but I don’t think so. Her own background is one of being quite progressive. As a younger person, she has a mixed record, to say the least. When she served as prosecuting attorney and attorney general in California. But I think there is a fairly good chance that she will be more critical of Israel than has been true in the last few years. She’s already indicated a determination to not support Israel, very openly, if they engage in a massive killing of Palestinian civilians. She probably feels she has to walk a narrow path to avoid alienating Zionist funders and others who would be hostile should she show a shift to a more balanced pro-Palestinian position.

Mike Billington : you referred to Trump in that passage as a warmonger. But on the other hand…

Prof. Falk: No, you misunderstood me. Biden is the warmonger.

Mike Billington : Oh, a “warmonger and a mentally unstable, incipient fascist.” I got it. So those terms were both as a description of Biden.

Prof. Falk: I wouldn’t call Trump “peace minded,” but he has at various points suggested an opposition to what he and others have called “forever wars,” these engagements in long term interventions that always seemed to end up badly, even from a strategic point of view, such as Iraq and Afghanistan. But he’s so unpredictable and unstable that I wouldn’t place any confidence in him. He does seem determined to move the country in a fascist direction if he’s successful in the election. And if he isn’t successful, he seems to want to agitate the country sufficiently so that it has an experience of civil strife, or at least unrest.

Mike Billington : Well, he clearly is insisting that there must be peace and negotiation with Russia on the Ukraine issue. Do you see any hope that he would also negotiate with China in terms of the growing crisis there?

 Prof. Falk: I doubt it because of his seeming perception of China as an economic competitor, and as one that, in his perceptions has taken advantage of the international openness to gain various kinds of economic leverage. So I think he, if anything, would be likely to escalate the confrontation with China and put it on a very transactional basis, which meant that only when it was to the material benefit of the US would the US in any way cooperate with China. 

Mike Billington : Of course, we saw just recently in China that the Xi Jinping government brought many diverse Palestinian factions together in Beijing, and that they did come to an agreement. What are your thoughts on the agreement that they came to and what effect will that have?

 Prof. Falk: Well, I hope it lasts. I mean, there have been prior attempts, mostly in the Middle East, mostly by Egypt before its present government. And none of them have lasted. There is a lot of hostility between the PLO, Fatah and Hamas. It relates to the religious – secular divide and the difference of personality. It was encouraging to me that Mahmoud Abbas, the head of the Palestinian Authority, condemned the assassination of Haniyeh. That, I think, was an early confirmation of the importance of this Beijing Declaration and the successful, at least temporarily successful, effort at bringing these Palestinian factions together. And from the Palestinian point of view, unity has never been more important as a practical matter to achieve and sustain. Their entire future probably depends on being able to have a more or less united front in seeking a post-Gaza arrangement.

Mike Billington : You recently signed an appeal which was issued by the Geneva International Peace Research Institute, which has called on the International Criminal Court (ICC) to investigate the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, for alleged complicity in war crimes and genocide committed by Israel. What are your expectations for that effort?

Prof. Falk: The ICC, the International Criminal Court, is much more susceptible to political pressure than is the International Court of Justice (ICJ), which is part of the UN and was established when the UN was established back in 1945. The ICC was only brought into existence in 2002. It doesn’t have many of the most important countries among its members or signatories to its treaty, to the so-called Rome Treaty, and so it would be a pleasant surprise if it follows the prosecutor’s recommendation and issues these arrest warrants. Already, Netanyahu has given the recommendation of the prosecutor an international visibility by denouncing them and calling on the US and, and the liberal democracies to bring pressure to avoid their being actually issued. And that reflects the sense that even though Israel defies international law, it is very sensitive about being alleged to be in violation, especially of international criminal law and particularly of the serious offences. The arrest warrant doesn’t cover the elephant in the room — genocide. It enumerates other crimes that Israel, that Netanyahu and Gallant, are said to be guilty of perpetrating, and does the same thing for Hamas, in trying to justify issuing arrest warrants for the three top Hamas leaders. Of course, they don’t have to worry about Haniyeh anymore, and I think, I’m pretty sure he was one of the three that was recommended as sufficiently involved in the commission of international crimes, that an arrest warrant should be issued.

Mike Billington: As I mentioned, you were the UN Special Rapporteur for Palestine from 2008 to 2014. During that period, you were regularly declared by Israel to be an anti Semite for things you said and did during that time. I’d be interested in your thoughts on that at this point. Also, the current person in that position, Francesca Albanese, is also under attack from Israel. What do you think about her role today?

Prof. Falk: Well, as far as my own role is concerned, the attacks came not directly from the government, but from Zionist oriented NGOs, particularly UN Watch in Geneva and some groups in the US and elsewhere, all in the white Western world. I mean, all the attacks on me. And of course, they were somewhat hurtful. But this kind of smear is characteristic of the way in which Israel and Zionism has dealt with it for a long time. Jeremy Corbyn, the Labour Party leader in the UK, has been a victim of such smear and defamatory attacks. It’s unfortunately a tactic that has a certain success in branding one as not fit to be listened to in the mainstream. Israel and its Zionist network are not interested in whether the allegations are truthful or factual, they just use it as a way of deflecting the conversation away from the message to the messenger.

And they’ve done, shockingly, the same thing with Francesca Albanese, who’s a dedicated, very humanistic person and very far from having any kind of ethnic prejudice, much less anti-Semitism. She’s written very good reports in the time she’s been the Special Rapporteur.

It’s a real disgrace that this unpaid position is dealt with in such an irresponsible and personally hurtful way. The special rapporteurs enjoy independence, which is important, but they’re essentially doing a voluntary job, that frees them from the discipline of the UN, but also makes them vulnerable to this kind of attack. The UN does nothing very substantial to protect those of us that have had that kind of position, because they’re too anxious about losing funding from the countries that support Israel. After I finished being Special Rapporteur, I collaborated with Virginia Tilley to produce one of the early reports in 2017 on Israeli apartheid. That was denounced by Nikki Haley [US Ambassador to the UN] in the Security Council. I was singled out by her as a kind of disreputable person. The UN secretary General Guterres, newly appointed at that time, was threatened with the withholding of funds if he didn’t remove our report from the UN website, and he complied. He did remove the report, though it was the most widely read and requested report in the history of the Economic and Social Commission for West Asia, which is a regional commission of the UN.

Mike Billington: And who was it that had that removed?

Prof. Falk: Guterres. Yes. The head of this UN agency, the Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (ESCWA), a  civil servant, resigned, Rima Khalaf, as a consequence of what was done. Our report was more or less an academic study. We were treated as independent scholars, not part of the UN. But the report was sponsored by a UN agency.

Mike Billington: Is there anything else you’d like to add before we close?

Prof. Falk: No, I think we’ve covered a lot. I would hope that things will look better in a few months, but I’m not at all confident that they will. They could look a lot worse if this wider war unfolds in the Middle East. And if they are new tensions that come to the surface in the Pacific area, and one can just have this marginal hope that Kamala Harris will surprise us by being more forthcoming in promoting a different image of what liberal democracy means internationally.

 Mike Billington: Let us hope. Well, thank you very much. I appreciate your taking the time to do this at a critical moment, with your own personal role in the Middle East having been so important historically and still today. So we’ll get this circulated widely. And let’s hope that, in fact, we do see a big change at a moment where the crisis is such that you would think people would be stepping forward all over the world to stop the madness.

Prof. Falk: Yes but they need — I found that they need the entrepreneurial underpinning. They have to have the support, sufficient funding. Support so that their words will have weight. So unfortunate, but it’s one of the dimensions of following the money,  

 Mike Billington: Something we’ve always had to deal with in the LaRouche movement. I invite you to join us on Friday, we will have the 61st weekly meeting of the International Peace Coalition, at 11:00 East Coast time, on Friday. And it would be very useful if you could attend and perhaps say some of what you said today in this interview or if that’s not possible, perhaps we could read a section of what you said today, during that event. So I’ll correspond with you to see if you can attend on Friday.

Prof. Falk : I know that I can’t because I have to go to Istanbul. You know, I’m living in southern Turkey, a plane ride away from Istanbul. And I’m taking part in a conference on international law after Gaza , a little bit optimistic in the title. I’m occupied all day either with this trip or with the conference.

 Mike Billington: All right. Well, I’ll correspond with you about whether we may be able to read a portion of what you had to say in the interview today for the for the attendance.

Prof. Falk: Great.

Mike Billington: Okay. Thanks again.  


Webcast: The Strategic Imperative for a Classical Renaissance

Join Helga Zepp-LaRouche July 31, 11am Eastern/5pm CET in her Weekly Live dialogue and help usher in the Year of the New Paradigm for all Humanity. Send your questions, thoughts and reports to questions@schillerinstitue.org or ask them in the live stream.

In a conference presentation in Italy on July 27, Helga Zepp-LaRouche gave a presentation which demonstrated how to think about the conflict between the Trans-Atlantic Roman-modeled “democratic dictatorship” called NATO, and the true interests of the people and nations of the world, starting with the concrete case of Germany, the most important economy in Europe and the second largest military/financial contributor to NATO’s war against Russia.

There was more than applause at the conclusion of her remarks. There was a deeper understanding of the crisis actually confronting Western Civilization itself—not merely the geopolitical construct called “the West.” Those viewing the Olympics’ “Last Supper” blasphemy, with the near-naked “god” Dionysius, the “Anti-Christ” as the “sacrifice served as a meal,” were seeing the spiritual foundations espoused by the “new NATO” alliance, an Allgemeine SS with pagan diversity at the core of its “spiritual center.”

There is a reason that many trans-Atlantic pundits, bloggers, commentators and academics are baffled by Russia’s insistence on “de-Nazification” in Ukraine, and, therefore, about Russia’s fierce commitment to fighting NATO’s “Allgemeine SS” military deployment there. They refuse to understand that the true roots of the fascism of 1920s Italy, and 1930s France, Germany, Spain, and Central and Eastern Europe, lay in the attempted revival, largely fueled by British imperial studies of “the secret of Roman rule,” such as Gibbon’s The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, of the anti-Christian, Roman imperial tradition of Tiberius, and its pagan expressions, for example in the military Cult of Mithra, or the baby-sacrificing cult of Moloch. Think, in this context, about the “green” movement’s peculiar and comparatively recent, if not sudden, political sex-change, from once being the erstwhile leaders in the “peace movement” to stop nuclear weapons from being placed in Germany, to now being all-out advocates for ultimate military confrontation with Russia, including the deployment of long-range missiles and even thermonuclear weapons.

Why did the “Greens” do this? Because it is the military, financial and political policy of NATO that “climate change” will be used as the pretext for a global military “Allgemeine SS,” and a universal Gestapo, to “save the planet” by reducing the human population to less than 1 billion. This Malthusian mission requires a spiritual visualization; we just saw one expression of that at the Olympics.

What should humanity be for? We request that all should read, and re-read, Helga Zepp-LaRouche’s “Ten Principles of a New International Security and Development Architecture” with new eyes. They outline the difference between a principle and a “policy,” “platform,” or “party plank.” There is a difference between “principles” and “issues.” That difference is also amply demonstrated in the interview that appears below which was given by New York United States Senate candidate Diane Sare to “Great Game International.”

Join Helga Zepp-LaRouche July 31, 11am Eastern/5pm CET in her Weekly Live dialogue and help usher in the Year of the New Paradigm for all Humanity. Send your questions, thoughts and reports to questions@schillerinstitue.org or ask them in the live stream.


Chas Freeman Argues To Return to the Approach of the Peace of Westphalia

Chas Freeman gave an interview to the “Douglas Macgregor Today” podcast on July 21, in which he used his years of diplomatic experience to give an accurate historical assessment of the world’s problems, and used his wisdom to provide a path out of the crisis.

Citing his July 10 address to the Chinese-Cambridge Executive Leadership Program, among Freeman’s main points was that the G7 nations, which he calls a “club of the imperial powers,” no longer follow UN mandates or guidelines from international agreements. This club of imperial powers has created the “rules-based order,” but the club will create the rules, alter the rules, exempt themselves from the rules, and decide which countries will be required to follow the rules. He says that this is not the “rule of law,” but the “rule by law.” The Global Majority prefers the UN Charter and international agreements, and views the “rules- based order” as hypocritical, arbitrary, fraught with double standards, and based on a narrative that denies reality.

The Global Majority is creating a new order that is not restricted to a “multipolar” concept, but is “multi-nodal,” meaning that countries interact differently at different levels with a vast variety of other countries. He also made the point that countries like the U.S. and China may not interact well politically, but have very large economic interactions. He was encouraged by the great diversity of medium and regional powers like Brazil, Saudi Arabia, Türkiye, Nigeria, Mexico, Poland, and Indonesia which may lack great clout on the global stage, but have growing influence, especially in their regions. Each country has sufficient power to make a difference in the world. These countries are independent and will not submit to some overlord. Freeman said that China dominates Pacific Asia, but also has become a global power like the U.S.. He said that there are no other global powers. Freeman compared it to Russia which has a global military reach, but Russia does not have the economic influence with the exception of the issue of energy.

He said that the U.S. has lost its dominance in every field except military. The U.S. is obsessed with a democratic ideology, yet it is becoming more authoritarian. However, the loss of democracy in the U.S. is not from meddling by Russia, China, or some other power, but rather it has been a self-inflicted wound. It has been the U.S. which has made the world a less democratic place by denigrating the UN, paralyzing the UN Security Council, and ignoring international agreements. If the UN cannot be rebuilt, then it should be replaced, but it will not by the U.S. which will lead any reform effort. The U.S. does not use diplomacy or dialogue, but rather sanctions and ostracism. But knowing yourself and knowing your adversary is critical whether in diplomacy or on the battlefield. The West now divides the world into blocs and uses economic, trade, and technology embargoes against foes. The U.S. foreign policy now relies on the military, and the economy relies on protectionism. If the U.S. is unable to compete with China, it merely bans selected imports.

But Freeman warns that self-reliance can go too far and used the example of China in 1793 which rejected all of the innovations presented by a British trade delegation which condemned China to backwardness for 150 years. The G7 countries used to be at the center of human progress, but now it is retreating. China now has rejected this self-imposed isolation and engages the world making itself into a dynamic scientific and industrial powerhouse. The policies of sanctions and intimidation merely creates resentments that will last for generations. This is not solving problems, but entrenching us into the problem. The Thirty Years’ War was ended by the Treaty of Westphalia which included mutual respect and we risk total war if we do not return to this approach.


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