International Peace Coalition

The Aesthetic Dynamics of Peace – International Peace Coalition Meeting #46

April 20, 2024by madeleine in International Peace Coalition

by Kevin Gribbroek

I think the whole concept of the Oasis Plan is exactly to interrupt forever this cycle of Intifada revenge. The whole point is that if there is no justice in allowing a two-state solution and the full equal rights and right to development for all, then the violence will continue…. You have to switch and leave the past behind you and have a beautiful vision of the future, which gives hope to all the participants in the conflict….
This principle of hope and having a beautiful vision is what has to elevate people out of the pit. And art and music and poetry are absolutely important–we are suffering as a humanity of a terrible flatness—of a two-dimensionality in the thinking—which has come along with the monetarist outlook, and just thinking in terms of profit. All of this is just flattening the Earth to two-dimensions, and we must urgently get to a much more beautiful world.
Helga zepp-larouche

April 19—The 46th consecutive meeting of the International Peace Coalition (IPC) was convened today, less than a week after the historic Schiller Institute “Oasis Plan” conference. Although the main focus of the meeting was the Oasis Plan—as a feature of an overall policy of peace through development—an important theme developed towards the end of the proceedings on the importance of beautiful art to inspire and ennoble people; to lift them “out of the pit.” In fact, what became evident, was that beautiful art and economic development are in reality integral parts of the same whole, with power to bring about true, lasting peace by creating for people the vision of a beautiful, more prosperous future.

Helga Zepp-LaRouche, founder of the Schiller Institute and co-founder of the IPC, began the proceedings with her assessment that “we are experiencing one of the most traumatic shifts in the alignment of the world” driven by the emergence of a new world order. As this process unfolds, one can expect “major seizures, and effects, and dramatic convulsions,” including the danger of global war, until we have reached a more peaceful level of cooperation among nations. The IPC is unique in that it’s not simply against war and for peace, but presents a blueprint of how peace can be achieved—peace through economic development. She highlighted the fact that high-ranking diplomats from four nations, Palestine, South Africa, Russia, and Belarus, at the April 13, Schiller Institute conference, openly endorsed the Oasis Plan. However, that same day, Iran launched a missile and drone attack against Israel in retaliation for Israel’s April 1 bombing of the Iranian consulate in Damascus, demonstrating just how close we are to World War III.

The next speaker, Terry Lodge, lawyer and long-time member of Veterans for Peace, described a recent letter sent to President Biden, the State Department, and the Department of Energy. The letter summarizes the history of Israel’s “very troubling” nuclear weapons program, and details the fact that under U.S. law, financial aid must be denied to any country not in compliance with the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. This, of course, would apply to Israel. With no “delusion” that the U.S. will cut aid to Israel, nonetheless he expressed his hope that the IPC will serve as a vehicle for generating international discussion about the Biden administration’s inability to follow its own legal standards. According to Lodge, Benjamin Netanyahu was directly involved in the smuggling operation that resulted in Israel acquiring nuclear weapons technology.

Jack Gilroy, of Pax Christi, gave a report on recent direct-action activities targeting the military-financial complex. On April 15, tax day, Gilroy and his collaborators conducted demonstrations outside three arms manufacturers in the Scranton, Pennsylvania area: General Dynamics, producer of 155mm artillery shells; Lockheed Martin, largest defense corporation in the world, and producer of the laser-guided Paveway bombs; and finally to BAE Systems, producer of the M777 Howitzer.

Jose Vega, independent LaRouche candidate for New York’s 15th District Congressional seat, reported from the Bronx, where he is currently leading a petitioning drive to get his name on the ballot. Vega characterized his campaign as “flooding the Bronx with optimism—spreading a message of hope and peace. Despite the fact that his district in one of the poorest in the nation, with 30% of residents way below the poverty level, his opponent, Congressman Ritchie Torres, is campaigning as a “champion of Israel.” We all must emulate the IPC through a “dialogue and discussion process”:

The residents of the Bronx should be coming together to discuss foreign policy, to discuss international conflicts as well as what’s happening in their own neighborhoods, because it is all one thing. Our foreign policy is our domestic policy, because what’s happening in Gaza, how we treat other countries, is a reflection of how we treat our own country; how we treat our own neighborhoods.
Jose Vega

Ray McGovern, retired CIA analyst and co-founder of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity, spoke about the April 17 opinion piece by Joe Biden in the Wall Street Journal. Biden made a pitch for billions of dollars in supplemental funding for Ukraine, trumpeting its tremendous benefit for the U.S. economy. McGovern called this the Military Industrial Complex on steroids, which will only benefit the rich.

An interesting dialogue emerged as a result of a report given by a leader of the Mexican LaRouche Youth Movement (LYM) during the discussion period. She recounted her experience at a recent pro-Palestine, where a planned showing of the “Oasis Plan” video was preempted by the event organizers in favor of a “horrible, harsh” video showing the gory images of people suffering and dying in Gaza. The event organizers seemed uninterested in discussing solutions, despite their good intentions. The question was asked: How do we get people to understand that these violent, horrific videos do not ennoble and empower, but rather dehumanize and desensitize the population?

Zepp-LaRouche addressed the question by expressing her belief that it is necessary to expose the death and suffering, dwelling on that “breeds hatred and violence and desperation; pessimism” which is counterproductive. What needs to be accomplished is to evoke humanity, “to strengthen that in people which is the divine spark; which makes them reject any such violence forever.” One of the ways to accomplish this is through a truly artistic treatment of the subject. She offered an incredibly moving 3-minute video featuring Dieter Hallervorden, a famous German actor, reciting his poem “GAZA GAZA,” against a video panorama of the destruction of Gaza, and other images, during which he addressed the people of Gaza directly, by turning his back to the audience who thus saw him talking to Gaza, and would turn from time to time back to the audience, invoking compassion and passion for peace.

In her closing remarks, Zepp-LaRouche came back to this theme of aesthetic beauty, tied integrally to the “Westphalian” approach of peace through development–the only way the “cycle of violence” in Southwest Asia can be interrupted. Although this may seem impossible, to survive, people must make an “intellectual jump,” to “leave the past behind, and have a beautiful vision of the future, which gives hope to all participants in the conflict.” She cited Friedrich Schiller’s poem “[[Hope]]”:[[ https://archive.schillerinstitute.com/transl/trans_schil_2poems.html#hope]] “We are born for that which is better!” and concluded by insisting that building the momentum for a development solution is “the dynamic that can move mountains.”

International Peace Coalition Meeting: Overcoming the Tragedy of Geopolitics

April 12, 2024by madeleine in General, International Peace Coalition

by Kevin Gribbroek

If I stopped to think about what is going on in each part of the world, I would only have time to cry. Therefore, I have to do something to act.
Lyndon H. LaROuche Jr.

April 12—One day before the Schiller Institute’s historic Oasis Plan conference, the International Peace Coalition (IPC) convened its 45th consecutive meeting, a remarkable but also crucial accomplishment, given the precarious state of world affairs. A major theme of the meeting was why a new paradigm of peace through development is the only means of resolving major geopolitical flash points, which could very quickly ignite World War III—with a particular focus on the Ukraine war, Southwest Asia, and growing tensions in the South China Sea.

This week’s featured speakers included:

Helga Zepp-LaRouche, Founder Schiller Institute

Dr. George Koo, Retired business consultant specializing in U.S.-China Trade, and Chairman, Burlingame Foundation

Rubén Guzzetti, Argentine Institute for Geopolitical Studies (IADEG)

Coleen Rowley, former FBI special agent and whistleblower

Ray McGovern, former analyst for the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)

Helga Zepp-LaRouche, founder of the Schiller Institute and co-founder of the IPC, began the proceedings with a strategic briefing on the very dangerous developments concerning the escalating showdown between the U.S./UK and their various satellites on one side, and Russia/China/Iran on the other. The most “acute and urgent” threat is that of war between Israel and Iran, driven by Israel’s April 1 missile attack against the Iranian embassy in Damascus, Syria. This could rapidly escalate to global war.

Zepp-LaRouche called on IPC participants to go all out mobilizing for the Oasis Plan conference, which could not have come at a timelier moment. She said,

Unless we get to what we have been discussing from the very beginning, the new paradigm—where we overcome geopolitics with an architecture for security and development which includes all countries of the planet—the theaters of the potential wars will just shift from one crisis spot to the next…. So that should fuel our efforts to really fight for a peace solution which must be just, for all sides. Because the lesson from the Peace of Westphalia is that unless it is just, and takes into account the interests of all, it cannot work.
Helga Zepp-larouche

The next speaker, Dr. George Koo, focused on developments in the “Pacific arena.” He reported on the very positive development of former Taiwanese President Ma Ying-jeou, who recently visited mainland China with a youth delegation. After an excellent meeting with President Xi Jinping in Beijing, Xi said, “After all, the future of Taiwan and the mainland will be up to the young generation…. Ma Ying-jeou will be welcome to bring another group anytime.” He contrasted this visit with U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen’s recent trip to Beijing, where she criticized China for its “overcapacity.” According to Koo, this is an admission by the U.S. that it can no longer compete with China. He warned against the United States using its “loyal lap dogs”—Japan, South Korea and the Philippines—as proxies against China. Like President Putin, President Xi does not bluff and will take active measures to protect China’s national sovereignty.

Rubén Guzzetti began his remarks by expressing the IADEG’s full solidarity with the Schiller Institute, and support for its initiatives against the “onslaught of Western powers, which is leading us into a dead end.” He then proceeded to report on the history of Western efforts to subjugate the peoples of South America, starting with the 1806–07 British invasion and occupation of Buenos Aires. This intensified after World War II with the consolidation of the United States as the “new Western empire.” Today, the estimate is that the U.S. and UK have 77 military bases in South America. The election of Javier Milei as President of Argentina has further opened the door for U.S./NATO subversion of the continent. But the IADEG has a plan to fight this government, and will be holding a national mobilization on May 9.

Coleen Rowley, a former FBI agent, legal expert and whistle blower, reported that she will be participating in the Freedom Flotilla Coalition, in which volunteers will be sailing relief ships laden with 5,500 tons of food and medicine to the shores of Gaza to provide aid for the Palestinians. She asked all IPC participants to do everything possible to spread news of the Freedom Flotilla. Even though relief workers have been killed, in the aftermath of the ICJ’s ruling against Israel, maximum publicity surrounding the Flotilla’s mission may succeed in causing Israel to back off. However, in the past, besides outright murder, Israel had taken people engaged in this type of relief effort prisoner, a risk Rowley and her fellow volunteers are willing to take: “If we can end the siege of Gaza, that could be a first step towards peaceful development in the rest of the world.” Helga Zepp-LaRouche pledged that she would make sure that news of the Flotilla will be circulated every day internationally to focus the eyes of the world on this courageous initiative.

Ray McGovern, following Rowley, asked : Why does President Joe Biden “insist on challenging the rest of the world, including two major nuclear powers?” Biden himself answered that question during a recent 60 Minutes interview: When asked if he thought it would be unwise to get involved in a two-front war, he said, “We’re the United States of America—the most powerful country in the history of the world!”—madness, according to McGovern. He asked that everyone hope and pray that his good friend Coleen Rowley and the Flotilla expedition succeed in getting the food and medicine into Gaza.

Dennis Small of the Schiller Institute opened the discussion with the news flash that the Embassy of South Africa in Mexico had just posted an invitation for the Oasis Plan conference to both their Facebook and X social media accounts. The Ambassador of South Africa to Mexico, H.E. Beryl Rose Sisulu, will be speaking at the conference.

Bolivar Télles, a leader of the Central American and Caribbean Critical Thought organization in Nicaragua, reported on his nation’s case against Germany before the ICJ, accusing Berlin of violating the Genocide Convention by providing Israel with military support. Germany has emphatically denied these charges.

Zepp-LaRouche referring to the report by Télles, characterizing the German government’s harsh rejection of the charges as “tragic.” Germany, she said does not bare sole responsibility for the Holocaust detailing international support for Hitler. “Collective guilt” is being used as a means of manipulating the German people into supporting Israel no matter what. With the growing recognition by the Global South of the genocide against the Palestinians, if Germany, along with the U.S. and EU, continue their support for Israel’s mass murder of civilians, they will be isolated from the rest of the world. This is a tragedy, because a new economic system will not function without the U.S. and Europe: “It creates the seed of a geopolitical catastrophe.”

This can be changed, she concluded, “because we have the overwhelming majority of the people of the world at our side.” In reference to the Oasis Plan conference, she said it is the “starting point of a real revolution” to usher in the new era of “peace through development, because nothing else will solve the problem.”

44th International Peace Coalition Meeting: ‘Create a Vision of How You Want the World to Be’

April 5, 2024by madeleine in International Peace Coalition

I think the one element which is absolutely irreplaceable, is the idea of what we do to put the world together. And I also think that what Prof. Garzon said—how this can only function if you have regional integration. That is something which absolutely needs to be put on the agenda. We need a concrete plan of how to put the world back into order, of which the Oasis Plan is one big part. And as we will discuss next week , this is not a plan just about reconstruction of Palestine, of Gaza, but it is a plan to solve the problem between Israel and Palestine, by taking the entire region, from India to the Mediterranean, from the Caucuses to the Gulf. All of Southwest Asia has to be part of an integrated plan of reconstruction for it to work.
Helga zepp-larouche, founder of the schiller institute

April 5—Helga Zepp-LaRouche offered this example of the “top-down” policy formulation-process that the International Peace Coalition, which held its 44th consecutive weekly meeting today, must engage in. Today’s featured speakers were:

Helga Zepp-LaRouche, Founder of the Schiller Institute;
Prof. Richard Anderson Falk, professor emeritus of international law at Princeton University, Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor’s Chairman of the Board of Trustees, former United Nations Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories from 2008 to 2014;
Jens Jørgen Nielsen, historian, author, former Moscow correspondent of the Danish newspaper Politiken, representative of the Russian-Danish Dialogue, Denmark;
Francis Anthony Boyle, American human rights lawyer and professor of international law at University of Illinois, counsel to Bosnia and Herzegovina and to the Provisional Government of the Palestinian Authority;
Prof. Fernando Garzón, architect, urban planner and leader of the Ecuadorian-Palestinian Union, adviser to various UN agencies, the Inter-American Development Bank, and others.

Helga Zepp-LaRouche opened the proceedings with an update on the conflicts in Gaza and Ukraine. She asserted that with all that has transpired in Gaza, the fact that leading nations are still sending weapons to Israel is indicative of “the collapse of the moral order of the world.” She said of the devastation there, that “the only way to stop it would be that the United States puts its foot down, which they could, but they’re not doing it.”

Noting the recent observances of the 75th anniversary of NATO, Zepp-LaRouche remarked, “If you look at the actual history of NATO, it was not a defensive alliance.” She reviewed the history of its illegitimate actions, and said that in particular, the Libyan war was the beginning of the destruction of the UN, noting that her husband, Lyndon LaRouche, said at the time that this was the beginning of the war against Russia and China. Since that time, Zepp-LaRouche concluded, “NATO wars have killed 4 1/2 million people.”

She asserted that the UN Security Council is effectively defunct due to the abuse of the veto, followed by the statement of White House National Security Communications Advisor John Kirby that UNSC resolutions are not binding. “We are in a lawless situation,” she said. “We have entered the world of jungle already.”

Zepp-LaRouche concluded by encouraging all to participate in the Schiller Institute’s [[Oasis Plan conference]] [[https://schillerinstitute.nationbuilder.com/oasis_conference_20240413]] next week.

Former UN special rapporteur, Prof. Richard Falk, presented an impassioned defense of his colleague, special rapporteur for occupied Palestine Francesca Albanese, who recently issued a formal report titled, “Anatomy of a Genocide.” Falk described her report as being ”… in my judgment, the most objective and meticulously researched and analyzed assessment of the genocidal dimensions of what Israel has been doing in Gaza.” Falk recalled his own prior experience as Special Rapporteur for Occupied Palestine, during which he also endured “a series of smears, death threats and unpleasantness… and in my case, additionally compounded by being called a ‘self-hating Jew.’”

Falk called what is happening in Gaza “the most original, transparent genocide in all of history…. This is a case where the perceptions of people around the world are taking place in real time, with overwhelming evidence that is supplied by the imagery shown nightly on TV and by the self-justifying language used by Israeli leadership to dehumanize the Palestinian people.”

Jens Jørgen Nielsen offered his assessment of the strategic crisis, saying that leading politicians “regard the present situation as a sort of computer game.” “People wind up hating their counterparts so much that they are willing to hurt themselves to inflict harm on the other….We are trapped in our own toxic narratives and psychological distortions.” Nielsen called for a return to diplomacy, like that which saved the world at the time of the Cuban missile crisis. Instead, he lamented, “it seems that Western politicians have a race to see who can use the most derogatory terms about Putin.”

Prof. Francis Boyle proposed five measures that can be taken to resolve the crisis in Gaza:

Suspend Israel’s participation in the activities of the UN General Assembly, along the lines of what the General Assembly did in response to apartheid in South Africa;
Convene a war crimes tribunal against Israel, similar to the one against Yugoslavia to which he was a party;
Sever diplomatic relations with Israel;
Issue economic sanctions against Israel;
Have the UN general assembly admit Palestine as a full-fledged member.

This was followed by a dialogue with Helga Zepp-LaRouche, who endorsed Boyle’s proposal to give Palestine full membership in the UN. She asked him to comment about her statement that the UN is defunct if the United States says resolutions are non-binding, to which he responded, “The statement that UN Security Council resolutions are non-binding is a bald-faced lie…under article 25 of the UN charter, all Security Council resolutions are binding.”

Professor Fernando Garzon described the conflict in Palestine as “…consequences of a scorched Earth strategy… to destroy any vestige of infrastructure,” following “75 years of continuous expulsion and elimination of its original population.” He emphasized the importance of creating a viable economy: “The Oslo agreements included a special chapter on development…. There never was implementation of this component.”

During the discussion period, a German participant proposed a “friendship concert” in Kaliningrad; preceded by a motorcade through European countries. Jack Gilroy of Veterans for Peace and Pax Christi, U.S.A. presented reports of anti-war actions around the country, including protests at weapons plants. Another participant described peace marches and related activity being held in Ibero-America.

To a question on how to avoid war with Russia, Zepp-LaRouche said, “You have to make the effort to understand the complexity of the whole world and put the one humanity first…. Treat other cultures as if they were your sons and daughters and grandparents.”

A video was shown of Kynan Thistlethwaite’s intervention against reporters and editors from the New York Times, Politico and the Guardian. Moderator Dennis Speed reported that “they basically froze and took an adjournment for five minutes.”

A final question was posed: “What does it mean to be optimistic under today’s circumstances?” Zepp-LaRouche turned to great thinkers, including astronomer Johannes Kepler, who said that the more you study the laws of the universe, the more you recognize the beauty of the plan of the Creator, and Gottfried Leibniz, who said that every evil will cause an even greater good to emerge. She concluded, “You must create within yourself a vision of how you want the world to be… If you do it, you will be happy.”

IPC Meeting, Friday April 5: How close are we to world war?

April 4, 2024by madeleine in General, International Peace Coalition

International Peace Coalition General Meeting
Join us Friday April 5, at 11am EDT/5pm CET
Send an email to questions@schillerinstitute.org to get the Zoom details for the meeting of the International Peace Coalition.
Please share this invitation with your organizations and friends. Come with full organizing reports.

Today, responding to the first question on her weekly webcast, “How close are we to world war?” International Schiller institute founder Helga Zepp-LaRouche said:

“Well, I’m not in a position to say how close we are, but we are very close. Because both of these so-called regional crises, in Southwest Asia and Ukraine, have the immediate potential of escalation—intentional or not, by escalation or not….

“But I think what is most worrisome, something which has appeared, both with respect to the United States and Israel…is the apparent and obvious disregard for international law… I think the most ominous and most glaring example is the U.S. responding to the resolutions and decisions by the UN Security Council, with the argument that they regard them as non-binding…. Now that means that is the UN Security Council, which is the only existing , and actually the highest institution of international lawfulness, of the rules-based order, if you want—if this is regarded as non-binding, then we are really in for trouble—because that means that there is no international institution that can be appealed to, and we are entering a compete state of jungle lawlessness.”

The ongoing de-population of Gaza is not “collateral damage.” It is intentional, and has a policy precedent, under Kissinger, Brzezinski and Huntington, since the days of Vietnam, that was never rescinded. The policy, as stated by the United States State Department Office of Population Affairs representative Thomas Ferguson in the 1980s, was this:

“There is a single theme behind all our work —we must reduce population levels. Either governments do it our way, through nice clean methods, or they will get the kinds of mess that we have in El Salvador, or in Iran or in Beirut. Population is a political problem. Once population is out of control, it requires authoritarian government, even fascism, to reduce it.”

The 2023 order delivered by Boris Johnson to Ukraine’s Zelensky to reject negotiations with Vladimir Putin, depopulated Ukraine by millions. Now, especially after the insane terrorist attack on the Crocus center, thermonuclear war is our next, and final stop.

Sane heads must prevail, and quickly. The April 13 Schiller Institute conference, The Oasis Plan: The LaRouche Solution for Peace Through Development Between Israel and Palestine and for All of Southwest Asia must assemble a worldwide anti-Malthusian resistance, to ensure that every life in Palestine, and in the world, is sacred, that international law must prevail to prevent genocide, and that economic development must be the engine for peace.

We will be joined this week by:
–Prof. Fernando Garzón (Ecuador): “The Rehabilitation and Reconstruction Phase of the War-Torn Areas of Gaza.” Architect and urban planner, leader of the Ecuadorian-Palestinian Union. He has taught in various universities in Ecuador, and has been an adviser to various UN agencies, the Inter-American Development Bank, and others.

-Prof. Richard Anderson Falk (United States): professor emeritus of international law Princeton University, Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor’s Chairman of the Board of Trustees. Former United Nations Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories from 2008 to 2014.

Please share this invite with your organizations and friends. Come with full organizing reports. More speakers will be revealed tomorrow.

International Peace Coalition Meeting: We Must Not Lose Our Humanity

March 30, 2024by madeleine in General, Global Diplomacy, International Peace Coalition

by Daniel Platt

March 29, 2024 (EIRNS)–The 43rd consecutive weekly online meeting of the International Peace Coalition began today with an acknowledgment of the importance of the recent memo issued by Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS), titled “The French Road to Nuclear War”, and it was noted that some of the authors of that report were participating in this IPC meeting, including Scott Ritter, former UN Weapons Inspector in Iraq; Ray McGovern, former analyst for the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA); and Coleen Rowley, former FBI special agent and whistleblower.

Schiller Institute founder Helga Zepp-LaRouche opened the proceedings by recalling the film, “Storm Over Asia”, released by her late husband, Lyndon LaRouche, in 1999. During its first ten minutes, this film describes the ongoing “Great Game” of conflict between the Anglosphere and the Asian powers, why it is happening, and who is doing it. At that time, the active conflicts were in the North Caucasus region, but we see the same dynamic going on in Ukraine now. French President Macron’s threat to deploy 20,000 troops to Ukraine is, said Zepp-LaRouche, “a very tricky situation,” and added that she thought it was of great importance to have members of the VIPS on the call to dialogue with important speakers from France and elsewhere. The recent terrorist attack on the Crocus City Hall music venue, located in Krasnogorsk, Moscow Oblast, adds another dimension of danger: Russia has compiled substantive evidence that the attack came from Ukraine, including large amounts of money in cryptocurrency deployed to sponsor it.

Zepp-LaRouche reported a number of positive developments, including the decision of the Irish government to join South Africa in its action against Israel before the International Court of Justice; the resignation of Annelle Sheline from her State Department position in protest against U.S. support for the Likud coalition’s genocidal policy in Gaza; and the momentum to free Palestinian political prisoner Marwan Barghouti, the one figure who could unify all Palestinians.

Following Zepp-LaRouche’s remarks, a special statement from Dennis Kucinich was read, who was a U.S. Congressman from Ohio from 1997 to 2013, Mayor of Cleveland, and is now an independent candidate for Congress. Kucinich stressed his support for non-violent conflict resolution through diplomacy.

Scott Ritter, a signer of the VIPS memo on Macron’s threat to deploy French troops to Ukraine, said that such a move “would begin a ladder of escalation” that would lead inevitably to a nuclear confrontation. He described the mind-set of NATO leaders as a “Casino-based addiction,” which leads the afflicted party to follow up on the stupidity of his initial bet by mortgaging his house and spending his kids’ college fund. Russia does not intend to move on to Poland or the Baltics, Ritter said; Russia’s security is threatened by NATO’s “irresponsible expansion.” Russia proposed a new European security framework in 2021–Ritter advised Western leaders to go back and study it now.

Col. (ret.) Alain Corvez, former advisor to the French Defense and Interior Ministries, described himself as “totally aligned” with the views of Zepp-LaRouche and Ritter, and elaborated on his reading of French President Macron’s insane proposal to send French troops to Ukraine. Leader of France’s Solidarité et Progrès party, Jacques Cheminade, described President Macron as “puerile and dangerous at the same time,” noting that he has displayed photos of himself on social media showing his biceps, as well as hugging Brazilian President Lula da Silva: behavior that is “full of contradictions.” Cheminade asserted that the economic and financial collapse of France “explains the flight forward.”

Coleen Rowley, another signer of the VIPS memo, recalled that there have been 70-80 such memos, and they have all been correct. She said that it has been sad to witness continual lies that have led to unnecessary wars, noting that when leaders become desperate to maintain power, they become reckless, and lose their ability to reason. They start believing their own propaganda. Unlike Russians, Americans have not experienced the costs of war on their own soil.

Helga Zepp-LaRouche strongly agreed on this point; the present generation has no idea what war does. For them, war has been reduced to a video game in which you can simply re-start the game when you lose.

Ray McGovern began his remarks by reminding the participants that he has served in uniform, and he knows a bit about war. On the other hand, Joe Biden, Tony Blinken, Jake Sullivan know nothing about war. Biden had “as many deferments as Dick Cheney–five, count them.” Because of the media, Americans have no idea how close we are to a three-front war. McGovern recalled, “I was alive during the genocide of Jews” during WWII. Was there anyone of moral standing who spoke out against it? Very few. He shared the story of Albrecht Haushofer, a German active in the anti-Nazi resistance, and quoted from Haushofer’s sonnet (https://www.prosperosisle.org/spip.php?article985) titled “Schuld”(“Guilt”) which was found after he was executed in prison. He concluded by saying, “It’s Good Friday… I would just remind you that we are not to be discouraged…There are enough of us.”

During the discussion period, people shared problems and successes they had encountered in their efforts to organize. A high point was a report on the previous night’s intervention by Senate candidate Diane Sare at the $25 million fundraiser for Joe Biden in New York, with guest stars Bill Clinton and Barack Obama. Sare had devised an ingenious banner of super-thin material, which she was able to smuggle into the event under her clothing. It read “WAR PIGS ALL,” and she unfurled it directly in front of the podium. As she was dragged out, Sare was videoed shouting, “You’re all out of your minds, you’re going to take us to nuclear war with Russia.” This video has gone viral. Sare’s intervention was quickly followed by others, including by members of Jewish Voice for Peace.

Cliff Kiracofe, former Senior Professional Staff Member of the U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, made an interesting observation about the Crocus City Hall attack, concerning the Tajik ethnicity of the perpetrators. Russia has suggested that Britain may have played a role in organizing the attacks. During the 19th century, the British were recruiting and manipulating Central Asians for their Great Game. The Islamic Renaissance Party, illegal in Tajikistan, has its headquarters in London.

A Connecticut peace activist, new to the IPC, said that many people she works with want to know if there is the possibility of sending UN Peacekeeping troops to Gaza if Israel continues to disregard the ceasefire resolution. Ray McGovern responded by insisting that contrary to statements by U.S. Government officials, the resolution is binding de jure. He said that the Israelis now admit that the 1967 war was launched without provocation, and UN Resolution 242 is also binding, though no one has enforced it. Things may be different now. It is certainly unconscionable to allow 90 Palestinian children to die every day. Coleen Rowley added that there are options and avenues for further enforcement of UN and ICJ measures. The strongest would be peacekeepers; before that, economic sanctions would be an option.

In closing, Helga Zepp-LaRouche reminded the participants that Easter marches are an old tradition in Europe. She urged everyone to go out and leaflet them. In the U.S., activists can go to churches with leaflets. As an official in Bavaria recently reminded us, you can’t have both guns and butter, so there will be increasing austerity demands which will make people more desperate. We must not lose our humanity, the right to develop and become beautiful souls.

IPC Meeting Friday, March 29: Organizing Works! Do More of It

March 29, 2024by madeleine in General, International Peace Coalition

Even as the March 22 terror attack in Russia, the sharply escalating Russia-Ukraine war, and ongoing NATO plans to put boots on the ground in Ukraine threaten to push the planet over the edge into thermonuclear war, those who would stop such insanity should take careful note of two developments over the last 48 hours.

First, the Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS), who represent a growing current among American military and intelligence circles, issued a March 24 urgent open letter to President Joe Biden, “VIPS MEMO: The French Road to Nuclear War” (“Subject: On the Brink of Nuclear War”) in which they warn that French President Emmanuel Macron’s repeated calls to put NATO troops on the ground in Ukraine “would be leading the American people down a path toward a nuclear conflict decidedly not in the interests of the American people—or of humanity itself.”

Second, a UN Security Council resolution calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza was finally approved on March 25—because the United States didn’t veto it, like it had every previous such resolution, but this time only abstained. This is a far cry from what is needed to actually stop the genocide underway and provide humanitarian life support to Gaza’s 2.3 million people—let alone to implement a full development program, such as LaRouche’s Oasis Plan—but it does show that the Biden administration is feeling the political heat.

The heat is coming from a shocked American population, many of whom have taken to the streets to make their opposition to the genocide known—and threaten Biden’s reelection. And the heat is also coming from a rapidly growing majority of what is already the Global Majority of nations and peoples, who have made it clear that they will no longer submit to 500 years of colonial rule and more modern looting of their economies by the speculative policies of the bankrupt City of London and Wall Street financial system.

Allies in the International Peace Coalition, have been intensely involved in organizing the forces to make that political heat grow, both in the U.S. and Europe, as well as the nations of the South. From that we draw a simple conclusion: Organizing works! But a lot more needs to be done, and quickly.

Join us this Friday at 12pm EDT/5pm CET. We will be joined by leaders from Veterans Intelligence Professionals for Sanity including:

– Ray McGovern, former analyst for the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)
– Coleen Rowley, former FBI special agent and whistleblower
– Scott Ritter, former UN Weapons Inspector in Iraq
and other experts.

Please share this invite with your organizations and friends. Come with full organizing reports.

Send an email to questions@schillerinstitute.org to get the zoom details for the meeting of the International Peace Coalition.

Our Outcry Must Not Come Too Late!This statement was presented at the March 22, 2024 meeting of the International Peace Coalition, where its immediate distribution internationally was a central topic of discussion.Read the Statement

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WATCH: Mexican Congressman Robles Calls for New International Security and Development Architecture
READ: Mexican Congressman Robles Issues Open Letter:

Our Outcry Must Not Come Too Late!

March 23, 2024by madeleine in General, International Peace Coalition

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This statement was presented at the March 22, 2024 meeting of the International Peace Coalition, where its immediate distribution internationally was a central topic of discussion.

We are now faced with the fact that tomorrow is today. We are confronted with the fierce urgency of now. In this unfolding conundrum of life and history there is such a thing as being too late.
—Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Let us mince no words. The world is now on a direct, short path to thermonuclear war. Don’t blame Russia, or China. We, in the trans-Atlantic world, are the problem, and with us lies the solution. If we continue to wait to “see what happens,” if we want for those in the “military-monetary power structure” to come to their senses, we will be too late to stop humanity’s last war. The time to act, is now.

On Sunday, March 17, at the conclusion of the Russian Presidential elections, Vladimir Putin, responding to a reporter’s question regarding French President Macron’s Feb. 26 comments that deployment of NATO ground troops to Ukraine could not be ruled out, said: “It is clear to everyone that this will be one step away from a full-scale World War III. I think hardly anyone is interested in this.” However, as the late Israeli politician Abba Eban, once said, “never underestimate the factor of insanity in politics.”

The Academy of International Humanitarian Law and Human Rights lists 110 armed conflicts in the world today. This is the result of today’s imperial “rules-based order.” The obscenity of the war in Gaza, which rationalizes tens of thousands of children being mass-murdered for crimes and causes of which they are entirely innocent, requires us to stand up and act. We must disrupt the plans of the merchants and missionaries of death, that assure us that “they must destroy Gaza (or, for that matter, Ukraine) in order to save it.”

International Peace Coalition founder Helga Zepp-LaRouche has said:

A new world economic order is emerging, involving the vast majority of the countries of the Global South. They have declared: Colonialism is over! The European nations and the U.S. must not fight this effort, but, by joining hands with the developing countries, must cooperate to shape the next epoch of the development of the human species to become a renaissance of the highest and most noble expressions of creativity!

This cannot be done in a world dominated by war. We need the greatest outcry against war that the world has ever seen. Therefore, the International Peace Coalition declares a red alert mobilization. The war for humanity must be won now before the final war—the war against humanity itself—is ever fought. Demonstrations, boycotts and exposés of the death merchants, letters and statements from and to institutions, vigils, and every imaginable creative, non-violent direct action to disrupt the world’s rendezvous with doomsday is needed now.

Choose Humanity Over War!
Oasis Plan for Gaza, Not Genocide!
Stop NATO’s War With Russia!

International Peace Coalition Meeting: The War for Humanity Must Be Won Now!

March 23, 2024by Mary Jane Freeman in General, General updates, Geopolitics updates, Global Diplomacy, Helga Zepp-LaRouche, International Peace Coalition, World war danger updates

Most people are not thinking that there can be any change, or that they can be part of a change—of changing the entire order of the world. Most people think they’re too small; this is not their job. But we should think as world citizens, because if the world is in disorder, each of us has the right to think of how to make the world better. — Helga Zepp-LaRouche

By Kevin Gribbroek

March 22, 2024 (EIRNS)—The 42nd meeting of the International Peace Coalition (IPC) was convened today with well over 200 participants from 25 different countries. In response to the dire warnings by most of the guest speakers that the danger of world war is intensifying, there was a marked upshift in the number of people participating in a very lively dialogue session, brainstorming on how to “win the war for Humanity.”

A common thread throughout the meeting was the growing psychosis of Western leaders. Exemplary of this psychosis is French President Emmanuel Macron, who recently doubled down on his “incomprehensibly crazy” threats to send French troops into Ukraine, risking thermonuclear war with Russia.

Helga Zepp-LaRouche, founder of the Schiller Institute and initiator of the IPC, began the proceedings by providing a very unsettling picture of the current strategic situation. She warned that not only do we have an increased danger of war between NATO, and Russia and China, but also the humanitarian crises in Haiti, Gaza, Sudan and other areas are causing the unnecessary deaths of massive numbers of people: “To say that humanity finds itself in an extraordinary crisis is a very mild way of describing it.” Discussing the current thinking of Western leaders, she said: “It’s as if madness, sheer insanity has gripped the minds of many leaders in the West”; that they want to go for confrontation against Russia. As a result, “Inch by inch we are moving towards World War III.”

Zepp-LaRouche emphasized the necessity for an intensified mobilization which can succeed, because the majority of people throughout the world do not want war. She informed people of the new IPC statement, “Our Outcry Must Not Come Too Late,”, which she encouraged people to get out everywhere to counter the brainwashing by the mainstream media, which only make known the voice of warmongers. She ended by stressing the critical need for a Westphalian solution based on a new paradigm of cooperation for economic development, which includes the interests of every nation on the planet.

Col. Richard Black (ret.), former head of the U.S. Army’s Criminal Law Division at the Pentagon and former Virginia State Senator, presented his assessment of the current war danger: At the IPC meeting of March 15, he had expressed his suspicion that Macron’s threat of sending French troops into Ukraine was a “carefully orchestrated trial balloon” by NATO designed to see if people in the West would accept a great world war against Russia. Black now believes that this suspicion is “gelling” into reality. He characterized the current situation as a “wag the dog” scenario: With the tremendous unpopularity of Western leaders such as President Biden, war would be used as a way to save their political futures. The revelation that the U.S., France, U.K. and Poland already have troops in Ukraine, as if it’s no big deal, is also part of the operation to condition people into accepting an escalation against Russia—an escalation that could lead to thermonuclear war.

Jacques Cheminade, leader of the LaRouche-affiliated Solidarité et Progrès political party in France, began by asserting that the primary cause of Macron’s increasing insanity is the economy: France is on the edge of a collapse. The danger is that France will be downgraded by the international ratings agencies, such as Moody’s, before the European elections. Psychologically, Macron believes he can escape the pressure of the financial crisis—and his plunging approval ratings—by becoming the “King of Europe” with his hysterical flight forward for war against Russia. The hope is that a number of high-ranking retired French military officers, who had endorsed the Solidarité et Progrès declaration to abolish NATO, are reacting against Macron’s insanity. Although a good development, Cheminade stressed that unless this resistance is international, it will lead nowhere. He closed by remarking that the IPC “must be the international leadership of sanity in the world” and that we must “raise our sense of who we are to the level of responsibility that is demanded at this moment of history.”

Brad Wolf, a lawyer, former prosecutor and full-time peace activist, spoke next on his work as one of the founders and primary leaders of the Merchants of Death War Crimes Tribunal. The purpose of the Tribunal is to hold U.S. military contractors accountable for knowingly producing weapons used for killing innocent civilians. The principal targets are Boeing, RTX (Raytheon), Lockheed Martin and General Atomics, a major producer of drones. He highlighted the “revolving door” collusion between these corporations and government officials, such as Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, who sat on the board of directors of Raytheon. By exposing these crimes to the public, the goal is to motivate people to take action.

Well-known peace activist and radio talk show host Garland Nixon stated his belief that, given the gravity of the situation and the irrationality of the ruling elites, we must build and broaden a “rational movement to overwhelm these elites.” What is driving this madness? As Dennis Small of the Schiller Institute had made sharply clear, “This is a lawful consequence of the entire trans-Atlantic financial system being in end-phase. And that’s what we’re witnessing.” He followed up by reporting on a glimmer of rationality in a March 19 Newsweek article listing 13 U.S. cities which would be wiped out by nuclear weapons if war broke out with Russia.

To demonstrate that it is not some abstract possibility, Zepp-LaRouche reported on a chilling development: Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov announced today that Russia now sees itself in a state of war with the West. Prof. Steven Starr, nuclear weapons expert from the University of Missouri, pointed out that for the first time since the beginning of the Cold War, there have been attacks deep within Russian territory using NATO weaponry. He believes NATO troops openly entering the war in Ukraine is the final red line which will trigger war against Russia.

Helga Zepp-LaRouche delivered her closing remarks by stating her belief that the reality of the worsening strategic crisis will increasingly dawn on people, and that we must take advantage of this by getting the new IPC statement, “Our Outcry Must Not Come Too Late,” out everywhere. Then, expanding on Dennis Small’s statement that the war insanity is being driven by the financial collapse, she said that the other factor is the economic rise of the Global South—which increasingly is allied with the BRICS. As long as the “Wolfowitz Doctrine” remains in effect—the idea that the U.S. must maintain its unipolar hegemony—this will be a cause of perpetual war. She concluded by saying: “If the present world order leads to world war, with what can we replace it to create a durable peace for all of humanity to get us out of this danger? And I think a new security and development architecture is the only thing which addresses the underlying, fundamental problems.”

Cracks in the Facade of Western Hegemony – 41st. International Peace Coalition Meeting

March 17, 2024by madeleine in Activity of the Schiller Institute, General, Global Diplomacy, International Peace Coalition, Our initiatives (petitions, etc)

by Kevin Gribbroek

While we should not pay less attention to the danger—which is increasing daily, one can say—it is also clear that if there is a decisive action, there is hope that we can turn the situation around.
Helga Zepp-LaRouche

March 15—The 41st meeting of the International Peace Coalition (IPC) convened today, and provided a very interesting contrast—one could call it a “dissonance”—between despair and hope. On one hand, several participants conveyed a sense of despondency due to the impression that the IPC and the peace movement more generally are trapped in an “echo chamber,” with few people in the general population “getting the message.” On the other hand, many participants reported on exciting initiatives designed precisely to break out of the “echo chamber” and build a bigger base of support for the IPC process. Based on remarks from several speakers, it is also evident that there is a growing revolt in the Global South against the arrogance of Western hegemony and the centuries of colonial policies that have impoverished their nations and destroyed the hopes and dreams of their people.

Helga Zepp-LaRouche began the proceedings with a strategic overview that indeed demonstrated this growing revolt by the Global South and the effects it is having on political layers in the West. Of great importance was Pope Francis’ recent demand that Ukraine have the courage to negotiate a peace settlement with Russia. In the United States, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer on March 14 spoke from the Senate floor, demanding that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu resign and that Israel hold new elections, saying that Netanyahu does not serve Israeli security by making Israel a pariah state. In Berlin, during a joint press conference between German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim, Ibrahim blasted Scholz in regard to the Palestinian genocide, essentially accusing him of racism. In Denmark, the Ambassador of the Palestinian Authority, Prof. Dr. Manuel Hassassian, in an interview with the Schiller Institute, endorsed the LaRouche Oasis Plan for economic development throughout the region.

Zepp-LaRouche emphasized throughout her opening remarks that in no way has the threat of nuclear war diminished. She made it clear that only by changing the underlying axioms that continuously lead to failed geopolitical solutions to the war danger, and adopting a new paradigm of development exemplified by the Oasis Plan, is there any hope for peace.

The next speaker, Colonel Richard Black (ret.), former chief of the Pentagon’s Criminal Law Division, characterized the current historical dynamic as “moving closer to our 1914 moment,” referring to the events which triggered World War I, leading to the deaths of 14 million people. Based on various political moves being made in Europe and the U.S., he sees the emergence of a “war consensus” with the potential of NATO troops entering into direct conflict with Russia. “This is World War III,” he said. Despite the impossibility of Ukraine winning the war, the Western “elites” are determined to “snatch victory from the jaws of defeat … which will inevitably lead to a nuclear exchange.”

Terry Lodge, an attorney from Ohio and long-time member of Veterans for Peace, discussed the open letter he authored warning State Department officials that they are engaged in criminal activity by providing Israel weapons to carry out its genocide against the Palestinians. He aptly expressed the “dissonance” of the current period with his opening statement:

“As dark and difficult as the last couple of years have become from an international human rights and war-making perspective, what has happened is that planetary citizens are coming together in gatherings like this, to talk sanely and talk rationally, and kind of reawaken awareness to the fact that humanity is struggling and trying to provide guardrails for the conduct of human behavior at a societal and national level.“

He called the Biden administration’s arming of Israel a “ghastly, dark comedy,” but believes that “there are cracks that are occurring in this facade; that people like the numbers of you on this Zoom meeting can take some credit” for having caused those cracks.

Richard Sakwa, Professor Emeritus of Russian and European Politics at the University of Kent in the UK, began his remarks with an analysis of the now-ongoing Russian elections. Prof. Sakwa recounted an interview by well known Russian media figure Dmitry Kiselyov with Russian President Vladimir Putin, in which Putin expressed his belief that the “Western vampire ball” is ending and that 500 years of Western dominance is over. Putin believes that a new epoch has started and that Russia—as in the Soviet days—is the leader of the new, anti-colonial era. In regard to Ukraine, Putin stated:

“For us, the Ukraine conflict is a matter of life or death. For them [the U.S. and NATO], it’s a matter of improving their tactical position globally and in Europe…. If the U.S. tries to play chicken, Moscow is prepared to use nuclear weapons and considers its arsenal more advanced than anyone else’s.”

Sakwa’s assessment is that the current strategic situation is far more dangerous than the first Cold War. Essentially, the West is playing nuclear chicken and as Putin made clear, the Russians don’t play that game.

Zepp-LaRouche asked Prof. Sakwa, given the gravity of the situation, What must be done to “penetrate the mainstream brainwashed population”? Sakwa, although not having a definitive answer, pointed to the peace movement of Sahra Wagenknecht in Germany and the election of George Galloway in the UK as a sign of hope.

Zaher Wahab, a prominent Afghan-American and Professor Emeritus of Education at Lewis and Clark College in the United States, began by thanking the Schiller Institute for its relentless efforts on behalf of humanity to promote peace and development everywhere. Prof. Wahab expressed his belief that because of the “deep economic, political-diplomatic, moral and social crises” in the West, while the Global South continues to rise, this heightens the danger of nuclear war. He endorsed the Oasis Plan, and enthusiastically called for its extension into Central and South Asia.

Jack Gilroy, a member of Veterans for Peace and Pax Christi, announced a very important initiative: On March 18, Pax Christi, in collaboration with a coalition called “Christians for a Free Palestine,” are spearheading a national day of action to deliver letters to all U.S. Senators and Representatives on the failure of Christian churches to speak out on the atrocities in Gaza.

In her closing remarks, Helga Zepp-LaRouche stated that the enemy of humanity is not nation states, but what she called “super-national structures”; structures of the neoliberal financial system which rely on war to maintain their existence. She fully endorsed the March 18 day of action and suggested the IPC mobilize for May Day demonstrations in Europe and elsewhere. She also urged everybody to encourage parliamentarians everywhere to endorse Mexican Congressman Robles’ letter against nuclear war.

Zepp-LaRouche concluded by stressing the urgent necessity of implementing the new international security and development architecture, “because it throws out the idea of geopolitics, by putting the idea of One Humanity first, and that the new architecture has to take into account the interest of every single country on the planet.”

40th International Peace Coalition Meeting: ‘In the Foothills of a Third World War’

March 10, 2024by madeleine in Activity of the Schiller Institute, General, Global Diplomacy, International Peace Coalition, Our initiatives (petitions, etc)

by Daniel Platt

March 9, 2024 (EIRNS)—The 40th consecutive weekly online meeting of the International Peace Coalition on March 8 opened with a warning from Schiller Institute founder Helga Zepp-LaRouche that we are continuing to flirt with nuclear war. She cited the currently ongoing NATO “Steadfast Defender” exercise where 90,000 troops are explicitly rehearsing a war with Russia as an example of the supercharged environment. The mainstream media, rather than looking at the increasing danger of World War III, marked by the recent scandal of the leaked audio in which German military officers discuss covert means of directly entering the Ukraine war, are focusing their attention on speculation over who leaked the audio file.

Turning to the situation in Southwest Asia, she said that the conflict in Gaza is being driven by geopolitical motives and cannot be looked at separately from Ukraine. Several UN Special Rapporteurs are now calling it genocide, calling attention to the growing danger of starvation, and saying that it is intentional on the part of the Netanyahu regime. Investigation of genocide will inevitably bring us to the question of U.S. and German involvement and culpability. The Oasis Plan, as proposed by Lyndon LaRouche in 1975, provides the only way out of this ghastly situation.

Zepp-LaRouche’s strategic overview was followed by military and intelligence experts who expanded on the nature of the war danger.

Col. Richard Black (ret.), former chief of the U.S. Army’s Criminal Law Division at the Pentagon, observed that the Ukraine war was the lead item in President Biden’s “State of the Union” address, underscoring that whenever a President says he won’t send U.S. troops, it’s almost a promise to do the opposite.

German Lt. Col. Ulrich Scholz (ret.), a former NATO planner and lecturer on air warfare, warned: “NATO nations have not trained together for decades, and are not capable of going to war. If the Americans don’t do it, nobody’s going to do it.” Regarding the war propaganda in Europe, he said, “All the war talk is a face-saving exercise. They want out.” His advice? “Look for an area where we have common interests and stop the shooting.”

Helga Zepp-LaRouche interrupted the proceedings to report that the U.S. Embassy in Moscow has now advised Americans that they should avoid large Moscow gatherings for 48 hours, as extremists plan to attack such events. Numerous countries that routinely ape U.S. foreign policy gestures have followed suit.

Former U.S. diplomat, CIA officer, and vice-chair of the National Intelligence Council, Graham Fuller told the gathering: “The fundamental problem of world stability today lies in the inability of the United States to read the tea leaves, to understand the geopolitical shifts in the world today.”

He said that the U.S. is no longer the sole superpower; the U.S. can’t face this reality, and this is the danger. “One of the problems of democracy is that you have to galvanize the entire population to go to war…. You’ve got to demonize the enemy, demonize Putin, make it a struggle between absolute good and absolute evil.” Fuller asserted that advocacy of democracy is being used as a weapon, but we don’t support democracy when it is inconvenient. “We have a United States today which is perhaps the most ideologically driven nation in the world.”

Prof. Richard Sakwa, British Emeritus Professor of Russian and European Politics at the University of Kent, warned: “We are now in the foothills of the Third World War.” He said that we should distinguish between two levels: the world as it was structured in response to the horrors of World War II, with the UN and international law in the spirit of “Never Again”; and the paradigm which replaced this after 1989, or what he termed the “Second Cold War.”

In the first Cold War, diplomacy continued. But when Obama expelled the Russian diplomats in response to unproven allegations, diplomacy was being destroyed. “A political West emerged based on Cold War thinking.” Sakwa said that there is an emerging consensus against this in the “Political East.” They promote an idea of commonwealth, in opposition to the imperialism of the West. “The Global South and Political East can hold us back from moving from the foothills to the peaks of a Third World War.”

Mexican Congressman Benjamín Robles Montoya’s statement March 6 on the floor of Mexico’s Chamber of Deputies, was shown to all assembled. The Congressman emphasized, “We have reached the precipice of nuclear war…. Achieving peace through development, that is the path.”

Prof. Steve Starr, the former director of the University of Missouri’s Clinical Laboratory Science Program and published author in the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists warned that the war danger is heightened by the fact that Joe Biden is up for re-election, and can’t be seen to be losing the war in Ukraine. He said that “the danger of nuclear war is greatly exacerbated by false narratives,” such as the one where we can use tactical nukes to make Russia back down. The electromagnetic pulse generated from a single nuclear weapon, detonated above the U.S., could take out our entire electrical power grid, all solid-state circuitry and computers. An 800-kiloton nuclear weapon detonated directly over a target such as Manhattan would ignite a firestorm over an area of 100-150 square miles. Each side has thousands of nukes, and the resulting smoke and soot created from their nuclear detonations would form a global stratospheric layer reducing the sunlight reaching the Earth’s surface and halting agriculture for 10 years, in what is called “nuclear famine.”

George Koo, retired specialist in U.S.-China trade, concurred with Colonel Black: The U.S. has a tendency to say one thing and do the opposite. He said that the U.S. is sending a signal to the Philippines and Taiwan, encouraging them to start proxy wars with China. The P.R.C. government fully recognizes who is behind this. They will take out U.S. naval forces in their neighborhood in response.

Humanity for Peace coordinator Anastasia Battle presented a report on the March 2 meeting in Detroit, “Emergency Conference for Peace in Gaza: The Children of God Cry Out for Justice,” at New Bethel Baptist Church in Detroit, the historic church of C.L. Franklin, where Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. delivered a speech in 1966. Nine videos of the speakers are now available on YouTube.

Ray McGovern, co-founder of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity, reminded the participants that President John F. Kennedy, during his June 10, 1963 speech at American University, warned that we should never give an adversary a choice between humiliating defeat, and nuclear war. Now this very choice is being presented to Russian President Vladimir Putin at re-election time. He presented his assessment of Vladimir Putin: “I would say he’s a statesman, and he’s a pretty cool customer.” McGovern went on to wryly quote former President George W. Bush: “Don’t ‘misunderestimate’ the Russians.”

McGovern presented some provocative speculation about the recent resignation of State Department harpy Victoria Nuland. He pointed out that we haven’t seen the entire leak from the German officers. If Russia intercepted it, so did the U.S. National Security Agency. Maybe Nuland was working behind everyone’s back with German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius to transfer Taurus missiles to Ukraine. McGovern emphasized that this is speculation, but as likely an explanation as any.

This was followed by a discussion session in which many new participants introduced themselves. In conclusion, Helga Zepp-LaRouche recommended that the Americans ally with the Global South. “The signs of hope are small, but sometimes when you are in a crisis, even small signs of hope can cause a shift.” She reported, as such a sign of hope, the growing number of leaders who have endorsed Lyndon LaRouche’s Oasis Plan for peace in Southwest Asia.

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