World war danger updates |

Helga Zepp-LaRouche Briefs ChinaPlus Radio ‘World Today’ Broadcast on Germany Decision to Arm Ukraine

April 29, 2022by madeleine in Activity of the Schiller Institute, Geopolitics updates, Helga media coverage or interview, Helga Zepp-LaRouche, World war danger updates

Helga Zepp-LaRouche, founder and president of the Schiller Institute, was interviewed on April 27 about the German government’s decision to supply heavy weapons to Ukraine.

CHINA RADIO INTERNATIONAL: You’re listening to World Today…. Germany has for the first time announced the plans to deliver heavy weapons to Ukraine. German Defense Minister Christine Lambrecht says the government has approved the delivery of Gepard tanks equipped with anti-aircraft guns. The decision comes as U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin held talks with dozens of NATO member country counterparts over the Ukraine war at an American air base in western Germany on Tuesday.

Joining us now on the line is Helga Zepp-LaRouche, founder of the Schiller Institute, a Germany-based think tank. Hello, good afternoon. Thank you very much for joining us.

HELGA ZEPP-LAROUCHE: Yes, hello.

CRI: German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has actually for weeks been resisting calls for Germany to deliver heavy weapons to Ukraine. He has been suggesting that such a particular move might trigger a direct military confrontation between NATO and Russia. So, with that in mind, how would you look at Germany’s latest decision?

ZEPP-LAROUCHE: I think it is a complete catastrophe. This government endangers the life and security of the German population. They have made an oath, the German Chancellor and others, that they would protect the interests of the German people and protect them against harm, and this is a complete violation of that oath. It is quite telling that this occurred on the very day that Austin had this meeting in Ramstein [Air Base]—I mean, this was a complete violation of German sovereignty. He’s holding court, and this decision by the German government will only prolong the suffering of the Ukrainian people. They’re cannon fodder in a proxy war between NATO and the U.S. and Russia; and obviously, the attitude on the side of these people is to fight this to the last Ukrainian.

It’s a complete catastrophe, because when Foreign Minister Lavrov said this could lead to World War III and a nuclear war, this is being ridiculed by the German media in cartoons, as if it would be just scare-mongering. I think we are in a very, very dangerous situation.

CRI: Hmm, indeed. As we heard from Lavrov, the Russian Foreign Minister, the threat of nuclear war really should not be underestimated. But we understand that for decades, Berlin has actually been maintaining a policy of not exporting weapons to any particular conflict areas. So help us understand, what’s the rationale behind that policy? And now what’s the war going on in Ukraine: Do you think it is fair to say that Germany has abandoned that particular policy?

ZEPP-LAROUCHE: Well, this thing makes very obvious that Germany is an occupied country, that it’s not sovereign, and what you have seen in the last days in media and in the parties, is that in all of these institutions you have Atlanticists who have been making a drumbeat, saying, “Oh, Germany is not a reliable ally.” But in reality, this delivery of heavy weapons makes Germany a party in the war, and therefore a target if this thing continues to escalate.

Part of the problem is also the EU, because Josep Borrell, who’s the so-called “foreign minister” said this situation will be “decided on the battlefield.” He has never mentioned the idea of diplomacy or that there should be negotiations. And it’s completely insane to try to settle conflicts in the 21st century with war! It’s madness! I can only say, it’s complete madness.

CRI: So, critics, including some officials in Ukraine, have accused Berlin of dragging their heels on giving heavy weapons to Ukraine, and on some of the other possible measures, like a possible embargo of Russia energy imports. Do you think those criticisms that I mentioned are fair to Germany?

ZEPP-LAROUCHE: Well, the reality is, George Friedman, who is a strategic analyst in the United States, he already said in 2015 in a speech in Chicago that the German-Russian relation is the only threat to the United States, because the combination of German technology and capital, and Russian raw materials and labor, would be the only counterweight to the United States. Now, one result of it is that this relationship between Germany and Russia, as of now, has been completely ruined, and this, in light of German history. One should not forget, Russia lost 27 million people in World War II.

The idea to have an embargo against Russian oil and gas, is more insanity, because there are many leaders of the industry who have said this would mean millions of unemployed, entire sectors of industry would collapse; so it’s really an aggression against German interests if such demands are made.

CRI: So, realistically speaking, is Germany capable of sustaining its supply of heavy weaponry to Ukraine, if we talk about a scenario where this conflict between Russia and Ukraine becomes a protracted war?

ZEPP-LAROUCHE: Well, it’s obvious that Germany has a significant arms industry, and they would naturally be happy, like the military-industrial complex in the United States, to deliver these weapons. But the effect on the rest of the economy—you know, you already have massive inflation in food prices, energy prices; if this continues you will have social chaos. The poorer parts of the population already can’t make it to the end of the month. And it’s a complete outrage that there are billions and billions being expended for weapons, when you have a world famine of 1.7 billion people facing starvation. I’m really upset, and I hope you can hear it, because this should not happen! This is really something which needs to be reversed.

The people who are responsible for this, they can commit suicide if they want, but they have no right to completely drive Germany into a catastrophe.

CRI: By the way, do you think President Putin has a point when he said, recently, in a meeting with UN chief António Guterres, that this increasing Western delivery or Western supply of heavy weapons to the battlefields in Ukraine are making Kyiv, making Ukraine a sort of unreliable partner on the negotiation table? Do you think he has a point in saying that?

ZEPP-LAROUCHE: Well, I think the reality is that Zelenskyy is a complete puppet. He’s an actor, and he plays the script which is being written by British public relations firms who basically tell him what to do, as is the United States. The reality is, if you look at the statements by Biden, Boris Johnson, Stoltenberg, they have no mentioned once, the word “peace negotiations.” They only say, “more weapons, more weapons.” So I think it’s not Zelenskyy, it’s the U.S., NATO and the British.

CRI: Well, I guess from Washington’s perspective, they might argue, “OK, we are returning our diplomats back to Kyiv, we have nominated a new ambassador as the U.S. ambassador to Kyiv”: That is a signal that Americans pay attention, attack greater importance to diplomacy.

ZEPP-LAROUCHE: Well, I wish your words would be right, because I think any reasonable person in the world must agree that we have to have to have an end to this war immediately. The Ukrainian people are being slaughtered, and I think what should be discussed instead, is President Xi Jinping at the Boao Forum made a very important proposal to have a Global Security Initiative. And I think the problems of the world are so big, that you need such a global approach, and in that context, the Ukraine situation can be settled also. Because it’s much more complicated. It has very little to do with Ukraine. The Ukrainians are the cannon fodder in a geostrategic confrontation from the United States against Russia—and China, by the way.

CRI: So we understand Russia has suspended, or is suspending natural gas deliveries to Poland and Bulgaria, after these two particular countries refused to pay for the energy supplies in Russian rubles. Do you expect Moscow to take this kind of action against more European Union countries?

ZEPP-LAROUCHE: Well, we should remember that the Russian reaction is coming in reaction to the West confiscating $300 billion in Russian assets, after they took $9 billion from the Afghani people. So the dollar system is not regarded as safe any more, and therefore, Russia and many other Asian countries are reorienting and trying to create an alternative financial system based on gold and other commodities. And you have right now, massive agreements between Russia and India, Russia and China, and many others. I think if it would come to such an embargo, or cutoff from oil and gas from the side of Russia, or the other way around, I think Russia in one sense would cope better than Germany! Germany and Europe would go into a real economic crisis. So the people who are pushing Germany and others in this direction are really not acting in the interests of Germany or the European countries.

CRI: Thank you very much for your analysis. That was Helga Zepp-LaRouche, founder of the Schiller Institute, a Germany-based think tank.

Listen to the podcast here.

Imran Khan Refuses to Denounce Russia

March 8, 2022by Mary Jane Freeman in General, General updates, Geopolitics updates, Global Diplomacy, Pakistan, Russia, Ukraine, World war danger updates

Pakistan’s Imran Kahn Refuses to Denounce Russia

Mar. 7 (EIRNS)–In response to a letter signed by twenty European Union ambassadors in Islamabad last week, demanding Pakistan denounce Russia, Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Kahn retorted: “What do you think of us? Are we your slaves . . . that whatever you say, we will do?” Khan remarked while speaking at a political event.

The EU letter was in response to Pakistan’s abstention from voting on a United Nations General Assembly motion denouncing Russia’s special operation in Ukraine, “I want to ask the European Union ambassadors: Did you write such a letter to India?” Khan said as reported by Sputniknews.com. Khan also reportedly said that Europe has failed to condemn India over Kashmir, where Pakistan and India have fought two wars.

Kahn added that in return for Pakistan’s assistance to the NATO alliance in Afghanistan, instead of thanks, Pakistan had received condemnation.

On Sunday Khan said that Pakistan is “friends with Russia, and we are also friends with America; we are friends with China and with Europe; we are not in any camp.” He went on to say that Pakistan would remain “neutral” and collaborate with those working to end the Ukraine conflict.

Earlier last Friday, a spokesman for Pakistan’s foreign ministry stated at the press briefing that it was “not usual diplomatic practice” for envoys to make public requests like their letter, “and we have made that clear.” He added, “We took note of that and in a subsequent meeting with a group of ambassadors, we expressed our concern about it, because as I said that is not the way diplomacy should be practiced, and I think they have realized it,” he added.

Some European envoys who shared the joint statement on Twitter reportedly erased the tweets some time after.

Nezavisimaya Gazeta Warns: “One Fifth of World’s Population About to Face Food Crisis”

April 21, 2022by Mary Jane Freeman in Agriculture, Economic development updates, Finance, General updates, Geopolitics updates, Sanctions, World war danger updates

April 29 (EIRNS) – The Russian daily Nezavisimaya Gazeta warned yesterday that a recent U.N. report estimated that “the Ukrainian conflict is putting 1.7 billion people around the world at risk of hunger,” noting that “the global food price index has reached historic highs as wheat prices rose by 20% in March.” EIR reported on that same study one week ago.

The Russian publication filled out the picture with a couple of interviews. Associate Professor at the Plekhanov Russian University of Economics Oleg Kalenov noted: “Forecasts say that Ukraine’s wheat exports will halve, so the market is going to face a shortage of 9.5 million tons of wheat. Besides, countries may fail to receive wheat from Russia because of delivery and payment issues stemming from political reasons.”

Executive Director of the Capital Market Department at Univer Capital Artem Tuzov, pointed out that “Certain countries are extremely likely to face starvation unless the sanctions impeding Russian wheat exports are lifted.”

IMF Meeting Gets Underway, Under the Gathering Clouds of Growing World Famine

April 21, 2022by Mary Jane Freeman in Economic development updates, Environmentalism updates, Finance, General updates, Green New Deal, Sanctions, World war danger updates

IMF Meeting Gets Underway, Under the Gathering Clouds of Growing World Famine—

April 20 (EIRNS) — IMF managing director Kristalina Georgieva warned in her opening remarks at the IMF/World Bank spring meetings that began today in Washington, D.C., that the world is facing a “double crisis”: the pandemic, and now the war in Ukraine and related economic destruction. She stated that “rising food and fuel prices are straining the budgets of ordinary families to the breaking point,” and that this is particularly concerning in poor countries where there is a growing risk of a food crisis. She of course blamed Russia for most of the problem.

Georgieva also expressed concern as to what will happen as central banks tighten their monetary policies by ending QE and raising interest rates, and urged them to be “mindful of spillover risks to vulnerable emerging and developing economies.” Given their already high level of indebtedness, rising interest rates will place 60 percent of low-income countries at or near debt distress, she reported.

That is true enough. So, what does the IMF recommend be done? “To address debt, countries need domestic policies that can help bring their budgets back on track” – in other words, the neoliberal “structural reform” austerity policies that created the problem in the first place.

U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen’s approach is to throw oil on the fire. According to comments by a Treasury Department official on April 18, Yellen is going to tell her colleagues at the IMF meeting that they should help “ramp up the economic pain on Moscow… The secretary will also underscore our shared resolve to hold Russia accountable.” She’s also planning to boycott any meetings that the Russians attend.

While Yellen was bashing Russia, her Deputy Treasury Secretary Wally Adeyemo attacked China. “China has in the past — and we expect them to continue to follow — the sanctions regimes that have been introduced by us and the coalition” of sanctioning countries, Adeyemo said at the Peterson Institute for International Economics. “China’s business with the rest of the world is greater than its business with Russia,” he threatened.

Schiller Institute’s Helga Zepp-LaRouche on CGTN: The Threat of Nuclear World War, Urgency for New Security Architecture

February 27, 2022by tobi in China, Global Diplomacy, Helga Video, Helga Zepp-LaRouche, World war danger updates

Helga Zepp LaRouche was interviewed on CGTN’s The Hub broadcast this morning by host Wang Guan.

WANG GUAN: And now we’re joined also by Helga Zepp-LaRouche in Wiesbaden, Germany, founder and President of the Schiller Institute. Madame LaRouche welcome back to CGTN. I’m glad to have you with us again. First of all, I want to get your sense of the ongoing Russia-Ukraine conflict: Do you think it could have been avoided?

HELGA ZEPP-LAROUCHE: President Putin had made very clear that red lines had been crossed. He said at one point, there is no place for me to retreat to, and the West did not listen to that. Then, on Dec. 17, he asked from NATO and the United States legally binding security guarantees, that NATO would not expand further to the east, that no offensive weapons would be put on the Russian border, and that Ukraine would never become a member of NATO. And he did not get an answer. He didn’t get an answer to the core question, only to secondary aspects.

So, I think that the West made a big mistake by not listening to legitimate, expressed security concerns of Russia, and now we are on the verge of something which could go completely out of control.

WANG: Madame LaRouche, the U.S. and NATO announced the latest rounds of sanctions against Russia, that target President Putin and Foreign Minister Lavrov and others. Do you think that will deter Russia from its current plans, its operations in Ukraine?

ZEPP-LAROUCHE: I don’t think so, because I think President Putin has discounted this. He has said, some years ago already, that if the West would not have found Ukraine to contain, and to use to dismantle Russia, they would have found another issue. Recently, he said the real aim of all of this is to prevent the economic development of Russia. On Jan. 25 there were two unnamed White House officials who said that the sanctions have the aim to prevent Russia from diversifying from oil and gas, meaning they deny Russia the right to development! [https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2022/01/25/background-press-call-by-senior-administration-officials-on-russia-ukraine-economic-deterrence-measures/] This is an act of war. Sanctions are an act of war, and I think that Putin has discounted it. It will be painful for Russia, but I think the West is inflicting much more damage on themselves. And it has to be condemned completely.

WANG: And also, let’s talk about the United Nations, the role of the UN resolutions failed to pass earlier. Does that surprise you at all? That once again, we saw a divided Security Council at the United Nations, when the stakes are all too high?

ZEPP-LAROUCHE: Well, the UN Security Council has been made practically obsolete by NATO already in 2011, when they lied, in the case of Libya. They got the agreement of Russia and China for a limited action in Libya, which then turned out to be a full-fledged military attack. From that time, the role that lies play has been a big factor, and it does not surprise me at all that now the aim of all of this is to keep the unipolar world. And obviously, Russia and China cannot agree to that, so it’s not a surprise at all.

WANG: Madame LaRouche, for years and decades, you’ve been calling for a new security architecture, and now you’re calling for a new security architecture in Europe. What does that new security architecture entail?

ZEPP-LAROUCHE: No, I’m calling for an international security architecture, which involves the security interests of all nations on this planet, including Russia and China. I think the historical precedent is the Peace of Westphalia, because, after 150 years of religious warfare in Europe, and the tremendous destruction, all the participating powers came to the conclusion that a continuation of the war would not be to the benefit of anybody, because nobody would live to enjoy it. And we are in a similar situation: If you really look hard at the situation, the danger is the nuclear annihilation of the entire human species. And I think it is that which has to sink into the consciousness of everybody, and then there has to be a process like the Peace of Westphalia, where the principle is that a solution has to take into account the interest of the other, the interest of every other. And that means the security interest of Russia, the security interest of China, of the United States, of the Europeans and all other nations. The second principle of the Peace of Westphalia was that, for the sake of peace, all crimes which were committed by one or the other side have to be forgotten; and thirdly, that the role of the state is important in the economic reconstruction after the war.

Now, the equivalent of that today, means that all powers have to address the real, crucial issue that the reason why we have the conflict in the first place, is the fact that the neoliberal system of the West is collapsing, and therefore, the first act of such a new architecture has to be a global Glass-Steagall banking separation, where the casino economy, which has been the reason why the West is getting so desperate, has to be put to and end. Then, we have to have a national banking system for every single country, and a new credit system in the tradition of the Bretton Woods system, which provides cheap credit for the development of the developing countries. If these measures would be agreed upon, a durable peace would be possible.

WANG: Madame LaRouche, [name 6:23] a renowned political scientist in Asia earlier today said that Russia’s end-game could be to create a “mini-Soviet Union of sorts.” Do you look at it that way, too?

ZEPP-LAROUCHE: No, I don’t think so. I think the only people who are pushing geopolitical blocs right now are those behind President Biden, who tried to create this “alliance of democracies” against the so-called autocratic governments. I think that the agreement between President Xi Jinping and Putin on Feb. 4, where they made a strategic alliance between Russia and China, based on the Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence, is open to everybody. And I think any new order which is meant to lead to peace must be inclusive, must overcome geopolitics and basically go to a principle where peace is only possible through development, that has to be accessible for all.

WANG: Finally, Madame LaRouche, do you think the U.S. and the West are somehow declining, if you compare their posturing position, in for example, Yugoslavia 20 years ago, when they decisively intervened militarily, and now, with Ukraine, with their equally decisive “no boots on the ground” principle and attitude?

ZEPP-LAROUCHE: Well, we have seen in Afghanistan that NATO and the United States, which are the supposedly most powerful military machine on the planet, were not able to defeat what finally turned out to be 65,000 Taliban fighters. So the military power of the West is in question.

The problem is, that leaves only nuclear weapons, and if you look at the nuclear doctrines—the Prompt Global Strike doctrine, or the recent maneuver Global Lightning, which had this idea of a protracted nuclear war—I think that is the real danger. And therefore, the question of nuclear brinkmanship which we see right now is what has to be avoided and has to be urgently replaced. People have to be aware of the fact that if it comes to the use of one single nuclear weapon, it is the logic of nuclear warfare, as compared to conventional warfare, that all nuclear weapons would be used, and that would mean the complete annihilation of civilization. And that’s what the game is here.

I think the more people understand that, and demand a different world order, a new security architecture, which could be based on the cooperation for a world health system, for example. We still have a pandemic. We have famine, which is called by David Beasley a famine of “biblical dimensions,” threatening the lives of 300 million people who could die. And these things have to be addressed. And that is the only chance for humanity—can we unite all of these… [crosstalk]

WANG: Indeed, a lot of challenges over there. That is all the time we have, I’m afraid—sorry to interrupt. Come back to our show, please, next time. Helga Zepp-LaRouche, founder and President of the Schiller Institute, thank you so much for joining us in this hour.

Wang Wen: “The World Is on The Most Dangerous Eve” – Quotes FDR

April 17, 2022by Mary Jane Freeman in China, General updates, Geopolitics updates, Russia, Sanctions, United States, World war danger updates

Apr. 16, 2022 (EIRNS)–Dr. WANG Wen, the Executive Dean of Chongyang Institute for Financial Studies, and Deputy Dean of the Silk Road School at Renmin University of China, warned that the world was heading “in the direction of global disaster” and potential nuclear war. Writing on the website of the Valdai Club in Russia, Dr. Wang, who spoke at a recent conference of the Schiller Institute, wrote that “More and more scholars estimate that the possibility of the outbreak of World War III is increasing, and have even concluded that this could lead to the outbreak of a nuclear war.” He said that the war in Ukraine is, “In essence, a total outbreak of Cold War confrontation thinking in Eastern Europe, and it is also a total counterattack by Russia against the endless strategic expansion and extrusion of the U.S. and NATO. Despite not formally sending troops, the U.S. and NATO have used almost all means of mixed warfare such as financial sanctions, an information blockade, intelligence support, satellite navigation and air and space technology to comprehensively strangle Russia.”

The West has imposed more than 5300 sanctions on Russia during these 40 days of war, Dr. Wang noted. Famine and rise in energy prices, caused by the war, have limited production in more and more countries. If we continue, Dr. Wang asked, will Elon Musk’s prediction of economic crisis “maybe happening around spring or summer 2022, but no later than 2023” become a fulfilled prophecy?

“Looking back, tragedies in history often come from five sources: war, famine, economic crisis, pandemic and climate disaster. In spring 2022, people didn’t expect that with the outbreak of the war, the five aspects would be experiencing unprecedented resonance. The world may be on the eve of its most dangerous moment. What should we do? Perhaps it is time to revisit President Franklin Roosevelt’s words: `More than an end to war, we want an end to the beginnings of all wars.’” (Dr. WANG Wen’s full article is here.)

THE TRUTH ABOUT UKRAINE: Natalia Vitrenko, Chairwoman, Progressive Socialist Party of Ukraine (PSPU)

February 23, 2022by Malene Robinson in General updates, Geopolitics updates, Global Diplomacy, Ukraine, World war danger updates

Natalia Vitrenko (Ukraine), Chairwoman, Progressive Socialist Party of Ukraine (PSPU):
“Ukraine’s Role in Present World Affairs”.
The Schiller Institute held an international online conference on Saturday, February 19 to reassert the very sane declaration, “A nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought,” by the five nuclear powers and permanent members of the UN Security Council, which they affirmed in a joint statement on Jan. 3 of this year. The conference presents a solution to the current crisis: the establishment of a new security architecture that guarantees all nations the right to security, and to economic and cultural development. To do that, a dialogue about the causes and the cures of the current crisis is urgent.

Only Fools and Liars Deny Ukraine Is a Murderous Nazi State

April 17, 2022by Mary Jane Freeman in General updates, Geopolitics updates, Sanctions, Ukraine, World war danger updates

April 16, 2022 (EIRNS)—Ambassador Tony Kevin, who served in the Australian Embassies in Moscow, Warsaw and Phnom Penh, has provided a core piece of evidence proving beyond any doubt that the slaughter of innocents in the Ukrainian city of Bucha, which is the key “evidence” justifying the massive mobilization of the U.S./NATO forces for a war on Russia, did in fact take place—but well after all Russian forces had pulled out of the city! It was already known to readers of EIR that the bodies displayed in the streets and in mass graves in the Ukraine military videos taken in Bucha after April 4 could not have been killed by the Russians. The Mayor of Bucha had publicly announced on March 31 that all Russian troops had completely departed the city four days before the videos were taken. As Kevin notes: “One would have to suspend belief in medical science data that four days after death in a prevailing temperature range of 3 to 11° above zero Celsius, human bodies would already be dark-blotched, visibly decomposing, putrescent, giving off highly noxious gases, and almost impossible to approach without vomiting.”

But that leaves the question, who did kill them, and why? Here Kevin provides the missing clue:

“On Friday, 1 April, the Deputy Mayor of Bucha, Kateryna Ukraintsiva, made an important, and in retrospect chilling public announcement on the ‘Bucha Live’ Telegram website, a local news site watched by local people: ‘The emergence of the Armed Forces in the city does not mean complete liberation, it does not mean that the city is safe and that you can return here. About evacuation, it should be understood that evacuation can take place only in safe conditions. That is, after complete cleaning, demining, and creation of evacuation routes. The same goes for humanitarian supplies. Civilians who remained here are advised to stay in their shelters and not to wander down the street, so as not to interfere with the cleaning of the city.’”

With the population thus confined to their homes, Kevin notes: “The working assumption of the fanatically anti-Russian Azov Battalion soldiers who had entered Bucha would have been that, of the few people who had remained in their homes in Bucha during the month-long Russian occupation (when most had fled the war southward), many were pro-Russian or at least neutral in sentiment, i.e. traitors to Ukraine.” The Nazi killers then had two days to conduct systematic, nighttime house-to-house searches for “saboteurs and accomplices,” who were killed and dumped on the streets and in mass graves, where they were “discovered” on April 4 and shown around the world.

The Schiller Institute Conference of April 9 demonstrated to the world that the NATO planning for war on Russia and China—a war that would certainly be nuclear and destroy civilization as we know it—is virulently opposed by most of the world. Anatoly Antonov, Ambassador to the U.S. from the Russian Federation, shared the Plenary Session proudly with Schiller Institute founder Helga Zepp-LaRouche, as well as leaders from China, India, South Africa, Italy, and others, and with participants from 65 nations. Ambassador Antonov emphasized the importance of the Schiller Institute, that “without your assistance, it will be very difficult to find a compromise which fits everybody.” Speakers addressed the fact that the illegal and criminal sanctions against Russia have created a field day for the Western speculative hedge funds to further drive up the prices of food and commodities, driving destitution and starvation on a massive scale worldwide. (Zepp-LaRouche and Amb. Antonov’s opening remarks are here.)

To end the madness, to stop the Anglo-American-led descent into fascism and war, we must consolidate the historic cooperation displayed in the Schiller Institute conference, and get broad layers of the American and European populations and institutions engaged in a dialogue at the highest level, to achieve the necessary transformation demanded in the Schiller Institute petition: Convoke an International Conference To Establish a New Security and Development Architecture for All Nations. Sign it and circulate it.

What Is the Truth About the War Danger Between the U.S./NATO and Russia?

February 18, 2022by tobi in General, General updates, Geopolitics updates, World war danger updates

This interview with Alexander Rahr was done on February 17, at a time of continuing escalation of tensions between the U.S.-NATO forces and Russia, ostensibly over Ukraine. Rahr is an historian, a business consultant and an active proponent of German-Russian friendship, who writes frequently on this subject and is often featured in interviews. In this interview, he presents what is generally censored in the western media, answering: What is really behind the crisis in Ukraine? What are Putin’s goals? Can war be avoided? In the second section, he takes up the question of diplomacy, emphasizing the importance of a French-German role in countering the insistence of the proponents of 19th and 20th century British geopolitics, who argue that east and west cannot work together. He discusses the potential for collaboration in energy and technology, including space exploration, and how this can form the basis of a security architecture stretching from the Atlantic to Vladivostok, which could include the United States. The interview was conducted by Harley Schlanger of the {Executive Intelligence Review}.

Franco-German call on France to Leave NATO and Bolster P5

February 12, 2022by Mary Jane Freeman in France, General updates, Geopolitics updates, Germany, Global Diplomacy, World war danger updates

Paris, Feb. 12, 2022 (EIRNS) – In an op-ed published by the French “souverainist” weekly Marianne, Peter Dittus and Hervé Hannoun, argue in favor of a French exit from the integrated command of NATO. The German economist Peter Dittus is the former secretary general of the Bank for International Settlements (BIS), while the Frenchmen Hannoun its deputy director general.

Their arguments are the substance of their new book called “OTANexit: Urgence Absolue”, published on Jan. 16.

“Since November 2021,” they say, “the French, like other peoples of the West, have been subjected to an unprecedented mental conditioning conducted by the United States and Nato on the theme of the “imminent Russian invasion of Ukraine”, which may go down in history as an episode of disinformation along the lines of the fabricated intelligence on Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction in 2003.”

This is a lie, they say. “The only war that NATO seems to be winning is the one of information. We show in our book this striking German propaganda map in the weekly Bild of December 4, 2021, giving an imaginary detailed plan of the “imminent Russian invasion”. The role of propaganda is terrifying, because of the charge of hatred generated by the lies on both sides. On the NATO side, the aggressive and bellicose discourse of Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg is irresistibly reminiscent of the famous Orwellian inversion: ‘peace is war’”. (…) “France’s current alignment with NATO, through its participation in the integrated military command under American leadership, is a strategic dead end for a country with a universal vocation like France. Today, this country has a historic role to play in stopping the march towards war in Europe initiated by the sleepwalkers of NATO. France’s exit from NATO, which will mark the end of the alignment of France’s foreign security policy with the United States, will have an immense impact on the world.”

“It will signal Europe’s independence from American exceptionalism, the renewal of multilateralism, the emergence of a multipolar world and the rapid demise of the obsolete NATO framework. France will then rediscover its universal vocation, contributing to the global balance for peace, and playing, thanks to its rediscovered impartiality, a role of synthesis within the P5, the concert of the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council (the United States, the United Kingdom, China, Russia, and France), a P5 whose composition must be maintained and whose role as regulator of world peace must be enhanced.”

Full text of Marianne op-ed:

“Faced with the Ukrainian crisis, France’s NATO exit is an absolute emergency”

The following op-ed was published by the French “souverainist” weekly Marianne, Peter Dittus and Hervé Hannoun, who argue in favor of a French exit from the integrated command of NATO. The German economist Peter Dittus is the former secretary general of the Bank for International Settlements (BIS), while the Frenchmen Hannoun its former deputy director general. Text:

“Breaking with the policy of non-alignment followed by de Gaulle, Giscard and Mitterrand for 43 years, France once again became a member of the integrated military command of NATO in 2009, without the French people having been consulted by referendum. The current Ukrainian crisis reveals the serious perils to which France is exposed by being attached to a defensive collective security organization under the command of the United States that has become expansionist.

“Since November 2021, the French, like other peoples of the West, have been subjected to an unprecedented brainwashing (“mise en condition”) conducted by the United States and Nato on the theme of the “imminent Russian invasion of Ukraine”, which may go down in history as an episode of disinformation along the lines of the fabricated intelligence on Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction in 2003.

“What is the reality? Millions of Russian-speaking Ukrainians in the two self-proclaimed Donbass people’s republics live under sporadic firing and shelling by the Ukrainian army against separatist forces. The concentration of Russian troops on Ukraine’s borders is obviously aimed at dissuading Kiev from attempting to regain direct control of the enclaves of Donetsk and Lugansk by force. NATO’s successful disinformation on Ukraine has consisted in presenting Putin’s moral obligation to defend these Russian-speaking populations – which Ukraine wants to progressively deprive of the right to speak their language – as a prelude to the total annexation of Ukraine by Russia.
The myth of an “imminent Russian invasion

“NATO manages to pass off a concentration of Russian troops ready to come to the rescue of Russian-speaking Ukrainians in the Donbass as an “imminent Russian invasion” of the whole of Ukraine, including Odessa, Kharkiv and Kiev. A crazy invasion that in reality Russia completely rules out… unless it is pushed into it by a possible prior Ukrainian attack on the Donbass.

“The only war that NATO seems to be winning is the one of information. We show in our book this striking German propaganda map in the weekly Bild of December 4, 2021, giving an imaginary detailed plan of the “imminent Russian invasion”. The role of propaganda is terrifying, because of the charge of hatred generated by the lies on both sides. On the NATO side, the aggressive and bellicose discourse of Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg is irresistibly reminiscent of the famous Orwellian inversion: “peace is war”.

And if France had the solution?

Paris must avoid the military spiral into which the United States and NATO want to drag it. In the coming weeks, it must not allow itself to be involved in a war in Eastern Europe that is not its own. France has already agreed to deploy hundreds of men in a NATO battle group in Estonia. On January 1, it took the lead in the NATO Rapid Response Force, which includes at least 7,700 French soldiers. President Macron has just announced the possible dispatch of a thousand French troops to Romania under the NATO banner on the “eastern flank”, in the Black Sea region. The military escalation is dangerous. For the security of the French people, it is necessary to exclude committing the French army under the banner of Nato in a war in Ukraine or Belarus.

“On the other hand, France has a diplomatic weapon to resolve the serious crisis between NATO and Russia. The detonator of this crisis was the stubbornness of Jens Stoltenberg and the Americans to pursue since 2018 a creeping process of accession of Ukraine to NATO, called “open door policy”, seen by Russia as a threat to its security. To put an end to the current confrontation, President Macron should simply declare solemnly in the name of France that his country will oppose any request from Ukraine to join NATO.

“As decisions on membership of the Alliance require unanimity, France can exercise a veto. In doing so, the president would be in line with the commitments he made during his 2017 presidential campaign not to support NATO’s expansion to Ukraine. It would be an elegant way out of the crisis. Alas, the French president, during his visit to Moscow and then to Kiev on February 7 and 8, 2022, did not consider this simple solution because French diplomacy did not oppose in the NATO bodies the crazy “open door policy” to the membership of Ukraine and Georgia in NATO. On the other hand, France supports NATO and the G7 in their demand for the return of Crimea to Ukraine, knowing full well that this cannot be done without a war, possibly nuclear.

American subordination

“At the time of the 1992 referendum on the European Union treaty, no one could have imagined that this great project of Mitterrand and Kohl for peace would be deviated from, from 1998 onwards, by the American geopolitical project to take de facto control of the European common defense and security policy. This was due to the simultaneous enlargement of the European Union and NATO to ten Eastern European countries between 1991 and 2007, and also to President Sarkozy’s decision, with far-reaching consequences, to abandon in 2008 the Gaullist strategic position of refusing to participate in NATO’s integrated military command.

“From the moment that 21 of the 27 EU countries, including France, became full members of NATO, the initial spirit of Maastricht was betrayed, because “Europe for peace” was inevitably going to be thwarted by the interference of the United States, with its own geopolitical objectives, in the common European defense and security policy. In reality, there can be no independent French or European defense within the current framework of participation in the integrated military command of NATO by France and 21 other European Union states. The concept of “European strategic autonomy” within Nato is an illusion, given the control of the United States over this Alliance. The European Union seeks to hide this fundamental flaw behind a vague concept: the “strategic compass”.

The fundamental incompatibility between the US-controlled NATO and an independent French or European defense does not prevent our leaders from defending the thesis of complementarity between the EU and NATO in terms of defense, as summarized on December 11, 2021 by the French Minister of Foreign Affairs: “We are keen for the EU and NATO to complement and reinforce each other in order to contribute to strengthening security and defense in Europe. This is the meaning of the strategic compass that will be adopted during the French Presidency of the EU Council.

Defense: the impasse of “at the same time”

The EU’s “strategic compass” is above all an effort to provide a conceptual framework for the false idea that “European strategic autonomy” in relation to the United States is compatible with the Nato membership of the vast majority of EU member states. This complementarity between NATO and the EU, the “at the same time” applied to defense, is an illusion. The fussy logic of national independence has given way to the vague and misleading concept of strategic autonomy and the search for interdependence and interoperability with our “allies”.

“Beyond the immediate crisis surrounding Ukraine, the presidential elections of April 10 and 24 must allow for a decision on the question of NATO. All those who refuse NATO’s march towards the war that is brewing on the eastern borders of the European Union have a unique opportunity, with the presidential election of 2022, to send a simple and clear message of peace to the leaders of our country, in one word: Otanexit. It is a question of ensuring that a candidate for peace is elected president, who is committed to putting an end to France’s alignment with NATO.

“One can think that the outgoing president will want to avoid a debate in the presidential campaign on the question of our military alliances in NATO: alliance with the adventurism of the Anglo-Saxons, whose arrogance was revealed by the Australian submarine affair, unnatural alliance with Islamist Turkey, alliance with Polish nationalism, and tomorrow perhaps, alliance with a Germany that could use NATO as a springboard for its remilitarization, or even alliance with Kosovo against Serbia This list alone allows us to measure the risks of a collective security system comprising 30 heterogeneous nations, and dominated by one of them.

An unconstitutional “defense union”

“On January 7, 2022, at a joint press conference with President Macron in Paris, the President of the European Commission allowed herself a federalist statement that exceeded her prerogatives: “We agree that we need a real defense union. In the presence of President Macron, she spoke of adding a “defense union” to the Economic and Monetary Union in the future, without taking into account the fact that this statement is contrary to the French Constitution, which is based on national independence, national sovereignty and national defense. It is necessary to oppose the stealthy European federalism that is currently being practiced, which cannot replace a federalism that is democratically accepted – or rejected – by referendum, according to the procedure followed in 1992 by François Mitterrand for the transfer of monetary sovereignty provided for in the Maastricht Treaty. The French people must reject the concept of defense union under the banner of NATO that Ursula von der Leyen wants to impose on them.

“France’s current alignment with NATO, through its participation in the integrated military command under American leadership, is a strategic dead end for a country with a universal vocation like France. Today, this country has a historic role to play in stopping the march towards war in Europe initiated by the sleepwalkers of NATO. France’s exit from NATO, which will mark the end of the alignment of France’s foreign security policy with the United States, will have an immense impact on the world.

“It will signal Europe’s independence from American exceptionalism, the renewal of multilateralism, the emergence of a multipolar world and the rapid demise of the obsolete NATO framework. France will then rediscover its universal vocation, contributing to the global balance for peace, and playing, thanks to its rediscovered impartiality, a role of synthesis within the P5, the concert of the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council (the United States, the United Kingdom, China, Russia, and France), a P5 whose composition must be maintained and whose role as regulator of world peace must be enhanced.”

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