June 3—On June 2, China’s Chang’e-6 spacecraft landed on the Moon’s far side for a second time, and, for the first time, will soon start collecting rock samples from the oldest lunar basin to bring back to Earth.The Chang’e-6 lander successfully touched down in the northeastern part of the South Pole-Aitken basin at 06:23 China Standard Time on June 2 (22:23 UTC, June 1; 18:23 EDT, June 1), the China National Space Administration (CNSA) announced. The lander will soon go through initial checks and begin using its robotic arm to drill and scoop up materials from the lunar surface, which are expected to weigh up to 2 kg.Once returned, they will become the first samples ever retrieved from the Moon’s mysterious far side, which always faces away from the Earth.Entering lunar orbit on May 8, four days after its May 3 launch, the 8.35-ton spacecraft—which consists of a lander, ascender, orbiter, and return capsule—had been circling the Moon since then, looking for the best spot and time to land.On May 30, the lander and ascender separated from the orbiter and return capsule. The lander then fired its 7,500-Newton-thrust engine to slow down and began to descend from about 15 km above the lunar surface.In this process, the cameras on the lander snapped photos of the landing area and transmitted them to computers on the lander to identify possible hazards on the surface, such as large rocks, so that the craft could maneuver to avoid them.At about 100 meters above the lunar surface, the combined vehicle suspended its descent and hovered for a moment to conduct accurate detection of smaller obstacles and determine the final landing spot before continuing to descend at a slower, steady speed.As the craft came to just several meters above the surface, it shut off its engine and touched down on the lunar surface, making China now the only country to have soft landed on the far side for a second time.While the mission has been getting scant attention from the Western press, on May 3 hundreds of thousands of Chinese citizens lined the beaches of Hainan to view the launch. The return material will be a major scientific boon, with researchers having a look at matter that has been continually bombarded from the surrounding cosmos, and perhaps giving us a greater clue to the development of the Earth itself.The sampling will occur over the next two days, after which Chang’e-6 mission will begin the journey back. It should reach the Earth by the end of June.

Kune 3—The late economist and statesman Lyndon LaRouche concluded his 1977 document, titled “What Really Are the Labor Committees?—The Lessons of Erasmus and Franklin,” with the following paragraph: “Let it be understood, therefore, that if you are a humanist, the Labor Committees are in that sense your organization—whether or not you are a member. If you are for technological progress in the expansion of industry and agriculture, and define the vital interests of nations in those terms, and if you regard man’s power to create and assimilate scientific knowledge for the perfection of our species as the inviolable distinction between man and the lower beasts, then the Labor Committees are an indispensable aid to the cause you espouse, whatever political affiliation you have.”Nearly 50 years after that was written, independent candidates that have rejected bankrupt, moribund political parties, such as New York’s U.S. Senate candidate Diane Sare and Bronx Congressional candidate (15th CD) Jose Vega, are part of a growing international movement away from the predatory military-financial complex. Those in the trans-Atlantic sector calling for a return to advanced technological progress and an increase in the productive powers of labor, in alliance with the emerging nations of the Global South, are on the cutting edge of world politics today. War, even total war, will not stop this progress, if an international coalition for peace, linked together by a 24-hour “symposium” process, can operate as an intellectual clearing-house for policy deliberation.To do so, such a coalition must be informed by an “emergency alert service,” through which world-class thinkers—those with and without “terminal degrees”—can reach at least hundreds of thousands on a daily basis. These informed citizens could, in turn, act as the “support base” for, not merely independent candidacies, but independent voices, many of them in their teens and twenties, that will make “good trouble” for the decaying “status quo.”Why is an “emergency alert service” so necessary? Because a population can sometimes be most effectively brainwashed by leaving them clueless about the implication of humanity’s greatest achievements, especially depriving them of the benefit of the enthusiasm with which such achievements should naturally be met. Example: this Sunday, at 6:23 a.m.Beijing time, the Chang’e-6 spacecraft touched down in the Apollo crater on the far side of the Moon. “The China National Space Administration (CNSA) now has two far-side landings under its belt—this one and Chang’e-4, which dropped a lander-rover combo onto the gray dirt in January 2019. No other country has done it once,” reported Space.com. This means that the Chinese have now accomplished a new feat for mankind, probably the greatest feat in space engineering application since the United States left the Moon in 1972. If the next phase of the mission is successful, China’s Chang’e-6 will scoop up samples of Moon rock and dust, and fly them home in an Earth re-entry module.Because of China’s achievements, humanity is better, today, than it was the day before, as a result—no matter how people “feel” about that. Chang’e-6 is humanity’s best example, for today, of what LaRouche called “Human practice increasing man’s power over nature.” So everyone should be alerted to that. China’s success should have been prominently featured in the United States, the first and only country to land the human race on the Moon. It should have been celebrated throughout the world.But why was this not made prominently known to all? That was not done, because of the wall-breaching, barriers-crossing enthusiasm it would have engendered, an enthusiasm more powerful than that we saw with the April 8 solar eclipse. It was not done, because the Chinese are the next “great enemy” which threatens the “rules-based order,” we are already being told—even as the NATO war on Russia causes the world to be poised one accidental idiocy, or one intentional lunacy away from thermonuclear war.The beauty, and necessity, of the International Peace Coalition process initiated by Schiller Institute founder Helga Zepp-LaRouche, is that it is beginning to take on aspects of a Platonic symposium. Several of the participants have now decided that it is the process of thinking that is increasingly imbued in the weekly dialogue, rather than the individual evaluations presented, which gives a unique character to the Friday gatherings. They are establishing a consistency in deliberation upon policy, premised upon the idea that it is the thinking citizen, in social discourse on the “res publica” —the public things—that must be the engine of change. This is to be done, not by overturning an order which will, in any case, collapse, but by establishing principles, intelligible to all and tested through social practice, through which self-government, starting with putting an end to the slaughter called war, supersedes all “rules of law.” Circulation of this past week’s proceedings of the IPC’s 52nd consecutive session, by energetic, informed citizens, is the declaration and deployment of intellectual independence we need, if humanity is to not only survive, but advance, in these next weeks and months.

June 1—We present below a transcript of remarks  made by Dr. Theodore Postol, ​Professor Emeritus of Science, Technology, and National Security at MIT, who is widely regarded as one the world's leading experts on nuclear weapons,  to yesterday's meeting of the International Peace Coalition.Thank you very much. I’ll try to be, of course, brief. I understand there are a lot of other people discussing things. But at the same time, I’d like to provide you with some very basic information that will help you visualize the situation with regard to the early warning problem. As Helga pointed out, the early warning radars at Armavir and Orsk were attacked by Ukrainian drones. It does not appear that the Orsk radar suffered significant damage, at least as far as we can tell. But the Armavir radars—and there are two of them there—did suffer significant damage. Hopefully the damage can be repaired quickly, so those radars can be brought back into operation.Now, if the United States had lost an early warning radar that performs the function that the radars at Armavir perform, we in the United States would be able to look down from space with satellites we have, and we could see if there were missiles being launched from anywhere in the world that would be taking advantage of the radar being lost at that moment. Unfortunately, the Russians do not have such capability. There’s a long and detailed story about how I discovered this; it’s been reconfirmed many times. And unfortunately, it has not yet changed, although there is some indication that possibly it will be changing in the next few years, there will be finally some satellites launched that may be able to do the job. We don’t know enough about them yet, but we do know that they are supposed to go into what is called geosynchronous orbits. If they are designed to look down, which we are not yet sure of, then the Russians will have this capability, and the whole world will be much safer. I want to underscore that the lack of the Russian capability in this area jeopardizes the security of the whole world.The radars at Armavir—there are two radars; first slide, please. The two radars at Armavir, the slide I’m showing you, shows the radar fans of three radars. There are two radar fans on the left side of your screen that are overlapping slightly at the middle. Those are the radars at Armavir. Each can look into an azimuth of about 120°, so between the two radars, you can cover an azimuth of about 240°. To the right is the radar fan at Orsk, and that’s also a 120° fan. As you can see, there is what I call a ground shadow underlying the radar fans. That simply shows you where on the Earth’s surface if a rocket is launched against, for example, Moscow, it would break the radar fan. Keep in mind that the radar fans in some locations are hundreds of kilometers above the location on the Earth that I call the ground shadow. So, it will take them time to climb to an altitude where they break into the surveillance band of those radars.If you had satellites in space, let’s concentrate for the moment on the Indian Ocean, those satellites could tell essentially immediately—if they were looking down—they could tell essentially immediately that something was launched at Moscow, if the Russians had this satellite. They don’t have this capability, so the best they can do is start seeing objects once they rise into the radar fan of the radars. The distance shown in the radar fans is simply to make the graphics easier to understand. They’re actually longer-range than the fans that are shown here.If we look at the next slide, you can get a sense of the timelines that the radars give. So, for example, if you look at the radar fan that is colored yellow, and then you look at the trajectories—these are real trajectories; they’re calculated according to laws of physics—you could see that points are at one-minute intervals. So, if you look at the far left side, you can see one, two, three, four, five to six minutes after launch, you would begin to travel through the radar fan that is forward of Moscow. This particular radar fan is placed about 1,000 km forward of Moscow. It’s not exact, relative to the fans at Armavir and Orsk, but it generally is good enough for illustrating the issues. So, if you had the satellites in space, you could see the launch of the missile essentially at the left origin of the graph, because you could immediately tell from looking down from space that you could see the bright exhaust plume of the rocket. And you would know for five or six minutes before the radar fan picked up the incoming missiles that you were under attack. And that’s important: Five or six minutes is a very short time.Now, in the case of losing these radar fans, I’ve shown a second radar fan, that’s colored red. Those are fans that come from radars that are actually in Moscow, very big, long-range radars that are in Moscow itself. So, you can see that three or four minutes after the forward radar fans, let’s say at Armavir, would see an incoming set of rockets attacking, you would then see them from the radars in Moscow. Of course, if the yellow radar fan is not there, because the radar is not operating, then the decision-making time or the warning time is compressed by two or three minutes. Keep in mind that when an object enters this radar fan that I’ve depicted on this screen, it takes some time—perhaps a second or two—for the radar to collect enough energy to detect the incoming rockets. Then it takes another few seconds for it to track the object long enough, that it can draw a straight line through the different points, and then estimate where the object is going—that it is, in fact, going to Moscow in this case. So, time is consumed in every step of the operation.If I show you the third slide, I’ve just put together a notional time for the amount of time left for decision-making that is required by decision-makers. So, for example, in the top row, I say “time for attacking missiles to rise over the horizon into the line of sight of the early warning radar might take a minute”; it might take you that long. It might take another minute to just characterize that the targets are missiles coming in, know what they are—so, two minutes are consumed there. A “military and civil command conference,” let’s ignore that for the moment, because that’s an American process. The Russians will have their own system. “Time for command and unit elements of the silo-based forces to react to a launch order,” two to four minutes; that again, is a number for an American system. “Time for missile crews to go through full launch procedure,” one to three minutes; that’s going to be the same for Russians and Americans. And then, we have “time for the missiles to launch from their silos.” They have to get far enough away from their silos—and it takes a minute or two—because if warheads are detonating on the ICBM silo fields, the blast waves from those warheads, even though they’re relatively low-pressure, if they’re lit missiles in the sky, the ICBMs will be destroyed. So, they have to be flying out, they have to get out of the air atmosphere above the silo fields.These are timelines that the Russians will certainly have in mind. So, if you have five minutes consumed—and it’s much more likely to be seven or eight minutes—the timelines can be easily no more than seven or eight minutes, if they’re using only the radars in Moscow. This means that the Russian political leadership might have less than a few minutes to make a decision on whether or not to launch their forces. We don’t know what the Russians (lots of people claim to know, but I don’t know and I know other people don’t know what they claim to know). We really don’t know what the Russians have chosen to do to deal with this situation. It’s very likely that the Russians have made plans to assure that the launch of their missiles occurs by one means or another. This could mean what was called “pre-delegated authority.” So, under certain conditions—and those conditions are determined by human decision-makers and circumstances—these launches could be done in an automated fashion. So, the loss of two or three minutes in the warning system is very serious and very critical. This is not something that should be taken lightly.Now, I don’t want to take too much time on this. We have some very knowledgeable military people like Col. Black speaking, and others. So, I will not take any more time here, although I am very happy to talk more in detail about the military issues, if there’s a role for me to play here. But I prefer that the military experts talk, although I can add important technical details if people would like to hear about them. And we’ll leave it for the Q&A period and discussion. Thank you.Later, in response to a query from Schiller Institute chairwoman Helga Zepp-LaRouche on the people in the west making decisions about launching nuclear weapons, Dr. Postol added the following:Let me just add one very, very important point. You should not assume that the political decision-makers understand this serious problem with the Russian early warning system. It has been my experience, with people in the White House, that they do not know about these details. They are almost completely focused on politics, and they typically have limited technical training. There’s a real problem between the intelligence community, and communicating with people at the highest levels in the White House. Every time there’s a change of administration or people change their jobs, anything that someone might have actually learned in their office gets lost. I’m quite sure this is the situation in Europe as well. So, you should not assume that these supposedly wise and well-informed people actually know anything about this. This is an extremely important point that I emphasize with the strongest concern.And, finally, in response to a question from Dr. Oliver Boyd-Barrett on the possibility of an accidental nuclear war, Dr. Postol had the following to say:Well, as Boyd-Barrett understands, I have contemplated the possibility of accidental nuclear war, essentially during all of my career; including in my career, when I was in the Pentagon working as an advisor to the Chief of Naval Operations. So, this has been an issue that has been of concern to me, right through my career.Let me give you an example of a thought that I’ve had for, really, decades. If you were to tell me that the United States and the Soviet Union would have a Cold War of the kind we know we have had for decades, and that it did not result in a nuclear war by accident, given all the history of events, I would have told you that almost certainly there would have been a nuclear war. In other words, if I were guessing, based on being told that there was going to be this confrontation, where both sides were at each other for decades, I would have concluded that the chances of not having a nuclear war were very low, because the possibilities are so great.Now the reason I think—of course I don’t know—the reason I think we haven’t had a nuclear war is because every politician I have ever dealt with, and every political leader or militarily responsible individual—in this case I’m talking about Russians, Americans, Chinese because I’ve worked with the Chinese—every one of these people has been just tremendously afraid of what could happen if nuclear weapons were used—including me, of course. And I think that these people who, unlike me, were in various decision-making roles, have such a reaction against the consequence of a nuclear war, that their level of caution skewed the probability of an accident curve well away from decisions that could have led to accidents and escalation.Now, this is not an argument, that it will not happen and cannot happen: I’m just saying that if you assume the kind of probabilistic events that typically lead to accidents, a nuclear war would have occurred, as far as I can tell. But we’ve, so far, been lucky. Now, I do not know that this is going to continue, and I have no way of predicting what could happen. What I am tremendously concerned about—and I must say, I’m beside myself over this—is the almost dismissive attitude people have, certain people in leadership roles have, when the possibility of a nuclear use, followed by escalation, is brought up. It’s like they’re not thinking about. It’s like they’re not thinking at all! And that is different from what I have seen in the decades up to now. People have had an extraordinarily healthy fear of anything going wrong with regard to nuclear weapons. And at this time, I get the sense that it’s not there, and not as strong. And that to me, leads me to a concern—I won’t say I know, but a concern—that the chances of nuclear accident are far greater now than they have been in the past.But hopefully I’m wrong, because I really don’t know.

June 2—The immediate results of the much-publicized conviction of the former and would-be future President Donald Trump in his sham trial for manipulating the records of his hush money payoffs to porn star Stormy Daniels has been to increase his lead over his rival, President “Sleepy Joe” Biden, according to both GOP internal and other polling information; and to surge money into his campaign coffers—not exactly the results desired by the Biden and Establishment operatives who have been dragging Trump in and out courtrooms for well over a year.Nor has the ordeal shattered Trump’s confidence in his ultimate return to the White House, but instead has made him more combative: “You know, I am a warrior,” the told the New York Post in an interview, in which he pledged, that as President, he would clean up the hopelessly corrupt justice system that has allowed for his enemies to wield it as a political weapon against him.The prosecution and conviction is such a sham, that even Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah), one of Trump’s most strident critics within his own party, has called what happened a total miscarriage of justice, stating that the charges were clearly made up, and should not have been tried.Intelligence sources, however, report that the apparent failure of any legal strategy to take Trump out, or even slow down his likely re-ascent up the steps to the White House next January, is setting in motion a deadly plan, supported in the same dark circles of the Establishment and military industrial complex that once ordered and orchestrated the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in Dallas in 1963. These sources say that a planned “sanction” of Trump will also have the support and complicity of NATO and the global financial elite, whose power is centered in the City of London and its Wall Street satrap, just as the hit on Kennedy found similar support and assistance.Trump has no friends in these circles. Despite his tough talk to the contrary, Trump is known to oppose direct confrontation with either Russia or China. He prefers to view them as competitors, who occasionally get out of line, but does not see them as existential threats, as do many of the neocon and neo-liberal ideologues who populate the policy establishment. Taking this a step farther, he believes that he understands and is able to deal with both Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping, both of whom he believes understand him, and that because of this, he can find some common ground.In addition, Trump has openly questioned the reason for the NATO alliance, stating that he does not see a reason or a need for the U.S. to go to war for Europe, since he doesn’t think Putin has any intention to attack Europe. Openly questioning Article 5, the mutual defense clause of the NATO treaty, Trump believes Europe should be prepared to defend itself, and not seek to engage the U.S. in wars of its own making. If Europe won’t agree to defend itself, as it sees fit, then perhaps the U.S. needs to walk away from NATO, Trump has suggested, in various interviews.“Such thoughts send shivers up the spines of these NATO blowhards,” said a source. “And they are also seen as a declaration of war against the military-industrial complex in this country, which as President Dwight Eisenhower famously and correctly warned, holds the elected government of our country under its thumb on crucial policy matters.“Those NATO blowhards say Trump is dangerously unstable, and in some ways he is—to them. He may do none of these things, and in his last go-’round in the White House, they were successful in hijacking his Administration for their purposes, steering it away from his deal-making with Xi and Putin. In their minds, Trump is a throwback, taking steps away from the globalist strategy that is driving the confrontation with Russia and China.“Where Trump sort of coincides with their interest, at least nominally, is in his desire to make America first—in their terms the world hegemon—but, it is like he is several degrees off from their center. For example, he might just want to get America involved with all these grand infrastructure projects the Russians and the Chinese and the BRICS alliance are pushing, that this establishment opposes. In his mind, it is better to make money than war, and if the expense of war can be avoided, so much the better. He will spend like crazy on the military to build up America’s strength, so that it does not need to fight wars, especially the endless ones of recent years.“He is a mixed bag, but a dangerous one, thinks NATO/globalist Establishment,” the source continued. “So keep him out of the White House by any means necessary.”But, as this source and others stressed, for some who would say yes to a hit on Trump, there is something much darker in the plan. They are not thinking so much about the danger of a Trump presidency, as they desire to plunge the U.S. and its government into chaos. To this group, which is based in NATO and in British establishment, including within the GCHQ of British intelligence, while China and Russia represent threats, the American republic, which will soon celebrate the 250th anniversary of its independence from the British Empire, represents, in potential, the most devastating threat to their global imperial system.Were America to rediscover its roots as a republic and come to its senses, it could successfully end the global imperial system forever—especially now, with the financial component of that system hopelessly bankrupt and its ability to impose its will challenged by an emerging Global Majority, led by the BRICS nations. Under proper leadership, America could walk away from the globalists and join with this new Global Majority in the creation of a completely new World Order, featuring a durable peace based on mutually cooperative and beneficial development.“A hit on Trump,” the source stated, “with the assistance of some money and organization from this global elite, could plunge this nation into a crisis leading to a new civil war, which would destroy and break up our republic—reversing the positive revolutionary process which created our nation. It is not hard to see this happening. There will likely not be a free and fair election come November 5, or maybe even any election at all. That is, if this crowd doesn’t blow us all up in a thermonuclear war before then."The propaganda warmup by NATO to make such a hit on Trump a credible possibility in the eyes of the public is already well underway. In the aftermath of the recent attempted assassination of Slovakian Prime Minister Robert Fico, a vocal opponent of the NATO war in the Ukraine whose hit is thought by informed intelligence sources to have likely been orchestrated by NATO, using an extensive support network for the "lone assassin" gunmen, the media sought to deflect such informed speculation by attributing its cause to be Fico's "extreme divisiveness" as a "polarizing" political figure. In other words, if you exhibit these tendencies as a political leader, someone might pop you. The establishment propaganda machine constantly refers to Trump as "divisive" and "polarizing"Trump can help defeat this planned outcome by openly warning that the people who are orchestrating his legal persecutions, seeing their failure, may try to eliminate him. He can say it any way he wants to, but he needs to say it loud and strong and repeatedly. Warn against the plot to destroy this country that needs to be investigated. Call on his supporters to make sure they understand the message, and spread it all around. Even those who don’t support Trump need to say it. And at all times, he must ensure he has adequate physical protection, and not merely from Federal sources. After all, it’s not really about him; it’s about saving this country.

June 1—Yesterday's meeting marked the one-year anniversary of the International Peace Coalition, with 52nd consecutive online weekly meetings. Participating were people from more than thirty countries. Schiller Institute founder Helga Zepp-LaRouche announced that the meeting would concentrate on Ukraine, due to the extreme danger represented by the three attacks by that country on early warning radar installations in Russia. These installations are unrelated to the war in Ukraine, but integral to the strategic defense systems of Russia. The Schiller Institute circulated an emergency warning on these developments, and the story subsequently broke into the mainstream media, but is still not getting the attention it deserves.What followed was a panel discussion by military, scientific and diplomatic experts, including nuclear weapons expert Dr. Theodore Postol, Professor Emeritus of Science, Technology and National Security at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology; Colonel (ret.) Prof. Dr. Wilfried Schreiber, Senior Research Fellow at the WeltTrends Institute for International Politics in Potsdam, Germany; Lt. Col. (ret.) Ralph Bosshard of the Swiss Armed Forces, consultant on military-strategic affairs; Col. Richard H. Black (ret.), former head of the U.S. Army’s Criminal Law Division at the Pentagon and former Virginia state senator; and former Ambassador Chas Freeman, U.S.-China diplomat and scholar.The Attack on Russia’s Strategic Defense SystemDr. Postol led off the panel by explaining the function of Russia’s early warning radar system. These installations would enable Russia to detect an approaching nuclear strike. If the U.S. were to lose one of its own land-based early warning radars, it would still be able to look down from space, using its system of satellites, but Russians do not fully have this capability yet. Satellites can detect a missile launch immediately, whereas radar “fans” don’t detect missiles until they reach a certain altitude. Disabling one of these “fans” reduces the amount of time Russia has in which to decide how to react, i.e., whether to launch a nuclear counterstrike, by crucial minutes. Colonel Black added that the attacks on the Russian radars could not happen without explicit U.S. approval, and “serve no other purpose than to blind Russia’s nuclear deterrence.” Furthermore, “we don’t have the ability to preemptively destroy all of Russia’s nuclear defenses,” which include submarine-launched missiles, Black said. “We can destroy Russian civilization, but not their ability to shoot back.”The sobering implications of an attempt to “blind Russia’s nuclear deterrence” were discussed in-depth by the panelists. Former Ambassador Chas Freeman, in a video interview which was played during the meeting, said that no great nuclear power can afford to undermine the balance of nuclear deterrence, but Ukraine, acting as a proxy, is doing precisely that. Colonel Black asserted that the greenlighting of the attack on the radars, combined with the delivery of nuclear-capable F-16 aircraft, means that the U.S. and NATO are putting in place the framework for a possible nuclear strike against Russia.Col.Black asked the participants to consider the contrast in U.S. and Russian doctrines regarding the use of nuclear weapons. The U.S. has no prohibition on first use, a nuclear “sneak attack.” “On the other hand,” he said, “the Russian nuclear doctrine is exclusively defensive.” Colonel Bosshard said, “In order to remain credible, NATO must threaten Russia with the use of nuclear weapons, not the other way around.”What Were They Thinking?There was discussion of the mindset of Western officials; what could possess them to flirt with the use of weapons that could annihilate all of humanity? Helga Zepp-LaRouche called this the “flabbergasting question.” Bosshard said, “Politicians in the West are apparently unaware of the risks they are taking,” and suggested that they think Putin is bluffing. Postol added that, in contrast to career professionals who are familiar with these issues, elected officials come into office with little or no understanding, and a preoccupation with politics. Black attributed Biden’s recent actions to his faltering re-election campaign: “President Biden recognizes that the Ukraine project has collapsed…. The more anxious the White House becomes about the upcoming elections … the greater the risk of a very high-risk military gambit.”The role of the media in fostering this environment of brinkmanship was also examined. Ambassador Freeman acknowledged the importance of the circulation of the Schiller Institute’s emergency warning, contrasting it to the “military and strategic illiteracy of the current crop of journalists.” Zepp-LaRouche responded that the media are not simply incompetent: “Mass media are absolutely in the hands of those who are pushing this confrontation.” She described how leaders who challenge the pro-war “narrative,” such as Slovakian Prime Minister Robert Fico, become targets for harassment and even assassination, and she referenced the now-notorious “kill lists” of the ‍  ‍ Ukrainian “counter-disinformation” agencies. She raised the issue of how Biden has recently given permission to Ukraine to use U.S. weapons to strike targets within Russian territory. Some European leaders, such as German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, had previously resisted that idea, but “this morning, all of a sudden, he agreed because Biden agreed.” Col. Black insisted that the U.S. dominates Europe, and runs NATO, of which he said, “the time has long passed since it was defensive in nature. It has become a very aggressive global organization.”Col. Schreiber mentioned some of the new dimensions of warfare that have emerged in his lifetime, saying that digitalization opens a new horizon in war policy: cyberspace warfare. The possible military uses of electromagnetic pulse also represent a new quality of warfare.Diane Sare’s U.S. Senate CandidacyDiane Sare, the LaRouche-affiliated independent candidate for U.S. Senate in New York, reported that she had submitted close to 70,000 signatures for ballot access, significantly exceeding the 45,000-signature legal requirement. She said that many voters in her state are preoccupied with the various court cases against Donald Trump, and marveled that while you might think that during a presidential election we would all be focusing on the strategic danger, many people are fascinated instead by the “pornographic, infantile spectacle” of a former President being tried in a case about paying off a prostitute from the wrong bank account. She displayed for the participants her palm card, emblazoned with the slogan, “Let us beat swords into plowshares.” She reminded everyone that Lyndon LaRouche had once said that “wars of retribution and revenge” are the stupidest, and they blow back on the nation that launches them.During the discussion period, French Schiller Institute leader and former French Presidential candidate Jacques Cheminade requested assessments from Col. Alain Corvez (ret.). Corvez replied: “I am counting a lot on China and Russia…. We have to realize that Putin has shown enormous reserve in his actions…. China can’t allow this attack on Russia to continue, because China realizes that they will be the next target.”A brief video comment was shown from international human rights lawyer Prof. Francis Boyle, who spoke on the situation with Israel and Gaza, saying that the International Criminal Court prosecutor had requested arrest warrants for war crimes, but he should have also requested warrants for genocide; South Africa has presented carefully documented evidence. The three ICC judges are under enormous pressure, including blackmail, threats, and intimidation, to not issue warrants.In conclusion, Zepp-LaRouche reminded the participants of the upcoming June 16-17 Schiller Institute conference, saying that the Peace of Westphalia is a good historical reference. She praised the new China/Brazil initiative to end the war in Ukraine, adding that it must be combined with a Renaissance of the best cultural traditions of all nations, to achieve a new paradigm to create the basis for a lasting peace. 

June 1 —Dmitry Medvedev, Deputy Chairman of the Russian Security Council, warned yesterday morning that NATO countries that have approved strikes with their weapons on Russian territory, including the United States, should be aware that their equipment and specialists will be destroyed not only in Ukraine, but also at any point from where Russian territory is attacked. “All their military equipment and specialists fighting against us, will be destroyed as in the territory of b. Ukraine, and on the territory of other countries, if attacks are carried out on Russian territory from there,” Medvedev said on his Telegram channel.Medvedev added that Moscow proceeded from the fact that all long-range weapons supplied to Ukraine were already “Russia proceeds from the fact that all long-range weapons used b. Ukraine are already directly controlled by military personnel of NATO countries. This is not ‘military assistance’ at all, but participation in a war against us. And such actions of theirs may well become a casus belli,” which is tantamount to participation in the war against Russia and a reason to start combat operations, reported ‍  ‍ TASS. “NATO will have to decide how to qualify the consequences of possible retaliatory strikes on equipment/facilities/military personnel of individual countries of the bloc in the context of Art. 4 and 5 of the Washington Treaty,” that is, the treaty that established NATO. [Emphases in original.]At the Kremlin, spokesman Dmitry Peskov was quoted by Sputnik, charging that NATO countries and especially the United States have been deliberately escalating tension around the Ukrainian conflict in recent days. “They are doing this deliberately, we hear many belligerent statements. This is nothing more than provoking a new level of tension,” Peskov told reporters.NATO countries are provoking Ukraine to continue the senseless war with Russia, Peskov said, adding that they intend to continue the war with Russia and this will have consequences. The damage will ultimately be caused to the countries that have taken the path of escalating tensions on the Ukrainian track, the spokesman added.Various sane intelligence sources have warned Western policy makers to take these warnings as deadly serious, stating that Russia is not bluffing about defending its homeland and is far from helpless to do so.