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

March 24—“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

The 42nd meeting of the International Peace Coalition (IPC) was convened March 22 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.”