International Peace Coalition: Sanity Must Prevail over War Madness
Sept. 14—Yesterday's 67th consecutive weekly meeting of the International Peace Coalition (IPC) hosted over 1,000 people from nearly 40 countries, warning of the dire crisis facing mankind. Helga Zepp-LaRouche opened the discussion by stating that we are at “a point of no return,” that the decision to grant Ukraine the “permission” to use U.S. and NATO long-range missiles to target Russia, and Putin’s clear declaration that if this is done Russia will know that this is not Ukraine, but the U.S. and NATO that are attacking Russia, and will “respond appropriately,” demonstrates that we are in the most dangerous moment in history, possibly days or weeks away from thermonuclear warfare.
Dr. Ted Postol, MIT professor emeritus and one of the world’s foremost experts on nuclear weapons, said that the fact that Secretary of State Antony Blinken would even suggest considering “the use of tactical nuclear weapons,” means he doesn’t know what this is. Blinken’s “cavalier” attitude towards the “overwhelming likelihood of the destruction of modern civilization as we know it,” shows his ignorance and almost unbelievable recklessness. “I realize it’s very strong language, but it’s just hard to comprehend that anybody could be so reckless, especially someone who is in a position where decisions he makes have serious consequences for the security of—really of the modern world. It’s that bad.”
Ukraine’s war on Russia has been lost, Postol said, and the invasion of Kursk, which has failed, has made it worse for Ukraine. Pulling their elite troops and air defenses off the front line in Donbas to invade Kursk has resulted in Russian forces moving forward at will, as the Ukraine forces left behind are “mostly unwilling and untrained,” many of whom are “running or surrendering, and near collapse.”
Dr. Postol then showed a series of maps and graphs which he stated he “prepared at the urging of Helga Zepp-LaRouche,” showing the size of the radioactive mushroom clouds from nuclear weapons which get blown by the wind, dropping their radioactive waste along the way. He displayed a map of Germany showing the impact of 10 (a number chosen at random) 75-kiloton Russian nuclear weapons and their potential effect, should Germany proceed with the insane U.S. policy of deploying long-range nuclear missiles in Germany in 2026, as currently planned. This submission to the U.S. plan is a “disservice to the German people and the German economy,” said Dr. Postol, which is already collapsing due primarily to the destruction of the Nord Stream pipelines. The German people “have a right to prevent this,” he concluded, and called on them to show the leadership what they think of these insane policies.
Larry Johnson, a retired CIA official and a co-founder of the Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS), said that two positive steps in this extremely dangerous time were, first, that Putin’s clear statement had removed any doubt about the Russian position, and that it has gotten through to at least some in the West. A second development was the fake call on Sept. 12 from two Russian pranksters Vovan and Lexus, who impersonated former Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko in a call to the rabid war-hawk Radoslaw Sikorski, the Foreign Minister of Poland, who admitted that all his bravado about defeating Russia and saber rattling for war were for show, that Europe does not really want a war with Russia, let alone a nuclear war. Johnson added that the West is miscalculating when they “read Putin’s patience for weakness.”
Dr. Mubarak Awad, the founder of Nonviolence International and an adjunct professor at American University, said that the people who are talking casually about nuclear weapons “have no knowledge of the impact of these weapons.” He said that many people argue that democracy is a superior form of government, but reminded that it was the U.S. who dropped nuclear weapons on civilian populations in Japan, and who have undermined every arms control agreement. In addition to the billions of dollars wasted building the nuclear arsenals, Dr. Awad noted the weaknesses displayed in our health systems during the pandemic, and that the health disaster which would result from a nuclear exchange would find the world totally unprepared. He denounced the U.S. refusal to consider any arms control agreements, calling for churches and other institutions to not be silent, and for people to mobilize and act so that the war madness is stopped.
Ray McGovern, a former CIA Russian analyst and also a co-founder of the VIPS, agreed with Putin that the U.S. granting “permission” to Ukraine to use U.S. weapons to attack Russia is a fraud, since such delivery systems would be run by NATO forces, and would be, in effect, a NATO war with Russia. On whether Blinken and Sullivan would actually use nuclear weapons, he said that their primary concern was to “not lose”—not lose the war, not lose the election, and not lose their own freedom. They are clearly guilty of serious crimes, and if they lose the war and the election, they could well lose their freedom as well. He reviewed the lies by the U.S. and the U.K. which were used to start the war on Iraq in 2002, and warned of the possibility of a “false flag” attack now, even before the November election.
Tony Chaitkin, an historian and author of the book Who We Are: America’s Fight for Universal Progress, reviewed the historic battle in the U.S. between advocates of industrial and scientific development on the one hand, against the financier classes, going back to the slave runners and Tory bankers who tried to crush the American Revolution. He pointed to John F. Kennedy as having had the courage to stand up to Wall Street and to the war parties, defending development and science for the U.S. and for the world. He said “Wall Street built no industries,” and still today opposes the rise of other nations while poisoning our own development. These are America’s age-old enemies, he stated, who now would stop the rise of Russia, China and the Global Majority.
Carl Osgood, an EIR analyst and military historian, presented the history and development of the 1958 Military Defense Agreement (MDA) between the U.S. and the U.K., which Biden and Prime Minister Starmer are now attempting to amend so that it does not need to be renewed every ten years. Osgood warned that this would prevent any future President or political movement from changing it—known as “Trump-proofing” by some in British intelligence—but more accurately described as “nation-state proofing,” putting everything under supranational control.
The discussion period included various ideas on how the UN General Assembly, which begins its 2024 debate session next week, can intervene on the nuclear war danger and on the genocide in Palestine. One participant said that we must address emotion, since many people do not respond to reason, and warned that social unrest leads to war. Zepp-LaRouche countered that there is “no contradiction between reason and emotion,” and that Friedrich Schiller showed that the emotions can be elevated to the level of reason. She also noted that wars are created by the oligarchy, not by tensions in the population, who are driven to fight wars usually against their own best intentions.
Zepp-LaRouche thanked all the speakers, “especially Ted Postol,” adding that if Germany survives, it would have a great impact on the global crisis, and that Postol’s intervention, with reason and emotion, would deserve significant credit for that.
