Stop the War, a British organization formed after 9/11 to organize against the war in Afghanistan, is now organizing internationally to stop the war against Russia. A forum today included former Labour Party leaders Jeremy Corbin and Andrew Murray, Kent University Russia expert Prof. RIchard Sakwa, and three foreign speakers: Code Pink’s Medea Benjamin from the U.S., Die Linke’s Christine Buchholz from Germany, and the Ukrainian representative of the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom.
The speakers attacked Labour Party leader Sir Keir Starmer for marching in lockstep with Boris Johnson for war on Russia. They emphasized that Stop the War had opposed every war since 9/11, were ridiculed every time, but were proven right in every case—and would be correct even more so if the war party were crazy enough to go to war with Russia.
EIR sent in a question: “Will Stop the War endorse the powerful joint statement by Presidents Xi Jinping and Putin calling for a new security architecture and the right for development for all nations?” The question wasn’t read, but when Prof. Sakwa came on, he began (in paraphrase): “The first thing I want to address is the Putin-Xi Joint Statement of Feb. 4, one of the most important statements of our time. With the deep conflict between the West and Russia, perhaps a military conflict, the presidents called for global sustainable development. I have been calling on the two nations to issue a positive program for the world, and they have. This is as important as the Bandung conference statement of 1955 [Sakwa had likely read the Patrick Lawrence article from Wednesday which also made this point—see accompanying report in this briefing]. The principles contained in the UN Charter have been usurped by the so-called `rules based order’ replacing international law in favor of the demands of a few, undermining the sovereignty of all nations. NATO is an archaic institution which should be abolished.”
He called for a Helsinki 2.
