Webcast Dialogue with Schiller Institute Founder and Chairwoman [Helga Zepp-LaRouche]( https://youtu.be/98HCkS4LQT4)
Wednesday, October 16, 2024
HARLEY SCHLANGER: Hello and welcome to our weekly dialogue with Helga Zepp-LaRouche, the founder and chairwoman of the Schiller Institute. Today is Wednesday, October 16, 2024. I’m Harley Schlanger and I’ll be your host today. You can send your questions and comments via email to questions@schillerinstitute.org or post them to the chat page.
Today we’re going to be discussing the BRICS summit that’s taking place in less than a week, in the midst of turbulence throughout the world, and I’m going to begin with the turbulence. Two major crisis spots, in Ukraine and in Southwest Asia, which threaten to escalate to World War III, in addition to the continuing, brutal civil war in Sudan, and dangerous provocations against China.
So, let’s start with Ukraine: With all the bluster against Putin over his alleged threats to use nuclear weapons, there’s been little mention of the NATO nuclear war-games Steadfast Noon, which began yesterday: This includes exercises in NATO countries, to simulate the deployment and use of nuclear weapons. Helga, what are your thoughts about this, and why is this significant?
HELGA ZEPP-LAROUCHE: NATO, I think SHAPE headquarters, claimed that this is just an annual routine maneuver, but the spokesman for the Kremlin Dmitry Peskov, in my view absolutely correctly, said that the timing of this is inappropriate and horrible, because with a hot war going on in Ukraine, the fact that as of Oct. 14 there will be, for 15 days, maneuvers involving, I think altogether 2,000 personnel, 13 countries, and eight major U.S. bases where they are flying around fighter jets and all kinds of support planes, refueling, and all kinds of other things involved, means that—while they claim that there are no actually live ammunition, meaning tactical nuclear bombs onboard, but obviously, this is a question that nobody knows. And for a maneuver, employing tactical nuclear weapons going on in the North Sea, going on over several NATO countries, while you have a situation where, already because of the Ukraine situation nerves are pretty raw, I would say, this is just completely reckless, it’s not necessary, unless you really want to provoke the situation. And really portray an image of Schrecklichkeit [pure horror]. I mean, the Russians cannot know if these planes are actually carrying live ammunition or not. It is extremely easy to go from an ongoing maneuver, immediately over into an actual war deployment, and that’s what the Russians have to assume that that option exists.
So the minimum one can say is that this whole maneuver going on for 15 days, which started on Oct. 14, will go until the end of October, just a few days before the U.S. election. If people think about it something can go wrong, and this is, even if an non-accidental war would happen, it could lead to the extinction of civilization, because of the implications. There is a book out by Annie Jacobsen, Nuclear War: A Scenario—it just came out in German and also in French; and the original English in March. I have not yet read the book, but I have reports of it. What she apparently describes is that in the warning time, if anything goes wrong is I think she talks about 72 minutes—that even sounds like a lot of time, given the fact that launch-on-warning leaves far fewer minutes. And what she describes, according to reports I have from people who have read the book, is that once the sign is given that the war is on, the thinking time is zero. Because the things that have to be done by any President or the leader of a government are so hasty that there is absolutely no time to think about it, or change something. Everything goes into an automatic routine.
Which means we are sitting on an absolute powder keg, on two fronts: One is the Ukraine situation, where the situation clearly is not going in the direction of what Zelenskyy tried to elicit on his recent tour through European capitals, but it goes more in the direction that Russia is making steady—in other words, he was trying to convince European leaders about his so-called “Victory Plan.” There is no victory in sight in Ukraine. Russia is making steady, vast territorial progress. Several experts basically think the war is going to be over before the end of the year, and that then brings about the absolute “to be or not to be” question, will NATO finally agree to a negotiation with Russia, that Russia can accept: a diplomatic solution. Or will there be an escalation, which then could go into a big war? That is situation in Ukraine.
And then you have the unbelievably dangerous situation in Southwest Asia, which also could go nuclear.
So in the context of these two actual hot situations, to have this NATO maneuver is reckless, it’s irresponsible. And I think that makes all the more important the fact that the Japanese organization, Nihon Hidankyo, which has been fighting against the danger of nuclear war for a long time, was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize this year. And also that the Chinese government is promoting, very offensively, the idea of a new security and development architecture, pretty much in line with what the Schiller Institute has been demanding since more than two years.
So I really think we are heading toward a point of decision. And I can only urge you, our viewers, join the Schiller Institute and our efforts to really put a completely different agenda, a new paradigm, on the international discussion table, because we are in absolute danger of losing everything that is humanity.
SCHLANGER: Helga on the point you were just making about the potential for a Russian breakthrough in the war in Ukraine, several people wrote in regarding reports in the mainstream media, of deep anxiety afflicting supporters of Ukraine in the war against Russia, and in Europe generally over the coming U.S. election. People are asking questions, “what would happen if Trump wins?” “will the U.S. abandon Ukraine?” “Will European nations have to cover the difference in costs?” And so the question posed is, “Is there a war weariness affecting European governments and the general population?”
ZEPP-LAROUCHE: Well, I think so. I think the war weariness is first of all in Ukraine itself. There are many reports that the number of deserters has increased dramatically this year, and with a perspective where the people fighting on the ground, they don’t need to read the newspaper to know what their situation is, because they’re in the middle of it. But there seems to be a very widespread demoralization, you know, because Ukraine is victimized! This idea that you have to keep fighting when it’s clear there is no victory possible. I think one retired officer made the comparison that it’s as impossible for Ukraine to win against Russia, as it would be for Mexico to win against the United States. And nevertheless, there are these reckless military and political leaders who demand that the fight should go on until Russia is defeated, when that is an objective impossibility. And the only victims are, really, the Ukrainian people, many of whom are being slaughtered, their country is going under in war destruction.
And the other major, major victim of this, naturally, is Europe. Europe is falling apart. And I think that the danger that Europe—it does not really make a big difference who wins the U.S. election in my view, because, OK, Trump has promised he would end the Ukraine war in 24 hours. And maybe he would; I think he probably would. But nobody is then asking, what is the policy of Trump in the Middle East, about which he is saying things which are absolutely unbelievable for a potential President of the United States to say.
So I think we need something completely—I’m not putting my eggs in the basket of either of these two candidates, because I think neither of them has said anything which would really give me confidence that they are thinking in the right direction, which has to be a new paradigm: Stopping geopolitics. Get out of the Wolfowitz doctrine, which is still lingering in the background, that the United States should remain the dominant power in the world forever, that no combination of countries should be allowed to surpass the United States economically, politically, or in any other way. And as long as that is the underlying feature of the Pentagon, of the military-industrial complex, well, I really think we are out of this crisis, until a large part of the population of the United States and Europe assert their desire to keep peace! And that means, cooperation instead of confrontation.
So I think that that is what one can say about this situation.
SCHLANGER: Now, last week, we spoke about the presentation given at the International Peace Coalition on Friday, Oct. 11 by Scott Ritter, warning of the potential for an Iranian nuclear strike on Israel. Now, we had a question: “Is the recent announcement of the U.S. missile defense system and troops sent to Israel a sign of an expected nuclear strike by Iran?” and “Does it show that the U.S. is fully committed to defending Israel?”
ZEPP-LAROUCHE: I think we are seeing a tragedy without parallel. What is happening very clearly is that this ridiculous letter which has been written by Blinken and Secretary of Defense Austin, to Israel, that they should, within 30 days, improve the humanitarian situation in Gaza, I mean, that is the biggest joke—I mean, it’s not a joke, it’s a horror story! Right now, the Israelis have given an ultimatum to anywhere between 300-400,000 Palestinians in Gaza to evacuate, or else they will be treated as terrorists, which means they can be shot and starved, or whatever. And a similar thing is happening in respect to Lebanon, where one-quarter of the country is already under IDF control. And this goes along with unbelievable consequences: The murdering of people is happening before the world’s eyes, and for the Palestinians, it is an absolute tragedy; for the people in Lebanon, it is equally a tragedy, because Lebanon is step by step being turned into a new Gaza situation.
So it is horrible for all the people involved. Many of them are losing their lives. But I think it is even much, much more beyond that, a tragedy of all of humanity, because the fact that the world public knows about it, and then sees the behavior of certain U.S. and European leaders who in a shameless way turn the truth around. And always, when they report about it in the media, they always say it was a Lebanese attack on Israel, which forced Israel into self-defense, in a complete misconstruction of the facts, and the sequence and chronology.
That is being observed by the whole world, by the Islamic world, by the Global Majority, and I think that one additional affect of all of that will be that the moral loss of image, the stain on the consciousness of the people in the West who are condoning this, I don’t think this will go away. I cannot imagine how the world will ever go back into any kind of pre-war situation, because this condoning is what will be judged by history and by the world public. So, I can only say: We have to move the whole world into a new paradigm because I don’t think that any one of these crises, either Ukraine or Southwest Asia can just be solved by the forces in the region, because the trans-Atlantic world is clearly reacting to the rise of China and multipolar world. And one has to overcome this geopolitical thinking, or else I don’t think there will be a way out.
SCHLANGER: One astute observer picked up on the question of giving Israel 30 days to comply with humanitarian aid, and wrote that to him, “this is support for slow-motion genocide.” And he asks: “What can be don to force a response from Western governments? Is there anything that can be done?” And here, it might be worthwhile to mention that the International Peace Coalition will be having the Zoom call as usual this Friday, Oct. 18, at 11 a.m. ET (5 p.m. CET).
ZEPP-LAROUCHE: Yes. As I said, I think it is very obvious that there is only one power in the world which could stop this, and that is the United States. And the United States would, indeed, assert their power in terms of weapons deliveries, in terms of financial support. It could be stopped immediately—maybe not so easily—but it could be stopped.
So the fact that there is a place where you could put the lever on, means that the people of the United States must speak out more clearly, and assert pressure from within the United States. But also, I think the countries of the Global South, who are the vast majority of the human population—and I think they are getting more active all the time—they have to step forward. Because we have an incredible crisis: The UN, in its present form does not function. The UN Security Council is blocked all the time by the veto of one of the permanent members of the UN Security Council, which means de facto, when this conflict involves one of them, namely the United States (and naturally, in the shadows, Great Britain), then there is no solution.
So there is a real crisis of humanity. And I think people had better wake up to the fact and realize that we have to create maybe a new institution. The BRICS is emerging as quite an important counterweight to all of this. They will have their summit in about a week, Oct. 22-24, and I think that that is hopefully going to be one of the places where some real alternative is going to be proposed. But I think nothing prevents the people from Western Europe—or Europe and the United States, from taking responsibility to really mobilize and assert pressure on their governments to stop this.
SCHLANGER: We have a question from Magna H., from Norway, I believe, who asks: “Why is it that Western elites are so unable to recognize their defeat in the confrontation with the rest of the world, and their neocolonialist agenda?”
ZEPP-LAROUCHE: Well: I have asked myself that question many times. Because it is so obvious that all of their policies have failed! If you look at the idea, what happened after the end of the Cold War, where disregarding the warnings of Pope John Paul II, who said the West should not conclude from the disintegration of the Soviet Union that they have “won.” Because they have not won. And he talked about the [“structures of sin,” in both East and West,]( https://www.vatican.va/content/john-paul-ii/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_jp-ii_enc_01051991_centesimus-annus.html#-2D) and he said, look at the condition of the developing countries, to see that the West also has structures of sin.
