The 104th consecutive online meeting of the International Peace Coalition (IPC) marked the second anniversary of its founding, and followed on the heels of the highly successful Schiller Institute conference that took place in Newark, NJ over Memorial Day weekend. Helga Zepp-LaRouche, founder of the Schiller Institute, began the IPC meeting by commenting on the strategic situation, saying that tensions around the Ukraine war have increased sharply in the last week, but that “all is not lost,” despite the fact that “Trump used very undiplomatic language” with respect to Russian President Vladimir Putin. President Trump, amazingly, when asked by the press about an apparent attempt at a drone attack by Ukraine on Putin’s helicopter, said he had not been briefed.
Zepp-LaRouche expressed guarded optimism about the next round of Ukraine-Russia talks, to be held June 2 in Istanbul. She warned of the danger of German Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s intention to provide Taurus missiles to Ukraine. A respected military expert on the Russian news program “60 Minutes” recently mooted the possibility of using Oreshnik hypersonic missiles to obliterate the plant in Schrobenhausen, Germany, where the Taurus is manufactured. Merz’s policy, she said, reminds the world of what Germany did 80 years ago when they attacked the Soviet Union, and Russian official comments have stopped just “a tiny millimeter away” from saying that Germany had reverted to Nazism. She urged the participants to watch her dialogue with Professor Ted Postol from earlier in the week, and commented on the “marked shift” in the Western rhetoric recognizing the genocide in Gaza—recognition which is still “too little, too late,” because the killing continues unabated.
'Collective Insanity’ in Europe
Graham Fuller, a former U.S. diplomat, CIA official, and Islamic scholar, said that the leadership in Europe appears to be suffering from “collective insanity,” and that Europe must come to terms with their important neighbor, Russia.
Fuller commented on an article in the American Conservative, which pointed out the language Trump used last week in Saudi Arabia, when he said that it is not his job to look into the hearts and minds of world leaders, but rather, that’s God’s job. Fuller suggested that this may mean that Trump is “moving away from the classic neoconservative view” which, like Leon Trotsky, calls for “world revolution.” Trump rejects this approach; Trump’s worldview is not ideological, it is “fundamentally economic,” according to Fuller. “Trump’s vision is a transactional one,” he said, adding that he would sum it up as “make business, not war.”
Fuller said that he disagrees with his esteemed colleague John Mearsheimer, who believes that the U.S. and China are destined to clash because of their size. He reminded the participants of the Turkish policy of “zero enemies,” advocated by former Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu. Trump, Fuller said, realizes that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s policies are turning Israel into a pariah state, and the continuing support of those policies by the U.S. can be “extremely costly on the diplomatic front.” The U.S. is being left out of the dramatic developments around the BRICS, etc., and Trump intuitively recognizes this. Trump is willing to talk to the “main countries that matter,” unlike his immediate predecessors.
Although Fuller disagrees with Trump on immigration and student affairs, including “his war on Harvard,” he is heartened by the possibility that Trump may be distancing himself from the neocon outlook, although later, during the discussion period, he emphasized that it is too early to conclude that this is the case. He wrapped up his comments by reminding participants of the famous quote from President John Quincy Adams: “America … goes not abroad, in search of monsters to destroy.”
Flirting with Human Extinction
What followed was a five-minute video clip from Zepp-LaRouche’s May 28 webcast discussion with Dr. Theodore Postol, who is professor emeritus of Science, Technology and National Security at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Postol asserted, “We are dealing with hallucinating leadership in the West,” who are flirting with the thermonuclear extinction of humanity. Fortunately, “Putin is a man who will not allow himself to be provoked.… If somebody kills him, God help us.” Zepp-LaRouche responded by saying that “you would think that every sane person would be happy” that Trump and Putin are trying to normalize relations. After the U.S. losing all the wars from Vietnam to the present, you would also think that the policy would be reevaluated, but there is no sign of such reflection.
IPC co-moderator Dennis Small observed that talk of assassinations is in no way idle. The drone attacks against Russia appear to have targeted Putin’s helicopter, while in the U.S., we have Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard’s identification of the death threat by former FBI chief James Comey against Trump.
LaRouche Organization activist Daniel Burke presented a report from the just-concluded Schiller Institute conference. Attendees saw previously unseen videos of Lyndon LaRouche speaking to younger people on the meaning of immortality, defined as participation in a mission that lives on after you die, to bring human activity into coherence with natural law. There was significant youth attendance, both at the conference and online. Burke was moderator of the youth panel, which he encouraged participants to watch.
Jose Vega, a candidate for the U.S. House of Representatives in New York’s 15th Congressional District, described the testimony of Dr. Feroze Sidhwa at the UN Security Council, about the ongoing genocide in Gaza, which got significant coverage in independent media as well as some mainstream media.
Discussion
A journalist commented that over time, the perception that Netanyahu was fighting the war in Gaza for security purposes has changed, after his obvious sabotage of efforts to free hostages. The war has been hijacked by the extreme right wing in Israel’s government, who want ethnic cleansing. Netanyahu wants to prolong the war to prevent the formation of an investigative committee that will examine his role in allowing the October 7, 2023 attacks to take place.
A Washington, D.C. activist described a campaign to ask Pope Leo XIV to go to Gaza. In response, Schiller Institute leader Tim Rush reported on a campaign to circulate the open letter to the Pope which was reported at the IPC meeting two weeks ago, and has now been signed by roughly 600 individuals. It has been translated into half a dozen languages.
IPC co-moderator Anastasia Battle reported that a new Freedom Flotilla has just set sail for Gaza, with food and medicine for the Palestinians who are being starved to death.
Nuclear-weapons expert Steve Starr, a frequent IPC panelist, submitted a note commenting on a report by RT that Ukraine would have needed U.S. help to target Putin’s helicopter, providing the drones and real-time intelligence for the attack. If that is the case, Starr asked, did elements in the Pentagon authorize this, going behind Trump’s back? Fuller expressed his hope that we have not yet reached that level of insanity. Zepp-LaRouche urged that a full investigation be conducted into the incident, and that it is not productive to speculate until such an investigation is done. We don’t yet know whether this was an assassination attempt, or simply a large-scale drone attack on the area where the helicopter was operating.
In response to a question from Germany, Zepp-LaRouche urged everyone to read the EIR Daily Alert, which was enthusiastically seconded by Fuller.
In his closing remarks, Fuller delivered another strong endorsement of the EIR Daily Alert, noting that his own experience in intelligence over decades allows him to confirm that it is of exceptional quality, and should be widely read.
Zepp-LaRouche agreed with Fuller on John Quincy Adams’s “wonderful speech.” She said, look back to every Renaissance where the Dark Ages were overcome; what got us out of the one in Europe was the humanist movement of Cusa, Dante and Petrarch, and the Council of Florence which revived Plato. That’s what we need to do now, and we will have “the most beautiful renaissance, which we can’t even imagine yet.”
