HELGA ZEPP-LAROUCHE EMERGENCY WEBCAST

On the Danger of Nuclear War: If No Voices Speak Out, It May Soon Be Too Late!

The video of this emergency webcast is available here.

Harley Schlanger: Hello. I’m Harley Schlanger, we are gathered here today on December 15, 2022, for a discussion with Helga Zepp-LaRouche. It will be a special, abbreviated, webcast. Helga’s extremely busy now. If you didn’t know, she was just the recipient of the “Freedom of Expression” award by the Mexican Journalists’ Club. She’s extremely busy with a series of initiatives, one of which is an event this Saturday, December 17, titled “Peace On Earth, Or Humanity’s Doom? The Case for Negotiations.” The event will be livestreamed on the Schiller Institute website. I’m sure we’ll talk about that in this discussion.

Helga, there’s so much going on, but what’s clear is the continued push for war coming from the West. This includes the charge that Russian President Vladimir Putin is preparing for nuclear war, when in fact it’s the United States which has announced a first-strike doctrine. Why don’t we start with that?

One Step Away from Nuclear Catastrophe

Helga Zepp-LaRouche: I want the audience, that is, you, to really wake up, because we are in a situation where we are literally one step away from a nuclear catastrophe. The reason why I’m saying that is because the escalation going on between NATO and Russia, is happening in ways most people have no inkling of! What happened recently is that, quite unnoticed by the general public, the Biden administration reversed a longstanding policy of no first use of nuclear weapons; and basically, according to various reliable sources, has left open the opportunity or the option to use nuclear weapons also against a conventional attack, or even, under certain circumstances, as a first strike.

This has to be seen in the context of Ukrainian incursions deep into the territory of Russia, 500 km, and a general escalation of the situation. This led to a response from Putin, who on Dec. 9, at a press conference in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, announced that this change in the U.S. nuclear posture is having the effect on Russia such that they are also reviewing their nuclear doctrine, heretofore of only using nuclear weapons in the case that the territory and the state of Russia is under existential threat, and it has been only retaliatory, and that they are now reviewing this with the idea of learning from the U.S. in terms of preserving their own interest only.

That remark, to my knowledge, has not been reported in any way according to the seriousness of the situation, namely, that if you have two nuclear powers, each having some 6,000 nuclear warheads—1,588 on the Russian side are basically combat ready, launch on warning at any minute, and you can assume a similar number on the Western side—that means we are in an extremely alarming situation, and there has been no coverage about it! To the contrary, the media are all lying—and one cannot call it in any other way—that Putin, again, threatened to use tactical nuclear weapons in Ukraine. He has said just the opposite: He said, that if it comes to that, then the full arsenal will be used. At no point, neither Putin, nor any other Russian official ever said [that Russia would] use tactical nuclear weapons in Ukraine.

What scares me about this—and I think everybody should be scared—is the fact that you have such a clear escalation and nobody of any standing is commenting about it. You have some people, like Col. Richard Black (ret.), the former State Senator from Virginia, who is outspoken. Then people like Paul Craig Roberts, Richard Falk, and several more, have put out absolutely alarmed statements, but they’re not being noticed! They are basically not in the mainstream media, and therefore, the general public do not know about this escalation.

Pope Francis Offers Vatican for Peace Negotiations

This is why the Schiller Institute has issued another call, this time to pick up on the offer of Pope Francis, which he made a little while ago, and was reiterated by the Vatican Secretary of State, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, to offer the venue of the Vatican as a place for negotiations without preconditions. This is very important. There was also a conference [“Europe and War: From the Spirit of Helsinki to Prospect of Peace,” which was reported in the Vatican News two days ago, where Cardinal Parolin said that we have to return to the spirit of the 1975 Helsinki Declaration, inviting people, because of the danger of nuclear disaster, to urgently return to diplomacy.

This offer must be taken up, given that the Pope is the head of the Catholic Church, which has more than one billion members internationally, and that he is respected by non-Catholic Christians, and other religious leaders; [this offer provides] a place, a person, an institution, which can provide a framework to step back from this extremely suicidal and dangerous escalation.

I have issued a very short statement, and I urge you to circulate it as far as you can, through your contact lists, social media, and any way you can. Ask people to join this mobilization. If many forces around the world were brought together in supporting that, I think we could have an impact on the environment. The Pope has made very clear that he is equally open to Russia and to Ukraine.

Pope Francis took the extraordinary step to apologize for a derogatory statement he had made last week about certain ethnic groups in Russia, saying they were especially cruel. He apologized. Now, I find this very, very important that the Pope apologizes for something that he recognized as having been wrong. And this was immediately praised by the Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova, who said, speaking for Russia, “the incident is over.”

Now, that is the spirit of the Peace of Westphalia, or Helsinki, if you want, because you have to draw a line, and say “this is over.” Otherwise, if you continuously escalate, then you end up in a certain catastrophe.

So, I really urge you: Join this campaign, circulate this statement, and ask people to send messages of support to the Vatican, discuss it in the churches and other institutions where you are, and let’s have a general mobilization to support this.

Schlanger: The Schiller Institute is hosting a symposium, “Peace on Earth, or Humanity’s Doom: The Case for Negotiations,” coming up on Saturday. People should organize the widest possible audience for that.

Now, Helga, you mentioned there’s been no one of substance, in general, that’s been talking about this escalation of the nuclear threat. What we have from Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin is about Putin’s “saber-rattling,” without even saying what Putin actually said!

But this is occurring in the aftermath of the Dec. 7 revelation from former German Chancellor Angela Merkel, saying that there was no intention to follow through with the Minsk Accords. Rather, the intent was to buy time for Ukraine. This has created, as Putin said in his Dec. 9 Bishkek press conference, an environment with “zero trust.” That’s part of the danger, isn’t it?

Minsk Accords Only a Charade

Zepp-LaRouche: I must say that the fact that Merkel said that is incredibly revealing. While she was in office, I remember that many people would always ask me, “So what is Merkel really up to? What is her intention?” And you never could answer that with any clarity because she played her cards close to the chest. But now, she’s admitted that this was a charade. With that, she confirmed what former President of Ukraine, Petro Poroshenko, had just said a short time earlier, that the entire Minsk negotiations—or, non-negotiations—were just an effort to gain time for the rearmament of Ukraine.

Now, I don’t know if that’s really what Merkel thought in 2014, or if she’s just saying it now to please the Washington government, or whoever, that she never tried to trust Russia and she only did that to deceive them. Whatever her motives are, the damage is colossal, because who can trust anybody in the West now if they say something? Pompeo had said clearly, that the CIA had trained people to lie, to cheat, and to steal, so that was a known fact. But even President Putin said that he was deeply disappointed in Merkel and in Germany, that he did not expect that.

This is now a complete Trümmerfeld, a rubble field. The statements by German Chancellor Scholz, which are really continuously becoming worse, and the fact that the U.S. is now threatening to send Patriot missiles to Ukraine, and Ukrainian soldiers are to be trained for these Patriot missiles in Grafenwöhr in Germany, makes Germany even one step more a partner in the war. This has to be opposed! And where is the peace movement? Where are people saying that they do not want to be annihilated in a third World War? I think there is a terrible complacency, and even the idea that people are afraid to say something, is not a good reason. This is the existence of the entire human species which is at stake. So, I can only repeat my call: Join our mobilization before it is too late.

Schlanger: From some of the pro-war think tanks, there is a term going around, “premature negotiations”—that there shouldn’t be negotiations because Russia would just use it to buy time, which is what the West itself did, but these forces attribute it to Russia. But also, from the Baltic States, the comment came out that Macron and Scholz, by even referencing the possibility of negotiations, are going soft.

Now, in this context, Helga, you laid out ten fundamental principles that would be the basis for actually establishing peace. I’m sure this will be part of the discussion at the Saturday event. This is actually the quality of discussion that’s required now, isn’t it?

Zepp-LaRouche: Yes, basically because all trust and confidence have been completely shattered. The only way the situation can be remedied is by putting forward a viable proposal for a New International Security and Development Architecture, which has to be based on principles which are agreeable to every nation on the planet, and where people recognize an honesty and a sincerity of all people who are negotiating a peace. These Ten Principles are being discussed widely, internationally. And I again would ask you to circulate them—and respond: Write something on it, get a mobilization going. We need to return to principles, which are convincing to the forces that can be brought together, that we, as a human species, can be self-governing, and that we are not doomed to destroy ourselves.

Dec. 17 Symposium for Peace Negotiations

Schlanger: Helga, just to conclude, this event will be this Saturday, Dec. 17, at 11 a.m. Eastern Time. The speakers will include Col. Richard Black (ret.); Ray McGovern, one of the co-founders of the Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS); you’ll be speaking; and so will Diane Sare, the candidate for U.S. Senate from New York who ran against Majority Leader Chuck Schumer. By the way, Diane has announced a new campaign, against Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand in 2024, so she is still a candidate for U.S. Senate. And I’ll be participating.

Is there anything more you want to say about this conference? What you’ve just laid out makes it so clear that if we’re going to expect more people to speak out, it’s going to have to come from pressure from the bottom, from the population.

Zepp-LaRouche: It remains what we discussed many times: If there are no voices speaking in a reasonable way to maintain the chances for human existence, it’s a foregone conclusion that sooner or later it will be too late! Right now, we are one step away from annihilation. Paul Craig Roberts said, “one step away from Armageddon,” and that is exactly what the situation is.

So, join us on Saturday and try to really awaken your neighbors, your friends, your colleagues, because if we don’t succeed in doing that, it may be too late, one day very soon.

Schlanger: OK, Helga. Thanks for joining us today, and I’ll see you on Saturday.

Zepp-LaRouche: ’til Saturday.