International Peace Coalition

The War Drive Is Faster than the Peace Drive—We Must Act

by EIR staff

[Print version of this article]

Oct. 4—Helga Zepp-LaRouche, the initiator of the International Peace Coalition (IPC), opened the 70th consecutive weekly meeting today saying that the rallies and actions for peace around the world were “laudable, but the events for war are cascading faster.” The escalating genocide against Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank has now spread to Lebanon, while Iran’s missile retaliation against Israel may lead to even greater efforts to drag Iran into full-scale war, perhaps nuclear war.

The danger in Ukraine also escalates, as the British and some in the U.S. demand lifting any ban on Ukraine’s use of NATO’s long-range precision missiles to strike Russian cities, already declared by Russian President Vladimir Putin to be an act of war by NATO against Russia, which will get an appropriate response. She pointed to the book, The Killing of Gaza, by Israeli journalist Gideon Levy, which shows that Israel has lost its humanity, and much of the world is following suit. The root of the problem is the neoliberal system, now collapsing, as the Global South and the BRICS countries are moving ahead. She called on everyone to watch and circulate the Oct. 2 Schiller Institute emergency conference, “Another Step Closer to Nuclear Armageddon—Germany Needs a New Security Architecture.” The large anti-war demonstration in Berlin on Oct. 3 was useful, but inadequate to force the government to change its policies.

Jose Vega, the LaRouche independent candidate for Congress in New York (CD-15), introduced and showed the video of his Oct 1 intervention on New York Times columnist Paul Krugman, which has had more than 35 million views so far. He reported on Krugman’s response, in the form of a quick-turnaround op-ed in The New York Times, trying to blame Trump and lying about the content of the intervention. There must be a massive increase in such interventions against the people responsible for this global disaster, Vega said, and the time is short.

Col. (ret.) Richard Black, who served as a Marine Corps helicopter pilot during the Vietnam War, and later as head of the Pentagon’s Criminal Law Division, noted that Vega’s intervention was truly news-worthy, but has been blacked out, as have the actual military developments in Ukraine, where a major city held by the Ukraine army has fallen to Russian forces, as the Ukraine front line is crumbling. He also addressed the Israeli missile attack on an arms depot in Syria, not far from the Russian air bases which have defended the Syrian government from the U.S.-funded and armed terrorist organizations in Syria. He noted that the attack on Lebanon is not the first, but the fourth Israeli invasion of that country, and is part of Israel’s “Eretz Israel” effort to eliminate the Palestinians and other Arabs. It is no surprise that the Ukraine press is cheerful about the attack near the Russian bases, caring nothing about the danger of nuclear war.

Jonathan Kuttab, an international human rights attorney and the co-founder of Non-Violence International, said that the reason there was no nuclear war over the past 75 years is that there was a “precarious but functioning” policy of the principle of international law, which is now being destroyed. This includes belief in the inviolability of national territory; the avoidance of civilian casualties in conflicts; avoidance of destruction of health facilities; the ban on the use of hunger as a weapon—these are all being violated with impunity by Israel. International law is being ignored. Saving the human race at this point will require an international movement.

Sara Madueño, of the Schiller Institute in Peru, described the conference held in Lima on Oct. 3, co-sponsored by the Embassy of Russia (as current head of the BRICS), the Schiller Institute–Peru and San Marcos University (the oldest university in the Americas). With the world at the gates of Hell, she said, this conference was a “ray of optimism” from the Global South. Speakers included Helga Zepp-LaRouche; ambassadors from Russia, China, Brazil, India, Egypt and South Africa; experts from the BRICS nations; and others. One Russian expert spoke from the “BRICS International School” underway in Moscow, addressing the youth at the conference (about half of the 500 in attendance in person were students), encouraging enthusiasm for creating a future for mankind. Madueño said that in his closing speech to the conference, EIR’s Luis Vásquez had recalled Henry Kissinger’s famous slur that “history is not made in the South,” and emphasized that this is being disproven by this historic event. She closed saying that General Laura Richardson, commander of the U.S. Southern Command, was certainly “burning” upon hearing about this event.

Imam Mohammad Ali Elahi the spiritual leader of the Islamic House of Wisdom in Dearborn Heights, Michigan, one of the largest religious institutions in the state, said that he had just returned from New York where he had met with the new President of Iran Masoud Pezeshkian in an interfaith meeting. The escalating bombing of Beirut, Yemen, Syria and continued bombing in Gaza, reminded him, he said, of the famous quote by Martin Niemöller: “First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a socialist. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a trade unionist. Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—because I was not a Jew. Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.”

He said the Western leaders have spoken often of their desire for an “immediate ceasefire in Gaza” but have continued sending arms for more killing. The Israelis bombed schools, hospitals, refugee camps and more in Gaza, and no one has moved to stop it, so it should be no surprise that they are doing the same in Lebanon; that two million people have been displaced and hundreds have been killed. Is this “civilization,” he asked, or “moral suicide”? Is Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin ‘Bibi’ Netanyahu’s holocaust making Israel safer? It is a delusion. Can anyone respect “American values” when they support this genocide? As to Iran instigating problems for Israel in Gaza, he said that Palestinians certainly don’t need Iran to tell them what it means to live under occupation and apartheid.

Diane Sare, LaRouche independent candidate for U.S. Senate in New York, noted that the American population does not support the arming of Israel and Ukraine, but politicians are not representing their constituents. What is needed now is a shock—which we are organizing through a special event on Oct. 26 in a large, beautiful concert hall in Manhattan, with leading speakers and classical music, a chorus, a string quartet, a brass quintet and more. This is aimed at awakening in people what Zepp-LaRouche calls her “Tenth Principle”: that Man is essentially good. Every baby killed in Gaza could have become a great scientist or musician, a great contributor to the common good. We are not a protest movement. We must win, and beauty is one of our most important weapons.

In the discussion period there were reports of rallies for peace in Germany, Sweden, and Spain. Zepp-LaRouche responded to a question on how to keep the peace after the war is ended. She proposed a new principle, regarding the “enemies of peace,” a category for people like former UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who famously flew into Kiev after the Ukrainians and the Russians had reached an agreement that would have ended the war just weeks after it started, with Johnson ordering Kiev to keep fighting. How to implement this new category will have to be determined.

In closing, Zepp-LaRouche thanked Jonathan Kuttab and Imam Elahi, in particular, whose passionate descriptions were horrifying but needed, calling on them not to lose heart. “We have not exhausted possibilities,” she said, pointing to the optimism of the Global South expressed in the Peruvian BRICS conference.