Jan. 10—Today’s 84th weekly meeting of the International Peace Coalition (IPC) was again a powerful expression of leaders from around the world joining forces to bring peace to a world on the brink of global war. Helga Zepp-LaRouche, founder of the Schiller Institute, opened by noting the suspense in the air as the world awaits the Jan. 20 inauguration of Donald Trump as United States President, with no certainty about what direction his administration will take. The outgoing Biden Administration continues to push for war policies, with Defense Secretary Gen. (ret.) Lloyd Austin again lying that if Ukraine is lost, the Russians (and other “autocrats”) will make other “land grabs.” The horror in Palestine continues and is expanding to the West Bank, which even the Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz admits is genocidal and can be called a “pogrom.”

Zepp-LaRouche named several people that Kash Patel (Trump’s pick to be FBI chief) listed in his book as targets for investigation in any effort to clean out the “Deep State.” To stop the wars, she said, we must stop their cause, the disintegration of the Western financial system, and do this in cooperation with the BRICS, to “help make humanity human again.”

Retired Swiss Lt. Col. Ralph Bosshard said Trump is entering office in a “difficult atmosphere” not of his making. He said the 2003 deal with Iran to stop its nuclear weapons program (which did not exist, as everyone knew) was agreed to by Tehran because it knew that otherwise they would be attacked. Now we have Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, committing genocide and threatening war on Iran, being cheered in the U.S. Congress and the Biden Administration. To prevent a global war with Russia, Russian interests must be addressed. Europe is collapsing in part because Biden used the weakness of German Chancellor Olaf Scholz to blow up the Nord Stream pipeline, undermining all of Europe’s energy security. Trump must address the de-dollarization and determine which other policies must be addressed first. Time is short, for he will soon not be able to blame Biden for the crises. The first few months will tell.

‘Liberal Democracy’ Has Failed

Dr. Glenn Diesen, a political scientist in Norway, said he was optimistic that Trump will act to resolve the crisis with Russia, but that the “liberal democracy” paradigm has failed. The “international aristocracy” has constructed a “club of democracies,” but that unipolar policy requires hegemony, implementable only through force. As a result, now the so-called “democracies” are supporting genocide; they’ve overthrown the Assad government in Syria through force; they are supporting ISIS; and they’ve overturned the democratic election in Romania. They won’t acknowledge any security interests other than their own. They no longer believe in diplomacy. But multipolarity is not up for question, he said, it is reality. The unipolar world was based on many wars with weak countries, but were nonetheless a disaster for the West. Imagine what will happen in a war against a superpower. The economies and people of the West are exhausted. Governments are falling left and right. Trump acknowledges that NATO expansion was a mistake—its’s at least a step toward peace.

Dr. Mimi Syed of the Doctors Against Genocide spoke as a physician and a mother, describing the horror she witnessed during her trips to Gaza—“atrocities which should never be witnessed by anyone.” This is counter to the ideas upon which the United States was created, she said. She described several such horrors, including that of an 8-year-old boy in a “safe zone” whose face was blown off by a bomb, who was wearing a t-shirt with “Captain America” on it—an ugly irony. She said America was financing these war crimes, and we must rise together to demand a ceasefire and humanitarian aid for the Palestinians.

Dr. Joycelyn Elders, the former Surgeon General of the United States, addressed the meeting, praising the Schiller Institute and the IPC, and Helga Zepp-LaRouche in particular, for waging this fight. We are failing to prepare the next generation, she said, by allowing the destruction of children, who need health, education and hope. The horror which we all see is “making us all sick.” She pledged her support in any way she could to stop the genocide. “Everybody can do something,” she stated.

Helga Zepp-LaRouche noted that Dr. Elders had played a critical role during the COVID pandemic in working with her to create the Committee for the Coincidence of Opposites, based on the concept of Nicholas of Cusa of the 15th Century—the notion that if humanity is put first, then all apparent opposites can be brought together at a higher level than their differences. She also agreed with Lt. Col. Bosshard on Trump’s shortness of time to act, noting that the U.S. has now lost all credibility worldwide, and has lost the right to address human rights, as a “dying civilization.” The U.S. can and must return to its own best traditions. “Our own humanity is at issue” if we don’t stop the atrocities underway.

Dr. Rodolfo Ondarza, a Mexican neurosurgeon and a former Representative in the Mexico City Legislative Assembly, read an excerpt from a public letter he wrote in support of the Doctors Against Genocide, praising the morality and bravery of Dr. Hassan Abu Safiya and other Palestinian medical workers incarcerated by Israel. He demanded their freedom, and an end to the genocide.

Coalition Against Genocide

In the discussion period, people addressed the failure of the UN, the need for more exposure for the IPC, and the lack of adequate health systems around the world. The ongoing lobbying in the U.S. Congress by the Doctors Against Genocide, with help from Schiller Institute members and retired U.S. military officers, was discussed. Schiller Institute organizer Joe Jennings described the rally he and fellow activists held at the Texas Medical Center in Houston, the largest medical center in the world with fifty thousand health workers, with leaflets and signs to stop the genocide.

A discussion ensued of the Peace of Westphalia, which resolved the religious wars in Europe in 1648 based on respect for the “interests of the other,” but the Versailles Treaty after World War I, which ignored Germany’s interests, created the conditions for World War II. In the period since the Cold War ended, the interests of Russia and other former Soviet states have been ignored in favor of expanding NATO, leading to the current extreme danger of global nuclear war.

In the meeting’s closing statements, Lt. Col. Bosshard noted that he had been in Ukraine before the military operations began, and that it was clear that Russia would defend the Russian speaking population. For the Kiev government to declare the use of the Russian language illegal was insane. The belief in Western superiority has only encouraged Western leaders to “bark louder,” he said. The West must learn to respect other cultures.

Helga Zepp-LaRouche spoke about the outbreak of pandemics, noting that her late husband, Lyndon H. LaRouche, had created a taskforce in the 1970s on the foreseeable disastrous impact of the floating dollar policy begun in 1971. The “conditionalities” of the IMF in the 1980s followed, which conditionalities force nations to pay their debts even at the expense of the needs of their people. The task force demonstrated that lowering living standards in this way causes pandemics of old and new diseases and ultimately depopulation.