EIR Press Conference:
Shut Down the Ukrainian Hit List targeting Americans and International Voices of Opposition
September 7, 2022 [Partial transcript]
DENNIS SPEED: Hello, and welcome to today's press gathering hosted by the Executive Intelligence Review magazine. You can find out more about our magazine, which was founded back in 1974 by Lyndon LaRouche and has been published 50 issues a year for 48 years, by going to larouchepub.com.
Today's press availability is called "Shut Down the Ukrainian Hit List targeting Americans and International Voices of Opposition." We're going to go to our first speaker of today, Colonel [retired] Richard Black, former head of the U.S. Army's U.S. Law Division at the Pentagon and former Virginia State Senator. Welcome, Senator Black.
COL. RICHARD BLACK (ret.): Thank you, Dennis, I appreciate it. Let me get started here. What we're going to be talking about is the fact that the U.S. Congress, through its appropriations, has been funding the Ukrainian Center for Countering Disinformation. They are attempting, by doing this, to be able to control freedom of speech, not directly in this country — which is clearly unlawful — but by having a foreign entity do it, where they can suppress free speech using Americans dollars to do it overseas.
I'm going to start off, because the 71 people who have been put on the hit list by the Ukrainian Center for Countering Disinformation, what I call a hit list, but basically it's a list condemning us as war criminals, info terrorists, and Russian propagandists. So, I want to make it clear that that is quite wide of the mark. I'm just going to give myself as an example, but I think everyone who is involved could probably give something similar.
Let me just start by giving you a little of my background, because I want to make it very clear that I love my country; I've risked my life for it hundreds of times. I volunteered to fight in Vietnam. Myself and a fellow named Mike Carly, two Marine Corps pilots, became the first two volunteers from the East Coast Helicopter Force who were already in Vietnam. While I was there I flew 269 combat missions. My helicopter was hit by ground fire on four of those flights, and in one case, bullets that were aimed directly at me just were a little too early, and they tore through the cowling of the cockpit just before my head. They very nearly hit me, and were aimed at at me. Later, during my tour of duty, I was fighting on the ground and I heard that Mike Carly was shot through the face and killed as he flew Marine infantry men into battle, not ten miles away from me. I was flying off the carrier Iwo Jima in the South China Sea, near the coast of the Philippines, when the flight operations officer at the ready room briefed us in the morning. He said that our squadron had been tasked with providing a volunteer to fight on the ground with the First Marine Division, which was heavily engaged in combat at the time. I immediately volunteered; went to work with the First Marine Division, and fought in 70 often bloody combat patrols. During my final patrol, I was wounded, and both of my radiomen were killed — Corporal Henry Smith, Lance Corporal Dennis Wargo. They died right next to me, after we had launched a rubber boat assault, and successfully landed on the far side of the river under enemy fire.
I served a total of 32 years in uniform; first, of course, as a Marine pilot, and then later as an Army lawyer. I ran legal offices at Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri, for 40-45 Army lawyers. Finally, I retired as Chief of the Criminal Law Division at the Pentagon, where I testified before Congress, advised the Senate Armed Services Committee on issues of national importance, and prepared Executive Orders that were signed by the President of the United States.
So, all of that said, I am adamantly opposed to our current wars, especially the very dangerous war that we've engaged in, in Ukraine. I believe that U.S., U.K., and European Union have embarked on an imprudent course of action that carries a significant risk of eventually triggering an all-out nuclear war.
Recently, the Department of Homeland Security tried to establish a domestic center for countering disinformation here in the United States. Fortunately for us, Nina Jankowicz, an outrageous, narcissistic young lady, was the Department of Homeland Security pick to become agency head. Her presentation to the public was so bizarre that Americans simply recoiled at the idea of someone like her censoring their thoughts and expressions. So, the U.S. Center for Disinformation, run by DHS, has temporarily been blocked because of its potential for violating Americans' First Amendment freedoms. But DHS did not limit their censorship information efforts to the United States. It has exported them into Ukraine. By the way, Nina Jankowicz is a very accomplished Ukrainian linguist, who is very deeply involved in governmental affairs there, leading up to the war. It is difficult to imagine that she is not really up to her knees in the information suppression efforts of Ukraine.
The Center for Countering Disinformation in Ukraine is financed by the U.S. government under HR 7691, which is called the Additional Supplemental Appropriations Act of 2022. This provides funding for the Ukrainian government and for its Center for Countering Disinformation. Many of the people they've targeted, including Senator Rand Paul and former Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard, are very patriotic American citizens with strong, well-informed views on foreign policy. It's the intention of the Department of Homeland Security and the Ukrainian Center for Countering Disinformation, to silence us.
For example, there was a communique that came in the other day, relative to a conference September 1-2. This was put on by Ukraine's National Security and Defense Council, and it's now notorious Center for Countering Disinformation. There were representatives from NATO, from the United States State Department, and from European nations in attendance. Oleksiy Danilov, the Secretary of the Ukrainian National Security and Defense Council, said, "Today, our goal is to form an international hub for countering information threats at a national and international level." He said that "International law must recognize info terrorism as a crime, and that anyone committing such a crime should be declared an 'information terrorist', subject to measures that are applied to actual terrorists," which presumably includes the death penalty.
It's unlawful for a U.S. agency to fund a foreign agency in order to censor American citizens. It's unlawful for the agency to do it here; it's unlawful for them to fund and pay off another country to do it over there. The Ukrainian Center for Countering Disinformation makes available names and personal information to a murderous, Kyiv-based website, Myrotvorets, which is suspected of encouraging such killings as the Moscow car-bombing of Darya Dugina, who was the daughter of a prominent Russian activist and journalist. They have also listed on their website — which is very extensive, it includes thousands of people — it included hundreds of children whose crime is that they posted pro-Russian Facebook on their computers. Also, while the facts remain very speculative, and I want to be clear on that, the Rio Times now sees links between Ukraine and the attempted assassination of Argentina's Vice President Cristina Kirchner. Kirchner was criticized early on by Ukrainian sympathizers for refusing to harshly condemn Russia's special operation in Ukraine, and for calling for peace talks to end the war. Whether the Ukrainian Center for Countering Disinformation is involved or not, these violent acts suggest that the CCD is encouraging them. They may not be behind them, but they are certainly encouraging them.
So, it's our position that the Congressional appropriations must explicitly forbid Ukraine from using funds to silence patriotic American voices. Thank you.
SPEED: Thank you very much, Colonel Black. If you've just joined us, welcome to today's EIR press availability entitled "Shut Down the Ukrainian Hit List Targeting Americans and International Voices of Opposition." You first heard from one American. Now, we're going to go to the international voices. We're going to have two video presentations. I want to introduce Dragana Trifkovic from Serbia, who will be first; and then the second will be Jens Jørgen Nielsen, Danish historian, author, and former Russia correspondent for Politiken. On the second video, let me just indicate — because it's not in the video — Mr. Nielsen is one of four Danes who appeared on the Ukrainian list of the Center for Countering Disinformation. It was an action taken by a Parliamentarian in Denmark to demand that the Danish Foreign Ministry formally answer why and if Denmark's supporting of the regime, knowing that these citizens were on the list, could be construed as supporting democracy. How did they square that? So, he doesn't describe that in the video, so I wanted to let you know as we go to it.
DRAGANA TRIFKOVIC: Good afternoon, dear participants of the conference. My name is Dragana Trifkovic; I lead the Center for Geostrategic Studies in Serbia. Mainly, I'm interested in geopolitical topics and conflict zones. I will be very brief.
For almost ten years now, I have been under attack by the Ukrainian regime, through Myrotvorets and other resources, which ultimately resulted in my inclusion on Volodymyr Zelenskyy's black list. We all already have enough civilization knowledge and experience to be able to recognize certain phenomena very precisely. The persecution of free thought and free speech is not democracy. It is the killing of the human spirit and the rule of human fear; is the reign of terror.
Our duty is not to close our eyes, but to oppose terror and violence because otherwise, we will all wake up in the concentration camp.
I would like to thank the Schiller Institute for its support, and hereby give full support to my colleagues from America, Brazil, Germany, Spain, and all other countries that have been attacked by the terrorist regime in Kyiv. Thank you very much.
JENS JØRGEN NIELSEN: It was a very special experience for me to be on this Ukrainian black list. First, because I have not endorsed the war; I think I asked some very sensible questions. Secondly, I thought I lived in a legal society, because in the West the politicians always are very proud of us living in a legal society. I'm not sure anymore, because another very strange experience was a hearing in the Parliament with the Danish Minister of Foreign Affairs Jeppe Kofod. He was asked about this black list because three citizens were actually on this black list. So, we thought he might have some comments. But actually, he didn't; he didn't seem to care very much. He didn't condemn the black list; he didn't really say that it was a very dubious thing to have. Actually, most of the time, he talked only about victory over Putin; it was the main thing.
And for me, it was a very strange thing, because we should defend democracy. Democracy means that citizens are allowed to ask questions to the power, to the positions in power, of how they're using the taxpayers' money. For me, it's a very basic thing in democracy. But it seems to me an odd thing, it's a very scary thing about this black list. It seems that the politicians are changing; that the politicians in Europe, which I know the best, are changing. It seems like the rights which we think we had are not that inalienable as they seem to be. It seems that they might disappear like dew before the sun. And I think this is a very scary experience that our Foreign Minister didn't seem to care at all. I also know it's the case in all European countries where I know that there have been questions in the European Parliament and in other national Parliaments in Europe. And it's a very scary thing.
Also, I think the politicians seem to be very afraid of questions the citizens are asking. That's why they are so obsessed with what we call Russian disinformation. But what is Russian disinformation if it questions about the legality of war, if it questions about how we are using the money, questions about policy towards Russia? Sanctions policy which seems to be a kind of slow suicide for Europe. At least, it seems that Europeans have not only shot themselves in the foot, but maybe also in the head. It worries me a lot that the politicians seem to be what I would consider to be not really [in their] senses. It seems that there has been some kind of collective — I wouldn't say madness, it's a strong word, but there's a kind of emotional impact, emotional drive in politicians which worries me.
SPEED: If you've just joined us, we want to welcome you to our EIR press availability. It's called "Shut Down the Ukrainian Hit List targeting Americans and International Voices of Opposition." We're going to go now to our next speaker, and he is Scott Ritter. Scott Ritter is a former United States Marine Corps intelligence officer. He was the Chief United Nations Special Commission Weapons Inspector to Iraq from 1991 to 1998, charged with finding and destroying all those weapons of mass destruction. Scott has, from that time until now, made himself a nuisance, and he's very proud about it. He's here to talk about this topic. He is one of the persons, as are the others, on the Ukrainian hit list. Welcome.
SCOTT RITTER: Thank you very much for inviting me to this very important gathering. I want to pass my congratulations to Colonel Black and the two European speakers for their fine presentations.
My military resumé is not nearly as long or distinguished as Colonel Black's, but I am very proud of the service that I provided to my country as a commissioned officer in the United States Marine Corps. I've served as a weapons inspector in the former Soviet Union, implementing the Intermediate Nuclear Forces Treaty. I've served on the staff of General Norman Schwarzkopf during Operation Desert Storm. And for seven years, I was a proud participant in an international effort to disarm Iraq of its weapons of mass destruction. I participated in over 45 inspections, 14 of which I was Chief Inspector. These were under some very trying circumstances. I resigned in 1998, and spoke out against U.S. policy.
The reason I bring that up is a) I'm as patriotic as it gets. You challenge my patriotism, you challenge me personally. I'm still young enough to put some umph behind my response. Give me a couple of years and that might not be the case. But, b) when I spoke out, I was heavily criticized. I was heavily criticized by my government; I was heavily criticized by the American media, by the foreign media, by just about everybody for daring to question to official narrative about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction. I was called Saddam's shill; I was called much worse than that. And yet, my voice was never silenced.
I am proud of the fact that I not only continued to speak out, but more importantly I think, history has shown that everything I said was correct, was accurate. Had people actually listened, and absorbed what I was trying to speak and warn about, we might have been able to avert a very costly war that has done immeasurable harm to the reputation of the United States; killed thousands of Americans, wounded tens of thousands of others; and resulted in the death, dislocation, and otherwise disrupted the lives of millions of Iraqis and other citizens of the Middle East. The consequences of not listening to truth when it's trying to be spoken, is real.
If I were speaking today about Iraq under these circumstances, if the Ukrainian government was in a position to oppose what I was trying to say, I would not just be criticized, but targeted for death. And it wouldn't just be the Ukrainian government doing it, it would be my government funding the Ukrainian government. My government allowing the Ukrainian government to try and silence me by 1) imposing the chilling — there is an absolute chilling effect of being called a Russian propagandist. Now, it's curious when they say, "What constitutes being a Russian propagandist?" According to the Ukrainians, it includes things such as stating there were NATO bases on Ukrainian soil involved in the training of Ukrainian forces for the employment against the separatists in the Donbas. A factually correct statement, but somehow by uttering this, this makes me an "information terrorist." For saying things such as the mass murder that was committed in Bucha, a suburb north of Kyiv, at the end of March, early April seems to have been carried out by forces subordinated to the Ukrainian government. And I provided a detailed forensic-based analysis of why I believe this to be the case. This makes me an "information terrorist." And for daring to say that it appears that the conflict in Ukraine has become a proxy conflict between the United States and NATO versus Russia on Ukrainian soil, using the Ukrainians as an extension of NATO's military capacity.
Everything I've said here is factually correct. If people want to disagree with my conclusions, I invite them or anybody to have a debate, discussion, or dialogue about this at any time. This includes the Center for Countering Disinformation; this includes the Ukrainian government; this includes anybody in the United States government; this includes anybody in the international media. If you disagree with the conclusions I've made, if you disagree with the facts that I've used to derive these conclusions, then do the honorable thing and debate me. But don't seek to silence me through intimidation. The chilling impact of being called a Russian propagandist is real. Without naming them, they know who they are. I can tell you that two American-based journalistic outlets who were proud to publish me previously, have decided it's not worth publishing me because of this label. They can't be affiliated with a Russian propagandist, although literally a week prior to being released by one, an article I wrote for them was the number one article on their website in terms of hits. But now, I'm a Russian propagandist and can't be published.
What made me a Russian propagandist? Having the audacity, for example, in December, prior to the initiation of Russia's military operations in Ukraine, for saying things such as "NATO lacks the military capacity to meaningfully confront Russia in Ukraine." For saying things such as, "The United States and the European Union have grossly overestimated the ability of economic sanctions to either deter or compel Russia to seek a different course. If we enter into a sanctions-based conflict with Russia, it will boomerang back on us. It will harm our economy far more than it harms the Russian economy." And for saying things such as, "The political unity that the United States believes exists in Europe and in NATO is really an illusion. Once subjected to a significant stress test, such as for instance, energy shortages brought on by sanctioning Russian energy, that this unity will collapse." These are predictions I made in December. Again, that used to be my job; I was an intelligence officer. My job was to make predictions based upon sound assessments of facts. Had people listened to me in December, we might have avoided the disaster that we find ourselves in today.
Again, disagree with me all you want; do not label me a Russian propagandist for telling the truth. Do not label me an information terrorist for telling the truth. Do not mark me for death for telling the truth. This isn't a message to the Ukrainian government. I don't care about them. We know who they are; we know what they are. This is a message for the United States Congress. You work for me, Chuck Schumer. You work for me, Kirsten Gillibrand. You work for me, Paul Tonko. You are my Congressional delegation, and I have written each one of you a letter specifying the fact that you voted in favor of the aforementioned resolution authorizing funds to be allocated to Ukraine. Those funds are being used to target and intimidate American citizens — your constituents — for exercising their Constitutional right of freedom of speech. They're being targeted for death. If you think the Myrotvorets webpage is a joke; ask Aleksandr Dugin, who just had to attend the funeral of his daughter. It's not a joke; it's real. Being labeled an information terrorist when the term "terrorist" is focused on as "that's what they are; they need to be treated as such." You guys are American Congressmen, you know how we deal with terrorists. We just knocked one off in Kabul a little while ago. That's what we do to terrorists. And now, your State Department employees, representatives, are participating in a meeting where American citizens are being labeled as "information terrorists" and being given the green light to be adjudicated as such. Is the United States Congress really advocating for the political murder of Americans abroad, or at home?
I need not tell anybody watching this broadcast the state of affairs in America today. The threat of political violence is real. When the United States government funds and greenlights an assassination list, what does that tell people here in the United States who might happen to be politically linked to the Ukrainian government, loyal to the Ukrainian government? People who embrace the horrific ideology of Stepan Bandera? Is it open season on anybody on that list? I'd like to believe not, but we need the United States Congress to shut this down. Chuck Schumer, I'm talking to you! Kirsten Gillibrand, I'm talking to you! Paul Tonko, I'm talking to you! I'm talking to everybody who has taken an oath to uphold and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies foreign and domestic, to stand up and do the right thing. Shut this list down! Stop using U.S. taxpayer money to suppress the free speech of Americans and to oppose the free speech of anybody in the world who dares speak out about what's going on in Ukraine. And when I say against what's going on in Ukraine, I mean all aspects of it. I'm not here to be pro-Russian; I'm not here to be pro-Ukrainian. I'm here to be pro-truth; and people who seek the truth should never be silenced. Thank you very much.
SPEED: Thank you, Scott as well. If you're just joining us, you're watching the Executive Intelligence Review press availability "Shut Down the Ukrainian Hit List targeting Americans and International Voices of Opposition." We're now going to hear from Alessia Ruggieri, trade unionist from Italy, who is on the list, and Sonja van den Ende, a Dutch journalist who is also on the list.
ALESSIA RUGGERI: [via interpreter] My name is Alessia Ruggeri. I am on the CCD blacklist in Italy. Thanks to DataBase Italia TV, I received the support of many people who signed the Schiller Institute petition to investigate and shut down the CCD and encouraged me to continue to my mission, and the excellent work of the Schiller Institute.
I end this message with a word: Faith. It is faith which must prevail and not fear of those who are pressing them, faith in God, human values, in justice, truth and democracy. It is democracy that they are trying to eliminate, pretending to act in its name, and cultivate doubt. Because in this way, you will come to the truth, the truth we have been saying and will continue saying. I thank Helga Zepp-LaRouche.
SONJA VAN DEN ENDE: Hello! My name is Sonja van den Ende, I'm an independent journalist. The Schiller Institute asked me to make a short video, because maybe I cannot be at your conference.
I'm already for six months now covering the special operation in the Donbas. I'm situated in Moscow, Russia. I'm also on this Ukrainian death list like many of you from the Schiller Institute. So, it's very terrible. Next week I will have conference about it, and we are discussing how to get rid of this list, or how our names can be removed from the list, but I am not for sure if they will do it — most probably not. So, I am in solidarity with you. We are all on this death list in the U.S., in Europe. But I'm still covering the special operation, so if you want to follow me, follow me on CK or Twitter or on my own website, Freesuriyah (https://freesuriyah.eu/). Good luck for the conference. thanks.
I am standing here in Moscow, now. You can see it's peaceful, beautiful here. Nice flats, the people are peaceful; living only, there is no effect of any sanctions they put here from the West or from the U.S. So, yeah, it's peaceful and people have everything. We have gas here, electricity. Maybe next week or the week after, I don't know for sure, I will go back to the Donbas. People, as I said before, if they're interested, they can also follow me on my YouTube channel. My YouTube channel is Sonja Vandenende (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCRboPY1YDflYlFRhUAOi33g). Again, good luck for your conference, and I hope to participate next time. Thanks.
SPEED: All right, and if you just joined us again, this is “Shut Down the Ukrainian Hit List targeting Americans and International Voices of Opposition” press availability.
The next speaker is Diane Sare. She’s an independent candidate from the United States for the office of United States Senate, running against Chuck Schumer in New York, and she’s also on the list.
DIANE SARE: Great. First, I’d like to thank Scott Ritter for what he said about our representatives participating in funding such a list, and also — as a candidate running against Senator Schumer, one has to ask, is this some roundabout way of seeking to suppress my candidacy and to silence any debate over the policy of arming and supporting a fascist regime in Ukraine, for the purpose of having a war with Russia?
Now, as already referenced, the Center for Countering Disinformation held a conference Sept. 1-2, a “roundtable” as they called it, and according to the French Chargé d’Affaires to Kiev, he said: “Russia uses various communication channels to spread its disinformation and propaganda. Mostly these are different social networks like Facebook, Telegram and Twitter. At the G7 we should improve coordination to fight Russian disinformation.”
And then, not to be outdone, we have a public relations officer from the United States Embassy to Kiev, who says: “We know the scale of Russian disinformation spreading, so we use the best experience in countering Russian disinformation. We work in cooperation with Ukrainian authorities.” I’d like to remind people that the Ukrainian government has banned 13 opposition parties, shut down Russian-language reporting, outlawed collective bargaining for the majority of their trade unions, and just recently announced that if you vote in a referendum in a Russian-controlled territory, that you can face up to 12 years in prison. So I’m really pleased that the Americans are cooperating with such a regime. And then, not to be outdone, Molly Graham from the Canadian Embassy says: “Canada, like other democratic countries, clearly understands the threats posed by propaganda and disinformation to freedom of thought.” Hmm!
It seems that if you believe it was a good thing that we defeated Adolf Hitler 77 years ago, that you probably are a victim of Russian brainwashing. And, as we see, if you don’t reform your opinion on that matter, you will have to be liquidated. And I would say, this is not an exaggeration: Now, some people might argue, “Well, the Center for Countering Disinformation hasn’t put red X’s through people’s photos after they are killed, as the Myrotvorets list as done that. Is it really the same? Isn’t this legitimate? Are you mixing two things?
And I would say, No, because the Myrotvorets website, says that the Center for Countering Disinformation is a source for determining its targets. So it serves a convenient purpose of keeping the American and Canadian and European politicians one step removed from being associated with terrorist crimes, like the car-bombing which killed Darya Dugina on Aug. 20.
On March 28, the Center for Countering Disinformation posted a document defining information terrorism as a “crime against humanity.” How can asserting an idea be a crime? Presumably, if I were to assert something which is false, there’s a remedy, which is proof that I am wrong; tell the truth. If I say 3+6=17, someone can demonstrate that that is not true and that is not correct. Therefore, it is an absurdity to equate saying something which is not true to “terrorism.” However, if you are going to impose a lie, then, you may have to resort to brute force and terror to make it stick, because you have to ensure that anybody who would think otherwise is silenced.
So I do have to say that I do find it rather astounding that 77 years after the Nazis were defeated in Europe, that we have such a situation, where somehow people don’t think there’s anything wrong with Nazism any more, where we have assassins, like the fellow who killed 10 people in Buffalo, wearing the Black Sun logo that the Azov Battalion shares, a Nazi logo; the Christchurch [New Zealand] killer who killed 51 Muslims worshiping at their mosques, and the fellow who wanted to assassinate Cristina Fernández de Kirchner in Argentina. How is it that we have a revival of the glorification of Nazism, and why is it that the United States would not vote to condemn this at the United Nations, saying that somehow it’s a matter of free speech?
So I would just say, if you have to resort to violence and threats and fear to silence people, then clearly you are not in a strong position, and clearly, you’re probably not the one who is telling the truth. And I think that if we’re going to actually solve this problem, because not only should this list be shut down, and the Congress should stop funding totalitarian regimes and actions which are threatening American citizens, among others, but how do you actually defeat an ideology? And I think in that regard, the reason why the Schiller Institute and Helga Zepp-LaRouche were targeted, is because there’s been a series of dialogues of creating a new order among nations which respects the dignity of man, which would create conditions where every child had clean drinking water, electricity, decent healthcare, and most importantly, an ability to live in peace. And it is through those policies, that such rotten ideology as the Nazis, that there is some human being on the planet inferior to yourself, who can be exterminated, that that can be defeated.
So that is really what has to happen, and I would again reiterate, that it is urgent: Every American should demand your representative should take a stand on this, and the right stand, that this should be shut down; the United States should not be associated with such activity. And it does raise the question, who is running such activity? And I’ll leave it at that.
SPEED: Thank you very much, Diane. ... Our next two messages come from Geoff Young of Kentucky. He is a Democratic candidate for congress. He won his primary there in the 6th CD, but he’s an independent Democrat; he’s on the list. And Dr. Clifford Kiracofe will be the second message; president of the Washington Institute for Peace and Development.
GEOFF YOUNG: My name is Geoff Young, and I’m the Democratic nominee for the U.S. House of Representatives from Kentucky’s 6th Congressional District. I have been put on a list by the Ukrainian government, simply for expressing my positions as a candidate. My positions are that the government of Ukraine, since 2014, has not been a democracy at all. It has been totally controlled by the U.S. State Department, the CIA, the Pentagon, and groups of well-armed Ukrainian Nazis who have been attacking ethnic Russians for the last eight years. The Ukrainian military has been shelling innocent civilians in Donetsk and Lugansk since 2014, and has killed over 10,000 civilians, which more than three 9/11’s.
By funding the Ukrainian government, the United States is supporting war crimes and ethnic cleansing by a dictatorship puppet government of the United States. And, being put on the list with other Americans, including Diane Sare, candidate for U.S. Senate, my own government is engaging in election meddling in this country. Unlike Andy Barr, my Republican opponent, I will never vote to send weapons to Nazis.
CLIFFORD KIRACOFE: I'm Cliff Kiracofe, an academic, and President of the Washington Institute for Peace and Development.
The American people need to know that their government has been working hand-in-glove with the fascist Ukraine regime to suppress the Constitutionally guaranteed free speech of Americans. The U.S. government supported the 2014 coup d'état in the Ukraine, commonly referred to as the Maidan coup. This coup ushered in the present fascist regime, which is filled with neo-Nazi political groups, self-avowed neo-Nazi political groups. The various components of the fascist Ukraine regime are involved in what is called "information warfare," designed to manipulate public opinion around the world. As part of this malign information warfare campaign, the fascist regime in Ukraine seeks to suppress the truth about the political, social, economic situation in the Ukraine, and the present war there.
Patriotic Americans voicing their concerns about the Ukraine and about U.S. foreign policy are being targeted by the fascist Zelenskyy regime. Americans must not let this Orwellian foreign information warfare campaign undermine the U.S. Constitution and the right of all Americans to free speech. Concerned Americans should contact their Senators and their Congressmen to demand that the right of all Americans to free speech be protected. Whether it is the present Ukraine situation or other foreign policy issues, Americans have a right to dissent; and Americans have a right to speak their minds. Thank you.
SPEED: All right. And I just want to make something clear: We are going to be taking questions, and we’ll be getting to that after our final speaker for today, who is Ray McGovern, CIA analyst for a long time; retired now. Founding member of the Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS) and a scholar of many things.
RAY MCGOVERN: Thank you, Dennis. I have to tell you that I’m honored to be on this list of distinguished speakers, who are speaking truth to power, and to anyone else who listens.
I’d like to put a little historical perspective on what we’re doing here, and go back to September of 2013, after Mr. Putin bailed Mr. Obama out and made it unnecessary for him to start yet another war, this time against Syria, and worked out a deal, so Obama didn’t have to do that. On, almost exactly nine years ago, on Sept. 12, 2013, Mr. Putin got an op-ed in the New York Times in which he talked about the increasing trust—trust, mind you — between not only Russia and the United States, but also personally between Mr. Putin and Mr. Obama. He didn’t agree with Mr. Obama’s speeches about American exceptionalism.
What happened? Well, you can’t tolerate that. You can’t tolerate increasing trust! And we all know that America is exceptional; I won’t exactly say how, but anyhow. Six months later, the people who need friction, who need war with Russia mounted in coup in Kiev. A coup! It was Feb. 22, 2014 and it was advertised beforehand, on YouTube, two and a half weeks before. OK?
Now, that’s where it really all started, with the neocons and those who prefer to have tension with Russia, raised a furor and said, “Aha! Here, here!” The Russians, by annexing Crimea, which came just a month later, were really expansionists and would take over the rest of Europe.
So that was six months later. We had six months worth of trust. Now, at that time, Mr. Putin made a couple of speeches. I don’t want to distort or embellish on what he said, but this is important in the current context: So, 10 days after the coup in Kiev — which coup, of course, is never mentioned in U.S. media; which coup, of course is dismissed out of hand, denied, actually, by academics like Tim Snyder of Yale; 10 days after the coup, Putin said, “I sometimes get the feeling that people in America sit in a lab and conduct experiments, as if with rats, without actually understanding the consequences of what they are doing. This has happened with NATO expansion, as well as the development of military structures at our borders. It happened with the deployment of ABMs, anti-ballistic missile systems in Romania, Poland, and, God forbid, in Ukraine.” So, here’s Putin, just a couple more sentences, and again, this is just weeks after the coup in Kiev. Well, it’s a long time ago! “There is a limit to everything, as with Ukraine, our Western partners have crossed the line. If you compress the spring all the way to its limit, it will snap back hard. Russia has its own national interests, and those need to be taken into account, and respected.”
So, the annexation of Crimea, we are told to accept, was totally —what’s the word? — ah! “unprovoked”! [laughs] Sound familiar? “Unprovoked.”
Now, John McCain wrote an op-ed in the Washington Post a couple months later, and it was so counter-factual that I wrote a letter to the Washington Post, and it got published! OK? And the essence of McCain’s remark was that the “seizure,” as he put it, of Crimea was “unprovoked,” —right, “unprovoked.” Well, you know, if people can’t see what is provoked and what is unprovoked, whether it has to do with Crimea or Ukraine in general, well, then they can’t see much; and of course, we have already heard why they can’t see much.
I’ll just add a couple things here: Will Rogers, the great American humorist, said something really important that applies in spades to this context. He said, “You know, the problem isn’t what people know, it ain’t what people know, it’s what people know that ain’t so. It’s what people know that ain’t so, that’s the problem!” Well, that is the problem. And the propaganda on this side, is so thick, that it’s possible for people to know what ain’t so and be convinced of it.
Now, sometimes I draw from my knowledge and my teaching of the Russian language, and I’d like to do that right now, just to point out that the Russian verb for “laugh” does not take a direct object. So even the best English speakers among native Russians kind of muff it, and when we used to act up in Russian class, our teacher would say, “Who are you laughing?! What are you laughing? This is nothing to laugh!” [laughs] Now, of course, that provokes peels of laughter. But the problem is this: That the fact that Americans know it ain’t so, is nothing to laugh.
I’ll close with this. We here, in Raleigh, North Carolina, are about to be treated to a visit by a former President of the United States. His name is George W. Bush. He’s responsible, as most of you know, for all manner of evil, including authorizing torture. Now, most recently, he appeared in one of these places in Texas; he made a little speech, and he didn’t catch himself, before he said — and I don’t want to misquote him — he said: “Man! Listen now, the decision of one man to launch a wholly unjustified and brutal invasion of Iraq — I mean, Ukraine....” Guess what? Those Texans laughed. OK? They laughed.
What do I say to that? What I’d say to that, is that this calculus right now, where most people, most Americans at least, believe what ain’t so, is nothing to laugh. Nor is the threat of these Ukrainians who put us on some kind of a list: This is nothing to laugh. And I’m just very proud and happy to be part of this program, because I think we are exposing the truth here, in a way that Will Rogers would be very proud.
Thank you very much.
SPEED: Thank you very much, Ray. Now, we’re going to go directly to questions:
Q: Hello, thank you so much. I’m Julia Ludwig from Berlin, Germany and I’m representing RT TV. I have some questions to the participants: What do you think is the main point of creating such lists? After all, they usually include people who are unlikely to decide on spending a vacation in Kiev, for example, when we are talking about Myrotvorets. Is it just for fun, or should this be taken seriously, to be on such lists?
And, then, how does Europe view the fact that such death lists are created? How democratic is it to run lists based on statements by politicians and journalists?
And why are these lists being supported by the U.S.A.? How can the fact that the person is on this Myrotvorets, for example, list, prevent them from entering the United States? Will they let them in at the border? Will they question them? What will happen to the people on that list, for example?
Thank you.
SPEED: OK. Here’s what we’ll do: I know there might be several people that might answer that, but before we do that, I want to bring in one other spokesperson, on the list — number two on the list, actually —which is Helga Zepp-LaRouche, since in fact — I believe you said you are RT in Germany, is that correct? So, Helga?
HELGA ZEPP-LAROUCHE: Well, I don’t want to answer the question of the journalist from Berlin right now, but I want to first thank all the previous speakers for having said what they did. I would like to introduce one other thought, and that is that, given the fact that on this list, the first 30 people have all committed no other crime than to participate in conferences of the Schiller Institute since April. And the issue was not necessarily Ukraine, or even the war, but the issue in all of these conferences was the need to find a way to avoid an escalation which could lead to World War III, coming, naturally, out of the war in Ukraine. And the discussion was how to create a new international security architecture which would involve the interest of every single country, because clearly, if we go into a full-fledged confrontation between NATO and Russia, and China by association, this could mean the end of civilization. It could mean the end of humanity, because if you come to a nuclear war, there is nothing left over. And all the participants in these conferences were concerned with that, and contributed valuable ideas how you could arrive at a new security and development architecture based on the principles of the Peace of Westphalia.
Now, Scott Ritter referred to the fact that this Ukrainian situation is a proxy war, and I would like to suggest that the people on the list are not there because they don’t stick to the narrative which is allowed, the official narrative about this conflict, but because they represent — or many of them, at least those who were participating in the Schiller conferences —they represent the potential of a solution to the present strategic conflict. And therefore, I would say the whole discussion about the narrative, what makes you a “Russian propagandist,” is also a proxy discussion; like a proxy war has a proxy discussion.
In order to make clear what I mean, if you look at the long history of terrorism, and how it was used in history, many cases were actually targeting people who represented a solution to a strategic crisis. And of the many examples I could use, I only want to refer to Walther Rathenau, and what was the result to all the people who signed the Rapallo Treaty, 100 years ago: That was the elimination of a system. Then, if you look the assassination of John F. Kennedy and Enrico Mattei, the same thing applies. Enrico Mattei represented a completely different world outlook, than what remained after him. And very important, the assassination of Alfred Herrhausen and Detlev Rohwedder, in the context of the German unification, which was a clear warning against Helmut Kohl, the Chancellor at the time, to absolutely not dare to have any kind of association with Russia, to go in the direction of using the potential of German reunification to create a new system. Communism was dead! It was the chance to create a peace order.
So, all I want to say, is, we should not only look at the one meaning of what we should debate, namely, what is the truth about Ukraine and what are efforts to control the narrative, but we should also include in the debate the fact that the neoliberal system is bankrupt, that behind the war is, among other things, the effort to prevent Russia from ever playing a role in world history again; go for regime change, but also to prevent the rise of China. And given the fact that Russia and China have now formed, thanks to the policies of NATO, a very strong alliance, we are really looking at that is the battle what is behind, and what is a proxy discussion about.
I just wanted to introduce that other question, because if we continue the way we have right now, the danger of a total decoupling from the West, Europe, the United States, maybe Five Eyes and Japan, against Russia and the whole new world system which is emerging around the Non-Aligned Movement, around China, the Belt and Road Initiative, the BRICS, the SCO. I mean, we have to find a higher level of cooperation, and that is what the list also targeted.
SPEED: Thank you. And let me say, I neglected to say that Helga is the founder and leader of the Schiller Institute. ...So, Helga, let’s get to you, first: the questions were: How come the list is like it is? Why are you number 2? What’s your view on how this was constructed and what this was all about?
ZEPP-LAROUCHE: I think the reason why I’m number 2 is that we are a factory of ideas. I mean, this is actually a quote from Ramsey Clark, who came to the defense of my husband when he was innocently put in jail by George Bush. And Ramsey Clark, whom may people know was a major defender of human rights, and he described the case of my husband was the worst case of injustice and law-bending in the history of the United States. And he said the reason is, that these people — meaning us —that they are a factory of ideas, of solutions, they are the “book people.”
And that is what the Schiller Institute is all about: we are trying to offer solutions to the many problems. My husband is world famous, among good people at least, in that he offered solutions to the present crisis, many years ago. As a matter of fact, he predicted the present collapse of the neoliberal system 51 years ago, after Nixon took the dollar off gold and introduced the floating exchange system. He said, if you stay with this policy, it will necessarily lead to the danger of depression, fascism, and a new world war. And that is exactly where we are right now. And he also offered solutions, namely, the famous Four Laws of Lyndon LaRouche [https://larouchepub.com/lar/2014/4124four_laws.html]: Glass-Steagall banking separation, go back to national banking, have a credit system, go for a crash program for fusion and increase of productivity through cooperation in space exploration; and have a four-power agreement, meaning the four most powerful countries in the world have to work together, because only they are strong enough to defeat the real oligarchy, which is the City of London and Wall Street.
Now, not everybody who participates in the Schiller Institute conferences agrees exactly with that program, but these are all people who are guided by good will to find solutions, to world famine, to poverty — 1.7 billion are threatened with starvation; we have a hyperinflationary blowout of the system; all of the people who participated in the Schiller conferences have agreed that we need a new paradigm. And I think this new paradigm is what has been targeted by putting these 30 people on the list.
SPEED: All right. We’re going to go to Mira Terada. I will, by the way, announce the next three persons that will ask questions after this round. Is she there?
Q: Hello, I’m Mira Terada. My question is for Helga, and as the head of the human rights organization Foundation To Battle Injustice, I have been working for several months to close the resource and recognize it as a terrorist organization. This is the reason why my personal data were also published by the Myrotvorets database. The Foundation’s human rights defenders analyzed data posted by Myrotvorets on the basis of which we had two press conferences in Moscow, the main purpose of which was to attract the attention of world community to the illegal publication of personal data of underage children and of journalists.
Moreover the human rights defenders of the Foundation To Battle Injustice have transferred the collected materials to the United Nations through the First Deputy Permanent Representative of the Russian Federation to the UN Dmitry Polyanskiy and to the UN Children’s Fund minister. I was happy to see today Sonja van den Ende on this video. She was talking about the press conference that took place yesterday and was arranged by my Foundation. I would also like to inform you that just yesterday the Foundation To Battle Injustice submitted documents to the Federal Security Service of Russia to investigate the activities of the Myrotvorets website and recognize those involved in the creation of this resource as a terrorist organization. We have prepared, also, an open letter to the UN that has been signed by many journalists and we came to the conclusion that the database of the Ukrainian nationalist resource contained the personal data of at least 341 journalists from 31 countries of the world. We ask all participants and viewers of today’s press conference to sign it. I will send it any mail to the organizers of the conference, with the open letter. And as the head of the Foundation To Battle Injustice, I’m convinced that only through the joint efforts of human rights organizations, law enforcement agencies and international intergovernmental organizations, is it possible to achieve a concrete blocking of the Myrotvorets resource and complete deletion of person data collected and posted illegally.
I have a proposal to sign the petition, to sign an open letter that I will email to the Schiller Institute. Thank you.
SPEED: Thank you very much. ...So the next questioner is Enrique Box — you’re next.
ENRIQUE BOX: [via interpreter] Good afternoon, I’m speaking to you from Buenos Aires, and I wand to express my solidarity with your brave denunciations to dismantle this organization, because I myself am a survivor of similar policies which the United States financed in the last century. I was a victim of political persecution. I had to go into exile for many years, and this affected the only life which I have.
The question I have for all of you, is that along with the legitimacy of the denunciations that you’re making today, are we not at a moment to be able to unmask the socio-political operation? Isn’t it time to denounce that it’s not just a matter of foolish mistakes, of shooting yourself in the foot, or something like that, but in fact what we’re talking about is a morbid plan, a genocidal plan which is designed in a pitiless fashion, because — let’s say it straight out — this is occurring against a portion of the world which represents 10% of the world’s population, but at this time in the East, we have the Eastern Economic Forum with 60 countries, 4,000 people which represents a whole lot more than half of the world’s population. They’re busy designing the future, while in the West, what’s happening is a debacle, apparently absurd debacle as winter approaches, and this is going to be a complete disaster.
SPEED: Colonel Black, you had your hand up before. Do you want to address that question, or not? If not, I can give it to Helga; I know she can address it.
BLACK: I think perhaps Helga. I didn’t have my translator on at the beginning.
SPEED: All right. Helga?
ZEPP-LAROUCHE: Yes, I think the journalist from Buenos Aires is right, because right now, we really see the battle between the effort to maintain the old, unipolar world, which unfortunately the Anglo-Americans tried to impose after the collapse of the Soviet Union, using a whole series of regime-change, color revolutions, interventionist wars; all of that has obviously failed, and there was a big blowback. Because without these efforts to impose a unipolar world, I think the kind of new world economic order, which is being formed right now by these countries you were referring to, meeting in the East Economic Forum [Sept. 5-8 in Vladivostok] and elsewhere — they will meet in the BRICS annual conference next week, I think. And these are all countries that are reviving the spirit of Bandung, the Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence, the idea that you have to go back to the UN Charter; and they are rejecting the idea of a unipolar world.
And the Schiller Institute has tried for many years to convince people in the United States and in European countries, that, rather than fighting this new system, they should cooperate. I mean, look, we only have one planet. We can either blow it up and nobody will enjoy it, because if it comes to World War III, not even historians will be there to investigate why it happened, because everybody will be dead.
Why not go to a new design, whereby the United States and European nations — I don’t think the European Union bureaucracy is capable of doing that — European nations basically say, how can we cooperate to solve the most urgent problems of this world? We have a pandemic which is not under control; we have several countries being in a horrible condition: Afghanistan! I mean, after 20 years of war in Afghanistan, this country is still in a horrible condition, with half of the people starving every day! look at Yemen! Look at Haiti! And I could name many other countries: Why can we not remind ourselves that we are the species capable of reason and we will only survive if we work together for the common goals of mankind. And that, I think, is the discussion which we also have to have, very urgently, in addition to what was said so far.
...SPEED: Thank you, Helga. ...Walter Fomento will be next...
...WALTER FOMENTO: [via interpreter] Good afternoon, thanks for the invitation to EIR. From Argentina, we appreciate and we’re happy to have the opportunity to carry out this conference and to be part of it. We express our solidarity, especially with those people who have been included in the blacklist of these fascist groups, of the financial groups of today. I share the rejection of the idea of having bacteriological and other arms factories in the world which is being done by Victoria Nuland and other groups in NATO. This is related to what happened at the beginning of 2014 with the coup from the Euromaidan.
My question, for Helga if she’s present, if the assassination of John F. Kennedy and the attempted assassination against Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, and even the attacks which Lyndon LaRouche himself experienced, do they not have a connection with the same financial interests that always abused the physical force and the capabilities that they have, to annihilate their adversaries; always making use of the territory? This is something very, very far from democracy and peace.
So that is my question, and I thank you, again for being invited to this meeting by EIR.
SPEED: Thank you very much. Helga, go right ahead.
ZEPP-LAROUCHE: Well, I think the answer to your question is yes. Because, if you go back in history, it always was that political assassinations and harassments were used to basically protect the empire. And I think what we’re really dealing with, and I think Diane’s answer, what it means to be a patriot of the United States today, was very much to the point. Because what the whole world is looking at is that the United States is no longer behaving like a republic. And the real empire question, that’s a long, long history: My late husband used to call it “the slime mold,” saying that the slime mold changes its color, they change the odor, they change the way they look and behave, but they remain a slime mold. And the question of empire, you can trace back to the Persian Empire, to the Roman Empire, to the Byzantine Empire, to Venice; then the empire moved to the Anglo-Dutch location, and finally it became the British Empire.
And unfortunately, the conclusion, after the collapse of the Soviet Union was that — I should take it back — eventually the British stopped trying to reconquer the United States militarily, because after the War of 1812 and the Civil War, they recognized that they could not retake the United States militarily. And latest, with the assassination of President McKinley and the entry of the United States into World War I on the side of the British, they decided that it was more easy to convince the establishment of the United States to run the world together on the basis of the model of the British Empire. That has been the discussion, you can read what H.G. Wells wrote, what William Yandell Elliot wrote; you read Samuel Huntington’s The Soldier and the State which has become the bible of the neocons after the collapse of the Soviet Union; and unfortunately, rather than seeing the chance to build a new peace order after the collapse of the Soviet Union, they decided to go for the unipolar world, and run the world based on the model of the British Empire.
So, if you want to know, what is the common denominator between John F. Kennedy, Cristina Fernández de Kirchner and the attempt to kill my husband and myself — this was the famous raid in Oct. 6, 1986, when 400 FBI agents tried to storm our property in Leesburg, Virginia, and it was only by a miracle that we escaped a terrible catastrophe; I mean, this makes the FBI raid on Mar-a-Lago look like a children’s birthday party.
But the answer to your question is, yes. And always, there’s an effort to CYA, to make it a plausible denial, to not get caught, to have some “lone assassin,” some covert operation to make it look as if it’s not who is really doing it. But I think the coverup of the assassination of John F. Kennedy is really the point where the situation went wrong in the United States. Because if you listen to the speeches, very optimistic, beautiful speeches by John F. Kennedy — we used some of them at the memorial we did for the 50th anniversary of his death — the optimism which filled the American people because of Kennedy, and the fact that he was murdered — as was Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy, and Malcolm X, and the fact that the murders were covered up — have instilled a deep pessimism in the American population, because once these things happen, and you have the feeling there is no place you can go to, you become pessimistic.
And right now, the Americans are almost as pessimistic as the Germans, and the Germans are a colony of the Empire. So, I think that has to be reversed. And I’m convinced we need a lot of courageous people, who do not accept this mind control, and go back to the origins of what the American System was supposed to be: A beacon of hope and a temple of liberty. And if there are enough patriots in the United States to realize that, the whole world would be friends with America again.
So you are at a crossroad: It is up to you to decide.
...SPEED: Here is the next question: “Russian ambassador to the U.S. Anatoly Antonov said in an interview with Rossiyskaya Gazeta [https://telegra.ph/Russias-Ambassador-to-the-US-Anatoly-Antonovs-Interview-with-Rossiyskaya-Gazeta-09-06] that U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken has repeatedly acknowledged that the U.S. would like to have two-way communication channels with Russia, but that meanwhile Congressmen continue to indulge in Russophobic hysteria.
“What is the reason for this polarization? And how will such situation affect the global political and security context in the long run, given the conflict in Ukraine at the moment?”
I’m going to ask both Diane and for Scott to answer that. Ray may have something to weigh in on that as well. Scott, go ahead!
RITTER: I think we’re looking, first of all for Antony Blinken to be suddenly enthralled with the notion of meaningful dialogue with Russia, that alone needs to be assessed further. Why? The answer is simple: The United States is losing on all fronts.
There was no rush to meaningful dialogue when Russian submitted its twin draft treaties on Dec. 17, 2021. We ignored them. There was no rush to dialogue when Russia was seeking to open up a meaningful arms control, genuine arms control. We weren’t in a rush then. We were certainly in a rush to stifle Russia and to impose massive sanctions targeting the entire spectrum of Russia’s economy, and we weren’t in a rush to enter dialogue with Russia to try to stop these sanctions. So, why now?
And the answer is simple: We’re losing on all fronts. We’re losing on the military front; Europe is bankrupting its military stockpiles trying to reinforce Ukraine. We just spent the entire summer reequipping Ukrainian brigades that had been slaughtered on the battlefield as we speak! But that’s OK, because we have a whole other group of Ukrainian troops in training. And so we’ll just continue to throw them into the battlefield until the last Ukrainian is left standing. But that’s what’s going to happen: The last Ukrainian will be left standing, and he will fall, or she will fall, and the war will be over, and we will have lost.
We’re losing this. There’s not a military professional around who will say, “Oh, no, we’re winning.” No. I’m not talking Mark Hertling and I’m not talking about “Spider” Marks, and I’m not talking about any of the CNN and MSNBC, sellouts, the former generals, Petraeus: They’re getting paid to tell lies. I’m talk about serving officers who will sit there and tell you straight to your face, “We’re winning.” No professional will say that, because they know we’re losing.
We also know that Europe is about to collapse politically, and with it, any concept of European unity, including NATO unity which is already deeply fractured.
Just on an off topic: We may see Turkey go to war against Greece, pretty soon; which means Turkey will go to war against France, which means NATO will be at war with NATO. “Yea, NATO unity!” So, we’re losing that.
And economically, Europe is getting slaughtered. Their industries are shutting down, they don’t have gas reserves necessary to survive this winter, and I don’t believe a single political official responsible for the implementation of these suicidal policies will survive the winter, politically; they’ll be removed from office.
And so, suddenly Tony Blinken wants to talk with the Russians! Amazing, how, when you’re getting your butt kicked, you want to talk with the Russians. Meanwhile, back at home, where we live in la-la-land, totally divorced from reality — because, you see, Blinken lives in a real world: He sits there and he receives a “real briefings,” he knows what’s “really” going on, and that’s why he “really needs” to talk to the Russians.
Meanwhile, Congress lives in a totally artificial world, one where they solely deal — and Diane, this is targeted to the future you, and Geoff, you, too! — they solely deal with their constituents. And we have a constituency in America that has bought into the narcotic of Russophobia. And it’s the easiest thing in the world: I want to win a vote, “Russia did it.” Oh, yeah, baby! We learned that from McCarthyism, it’s the easiest thing to do! Gin up fear, why? Because fear derives from ignorance, and the average American is woefully ignorant about the reality of Russia.
So what are our “responsible” Congressmen and Senators doing? They are simply stoking the fear. You saw it now, Lindsey Graham, and the guy from Connecticut, Richard Blumenthal, but he’s a Democrat; and they’re actually saying the same thing. “We want Russia on the terrorist list! They’re terrorists!” Well, Joe Biden, wisely said, “No.” Why? Because Russia will sever all diplomatic relations, and anybody who has studied the history of global conflict, understands that one of the first precursors of going to war with somebody, is the severance of diplomatic relations! Blinken needs to talk to the Russians! Not not have any communication with the Russians. So the President wisely said, “No.” But Congress doesn’t think right! They’re not rational, they’re irrational, and they’re trying to win votes in a very politicized mode: We have a midterm coming up. So you will hardly find any elected official in Congress say, “Yeah, I think having a dialogue with Russia is a good thing.” That just isn’t going to happen.
I just want to add one other thing: You know, Kirk [Wiebe] talked about a “full-court press.” I started playing basketball later in life, Kirk, and I’m not very good at it. [laughter] But one thing I was pretty good at was the military; I was a Marine. And I’ll tell you this: You attack me, and I’ll counterattack, because that’s how I’m programmed, baby; I’m coming right back at you.
And people say, “What can we do now?” We can file the biggest damned injunction in a federal court the world’s ever seen! We need to find the ACLU, we need to find a way to get a legal — because if you leave it up to Scott Ritter, I’m going to do it! I don’t back down from a fight. But I’m not a lawyer! I don’t even play one on TV, and I didn’t spend a night at a Holiday Inn Express, so I’m not very good at this stuff. I’ll do my best, I’ll do my duty to my country and all that, but, hey! We really need professional legal help here. We need a constitutional lawyer to take a hard look at the First Amendment issues that are accrued when Congress funds an appropriation bill that empowers a foreign entity to do that which is prohibited by Congress! Namely, the suppression of free speech! We also need to focus on terrorism laws, and is Congress complicit with political terrorism? These are important issues, and I believe if we frame them right and we target the right people, we can actually get a federal judge — and I can tell you right now, in the State of New York, they exist! We can say, the justice system doesn’t work. It works here in New York! And if I, as a New York citizen filed an injunction in a federal court in the State of New York, they will freeze the funding! If it’s a legally sound injunction.
But if Scott Ritter is a legal idiot, and writes something where I forgot to do this, I forgot to do that, I didn’t do this, it’ll be dismissed, because that’s what happens. Even with pro se, with the benefit of the doubt, they will dismiss it.
So, we need lawyers to step up to the plate! I’ll front the damned thing, I’m not a coward! I’ll take the charge. But I’d like to have a lawyer look at it first and say, “Hey, Scott, you need to do X, Y, and Z.” Because then we can win. This is a winnable fight! This is a just cause! This is what America’s about! This the Constitution, First Amendment, freedom of speech: This is everything we claim to be as a nation, right now, in this fight! There’s nothing better than this battle right now.
So: They attack? Pow! Let’s counterattack. That’s my thinking. Sorry to get emotional there, Dennis, but that’s who I am.
SPEED: All right. Here’s what we’re going to do: We’re going to Ray, because we have now exhausted the time in much of our audience, but this is fun. But Ray, you go, and think of anything as a sort of summary; then I’m going to have Diane go, and then I’m going to ask Helga to send us home, because we need somebody to summarize all of what has happened.
OK, you go, Ray, please.
MCGOVERN: Well, there’s very little to add to what Scott just said, with which I totally agree. What I would say is that Tony Blinken — Sullivan, Blinken and Nod, are not what the Russians consider ser'yeznyy, serious. They’re not serious people. They’re dipped in exceptionalism, they come from the finest schools, the same schools that gave us Vietnam — Harvard, Yale, and the rest of them. They don’t know what’s going on in the world.
So: If Joe Biden is listening, and I’m sure he is, please, please send Bill Burns, who knows a little bit about the world, send him to talk to the Russians. It’s time to talk, before the winter sets in, before our very, very, — what’s the word? — our loyal European lemming leaders start to freeze to death. It’s time. We can make a deal. We just have to tell Zelenskyy what to do. Thanks.
SPEED: Thank you, Ray. Diane?
SARE: Well, on that, I understand there were a couple of occasions when Zelenskyy was considering negotiating, and people stepped in, I think in April it was Boris Johnson, to make sure that he didn’t negotiate. And therefore, it is completely on the United States, NATO, etc., to end this.
I also — Scott, I’m getting text messages about who could help legally get this injunction going! So we should absolutely work on that.
What I just want to say, is this question of evil, that is, what kind of person would willfully continue sending weapons, so that the numbers of people can get killed who are dying; what Scott described as the number of Ukrainians killed in the last couple of days, equalling what we lost in the entire war on terror: To me, that is really incomprehensible. And you know, people react when you say something is evil, they say, “Oh no, how could that be evil? How could...?” Well, someone who actually intends, who has no sense of conscience about subjecting people to mass death; and back to a point Bradley made, it is a uniform policy. The policies that the United States is inflicting on people around the world: 22 million people in Afghanistan on the brink of starvation; tens of thousands of Ukrainians being slaughtered in a fool’s errand, that probably most of them don’t want to participate in, but they’ll be shot if they refuse; and then, what you see in the United States: arsenic in the water of public housing, and lead poisoning, and fires — it’s not different.
So the point is, to change this! And I may be overly optimistic, but I think human beings are basically good. I think it’s very important that everyone here today participated and expresses a certain quality of courage, because courage inspires courage, and more people will find it in themselves to stand up for what is true, as opposed to going along with this cesspool of so-called popular opinion and media narratives. So I would just like to express that I think this has been really important. It is a badge of honor to be on these outrageous lists, but they should not exist. And I can think of other ways that all of us can be honored, perhaps more appropriately. And with that, I will turn it over to Helga.
SPEED: All right, Helga:
ZEPP-LAROUCHE: I want to thank all the people who participated, either as speakers or as questioners, and I would ask all of you — I think this program was very encouraging. Because it shows that you can, indeed, and I agree with Scott Ritter that if you are attacked, if you are fighting for a right cause, then you have to fight back. This is how EIR, for example, our Executive Intelligence Review} as an independent news agency came into being in 1974, because we were attacked when we were only a group of students with Lyndon LaRouche at the beginning of the ‘70s. And we had no power, but we were attacked by the same apparatus. And rather than capitulate, we said, “Hey! Why are they attacking us? What is this?” And this is how we have developed into one of the, I would say, best independent news agencies around the globe. And I think it does require that kind of courage, and I would like to give a compliment to Scott Ritter, and while he was talking so passionately I thought, “He is really the edel Ritter,” the “noble knight” who is defending the honor of the United States, as did Kirk Wiebe and Ray McGovern, and Colonel Black. I’m not diminishing what they’re saying, or Diane, for that matter, or Dennis; but I would urge all of you, this is the image of America which the rest of the world needs to know about, because the reputation of the United States in the recent period has really gone towards zero, and that’s an understatement of the year.
So help us to get this message out. And I think we should really have courage that this fight can be won. And the first thing is shut down the CCD, shut down Myrotvorets, stop funding these illegal, criminal operations, and start negotiations about ending the war! I mean, what our unspeakable Foreign Minister Mrs. Baerbock just said; she said, she will support the war in Ukraine, even no matter what the German voters are going to say! Well, I hope that the German voters respond as quickly as possible for getting this unspeakable foreign minister out of office. She’s the most incompetent, useless person in this position, ever! And these people, and I mean the government of Germany right now, with their absolutely incompetent policies, are crushing the German economy against the wall. I fully agree, I think it was Ray, who mentioned it: We will go into a winter of discontent: People cannot pay the energy prices, they cannot pay the food prices, the system is in a hyperinflationary blowout. And therefore, we need to change the policy.
It would be very easy, in the Schiller Institute, we have, really over many years, but especially since April, discussed concepts for a global security and development architecture, this is very much in line, and it was completely independent because I said it first, and Xi Jinping said it one week later; and he did not coordinate it with me, but Xi Jinping proposed a Global Security Initiative and a Global Development Initiative, also saying these two things have to go together.
So I think if we could concentrate on solving the urgent needs of this poor, tortured world, there is so much to do: And are we not human beings capable of reason? And can we not correct a political course when we realize it was a mistake?
So in that spirit, I really ask you all to get this program out, as far as possible, and follow the wise words of Kirk Wiebe: Work with the Schiller Institute!
SPEED: OK, well, thank you very much, Helga. I want to thank everybody who participated today. I also wanted to make sure that I told people that Ray’s website is raymcgovern. com/ . Ray also wrote a piece on Sept. 2, “Was Biden Unaware That Human Lemmings Freeze?” [raymcgovern. com/2022/09/03/was-biden-unaware-that-human-lemmings-freeze/] and some other things, if you want to check him out on that website. I wanted to make sure I did that. His son always says, “If you don’t get it, you don’t get it.”
We say the same thing about Executive Intelligence Review. Again, if you have either questions, or you want to know more about the magazine itself, go to larouchepub. com .
We’ll answer any questions that are left in the Q&A, and I want to thank everybody for being with us: I think this is the beginning of something. Obviously, we want to expand this message, and let people know about what we’ve done here, today, in order that the task be performed.
The last thing I’d like to say is that, there was once a time-honored tradition in the United States of political pamphleteering, in particular. Tom Paine, Benjamin Franklin’s Poor Richard’s Almanac, the writings for that matter, earlier; the Mathers’ writings and things of that type. And then later on, the same thing, the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, themselves in one sense; the Federalist Papers, in which there was a great deliberation about how this republic — remember, the United States is a republic, not a democracy — and why it would be a republic, all of this was formulated. This is what we’re talking about.
Now, that’s the American side. But then you had people like Nicholas of Cusa, and Leibniz and others; how about Dante Alighieri and his great Commedia, and what he did with that. He could never go back to Florence, after he was kicked out by political opposition. He wrote that great poem, saying he was a Florentine by birth, but not in character. And he managed to basically, in that way, through the word, through poetry, create a language called Italian, which then roasted and skewered his enemies, but not because they were significant, because it was important for the people to understand what the divinity of the human being is.
I just want to say, I think that’s what we’re really sort of talking about here: It may seem to be a bit far afield, but I think it was important to say it. (I have the prerogative to say it, so I did.)
I want to thank everybody for being with us. We’ll make this available as soon as we can. Let me also just note that this Saturday, there is going to be a conference of the Schiller Institute. You can find out more by going to the Schiller Institute site. It is called “Inspiring Humanity To Survive the Worst Crisis in World History.” (schillerinstitute.nationbuilder. com/conference_20220910-11). That will be two days, Saturday, Sept. 10 and Sunday, Sept. 11, starting at 10 a.m. So, again, if you want more of this, several of the people who were here, will be there on Saturday and Sunday.
On behalf of Executive Intelligence Review, I want to thank everybody. Good afternoon.
