Have We Gone Mad? The Urgent Task of Winning the Peace, Not the War

The Schiller Institute online conference May 26 featured presentations and exchanges between Schiller Institute founder Helga Zepp-LaRouche and four military and strategy specialists from France, Italy and the United States, all committed to preventing an escalation of the conflict between Russia and NATO, which is now playing out in Ukraine:

• * Gen. (ret) Leonardo Tricarico, former chief of staff of the Italian Air Force,
• *Colonel (ret) Richard H. Black, former Chief of the Army Criminal Law Division at the Pentagon and former State Senator of Virginia,
• * Eric Denécé, Director of the French Center on Intelligence Research (CF2R)
• * Ray McGovern, former CIA officer and founding member of the Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS).

In opening the event (“The Insanity of Politicians Threatens Nuclear War”), Zepp-LaRouche set the focus: “Any policy consideration that does not start with consideration of the danger of nuclear war, is worthless.” She drew a vivid picture of the folly of those in the West who are discussing the use of nuclear weapons as part of a “winnable” strategy, aimed against Russia and China. She presented the “Peace of Westphalia” approach in some detail, as the way out of the crisis, as well as the Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence (the Panchsheel). It is possible, she stressed, to agree on a common international architecture that guarantees the security and development of all nations. In that spirit, she welcomed the “emergence of a non-aligned spirit” among many nations today, that reject the Anglo-American “unipolar world”.

Gen. Leonardo Tricarico (ret.) spoke sternly to the question, “What can we do to stop this meaningless war?” (cf. the item below) He was followed by Col. Richard H. Black, who gave a gripping account of events since the 2014 “revolutionary coup” imposed by MI6 and the CIA in Ukraine, against Russia. He blasted those figures in the U.S. Congress who are saying, “We are at war with Russia”. Worse still is the Biden Administration, which has become “insanely reckless”, by participating (not so covertly) in acts of war against Russia, including killing Russian generals (cf. below).

The next speaker, Eric Denécé, picked up on this point, starting by asking, “How did this happen? I am not pro- or anti-Russia or Ukraine. But, this warfare should never have taken place. NATO should have disappeared at the end of the Cold War.” Denécé pointed out that the Western nations supplying Ukraine are “direct co-belligerents” against Russia. In his view, “the lesson of geopolitics is that no state can secure its interests at the expense of neighbor states.”

Ray McGovern stressed that if western political leaders seriously want to avoid total war with Russia – and eventually with China – they must put an end to their illusions of winning a “total victory” for NATO and imposing the “total defeat of Putin”. He also developed how psychological warfare is waged against Americans by the MICIMATT, which refers to the military-industrial-Congressional-intelligence-media-academia-think tank complex.

Zepp-LaRouche summed up the situation in the concluding discussion: “The old order is falling apart. The old paradigm is dead.” Thinking people now have to weigh what the principles of the new system should be. This is being forced upon us by the circumstances, ranging from famine to shortages, to disease, and to war. The presentations as well as the discussion are all available on the Schiller Institute website, and will be published in Executive Intelligence Review.