World on the Edge of the Nuclear Abyss: More Officials Get the Courage To Tell the Truth
by Helga Zepp-LaRouche
Aug. 7—Whereas it
is no longer
possible to ignore the signs that the U.S. Administration and NATO are
preparing a military confrontation with Russia and China, perhaps
even during this or next month, more and more leading personalities have
found the courage, virtually at the last minute before the catastrophe,
to break through the orchestrated charade (theater), which is aimed at
using black propaganda to prepare the population for the coming war. The
“Guns of August,” the build-up toward the third, and, as Speaker of the
Duma Sergei Naryshkin put it,
humanity’s last world war, is in full swing. But the way out is also within reach.
Russian State Duma
“If the logic of the Cold War is imposed on us, then we have to
respond appropriately. And one should be very careful in using words
such as ‘redividing the world’ or ‘Third World War.’ Both in our country
and abroad.
A Third World War would be mankind’last. And
the strengthening of Russia’ s defense capabilities, including the
funding decisions the Duma makes, is intended precisely to avert such a
war.”—Sergey Naryshkin, in an interview with Izvestia July 30.
Here, Russian State Duma chairperson Naryshkin (right) speaks at a
September 5, 2014 press conference in Moscow with OSCE official Iikka
Kanerva.
It is most remarkable that a former NATO Commander should express
himself as follows. The Italian Lt. General Fabio Mini, formerly Chief
of the General Staff for NATO’s Southern Command and the Commander of
KFOR in Kosovo, on the web-site “Critica Scientifica,” issued a clear
warning Aug. 6 that the current “
world war”
was
escalating into a nuclear confrontation, and he linked this dynamic
with the control of the financial markets over national states. He
warned that today, limited wars are no longer possible, even
theoretically, and that all the present conflicts—from the Cold War
against Russia in the Baltic states, to Ukraine, to Syria and Yemen,
including the so-called “low intensity conflicts”—indicate that we must
not expect a totally new conflict, but that we are already in it up to
our necks.
“
What is occurring in Asia with the Pacific strategic pivot,” Lt. General Mini said, “
is perhaps the clearest sign that the prospect of a World War II-like explosion is more probable in that theater. Not
so much because aircraft carriers and missiles are being transferred
there (which is indeed taking place), but because the preparation for a
world war of that kind, including the inevitable nuclear confrontation,
is what is being prepared. That is not to say that it will happen
immediately, but the longer the preparation goes on, the more resources
will go into weapons, and the more Asian and Western minds will orient
to that direction.” (see interview excerpts)
On the occasion of the 70th anniversary of the dropping of atom bombs
on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, an array of personalities has spoken out on
the urgent necessity to ban and scrap nuclear weapons, due to their
potential to wipe out humanity; interestingly, these include Japanese
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, but also the likely next leader of the
British Labour Party, Jeremy Corbyn, as well as Mikhail Gorbachov.
Gorbachov warned in an Aug. 6 interview with Spiegel Online that he was
very worried about the danger of nuclear war, and that we might not
survive the coming year if anyone in this overheated situation were to
lose his nerve.
The American journalist Jack Hanick wrote in the New York Observer
Aug. 4, under the headline “Can the U.S. Stop a War with Russia?,” that
the United States is preparing a war against Russia. But, [in defensive
response,]
Russia is also preparing for this war and will bring it to America,
as the recent flights of the Bear-Bombers off the California coast on
July 4 have shown. The American media of all political stripes have
offered no critical analysis indicating that it would be necessary to
take Russian arguments seriously, if serious consequences are to be
avoided.
The United States is edging its way ever closer to a war against
Russia; Democrats and Republicans are trying to outdo each other with
provocative speeches, but history is full of examples of failed attempts
to subdue Russia, Napoleon’s and Hitler’s being only the most recent
examples.
Allying with Terrorists
The most spectacular interview, however, next to that of General
Mini, has come from the former head of American Military Intelligence
(DIA), Michael Flynn, on the “Head to Head” program on Al-Jazeera
television Aug. 6. In that interview Flynn confirmed to interviewer
Mehdi Hasan, that he had not only studied a DIA Memorandum from 2012,
according to which
the West supported the creation of an Islamic state in Syria; but that the
support by the White House for the radical jihadists—which then morphed
into ISIL and al-Nusra—had been no error in judgment, but a conscious
decision to play this card.
During the broadcast Hasan read the relevant sections of the 2012
memorandum, which had already been published pursuant to an FOIA court
case. One section reads:
“There is the possibility of establishing a declared or undeclared
Salafist principality in Eastern Syria … and this is exactly what the
supporting powers to the opposition want, in order to isolate the Syrian
regime….
Hasan repeatedly asked during the interview, whether the U.S.
Administration had turned a blind eye in respect to the report, in
response to which Flynn repeatedly emphasized that this had been a
conscious decision. Earlier releases from this DIA report suggested that
the U.S. Administration had organized the arming of al-Qaeda, al-Nusra,
the Muslim Brotherhood, and ISIS, in full knowledge that these groups
intended to set up a Caliphate in eastern Syria and Iraq, in order to
overthrow the Assad regime. Flynn underscored that the DIA had not only
produced this memorandum in 2012, but that he had repeatedly spoken with
the White House and the National Security Council and warned of the
conseqeunces which would occur if these organizations were armed.
This interview was extraordinarily explosive, because three days after the U.S. Congress left on July 29 for its summer recess,
President
Obama—naturally without the consent of the Congress that the
Constitution prescribes—changed the rules of engagement for the U.S.
Airforce in Syria, so that it would, from now on, be permitted to defend
the American-trained Syrian rebels (55 men!), including against the
Syrian Air Force. That is, to all intents and purposes, an open pathway
to military strikes against Syria.
Exactly such a decision had been prevented in September 2013,
literally at the last moment, when the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of
Staff (JCS), Gen. Martin Dempsey, very well briefed by Flynn, spoke with
Obama shortly before the already-ordered military operation against
Syria, and warned him, that it would lead to impeachment proceedings, if
he did not obtain Congress’s permission for this war. Obama saw that he
was forced to consult Congress, and, sensing that he would lose the
vote, the President ultimately pulled back from a decision that would
have had unforeseen consequences.
One Minute to Midnight
For Flynn, in the current situation, to bring into the open the truth
about the background of the evolution of the ISIS terrorists, is
obviously of the highest strategic importance. Because today, as two
years ago,
the attempt to
eradicate the Assad government with the help of Islamic terrorists,
threatens to provoke a confrontation in the whole region, and beyond. After
Obama’s announcement, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov
immediately warned that military strikes against the Syrian army would
complicate the war against ISIS, and remarked ironically, that most of
the “moderate” rebels trained by the U.S. end up within a very short
time in the ranks of the terrorists.
Russia’s President Vladimir Putin at the same time gave Turkish
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan a sharp warning, that his bombing of the
Kurds in Syria endangered the war against ISIS. Russia maintains the
Tartus base in Syria, which, in the event of the overthrow of Assad,
would fall into the hands of ISIS.
It is literally one minute to
midnight, to carry out an open debate on the failed policy in Southwest
Asia, if an escalation into the worst-scenario catastrophe is to be
stopped. Because the trail of destruction leads from Iraq—against
which a war based on lies was started wantonly—to Afghanistan, then
Libya, Syria, and Yemen.
Jeremy Corbyn, the probable new head of the British Labour Party, has
just demanded that Tony Blair be held accountable for war crimes, if
the Chilcot Report proves his guilt in the realization of the war
against Iraq. What is proven in any case is the complete failure of the
policy of regime change, with the help of terrorists, in this region;
terrorists who will then be bombed in order to create new terrorists.
In October, NATO will hold a series of maneuvers among which is one
with the name Trident Juncture 15, the largest one of its kind in 25
years.
In that maneuver, among other things, a deployment of nuclear weapons against Russia will be simulated.
In the same time frame, JCS Chairman Dempsey and a range of other
high-ranking military leaders will be replaced by successors, several
among whom have already declared that Russia is Enemy No. 1 for the
United States.
Mankind has never found itself so close to the edge of its potential
extinction. It is of vital importance that Germany and all the other
European nations make perfectly clear that they are having no part of a
possible war against Russia and China.
There are a whole slew of measures which could be taken. Among them
are the immediate ending of sanctions against Russia; the immediate ban
and destruction of nuclear weapons—beginning with those stationed in
Europe—and an honest discussion about the failed policy in southwest
Asia in reference to the DIA memo. Likewise, it is urgent to put on the
table the solution to the strategic challenges now threatening all
mankind, challenges such as terrorism, the refugee catastrophe, drugs,
famine, and so forth,—for whose solution cooperation with Russia and
China is decisive.
We urgently
need citizens who will no longer allow mediocre governments, led by
Great Britain and the United States, to sleepwalk into World War III.