Hiroshima og Gaza — Aldrig igen!
Den internationale fredskoalition møde nr. 114 den 8. august 2025

På engelsk:
DENNIS SMALL: Good morning everybody! Welcome to the 114th consecutive meeting of the International Peace Coalition. My name is Dennis Small and I will be co-moderating this session with my colleague, Dennis Speed. Anastasia is with us, but she is feeling a little under the weather.

We will proceed with this rather important 114th gathering of the International Peace Coalition, which is all the more urgent under current circumstances that the original mission statement, so to speak, of the IPC be accelerated and broadened everywhere internationally. That is to bring together all forces independent of ideology or other political differences around a common commitment to peace and peace through development. The IPC was founded over 114 weeks ago at the initiative of the Schiller Institute’s founder, Helga Zepp-LaRouche. She will be the first to address the meeting today, which occurs at a very dangerous moment, but also a moment of great potential. Today is August 8th; it’s 80 years since the August 6th bombing of Hiroshima, the August 9th bombing of Nagasaki. We meet today under the theme of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, never again.

Helga Zepp-LaRouche has personally written and issued a call for an urgent meeting of the Presidents of Russia, China, and the United States to meet at the soonest possible opportunity to take up the pressing issues which otherwise threaten the planet at this point. So, with that in mind, with the urgency of the moment as well as the potential, I now turn the floor over to Helga Zepp-LaRouche for her opening remarks.

HELGA ZEPP-LAROUCHE: Hello to all of you. As Dennis just said, we have today the 80th anniversary of the bombing of Nagasaki, and there are many comments around the world on that day; some with a clear worry and concern and anxiety that we are not safe from experiencing the use of nuclear weapons again. As a matter of fact, there are many people who are acutely aware that the world has never been as close to nuclear extinction as it is today. All the mechanisms which prevented a disaster during the Cuban Missile Crisis are no longer there, and we are experiencing the old order and the new order is not yet in place. As a matter of fact, it’s not there. I think that fact, that Hiroshima and Nagasaki happened, and as we have done our own studies many years ago, it was not necessary if you can even say that concerning the use of nuclear weapons, because the Japanese emperor, Hirohito, was already in a process of negotiation with forces from the Vatican about surrender. So, it is now very clear that that bomb was—the order to drop that bomb was given by Truman; not because it was necessary to save the lives of 1 million American soldiers as the official line goes, but more as a demonstration of schrecklichkeit [terribleness] and the beginning of the Cold War against the Soviet Union. That part of history has urgently to be worked through, and historians are called upon to finally straighten the record on that matter, because we are so close to a similar but even much worse fate for all of humanity.

Now, we are in a dramatic situation; the situation seems to shift daily. A couple of days ago it looked almost hopeless, then in a big surprise—which we should almost expect these days—President Trump did signal that he is willing to meet Putin. This was after the meeting of his representative Witkoff for three hours in the Kremlin. It seems now that meeting (Trump-Putin) could take place three days from now on August 11th; maybe in the Emirates, maybe in some other neutral country so to speak which is not subject to the ICC ruling, because of the arrest order against President Putin. But if that meeting takes place, it obviously would be the absolutely necessary signal that the worst catastrophe in Ukraine can be avoided. There are also signs that Zelenskyy has said that he also thinks this war has to come to an end, and it is mooted that there could be a meeting among Trump, Putin, and Zelenskyy afterwards.

That is obviously only one part of the strategic picture. The other one is naturally the unbelievable escalation of what can only be called genocide, and what is now being called genocide out of Israel from a broad spectrum of forces; the genocide in Gaza. Yesterday evening, the war cabinet of Netanyahu approved that the operation in Gaza will be expanded. Not the entirety of Gaza as Netanyahu had demanded, but “only in Gaza City.” I must say that there is now a growing awareness of what is actually happening. It took much too long, but now in the alternative media in Germany, there has appeared documentation which is quite breathtaking. A person named Willy Wall put up a comparison between what was said by the different members of the Cabinet and Defense Forces in Israel in respect to Gaza; comparing it to what Reinhard Heydrich, the chief of the SS in Nazi Germany, wrote on October 20, 1941 to Heinrich Himmler about how Warsaw and Leningrad must be attacked much more brutally because the destruction of these two cities had been insufficient so far, and there should be a use of firebombs and explosives. These cities had to be exterminated. All of this is documented very well in the Nuremberg Tribunal, which brought to justice at least some of the main criminals. This is then being compared step by step with pictures of the Warsaw Ghetto, from Leningrad, with the pictures from Gaza. All of this is prefaced with a picture of the Michelangelo fresco in the Sistine Chapel about the Final Judgment; implying that many of the forces which are condoning this genocide eventually will be brought to justice.

For normal people, this is what they call “heavy, heavy stuff,” but I think it is what is determining the picture. I think that also goes for the situation; and people who are condoning the war mongering which can only lead to a catastrophe for all of humanity. This is extremely dramatic. President Trump is very difficult to read these days. He made this sudden move, and hopefully this summit will take place. At the same time, President Xi Jinping just had a telephone call with President Putin. Obviously this is a matter of strategic concern for every head of government. But another action which Trump is doing is also having potentially gigantic effects; namely, that he did go ahead and impose these tariffs against 70 countries on the planet—the EU, Switzerland, anywhere from 10% to 50%. All the BRICS countries and many more have been affected. This is now meeting massive resistance. President Lula from Brazil is not backing down; he is now in contact with Prime Minister Modi. The BRICS countries are coordinating their actions, and Trump may involuntarily trigger by his actions exactly what he claims he wants to prevent—namely the de-dollarization. Because he is forcing the countries of the Global South into a joint action, and that may actually lead to things which Trump has not intended.

There are many other things which one could discuss, and maybe we will get to it in the discussion. For example, there is a quite incredible report in Le Monde which says that there was massive pressure from the United States, Israel, Great Britain, and Germany harassing the chief prosecutor of the ICC, Karim Ahmad Khan, to take back the arrest orders against Netanyahu. All of this signifies that there is a breakdown of any rules that any treaty, any arrangement, disarmament treaty, Helsinki Accord, all of these things have basically gone into disarray; they don’t exist anymore. This is why I issued this call; an appeal to the three Presidents of the United States, China, and Russia, that they must make a step; and the most obvious place would be the upcoming 80th anniversary of the end of the Second World War in the Pacific. On September 3rd there will be a big military parade on Tiananmen Square, which President Putin has already agreed to attend. Obviously, if President Xi Jinping would invite President Trump to attend, that would be the appropriate setting commemorating the fact that China also lost millions of people in the Second World War; a fact which has been almost forgotten in the history accounts. But it is a fact that by fighting against Japanese militarism, China played a very important role in bringing about the result of World War II. And then to make a solid renewed commitment for never again war, never again fascism. If these three Presidents would meet at such an historic occasion, they could indeed agree to settle all of these problems I touched upon before by diplomacy, and by starting a new era for all of mankind by cooperation. Because the only way we will get out of this crisis is to convince the countries of the West to cooperate with the Global South, with the Global Majority; then everything will become relatively easy.

So, those are some of the subjects we should discuss, and we should absolutely mobilize, because the danger of the world going into a final catastrophe has never been more clear than right now.

Remarks during the Discussion:

[re presentation by Lt. Col. (ret.) Anthony Aguilar] I just want to thank you, because it is always patriots who step forward who make sure that there is a future honor for your country. I just want to thank you for what you are doing.

[just before open discussion period] This is a very wide field of topics, which all would deserve in-depth discussion. I just want to mention one thing concerning Palantir, that their AI programs have been used in targetting some of the Palestinians. I think that’s a whole other chapter to be investigated, because talk about dehumanization—when machines give orders about killing people using programs to lure them on the basis of offering food; luring them out of their houses to shoot them. As I said, there is no time now to go into it in depth. I fully agree with you, Kirk, about the danger of this; because if there is no awareness, people are defenseless against it. I can only say there is a common thread in all the topics which have been brought up, and that is the dehumanization of what people call the enemy. That started with Hiroshima and Nagasaki; that was the basis for Churchill’s Operation Unthinkable, which ended a fruitful cooperation between the Soviet Union and the United States in defeating Nazism and opening the Cold War. This is what was the basis of all these interventionist wars. If you think about the millions of people who have died as a consequence of lies, like the Iraq War, which was based on lies; Afghanistan; Libya; it’s a long list. I think one cannot try to remedy all of these situations one by one; it’s in any case the past.

But I think what it requires is an urgent change of the image of man. It always starts with the fact that if you think that only some people are human and others are not, it’s not only colonialism, racism, imperialism, all of these things, but it goes against the very nature of man. Because we are supposedly and hopefully, and I fully believe that we are, the only species capable of creative reason. When you deny that ability of creative reason of some other human beings, you are destroying your own humanity as much as you deny the rights to this other person or group. And I think we have reached in the history of mankind the point where we must redefine that every human being on the planet is as human as we are. We have to really start to reorder a new security and development architecture which starts with the idea of the image of man that man is good by nature, and all evil is the result of a lack of development, and can be overcome by development. If you start with that image of man, everything else falls into place.

I really would urge that we do discuss these matters, because with all the many problems mentioned, you have to agree on principle if you want to find a solution.

Closing Remarks:

I think that the discussion for the last 2.5 hours makes very clear that we are in an extraordinary moment in history which is very dangerous to the existence of the human species. So, I’m asking all of you to indeed get active; get active with the Schiller Institute; make the IPC grow. Let’s make the IPC the voice which is so strong that it cannot be drowned out. And by having total programs like today, it’s already convincing more and more people that that is the institution internationally where you have to be once a week to be informed on the breaking developments and solutions.

But I also ask you to consider all the aspects which were discussed. The genocide going on in Gaza, which is a threat to the moral existence of humanity. The fact of what Prof. Starr was saying, that we are at best 7 minutes away from nuclear war; all the human errors and failures and intentions as a possibility. Mankind is in peril like never before. We have the blow-out of the system looming over the situation. Trump does not know that the biggest threat to de-dollarization is crypto, Stable Coin, all of these things which take the power of credit creation out of the hands of government into the hands of private people who will listen to the client and not say no to the client if push comes to shove. The complexity of the situation is such that I think that we absolutely need a New Paradigm; we need a new security and development architecture which must take into account the interests of every single country. That is why I am asking you to sign the petition where we are appealing to the three Presidents—President Xi Jinping, President Trump, and President Putin—to all convene on September 3rd on the occasion of the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II in the Pacific in Beijing. Because I think the world has reached such a point that you need the voice of history, the voice of everything the human species ever produced which is embodied in that moment, reflecting about World War I, World War II. Hopefully, these three Presidents can then forge a basis, a platform to solve all of these problems. They are all solvable; but it does require an attitude of cooperation. So, please sign this appeal; get it around, especially to all people who have access to Trump, to Xi Jinping, to Putin, so that we create an environment where indeed Xi Jinping offers an invitation, and the three men meet on September 3rd, which may be the last opportunity for a solution without catastrophe.

These are my questions and demands and requests to all of you.