by Helga Zepp-LaRouche
November 19, 2011
“I’m afraid that this thing is going to be a fait accompli…. It’s just going to happen one morning: We’re going to wake up, and the strike has been conducted.”
Those were the recent remarks to EIR News Service by Gen. Joseph P. Hoar (ret.), former Commander-in-Chief of the U.S. Central Command, on the danger of a military strike against Iran. Only a few days afterwards, Nikolai Makarov, Chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Russia, warned that Russia could be drawn into a regional nuclear conflict, and that it could escalate into a full-scale war. And quite a few American military officers have been warning about the “incalculable consequences” of an attack on Iran. Leading Mideast specialists have long been warning that any war against Iran would mean World War III.
When a threat is so terrible, so unimaginable, that it surpasses normal human comprehension, the human psyche has the tendency to suppress this reality, out of self-defense, as it were. And the idea of a Third World War, in which weapons of mass destruction will be utilized, is certainly just such a case. With the war against Libya, and now the threats against Syria and Iran, many are sensing that something terrible is brewing. They’re experiencing a déjà vu effect–”that they heard this very same propaganda during the run-up to the Iraq war–”and they admit that they simply don’t want to watch or listen to news reports anymore, since those are merely warmups for the planned hostilities.
But it’s better for us to think the unthinkable, because only if individuals and governments can paint in their imagination, in excruciating detail, just what the consequences will be of a global war involving the deployment of ABC [atomic-biological-chemical] weapons, can we effect the change of course that can avert this war danger–“five minutes before midnight,” so to speak. It is a fact that there exist forces who believe that the reduction in population caused by such a war, down to 1 or 2 billion people, is a desirable result.
But what kind of humanity would that be which did survive? And even if one or another of us were among the survivors, would that be cause for rejoicing? Or wouldn’t we rather be cursing that day, wishing that we, too, were among those already dead?
The purpose of this call is to shake the public awake, and to appeal to those in positions of influence to do everything conceivable to prevent this war. We call upon governments to emulate Denmark’s Foreign Minister Villy Søvndal, and to declare publicly that their country will not, under any circumstances, take part in a war against Syria or Iran. And secondly, the entire dynamic underlying the war danger must be eliminated, namely the approaching collapse of the trans-Atlantic financial system, and of the euro in particular.
The European Union summit on Dec. 8-9 has produced an even more abominable monstrosity than EU policy was already: It did nothing to diminish the risk of collapse of the euro and of bank failures. A debt brake, budget control by the European Commission, tougher sanctions against deficit violators, “more Europe,” loss of sovereignty and democracy, economic hardship, and a future without hope for millions of people: That is the ghastly result of the “Merkozy” strategy. The threat of collapse of the trans-Atlantic financial system remains acute.