baerbock’s smug appearance did not go down at all well......

The worldwide peace movement after the end of the Second World War, and especially Germany’s (“Never again war!”), set out fundamentally to end wars as a means of conflict resolution. This goal is shared by all people of good will, as expressed in the United Nations Charter of 1945. The question posed in the following article, which considers the German peace movement as we have it today, is equally committed to this goal. The question is: Does the German movement’s sometimes sharp criticism of Russia for the Ukraine war truly serve peace?

The German Peace Movement and the war in Ukraine by Karl-Jürgen Müller

On 24 February 2022, the German section of International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW), a renowned organisation of the German peace movement, published a press release that begins as follows: “The medical peace organisation IPPNW most strongly condemns the Russian military attack on Ukraine, which violates international law.” Russian President Vladimir Putin’sdetailed justification for the invasion of Ukraine by regular Russian troops on the morning of the same day,1 in which he invoked, among other things, the right of self-defence in Article 51 of the United Nations Charter (see box), was left unexamined. The many facts from the years, months, weeks, and days before 24 February 2022, which had led those responsible in Russia to the comprehensible conclusion that the lives of Russian citizens and the integrity of the Russian state were seriously and acutely threatened by Ukraine (and NATO), were also not considered. I will not here repeat the list of these facts and realities.2
Since 24 February 2022, the German peace movement has formulated many statements that judge Russian actions as does the German section of the IPPNW. This also applies to the movement’s most popularly supported appeal so far, the “Manifesto for Peace” of 10 February 2023, initiated by Sahra Wagenknecht and Alice Schwarzer, which has been signed by more than 800,000 people. Again, the highly important history before 24 February 2022 is completely omitted from this appeal.
One of the few weighty exceptions to this perspective in the German peace movement was a public statement on 19 July 2022 by Albrecht Müller, who served as an advisor to Willy Brandt, the former chancellor. Müller, who is today editor of the NachDenkSeiten, wrote as follows:

“There are many articles and videos critically questioning Western policy on Ukraine and Russia. But very rarely do these contributions get by without invoking the general outrage over Russia’s war in Ukraine. Even if this is not at all part of the topic, the corresponding words are used: ‘invasion in violation of international law’, ‘inhuman war of aggression’, ‘Putin’s war’, and so on. Many of these invocations are far from correct. They disregard that the story is told in a truncated way when the shelling of eastern Ukraine by the Ukrainian military after 2014 is not considered. Many good contributions – including some in the NachDenkSeiten – are thus relativised, and in my view often devalued.”

The importance of the peace movement

The fact that in its more than one hundred years of history the German peace movement has never prevented war preparations and wars does not diminish its honourable concern. This concern corresponds to the basic need of human life – Alfred de Zayas makes a strong argument in favor of a “human right to peace”3. Yes, the peace movement did not prevent the First and not the Second World Wars; nor the German rearmament at the beginning of the 1950s; nor the implementation of [the NATO Double-Track Decision at the beginning of the 1980s; nor Germany’s first direct participation in a war after 1945, in NATO’s war against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia in 1999; nor the transformation of the Bundeswehr into an offensive army for worldwide foreign missions; nor the participation of the Bundeswehr in the war in Afghanistan; nor the war of the “coalition of the willing” against Iraq; nor the wars against Libya and Syria.... But that cannot mean that it is not relevant – if it is indeed a persuasive voice for peace.
To consider this requires also looking impartially at the following questions: What really creates peace? What is the contribution of the German peace movement? Is there anything that distracts the peace movement from placing the basic human need for peace, the “human right to peace”, entirely at the centre of its efforts?

German politics has decided in favour of war

One thing is certain: Current German policy has decided that Germany is a party to the war – even if statements of this clarity are still publicly avoided or denied. But the facts speak for themselves. Just read the current article by Scott Ritter, the former US officer and UN weapons inspector regarding the active German training of the Ukrainian army for its current “offensive” by means of a war simulation programme of the Bundeswehr.4 Unfortunately, this reading is only possible for Germans by diversions, because the internet portal Russia Today with Scott Ritter’s article is banned in Germany. A scandal for a country that is officially committed to the human right to freedom of expression.
And what happened to the basic need for peace when militaristic headlines such as one that appeared recently in the newspaper Bild – “Ukrainian offensive underway. Now German Leopard tanks advance”5 – no longer provoke a broad outcry of indignation? What is going on in Germany that allows responsible politicians and media representatives to spread their propaganda formulas without widespread opposition?6

The accusations against Russia are no trifling matter

The assertion that Russia is waging a “war of aggression contrary to international law” is no trifle. The Charter of the United Nations states in Article 2, paragraph 4: “All Members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state, or in any other manner inconsistent with the Purposes of the United Nations.” According to Article 51 of the Charter, only individual or collective self-defence is permitted.
“Collective” in this context means that states defending themselves against attack may be assisted in this by other states. The Nuremberg Trials in 1945/1946 and the “Nuremberg Principles”7 adopted by the United Nations International Law Commission in 1950 declared war of aggression to be the most serious war crime, followed almost inevitably by all other war crimes. The German Basic Law, in Article 26, already declared the preparation of a war of aggression unconstitutional and made it a punishable offence.
A peace movement that speaks of the “Russian war of aggression in violation of international law” must allow itself to be asked with what logic it wants to judge the Western warfare against Russia since 24 February 2022. The Western war leaders will ask: Isn’t it legitimate to assist by all means, including military means, a state “attacked in violation of international law”? In other words, the formula of the “Russian war of aggression in violation of international law” serves the West primarily to justify the escalation of its war against Russia.

When is a war a war of aggression?

However, whether or not such a war of aggression happens or has happened is not decided by the peace movement. This question must be examined very thoroughly, impartially, and without prejudice. All necessary documents must be accessible and examined. The Nuremberg trial against the 24 main defendants of the Nazi regime began six months after the end of the Second World War and lasted almost a year; the files fill 5,215 folders containing 270,000 pages.8 How should it be possible to judge Russia’s actions in Ukraine on the very first day as a “Russian military attack in violation of international law”?
No judgement regarding international law on the war in Ukraine should or can be formulated here. And of course, this is also true for the war in Ukraine: The many victims and the destruction on both sides of the front once again prove that war is always a “failure of politics and humanity” (Pope Francis). But everyone should also know: Once the war (whether still “cold” or already “hot”) is raging, the accusation of “war of aggression contrary to international law” is often a propaganda formula, mainly to justify one’s own warfare – as stated above. This makes the demand for a thorough and unbiased investigation even more important.
The fact that German citizens who critically question the official and the peace movement narrative of the “Russian war of aggression in violation of international law” are being investigated under criminal law and that first-instance criminal sentences have already been handed down is rather an indication of how much German democracy has already suffered from its participation in the war. Everyone who is a little awake has by now noticed how politically incorrect positions on the war in Ukraine, but also on other wars in which Germany is involved, are to be marginalised.

Grotesque propaganda war

On 25 June, Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock visited South Africa. She knows that South Africa is seriously interested in peace in Ukraine. She also knows that South Africa is not prepared to side with the Western warring party. Likewise, she knows that South Africa has good relations with Russia – as well as with many other states in the world community. And, of course, she should also know what the neocolonial policies of the West have done to the whole of Africa. Nevertheless, Baerbock brought her propaganda war with her to Pretoria.
Once again, the whole thing seemed grotesque. Ms Baerbock had the cheek to state in Pretoria: “When the country of Nelson Mandela and Desmond Tutu raises its voice against injustice, the world listens. That is why I also want to talk in Pretoria about how South Africa can throw its weight around to put an end to Russian aggression in Ukraine and preserve the United Nations Charter”.9 In her election campaign for the Bundestag in 2021, Baerbock had appointed herself an expert on international law without any factual basis. In South Africa itself, at any rate, Baerbock’s smug appearance probably did not go down at all well.

https://www.zeit-fragen.ch/en/archives/2023/nr-16-25-juli-2023/die-deutsche-friedensbewegung-und-der-ukraine-krieg

MAKE A DEAL PRONTO BEFORE THE SHIT HITS THE FAN:

NO NATO IN "UKRAINE" (WHAT'S LEFT OF IT)

THE DONBASS REPUBLICS ARE NOW BACK IN THE RUSSIAN FOLD — AS THEY USED TO BE PRIOR 1922. THE RUSSIANS WON'T ABANDON THESE AGAIN.

CRIMEA IS RUSSIAN — AS IT USED TO BE PRIOR 1954

A MEMORANDUM OF NON-AGGRESSION BETWEEN RUSSIA AND THE USA.

EASY.

THE WEST KNOWS IT.

FREE JULIAN ASSANGE NOW....

FREE JULIAN ASSANGE NOW............................

By Gus Leonisky at 13 Aug 2023 - 6:29am
Gus Leonisky's blog
Login or register to post comments

opportunity before pathos.....

За Россией не тянется колониальный шлейф, как за западными державами. Москва обладает многими активами, которые необходимы этим странам. По совокупности объективных обстоятельств возможности для взаимодействия с мировым большинством благоприятны. Их реализация требует кропотливой работы, где конкурентами выступают не столько западные оппоненты, сколько желание партнёров добиться для себя более выгодных условий. Пафос может присутствовать, но он вторичен.

Russia does not have a colonial legacy in the Global South – unlike the Western powers. Furthermore, Moscow possesses many assets that these countries need. Under the totality of objective circumstances, the opportunities for interaction with the world majority are favorable. Their implementation requires painstaking work, where the competitors are not so much Western opponents as the desire of partners to achieve more favorable conditions for themselves.

Pathos may be present, but it is secondary.

https://www.rt.com/russia/581117-another-confrontation-between-white-people/

READ FROM TOP.

FREE JULIAN ASSANGE NOW.................

KOSTENLOS JULIAN ASSANGE JETZT.................

БЕСПЛАТНО ДЖУЛИАН АССАНЖ СЕЙЧАС..........

立即釋放朱利安·阿桑奇......

By Gus Leonisky at 13 Aug 2023 - 6:44am
Login or register to post comments

Germany's dump....

By Seymour Hersh / Substack

This piece is from Seymour Hersh’s Substack, subscribe to it here.

The British playwright and Nobel Prize winner Harold Pinter was an early critic of the Bush administration’s decision, endorsed by British Prime Minister Tony Blair, to declare a worldwide war on Islamist terrorism in the aftermath of 9/11. In the fall of 2002, Pinter was invited to make his case against the war before the House of Commons. He began his talk with a bit of embellished British history about an earlier wave of terror in Ireland:

“There’s an old story about Oliver Cromwell. After he had taken the town of Drogheda the citizens were brought to the main square. Cromwell announced to his Lieutenants: ‘Right! Kill all the women and rape all the men.’ One of his aides said: ‘Excuse me General. Isn’t it the other way around?’ A voice from the crowd called out: ‘Mr. Cromwell knows what he’s doing!’”

The voice in the crowd in Pinter’s telling was Blair’s, but today it could be German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, who has kept his silence about when and what he knew about President Biden’s decision to mangle Germany’s economy by destroying the Nord Stream pipelines last September.

There were two sets of pipelines, both partially financed by Russian oligarchs who were beholden to President Vladimir Putin. Nord Stream 1 went into operation in 2011, and within ten years Russia was providing Germany more than half of its overall energy needs, with most of the inexpensive gas targeted for industrial use. Nord Stream 2 was completed by the summer of 2021, but never brought into use. By February 2022, at the start of the war, Scholz halted the pipeline’s certification process. Nord Stream 2 was loaded with gas meant for delivery to Germany, but its huge payload was blocked on arrival by Scholz, obviously at the request of the Biden administration.

....

https://scheerpost.com/2023/08/13/seymour-hersh-harold-pinter-had-it-right/

READ FROM TOP.

FREE JULIAN ASSANGE NOW.................

KOSTENLOS JULIAN ASSANGE JETZT.................

БЕСПЛАТНО ДЖУЛИАН АССАНЖ СЕЙЧАС..........

立即釋放朱利安·阿桑奇......

By Gus Leonisky at 14 Aug 2023 - 7:37pm
Login or register to post comments

the green nazi.....

With the dangers of a wider Middle East war threatening to break out and the perilous conflict in Ukraine far from over, where do Green parties around the world stand on the question of peace or war?

The Green Party movement began in the Australian state of Tasmania in April 1972, when the first Green Party in the world contested in state elections. Later that year the first Green Party in Europe was founded in Switzerland. The next year saw the first British Green Party, which began as the Ecology Party.

From the first, an anti-War and non-violent position was at the core of Green Party politics worldwide. Indeed peace was one of the Four Pillars of the Green movement, along with ecology, social justice and democracy.

In the Australian capital Canberra in 2001, the Global Greens Charter was adopted by 800 delegates from 72 national Green Parties. It called for:

So peace was a bedrock principle of the Green movement from the start, including in what became the largest and most influential Green Party in the world — in Germany. They began as an anti-war party in 1980. But within 20 years, the German Greens had broken with this tradition, supporting NATO’s attack on Serbia in 1999, and then NATO’s war in Afghanistan in 2001.

This split the Global Greens movement. Today under the leadership of Annalena Baerbock, the German foreign minister, the German Green Party is one of the most pro-war parties in the world, rivaling the U.S. Democratic Party. Baebock is infamous for saying that “We,” meaning the West, “are at war with Russia” over Ukraine.

Last week she was in Israel giving unqualified support for Israel as it pursues policies of shutting off water, food and electricity to 2.2 million Gazans; demanding hospitals in the north of Gaza evacuate 2,000 patients in a war zone; had already killed more than 2,500 Gazan civilians with aerial bombardments and is poised to launch a ground war that threatens to engulf the entire Middle East in war.

Indeed differences with the global Greens movement were starkly demonstrated earlier today, Monday, in Australia when federal Green Party leader Adam Bandt, according to The Australiannewspaper, “tried to amend a statement of support for Israel with one condemning ‘war crimes perpetrated by the State of Israel, including the bombing of Palestinian civilians.’”

“Mr Bandt said The Greens condemned the Hamas attack on innocent Israelis and called for Israeli hostages to be released, saying there was ‘no place for anti semitism and Islamophobia’. But he said the upcoming invasion of Gaza loomed as ‘not just a humanitarian catastrophe, but a war crime’.

‘Australia cannot stay silent and, indeed, back that invasion,’ Mr Bandt said, backing UN condemnation of Israel’s decision to prevent food, water and fuel from getting into the enclave. The Greens’ amendment was defeated 107 to seven, with a number of MPs outside the chamber at the time. The motion was ultimately supported overwhelmingly, 134 votes to four, with only the Greens voting against it.”

https://consortiumnews.com/2023/10/16/watch-cnlive-global-greens-war-or-peace/

READ FROM TOP.

FREE JULIAN ASSANGE NOW....

KOSTENLOS JULIAN ASSANGE JETZT.................

БЕСПЛАТНО ДЖУЛИАН АССАНЖ СЕЙЧАС..........

立即釋放朱利安·阿桑奇.....

By Gus Leonisky at 17 Oct 2023 - 11:48am
Login or register to post comments

the green nazi.....

With the dangers of a wider Middle East war threatening to break out and the perilous conflict in Ukraine far from over, where do Green parties around the world stand on the question of peace or war?

In the Australian capital Canberra in 2001, the Global Greens Charter was adopted by 800 delegates from 72 national Green Parties. It called for:

https://consortiumnews.com/2023/10/16/watch-cnlive-global-greens-war-or-peace/

READ FROM TOP.

FREE JULIAN ASSANGE NOW....

KOSTENLOS JULIAN ASSANGE JETZT.................

БЕСПЛАТНО ДЖУЛИАН АССАНЖ СЕЙЧАС..........

立即釋放朱利安·阿桑奇.....

By Gus Leonisky at 17 Oct 2023 - 11:59am
Login or register to post comments

nazi granddad....

German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock’s grandfather was “an unconditional National Socialist” who had read ‘Mein Kampf’ and fully stood with the Nazi regime, according to documents seen by the tabloid Bild.

Baerbock has spoken publicly about her grandfather’s wartime experiences, telling an audience in 2022 that Waldemar Baerbock returned to Germany from the east in early 1945 “as a defeated soldier.”

What Baerbock did not mention was that her grandfather was an officer in the Wehrmacht, and had been awarded one of the Third Reich’s highest military honors, the War Merit Cross with Swords in 1944, Bildreported on Thursday. The cross was bestowed on soldiers for “special services when deployed under enemy weapons or for special services in military warfare.”

According to the newspaper, Waldemar Baerbock’s military records describe him as “an unconditional National Socialist,” who had read Adolf Hitler’s book ‘Mein Kampf’ and whose character was “completely rooted in National Socialism.”

Asked for comment, Baerbock’s office said that “the foreign minister was not aware of the documents.”

Germany’s Federal Archives note that military records from the time “almost always” describe officers with phrases like “stands firmly on the basis of the National Socialist worldview,” and praise their “impeccable National Socialist attitude.”

According to Bild, Waldemar Baerbock told his family in the late 1990s that he had served in the Wehrmacht. Before he died in 2016, he wrote down his war memoirs in a notebook, which he passed to his family. Baerbock mentioned her grandfather in her 2021 autobiography, but did not state whether his notebook contained any references to his supposed Nazi ideology.

During a 2022 speech marking the 80th anniversary of the Wannsee Conference, where Nazi officials formulated and planned the so-called 'final solution' for Europe's jews, Baerbock declared that even low-level government functionaries of the Third Reich were responsible for “the crimes and genocide of the Nazi regime.”

Annalena Baerbock was a co-leader of Alliance90/The Greens in Germany before becoming foreign minister in late 2021. An ardent interventionist, Baerbock has steered the party away from its long-standing policy of pacifism, and reportedly pushed Chancellor Olaf Scholz to approve shipments of heavy weapons to Ukraine. While her party’s 2021 manifesto explicitly stated that it wanted to “end European arms exports to war and crisis zones,” Germany has become the second-largest supplier of arms to Kiev after the US.

https://www.rt.com/news/592194-annalena-baerbock-grandfather-nazi/

READ FROM TOP.

FREE JULIAN ASSANGE NOWWWWWWWWWW....................

https://yourdemocracy.net/drupal/node/49833

By Gus Leonisky at 10 Feb 2024 - 8:02am
Login or register to post comments

patzer-mädchen...

by Sputnik Africa

“The stupidest head of diplomacy”: what earned Baerbock such a label?

The head of German diplomacy is known for the blunders which plunge others, both in Germany and elsewhere, into embarrassment by proxy.

Here is a list of his most provocative and controversial statements, which were the origin of her unflattering reputation:

• «We are waging a war against Russia»

Here is a statement that could have irreparable consequences. Indeed, during a debate at the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe on January 24, 2023, Baerbock said:

«Yes, we must do more to defend Ukraine. But the most important and most crucial thing is that we do it together and we don't play the blame game in Europe, because we are waging a war against Russia and not against each other.».

• The Russian president must “change course 360 degrees» for Ukraine to be secure, the minister said at the Munich Security Conference on February 18, 2023.

• «No matter what my German voters think...»

Regardless of their opinion, Baerbock would help Ukraine “as long as she needs it“, insisted the senior official. Even if the Germans take to the streets, the country will not lift sanctions against Russia, she stressed on August 31, 2022, during the Forum 2000 conference in Prague.

• Erdogan's photo with Putin is a "challenge» for NATO

The fact that the Turkish president is immortalized in the same photo as his Russian counterpart and the late Iranian president Ebrahim Raïssi, during Putin and Ergogan's visit to Iran in July 2022 is “more than incomprehensible» and constitutes a “challenge» for the North Atlantic Alliance, Baerbock estimated on July 23, 2022.

Besides his lack of professionalism which is expressed through harsh and meaningless statements, Baerbok is also "famous" for her constant errors, as "OstCocaine» (instead of Ostukraine, i.e. Eastern Ukraine) and many others.

https://fr.sputniknews.africa/20240522/la-cheffe-de-la-diplomatie-la-plus-stupide-quest-ce-qui-a-valu-a-baerbock-une-telle-etiquette-1066687498.html

READ FROM TOP

FREE JULIAN ASSANGE NOW....

By Gus Leonisky at 24 May 2024 - 11:08am
Login or register to post comments

the nazi green....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZOW8JWJsw-8

Anna Baerbock green thumbs are now soaked in the blood of Palestinians

Anna Bareback (sic) was the international icon of the Green movement. And she's a war criminal

READ FROM TOP

YOURDEMOCRACY.NET RECORDS HISTORY AS IT SHOULD BE — NOT AS THE WESTERN MEDIA WRONGLY REPORTS IT.

By Gus Leonisky at 20 Oct 2024 - 4:56pm
Login or register to post comments

Primary links

Search

Recent comments

Democracy Links

Member's Off-site Blogs