Call to Stop the Immediate Danger of World War III!

The following call to action was issued by the Schiller Institute on an emergency basis to be circulated internationally.

It is high time to break the most dangerous taboo of the present: to know and act on the acute possibility, that mankind may be annihilated within days or weeks.
 
On the 70th anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the world stands closer to the brink of thermonuclear war than at any time since the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962. The Obama Administration and NATO have placed mankind in jeopardy of sudden extinction through a series of senseless provocations directed against Russia, primarily, and China second.
 
When the Iron Curtain came down, an understanding was reached that, in return for Soviet acceptance of German re-unification within NATO, there would be no further eastward expansion of NATO. Those who looked forward to a post-Cold War Europe of stability and cooperation, hoped that nations with potentially powerful industrial economies, such as Poland and then-Czechoslovakia, as well as—after the 1991 dissolution of the Soviet Union—Ukraine, would serve as a bridge between the European Union and an emerging Eurasian economic bloc.
 
All of those fundamental war-prevention agreements have now been violated. Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs, Victoria Nuland, publicly boasted in December 2013 that the US had spent $5 billion on "color revolutions" to draw Ukraine into the European Union, and, eventually, into NATO.
 
The US unilaterally withdrew from the ABM Treaty in order to deploy a missile defense system in Eastern and Southern Europe, ostensibly aimed at Iran, but actually targeted at Russia. Last week, the Obama Administration confirmed this reality by announcing the deployment would go forward, despite the P5+1 deal with Iran. Russian officials have charged, all along, that the US unilateral BMD in Europe was part of a plan for a preemptive thermonuclear strike capability against Russia.
 
Deployment of that ABM system is well underway in Romania and Poland, and the first three ship-based AEGIS missile defense systems are already in place and have conducted maneuvers in the Black Sea and the Baltic Sea, both bordering Russian territory.
 
Now reports have surfaced that the upcoming Trident Juncture 15 NATO exercises will include rehearsals of use of nuclear weapons against Russia. Washington is moving ahead with production and deployment of a new generation of tactical nuclear weapons, the B-61-12, which can reach targets inside Russian territory from F-35 stealth fighter jets. An estimated 500 of the B-61-12 nuclear weapons are to be produced, with current plans calling for about 200 of them to be deployed on continental Europe.
 
These unmistakable provocations have not gone unnoticed in the East and West. Since the onset of the Ukraine coup in November 2013, Russia has gone through major upgrading of its entire thermonuclear strategic force. Russian defense officials have publicly warned that they have developed and deployed an undefeatable nuclear second strike. To demonstrate this, Russian strategic bombers and submarines have engaged in exercises in international waters near NATO territories.
 
During the duration of the month of August, there is a grave danger of provocations against Russia by President Obama, who could use the occasion of the Congressional recess to launch a war. A wide range of influential figures has already voiced these concerns, including retired Russian and American flag officers.

The decision of Obama, to change the rules of engagement of the US Air Force in Syria without Congressional approval three days after Congress went into recess, bringing about the immediate danger of an escalation into a war against Syria, which the Congress voted against two years ago, underlines the acuteness of
the danger.
 
In 1914 the world was sleepwalking into the catastrophe. Today, with arsenals of thermonuclear weapons sufficient to extinguish civilization dozens of times over, the world is sleepwalking again to the abyss.
 
We, the undersigned, demand the immediate stop of the confrontation against Russia and China and a return to political solutions of all conflicts.
 

VIP Endorsements from United States

• Ed Asner, Actor (Los Angeles, CA)
• Professor Cyrus Bina, Distinguished Research Professor, University of Minnesota (Minnesota)
• Professor James Fetzer, Author, Talk Show Host, Professor, University of Minnesota (Minnesota)
• Chris Fogerty, Friends of Irish Freedom (Chicago, IL)
• Senator Mike Gravel, U.S. Senator from Alaska (1969-81) (Burlingame, CA)
• Jim Hogue, Talk Show Host, WGDR (Plainfield, VT)
• Will Hopkins, Executive Director, New Hampshire Peace Action (NH)
• Fred Huenefeld, Schiller Institute (Monroe, LA)
• Appo Jabarian, Publisher and Editor USA-Armenian Life Magazine (Glendale, CA)
• Kio T. Kanda, Coordinator, Hiroshima/Nagasaki Peace Committee of the National Capital Area (Alexandria, VA)
• Steven Lendman, Independent Writer, Radio Talk Show Host (Chicago, IL)
• Bonnie Lane, Co-Chair, Green Party of Maryland (Baltimore, MD)
• Ray McGovern, Tell the World (Arlington, VA)
• Akiko Mikamo, President, U.S.-Japan Psychological Services (San Diego, CA)
• Marie-Christine Mouis, Paris Opera Ballet, Boston Ballet Co., Former Principal Ballerina (New York, NY)
• Phillip Restino, Vets for Peace, VFP Chapter 136 (FL)
• John Steinbach, Coordinator, Hiroshima/Nagasaki Peace Committee of the National Capitol Area (Alexandria, VA)
• Major (ret.) Ramonita Segarra (FL)
• Mary Sullivan, Friends of Irish Freedom (Chicago, IL)

VIP Endorsements from Abroad

• Dr. Julio C. Gonzalez, Former Technical Secretary to the Argentine Presidency (1974-76) (Buenos Aries, Argentina)
• Commodore Ruben O. Moro, Veteran and Historian of the 1982 Malvinas War, Former Professor at the Argentine Superior Air War College, Former Intelligence Division Chief, Inter-American Defense Board (Argentina)
• Jens Jorgen Nielsen, Lecturer and Author (Denmark)
• Agostino Chiesa Alciator, Diplomat (ret.), Former Consul General of Italy in Nice, France (Nice, France)
• Georges Beriachvili, Classical Pianist, (Paris, France)
• Jacques Cheminade, Former Candidate for President of France, Solidarite et Progres (Paris, France)
• Col. Alain Corvez (ret.), International Strategy Consultant, former International Relations Consultant of the Defense and Interior Ministries (France)
• Christina Kisling, President of Europe Asie Avenir (Paris, France)
• Acheikh Ibn-Oumar, Former Minister of Foreign Affairs Chad (Reims, France)
• Charles Paperon, Veteran Fighter of the French Resistance, Decorated with the Free France Medal, Knight of the Legioin of Honor in France (Brest, France)
• Dr. Louis Reymondon, Honorary Surgeon of Public Hospitals of France (France)
• Jean-Jacques Seymour, Radio Journalist (Paris, France)
• Prof. Dr. (ret.) Hans Fischer, (Berlin, Germany)
• Dr. Michael Paul Hacks, Mayor (Hanshagen, Germany)
• Alfred Gohl, European Business Club of Germany (Baden-Baden, Germany)
• Captain (ret.) Gerhard Matthes, Retired Naval Captain (Straussberg, Germany)
• Rear Admiral (ret.) Gerhard Mueller, Retired Rear Admiral (Rostock, Germany)
• Herr Roland Regolien, Journalist (Ravensburg, Germany)
• Joachim Roth, Military Scientist (Straussberg, Germany)
• Helga Zepp-LaRouche, President, Schiller Institute (Germany)
• Ambassaodr Leonides Chrysanthopoulos, Former Greek Ambassador to the E.U. (Aigion, Greece)
• Pietro Giubilo, former Mayor of Rome (Rome, Italy)
• Enzo Pennetta, Biologist, Founder of the Website Critica Scientifica (Italy)
• Dr. Chandra Muzaffar, President of the International  Movement for a Just World (Petaling Jaya, Malaysia)
• Naeem Shakir, Attorney Supreme Court of Pakistan (Pakistan)
• Albert Kolp, Yakor Science & Technology Co. (Chelyabinsk, Russia)
• Olga Mekhtieva, English Literature Teacher (Moscow, Russia)
• Vladimir Bezgulov, Institute of Bioorganic Chemistry, Russian Academy of Sciences (Moscow, Russia)
• Anvar Buzukurov, Tajik Social and Ecological Union (Dushanbe, Tajikstan)
• Vladimir Marchenko, Progressive Socialist Party of Ukraine (Ukraine)
• Natalia Vitrenko, Progressive Socialist Party of Ukraine (Ukraine)
• Gary Littlejohn, Former Briefings and Debate Editor, Review of African Political Economy (United Kingdom)