War, and above all its preparation, begins in the mind - the same applies to its prevention
...and it depends on everyone who wants peace: it can only be worked for and is not a gift.
Now and every day it is decided whether there will be the next wars. Before NATO states or NATO attack countries like Vietnam, Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan, Somalia, politicians and the media pillory these states. Mostly by proxy, one of their politicians.
In recent years, it is mainly states and politicians in the oil-rich region of the Near and Middle East (West Asia) that have been pilloried. In any case, the resistance of forces in the Western states opposed to these wars was not strong enough to prevent the interventions (exception: the British Parliament rejected the bombing of Syria already announced by the British government after strong engagement of the British anti-war movement). The wars plunged the attacked states into chaos, cost hundreds of thousands of lives, cause billions in damage, drove millions to flee.
When planning a war of aggression, the proponents of war try to get legitimacy for the war from the public in advance: they need their taxes and their soldiers. A media barrage descends on society. People who are against the war and suspect that it is again about a wanted war need a lot of courage and knowledge to oppose it; also the willingness to put themselves in a seemingly hopeless minority position at the beginning.
Politicians and the media also conceal the fact that war is forbidden and that since the adoption of the UN Charter in 1945, all conflicts may only be resolved by peaceful means. They only bring arguments that one cannot negotiate with this state and its politicians, but that war is the only option. Even the thought of a peaceful solution is tabooed.
If one were to follow the UN Charter, one would present the problems one criticises and look for peaceful solutions that one can support. This is not done.
The West does what the militarily strong have done since time immemorial, wage wars when it serves their interests and they believe they can win the wars. And the West, and especially the US, has the strongest military power in the world and therefore tends to wage wars above all else. Their leaders also do this because they do not have to kill and die in the wars, they do not have to finance the wars: they let their citizens:inside do that. What war and rearmament will cost in terms of victims is not made an issue.
As a rule, war is good business for the advocates of war, and they do not live any worse off in wars than in peace, despite rearmament. For the USA, for example, its wars to control the "world's petrol station" in West Asia were and are not only about direct profits for its companies. It is about preventing the emergence of powers that can displace the USA from its privileged position by controlling raw materials: Europe, Japan, now above all China.
Immanuel Kant had already drawn our attention to this reason for wars more than 200 years ago in his writing "On Perpetual Peace".
A similar argument was made more than 50 years ago by someone who knew very well the current forces in the globally dominant Western power, the USA, since 1945: US President Eisenhower in his farewell speech on the Military-Industrial Complex.
War, and especially its preparation, starts in the mind - the same is true for its prevention!
How can we contribute to ending the current wars and preventing the next ones? For this, many people would have to get involved, form teams, build up knowledge and political influence.
We hope to invite you to a workshop soon, for which we are currently looking for speakers. On this page we will inform you whether we will succeed.
Wolfgang Lieberknecht
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