Category: Aggregated

Sir John Sawers, the head of MI6 until November 2014, delivered a speech at King’s College London, in which he warned that “the Ukraine crisis is no longer just about Ukraine. It’s now a much bigger, more dangerous crisis, between Russia and Western countries, about values and order in Europe.”

Sawers, in his first public speech since retiring as head of the Secret Intelligence Service, specifically warned against provoking Russia, with its formidable nuclear arsenal, and endorsed German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s efforts to restore calm in Ukraine.

Sawers thus joins with other voices in Europe (including Germany’s Der Spiegel magazine) and the United States (such as former diplomat and Russia expert Jack Matlock), in calling for sanity in dealing with Russia, to avoid the imminent danger of thermonuclear war.

According to press accounts in BBC and the Guardian, Sawers warned that if Western countries decide to “take on Moscow” by providing arms to Ukraine, then Russian President Vladimir Putin would likely respond.

“As long as Mr. Putin sees the issue in terms of Russia’s own security, he will be prepared to go further than us. So he would respond with further escalation on the ground. Perhaps with cyber attacks against us. We have thousands of deaths in Ukraine. We could start to get tens of thousands; then what?”

Sawers also warned against attempting regime change in Russia, arguing that any change in power in the Kremlin “may well be for the worse.” According to the Guardian, “Britain’s recently retired chief spymaster said Russia had a formidable nuclear arsenal and Putin wanted these ultimate weapons in his armoury to project raw strength. Russia may have rejected European values but, Sawers said, “we deal with the Russia we have, not the Russia we’d like to have.” Sawers said efforts by the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, to restore calm deserved the west’s full support. He added:

“Once we have calm—if we have calm—we’ll need a new approach to co-existence with President Putin’s Russia… Any foreseeable change of power in Russia may well be for the worse. Managing relations with Russia will be the defining problem in European security for years to come.”

The Guardian added that “Sawer’s remarks reflected the overwhelming view in Britain’s national security establishment which, with the exception of some former generals, is urging caution over Ukraine.”

In the wake of Lyndon LaRouche’s call to fire Victoria Nuland in order to stop her from using Ukraine to trigger World War III, a number of senior statesmen have begun to voice their profound concern that the world is on the brink of thermonuclear confrontation, and are warning that the consequences of a war with Russia could be the extermination of the human race. As senior U.S. diplomat Ambassador Chas Freeman warned in his introduction of Jack Matlock, former U.S. Ambassador to the Soviet Union, during an appearance at the National Press Club this past Wednesday, “We are here to consider some very consequential and timely questions. What is the risk of war with Russia? What would be the consequences of such a war? Might it be nuclear?” Ambassador Matlock in turn stated, “I think the elephant in the room, which nobody is referring to, is the nuclear issue,” and went on to thoroughly refute the entire Obama-Nuland narrative of so-called Russian authoritarianism and aggression, warning that any escalation of the conflict in Ukraine could have devastating and existential consequences.

Even more stark was an op-ed published in RT yesterday by Edward Lozansky, President of the American University in Moscow and a signer of the Schiller Institute petition calling on the US and Europe to cooperate with the BRICS nations, and Martin Sieff, veteran foreign affairs correspondent and a senior fellow at the American University in Moscow, who warn that the Minsk agreements could represent “a brief, fragile window of opportunity for the world to step back from the brink of a nuclear confrontation that would destroy the entire northern hemisphere of the earth.” Citing senior statesmen such as Jack Matlock as exemplary of “a few wise men” who can induce the “drastic change in [american] foreign policy” which is urgently necessary “to revive the severed lines of communication between Washington and Moscow and start the process of bringing the world back from the brink of nuclear destruction,” they conclude by warning:

“It is not too late for the voices of reason and sanity to be heard. But the alarms on the Doomsday Clock are already ringing.”

And finally, Sir John Sawers, the head of MI6 until November 2014, in his first public speech since retiring as head of the Secret Intelligence Service which he delivered at King’s College London, warned that “the Ukraine crisis is no longer just about Ukraine. It’s now a much bigger, more dangerous crisis, between Russia and Western countries,” specifically warning against provoking Russia, with what he called “its formidable nuclear arsenal.” Sawers cautioned against a strategy of “taking on Moscow” by providing lethal arms to Ukraine, as well as specifically warning against any attempts at regime change in Russia, calling instead for “a new approach to co-existence with president Putin’s Russia.”

These warnings represent voices of sanity from those in the West who recognize that nobody wins a thermonuclear war. However, only by removing Victoria Nuland from her position and neutralizing the Obama war policy can the “brief, fragile window of opportunity for the world to step back from the brink of nuclear confrontation” be seized. As Lyndon LaRouche stated on February 15:

“Now that Nuland’s Nazis have vowed to break the agreement that could represent the last genuine opportunity to halt the drive for war with Russia, there is only one sane option—fire Nuland and thoroughly expose and shut down her Nazi terrorists. Only by removing her from her position as one of Obama’s key agents promoting world war, can the drive for war be halted at this late date.”