Transcript of an excerpt of Schiller Institute Emergency Conference: The Danger of Nuclear War Is Real, and Must Be Stopped held at United States National Press Club June 12, 2024l 1:00 to 3:00 PM (US Eastern Time)
Dennis Speed:
We’re going to take one final question, which is from the Philippines, and then we’re going to have summaries. Let me also indicate to people who I think will probably be more than interested after this discussion that there’s an organization called the International Peace Coalition. The person who convenes that each week is Anastasia Battle, who’s here to my left, and she will, I’m going to have her say something about that at the very conclusion.
I think there’s 1,700 people still with us. All of you are invited, if you are people of goodwill, which we presume many of you to be, to seek us out and become part of that action. So we’ll go to the final question, which I mentioned is from Philippines, and it is from Maria Catherine Suba from Radio Mindanao Network.
Cathy Cruz:
Yes, good afternoon, everyone. It’s already 2.57 a.m. here in the Philippines.
I am Maria Catherine Cruz Suba, a Freelance Broadcaster, I am the co-host of late Butch Valdes, now with Itos Valdes in Radio Mindanao Network-DZXL “Ang Ating Katipunan” show.
My question goes to Mr. Scott Ritter, as a former U.N. weapons inspector and U.S. Marine intelligence officer and anyone else who wants to answer.
A proxy war is being orchestrated in this part of the world — the Philippines.
Our country is actually being used by the US in its intent of war against China and according to geopolitical analysts, the Philippines will be the next Ukraine.
The Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos, Jr. has allowed additional 9 EDCA sites, or more appropriately 9 US military bases all over the country.
The Armed Forces of the Philippines seemed to be following orders from their US counterpart. Drumbeats of war is being heard almost every day. Sinophobia is being propagated on mainstream media. Almost every week, there’s an incident of Chinese Coast Guard that water-cannons a Philippine vessel at the South China Sea.
Do you think a false flag operation can happen here as tensions are getting worse? What do you propose for this to stop? Thank you.
Scott Ritter:
Well, thank you very much for the question.
Just so you know, I have a little bit of background in the Philippines. In 1986, I was deployed there as a platoon commander to reinforce the Subic garrison. After the fall of the Marcos regime, there was concern about the new people’s army.
So I have a warm spot in my heart for the Philippines. Let’s build upon what Colonel Wilkerson had said earlier. The United States is incapable of fighting a sustained conflict against a peer-level force.
The United States cannot fight and engage China and win. We will not beat the Chinese. We cannot beat the Chinese. And we know this, and yet we’re using the Philippines to create the conditions of potential conflict with the Chinese. Please understand that for the Filipino people, this is a recipe for disaster.
You think America is your friend. So too did the Ukrainian people, and they are dying by the hundreds of thousands. Friends don’t let friends die in those quantities. The Ukrainians have been displaced by the tens of millions. Friends don’t let friends have their cities destroyed in this manner. Friends don’t let friends have families separated, have mothers and children destined to a life of refugee status in perpetual poverty. That’s not how friends behave.
America has never been the friend of Ukrainians, and we are not the friends of the Filipinos.
We don’t like you. If we did like you, we wouldn’t be doing this to you. We are using you. You are a tool, nothing but a tool. And when the tool ceases to be useful, we will discard you. And discard you means usually after a war that devastates you. We are using you to gain some sort of momentary leverage over the Chinese. We will fail. The Chinese will win, and you will be destroyed. End of story.
It’s high time the Filipino people pressure their government to start sitting down and engaging the Chinese government responsibly. China is not your enemy. China is your neighbor. China is your friend.
China doesn’t want war. And if you would engage China in diplomacy, and as we’ve all indicated here, America has long since lost the skill set necessary to carry out diplomacy. But the Filipinos, the Philippine people can reignite this, to relearn it, to use this skill to prevent a war.
But if you continue to behave as colonial subjects, and I know that’s a sore, sore, sore subject of the Filipino, because you were the colonial subjects of America. We still view you as our colonial subjects. We don’t like you.
We don’t care about you. We just want to use you. Grow up.
Grow up and act responsibly. Take control of your own future. America is not here to help you.
America is here only to use you until there’s nothing left. And then we will discard you on the trash heap of history.
Colonel Richard Black
I must tell you, I spent a lot of time in the Philippines and came in off the carrier Iwo Jima, the Valley Forge, the Guadalcanal.
And, and, and both, Scott would agree with me, Americans have a tremendous love for the Filipino people. I would say two of my very, very closest friends are from the Philippines. And we, we really wish very much that you were not in this posture.
But I think it’s very important for the Philippines to be clear-eyed in what’s going on and not to be led down the path by, by bellicose military people from the United States. You’re talking about small islands. I wish China were not engaged in that particular policy.
I tend to be sympathetic towards them on many things, but, but less so on that one. But at the same time, I think you’ve got to make sort of a cold, clear-eyed assessment and say, look, it’s not worth a war with a great power for, for the Philippines to engage in combat over, over those small islands. And, but I do, I do agree that it is time to use diplomacy and to attempt to resolve the issue.
Whatever you do, do not simply become a tool of the United States and be led into an armed conflict that ends up in disaster for the Filipino people. Because if you do, you will break the heart of a whole lot of us who just dearly love the Philippines and, and the people of the islands.
Dennis Speed:
Okay.
So we’re at the point of summary remarks. I want to start with Larry Wilkerson. And of course, if there’s anything you wish to address that hasn’t been addressed already, please feel free to do so.
And we’ll then proceed. Go ahead.
Colonel Larry Wilkerson
I’ll just add to what was just said.
I thought when Teddy Allen brought Ferdinand Marcos and Imelda Marcos to Pearl and we escorted them up to Camp Smith, that the Philippines had finally awakened and thrown us out and that we would never be back. And then I saw Donald Rumsfeld take advantage of 9-11 and start infiltrating special forces back into the Philippines. And I knew the game was back on again.
So I agree with what both Scott and Colonel Black said. There’s a lot of affection on my part for the Philippines too. But you should grow up and not need the United States and not put the United States and China at loggerheads over your dead body, because that’s what it will be about.
The topic here today was nuclear weapons. And I’ll just say this again, the most likely state owning nuclear weapons today to use those nuclear weapons again is the United States. And we have put ourselves in that position and in that posture by our incompetence at the other skill sets, most prominently diplomacy, necessary for the relations of nations.
We are not a very competent in any vein of diplomacy entity anymore. There’s an old principle of the relations of nations called conservation of enemies. Simply stated, it says that a prudent state never has any more enemies at any one time than it can handle.
We have 3.6 billion and growing every day, probably by 100 million a week, people who hate our guts, who detest us, who are fed up with us, who think the rules based order is our rules and orders to them. That’s not going to last. It’s not going to preserve us.
It’s not going to preserve our empire in any way, fashion or form. So if we don’t change very quickly, we’re going down. And what I would advise people like the Philippines and Australia and other of our good allies over this last 50, 60, 70 years is to check your six really closely and see what you can do to make accommodations with the other powers in the world, most prominently Russia and China.
But India is big time in there, too. India will be a replacement for China if she just keeps her act together for the next 20 years. And then we’ll have those two countries that loggerheads.
But you’re you’re looking at a dying empire. You’re looking at a dying empire. And if we don’t do something about it, we’re going to have a really bad death rather than a death, say, like Britain had, where she is still around, stupidly led by Rishi Sunak, but soon to be gotten rid of, probably.
So it’s a different world. It’s a totally different world. It’s no longer unipolar.
It’s multipolar. And it’s going to act that way. It’s going to have a new financial system, a new monetary exchange system, a new banking system.
Everything’s going to be new. And we’re going to be on the outside unless we learn to accommodate. And you learn to accommodate with that deft instrument of national power called diplomacy.
So we’d rather grow some diplomats and fast.#
