We congratulate German World Beyond War activists and all of your allies and other peace leaders for demonstrating your commitment to opposing and ending the institution of war. You are far from alone. There are big antiwar events today, October 8th, in London, England, and at Shannon Airport in Ireland, as well as in Berlin. This week has witnessed events all over the world as part of the Keep Space for Peace Week.
Space is where the satelites float around transfering signals from Ramstein Air Base to drone missile murderers sitting in front of screens in boxes on military bases in the United States. The obstacle to a treaty against the weaponization of space is the United States government.
We in the United States need help from others around the world. Britain has a leader in Jeremy Corbyn who will advance disarmament and diplomacy. Germany’s leaders are you. I hope the recent World Beyond War and International Peace Bureau events have helped you to inspire and organize in large numbers.
U.S. bases violate the German Constitution by waging war from German soil, and by controlling U.S. drone murders around the globe from Ramstein Air Base. We need your help in ending this practice. We’ve recently delivered to the U.S. and German governments a petition with nearly 25,000 signatures asking for Ramstein to be closed. Most of the people who signed the petition and added a comment added basically this comment: Close all the bases. We agree. Let’s shut them all down.
There are still 100,000 U.S. and UK bombs in the ground in Germany, still killing. The U.S. military has never shut down since World War II. It’s time to finally end that war.
As you know, the line of hostile division has been pushed east from the Berlin Wall to the border of Russia. No longer is it the NATO vs. Warsaw Pact division of old. Now it is the NATO vs. Russia division that divides people in Ukraine and other border states and threatens to bring down the world in a nuclear catastrophe.
The United States promised Russia when your two Germanies reunited that NATO would not move an inch eastward. It has now moved relentlessly to the border of Russia, including by pushing for a relationship with Ukraine after the U.S. helped facilitate a violent coup in that country.
At World Beyond War we are working to increase understanding of the desirability and feasibility of phasing out and replacing the entire institution of war preparations. Those of us in the United States look to those of you in Germany for leadership, support, and solidarity. We need you to take Germany out of NATO and kick the U.S. military out of Germany.
That’s a pro-U.S. request, in so far as the people of the United States will be better off not paying, financially and morally, and in terms of hostile blowback, for the pieces of the U.S. war machine that are based on German soil, including Africa Command — the U.S. military’s headquarters for dominating Africa, which has yet to find a home on the continent it seeks to control.
The United States and Germany must both face down the rightwing tendencies to blame the victims of Western wars who try to flee to the West.
And we must, together, make peace with Russia — a project for which Germany may be perfectly placed, and on which we thank you for taking the lead.
