TNT Radio, Melbourne
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Peter Koenig’s interview on TNT Radio on Sunday 16 June 2024, Melbourne with Charles Kovess, the host of the Mind Medicine Program.
The conversation was primarily about geopolitical issues, as well as important mental and other health issues, and freedom and life matters.
You can listen to the recording here.
Transcript of the interview follows.
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Transcript
TNT Radio: Today, there are wars in Ukraine, the Middle East, and elsewhere, and military tensions are rising in Asia. What do you think are the underlying reasons for wars around the world?
Peter Koenig (PK): Let me begin with a famous quote:
“WAR is a racket. It always has been. It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives.”
This is a quote from a 1935 speech and short book by Smedley D. Butler, a retired United States Marine Corps Major General and two-time Medal of Honor recipient. Based on his career military experience, Butler discusses how business interests commercially benefit from warfare.
Butler goes on summarizing on how to get out of the War Racket:
“Three steps must be taken to smash the war racket. 1. We must take the profit out of war. 2. We must permit the youth of the land who would bear arms to decide whether or not there should be war. 3. We must limit our military forces to home defense purposes.”
Smedley D. Butler, was one of the Unites States’ most decorated soldier – turned Anti-War activist.
Explaining this in economic terms – how it works – is easy. It is demonstrated on a daily basis, mostly by the United States, the so-called empire of the last and present century.
It is a question of supply and demand.
They – the Hegemon and /or its puppets – plant conflict in an area of their political and economic interest – say the Middle East, rich in hydrocarbons and a strategic transit region – then they have a reason to intervene and “resolve” the conflict militarily.
To create a conflict, you create first an enemy, then you infiltrate a “terror group” – which also is created artificially by the same self-styled empire, the US of A, like Al Qaeda, created in the late 1980s.
To diversify the terror, you create more terror groups, like the Islamic State (IS), or Hamas – a creation in 1987 by Israel’s Mossad, the CIA and UK’s MI6 – so, Zionist-Israel has an enemy to fight whenever it is convenient.
The current war in Gaza and on a larger scale, prompted by the planned 7 October 2023 Hamas “attack” against Palestine has been prepared for at least four years – and now is the time to basically eradicate Palestine. That is the Zionists argument, always under the pretext “Israel has the right to defend itself”
What the Zionists, representing Israel do, is of course NOT “self-defense” – but outright slaughter, genocide, Human Rights abuse – of the worst kind, never seen before in recent history.
The western leaders (a miserable misnomer) look on, even applause, and support Israel, supplying them weapons and cash to continue their killing machine. Billions of dollars-worth of weapons – you see, weapons are a huge cash generator for the war industry. Human lives, misery, and death – creating massive and horrendous suffering.
A similar and simultaneous proxy-war is going on in Ukraine, by which the United States wants to weaken and then conquer Russia in one way or another – it is the world’s largest country and the riches in natural resources.
The Unites States have planned, financed – YES, financed – and started two World Wars, mainly to subdue and conquer the then Soviet Union. They failed, despite some 26 million Russians having been killed in WWII. And the Soviet Union was supposed to be an ally of the west against Nazi-Germany. The US strategy is always dancing at least on two weddings, as the saying goes – or more – so that their interests are always represented.
They were able to corrupt the then Soviet leaders and bring about the collapse of the USSR in 1991. For almost ten years the West, notably the US, was jubilant having finally conquered the Big and Rich Russia.
But then came Mr. Vladimir Putin, a little-known former KGB agent, recommended into the Russian Presidency by Boris Yeltsin. In May 2000, Putin began his first term of Russian Presidency. He is currently in his fifth term – and Russian people have never lived as well in their history as they do know. That is why President Putin’s popularity rates around 80%. None of his western counterparts have ever reached such a high approval rating.
Therefore, the attacks on President Putin by the west – and especially the western bought mainstream media – continue. Demonization and provocation no end.
After the 2014 Western provoked Maidan Coup – remember Victoria Nuland’s infamous “Fuck the EU” – Ukraine’s Nazi-Azov battalions, or the “Right Sector” – the same Nazis who fought during WWII with Hitler against Russia – were again attacking in Ukraine’s Donbas area Russian speakers – killing at least 14,000 and no stop was in sight.
The western provocation, making Ukraine a NATO country, was crossing Mr. Putin’s Red Line – as he said many times before. That’s what the west wanted, Russia interfering in Ukraine to safe the Russian nationals of the Donbas and other areas.
The provocations continue – with hundreds of billions-worth of weapon deliveries and cash to one of the world’s most corrupt countries – whose citizens have become the platform for the killing, Ukrainian men – and now also women – are sent to the front, where according to Scott Ritter, they do not survive longer than about a week.
How many millions of young Ukrainian men, with no choice but obeying – have already been killed?
This war, like all wars and conflicts, is a big racket for the arms industry. In addition, it is well known to the west – even reported on mainstream such as BBC and CNN – that roughly two thirds of the weapons sent to Ukraine never reach the front, but go straight to the black-market, where they are bought by criminals, or more likely existing and to be-created “terror groups” – who will then again create western mandated conflicts, so that there is a never-ending circle of wars – a never-ending racket, to use Smedley Butler’s term.
And this past weekend – 15/16 June – Switzerland is hosting a so-called Peace Conference in the Burgenstock luxury resort, on the Lake of Lucerne – where usually the Bilderbergers meet – and one of the major actors, Russia, was not invited. It is hilarious, beyond words and reasoning.
Therefore, the talks of the 92 nations represented at the conference is not about Peace, but it is all about War.
TNT: In the United States, the richest country in the world, poverty and homelessness are on the rise. What do you think is the reason for this?
PK: There are several reasons. But one of the most important reasons is that most of the money that otherwise could help social services to avert poverty, is flowing into wars and conflicts, into military budgets.
Current wars and conflicts around the world, most of them initiated by the US and their allies or “proxies”, cost annually trillions of dollars and bring in accordingly trillions of profits for the elite and weapon industry shareholders, among which are pension funds, insurance companies, Big Finance and – not least the Vatican.
Poverty and homelessness in the United States as well as in Europe, are no serious issues. They are just tolerated, because those who call the shots, a small group of so-called elites, also the dirty-richest multi-billionaires of this world, do not care about people. They care about money.
Money has become the new God, especially since the last century, more specifically after the US approval of the Federal Reserve Act of 1913. Since then, the limitless printing of US-dollars has become another “racket” that – indeed – complements the War Racket – and is in no way thought of aiding the poor and homeless. To the contrary, they are left to their demise.
Fewer people on this planet, is one of the key goals of the World Economic Forum (WEF), as well as that of the WEF-allied United Nations – clearly documented in the WEF’s Great Reset, and the UN Agenda 2030.
It is an active “Depopulation Agenda” under the false pretense of so-called 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) – plus the full digitization of everything, as per the WEF’s Fourth Industrial Revolution – a completely dystopian plan to fully digitize the world. This is nonsense and cannot succeed, because everything digital is linear, but the world is dynamic, not linear.
As more people are seeing the light, are waking-up, as we call it – positive thinking rather than revenge-seeking is very powerful and spreads with the might of Quantum Physics – non-existence of time and space – around the world.
There is hope.
TNT: The American ruling class: What philosophical thinking do you think drives the world?
PK: What increasingly rules the world is egocentricity especially by a small elite – but which rubs off on the public in general. Whether this can be called philosophical thinking is questionable.
This dirty-rich ruling class – with trillions of ill-begotten money – buys just about everything. In the first place – they buy the mainstream media. Those who do not obey the rules, are out. Second, they have a very strong and since 80-years well researched and developed propaganda mechanism, by a little know agency in the UK, the Tavistock Institute.
Their front is a luxury real estate agency, but their real purpose is what they call “social engineering” and “mind manipulation”. They have started developing their highly sophisticated techniques in the early 1940’s.
Tavistock collaborates closely with the Pentagon-attached thinktank, “DARPA” (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency), and measure reactions of people to lies, oppression and fear-mongering – covid, lockdowns, the “climate change” hoax, more plandemics, more mandated vaccines, elimination of agriculture, eating bugs instead of meat – introducing the “rules-based order” in total defiance of existing international and local laws.
Nonstop fear, fear, fear.
Fear weakens the immune system.
It is like the Empires last-ditch effort to pull as many people, countries down with it, while it is inevitably collapsing.
TNT: What do you think of the argument that the current U.S.-centered unipolar world order is declining and transitioning to a multipolar world order? And why do you think that is?
PK: After more than hundred years of western ever-increasing excesses, the world wakes up and starts resisting – particularly the “over-sanctioned” Russia and China.
Rather than responding with aggression – which is the West’s weapon of choice – quietly and peacefully China, Russia and the expanded BRICS are seeking and creating a multi-polar world.
This requires exiting from the current western imposed, fraudulent dollar-based monetary apparatus, towards an independent and sovereign economy that functions harmoniously within the participating countries as a multi-polar system, where cooperation leads to shared benefits, an equilibrium that inspires peace rather than conflict.
Until the mid-nineties some 90% of all countries’ reserves consisted of dollar-denominated assets; and more than 90% of international transactions were carried out in US-dollars. Today, both have shrunk to between 60% and 70%.
Partially, because the west has abused its power, by “sanctioning” left and right, countries that disregarded the orders and dictates of the west, basically the US. By abandoning dependence on the dollar – western “sanctions”, like the almost limitless packages of sanctions against Russia, become totally meaningless – serving only as western propaganda, as long as the brainwashed public doesn’t see through the farce.
The proof: Russia’s GDP despite sanctions grew in 2023 by 3.3%, and isprojected to grow by at least 3.5% in 2024. The collective west’s growth ranges between 0% and maximum 2%.
Another reason is the fact that international trading has gradually shifted from the dollar – which always bears exchange risks – to local currencies; and that gradually over the past years, the Saudis, head of OPEC, have started trading hydrocarbons in other currencies than the “agreed” US-dollar.
In fact, a few days ago, OPEC has officially announced that they will no longer adhere to the dollar only trading rule, but will admit any currency chosen by trading partners.
That will reduce the demand of the dollar and help de-dollarizing the world.
TNT: Why do you think more countries are challenging U.S. hegemony, and what are their ideological backgrounds?
PK: Every empire in human history has found its end.
Most empires – the last big one was the Roman Empire – have collapsed from within, because in their exuberant and ever-more arrogant strive for dominance and outward expansion – and – YES – wars – they have neglected the local populations.
We are seeing this currently in the US, with rapidly increasing poverty, homelessness, unemployment, massively lacking health insured people – and more.
When a point of “no-return” has been reached, which is clearly the case now with the US and the larger West, including Europe – the decline is accelerating. Most countries despise oppressive empires, and when they can be “sanctioned” and economically hurt, they do not dare say much.
But when the wheel is turning in favor of the hitherto dominated – they dare speak up, take actions to disassociate from the villain, the oppressor, the Hegemon, US of A.
This is currently happening at warp speed.
That is also the reason, why there are so many nations who want to join the BRICS, it is like joining he east, as they realize the west is gone – the future lies in the East.
There are about 15 candidates who would like to join the BRICS. During the next “BRICS Summit” in October 2024, hosted by Russia, possibly another 6 to 10 new ones will be admitted. They will eventually also become members of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (the China-based SCO), a political and economic strategic organization providing its members with needed technical and advisory support.
About the ideological background – it’s the desire for freedom and sovereignty.
TNT: Why do you think the war in Ukraine happened? Was it a unilateral Russian invasion and if not, why not?
PK: This is a long and complex story.
The short answer is that preparation for the War started even long before the February 2014 instigated Maidan Coup. As the world had witnessed, from a leaked phone conversation between Victory Nuland, then Dpty. Foreign Secretary of the US and the then US Ambassador to Kiev, Geoffrey Pyatt, when Madame Nuland told Mr. Pyatt, something to the extent,
“We have not for nothing spent five billion dollars to let this deal fall apart because of Europe, Fuck the EU…”
After the February 22, 2014 Coup, it was regime change in Kiev, and the US pushed for separation from Moscow, blackmailing Kiev into accepting an expensive IMF loan of some 18 billion dollars, versus a Russian aid package of US$ 25 billion at much softer conditions.
Washington was pressing Ukraine into becoming a NATO member – knowing that this was President Putin’s Red Line. They kept the provocations rolling – including by killing through the Right Sector, the Nazi Azov battalions – 14,000 Russians in the Donbas area.
This eventually prompted the Russian intervention in Donbas and other Russian speaking areas, to protect these people from the criminal Kiev aggressions.
The rest is history – and as I mentioned before, Peace is not discussed, not wanted by the west, but War is. The war Ukraine against Russia was lost from Day One. The West knew it.
But War is extremely profitable, and the west hopes to weaken Russia, with this War of attrition – so it would be easier to later conquer Russia.
This is of course not going to happen. The defeat of the west is already cast in stone.
TNT: Do you think there is a possibility of war in East Asia, Korea right now?
PK: There is a certain uncertainty with the present absurdly pro-western South Korean Government, but I do not believe so.
The US has still some 30,000 troops stationed in South Korea and nuclear weapons – but a serious provocation by the South on North Korea would not be a good omen, unless with a US intervention – another proxy war fought by South Korea against the North on behalf of the US – this is too close to China, for China just looking on.
The US and the collective west know that.
Therefore, my assessment is that a war with the Koreas is unlikely.
More likely are reunification initiatives – for bringing the North and South back together after the atrocious US initiated Korean War from 1950 to 1953, killing between 2 and 3 million people.
There is hope. And where there is hope there is a will — a positive outcome is possible and even foreseeable.
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Peter Koenig is a geopolitical analyst and a former Senior Economist at the World Bank and the World Health Organization (WHO), where he worked for over 30 years around the world. He is the author of Implosion – An Economic Thriller about War, Environmental Destruction and Corporate Greed; and co-author of Cynthia McKinney’s book “When China Sneezes: From the Coronavirus Lockdown to the Global Politico-Economic Crisis” (Clarity Press – November 1, 2020).
Peter is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG). He is also a non-resident Senior Fellow of the Chongyang Institute of Renmin University, Beijing.
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