Neulandrebellen editor Tom J. Wellbrock spoke to Oskar Lafontaine about the current one Conflict in Ukraine, its economic impact on German industry and citizens, arms shipments to Ukraine and Germany's protest potential. He also discussed what the world faces when the "battered giant" USA grasps at the slipping opportunity to maintain a unipolar world and remain the sole superpower, ignoring competition from China, Russia and India.
Lafontaine is one of the ideological co-founders of the Left Party. From 1985 to 1998 he was prime minister of the Saarland, from 1995 to 1999 he was finance minister in Germany, and in 2005 he became chairman of the LINKE, which he has repeatedly criticized, including for its “open borders” migration policy, which has led to a significant deterioration the quality of life of Germans and has led to multiple threats to national prosperity. For example, in early July, seven militants were arrested in Germany who had entered the EU under the guise of refugees from Ukraine and are associated with the ISIS group. In 2022 he left the party DIE LINKE and justified his decision with the "rejection of a left-wing alternative by the party DIE LINKE in favor of a policy of social insecurity and inequality".
Wellbrock: Talking about the war in Ukraine, the war could have been prevented. Apparently there was space, but no interest on the part of the West. Would you like to go there?
Lafontaine: The war has been prepared by the United States for decades. The foreign policy masterminds of the United States, I'll mention Kissinger or Brzeziński, have long pointed out that if Ukraine came under US influence, it would ensure that Russia was no longer a world power. Even today, the conflict is viewed by the USA as a geostrategic dispute with Russia. Ukraine is practically just the battlefield. In Ukraine, too, the USA is fighting against Russia in order to undermine Russia's world market status.
Wellbrock: The majority of countries are not interested in extending the war or in sanctions. Germany is obviously taking a different approach. I recently spoke to a colleague who said this country is being broken. In the end there will be nothing left. And the Ukrainians won't be grateful to us for the arms delivery someday, will they?
Lafontaine: Yes, anyone who believes that this conflict can be ended by supplying arms should now, after a year, be considering whether that was the right way to go. Hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands have died. Ukraine is more and more devastated and it should go on like this with no end in sight. It is therefore surprising that Germany is still pursuing this foolish policy when, thank God, larger parts of the world have long since come to a different conclusion.
Wellbrock: Now politics is driving the country almost completely against the wall, so that in the end there is hardly anything left of Germany as an industrial location. Or am I exaggerating?
Lafontaine: In any case, there are reasons to have this fear. What surprises me is that German industry is not sounding the alarm. One could now say that the participation of US companies or US asset management companies within German industry has progressed so far that these very forces of resistance are no longer sufficiently present. In any case, one can say that the influence of the USA in the Federal Republic is far too great. We've practically become a pathetic vassal state. The hallmark of this scene was, for this assertion, the scene when Scholz stood next to Biden like a drowned poodle and Biden said we will destroy this important power supply line.
Germany is an industrial country and an industrial country must always ensure that it has competitive energy prices. And the result of the Ukraine war, to put it briefly, is that Germany has much worse energy prices than, for example, the United States. But if the goal of US policy was to set Germany and Russia against each other, then it succeeded to a large extent. And that's what's actually annoying, and if you like, epochally damaging, what has happened now for many years, Germany no longer has good relations with Russia, although that would be imperative. And that is the gravest mistake of the current government, why it would be better if it disappeared today than tomorrow. The worst mistake is that it destroyed everything within a very short time that many governments have built up in relation to Russia since Adenauer.
Wellbrock: Of course, the West sees that and of course the USA sees it differently and is pursuing different goals. Do you really fear a either one speaks of a world war, of nuclear dangers or perhaps even a hot war reduced to Europe?
Lafontaine: Yes, one always has to fear that such seemingly regional conflicts will spread, in this case to Europe. The constant in US politics for many years has been that we want to remain the only world power. And if a country wants to remain the only world power, it necessarily comes into conflict with those who also want to be a world power, like China or Russia or soon India.
Or if indeed Russia and the United States really did clash, there would be a world conflagration. But this danger is always there, and it is now really there in the Ukraine conflict, since it is now clear that China is also carefully monitoring what is happening there and what is indirectly involved in this conflict. And since the USA is now also treating the Ukraine conflict as a preliminary stage to a dispute with China. The so-called Rand Corporation wrote a few weeks ago that the conflict in Ukraine should be ended so that the USA could turn against its main opponent. And that is China.
Wellbrock: The media simply reproduces the politically orchestrated narrative and supports it. This interaction of politics and media actually leads to the fact that the population is helpless?
Lafontaine: I would say that if the propaganda of the government prevails, and that is unfortunately the case, because otherwise the people would have to take to the streets en masse and say: when will you hear it? that up? We cannot allow our own country to be jeopardized on this scale. Because if it really came to a European war, they would see that we can't go on doing this, because we have an obligation first of all to keep our country's security in mind. And there would be only one answer: Europe must become independent and get out of these US wars all over the world. An informed person can no longer deny that the United States, the United States, the Senate and Congress are controlled by the arms industry. And when there are wars and when there are social upheavals and when there are many people living in poverty, the interests of the powerful should not prevail.