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00:00:00Sax is the director of Columbia University's Center for Sustainable Development,
00:00:03of President
00:00:04of the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network and former advisor to UN Secretaries
00:00:08general, General
00:00:09of Kofinanan, Bankimoon and Antonio Gutierez, he's in Rome in
00:00:12Italy. Professor Sax, thanks so much for coming back on going
00:00:16underground, it's quite quite a while, I'm not going to ask you why you're in Rome
00:00:20immediately, but four years then since the UN general assembly
00:00:24of resolution against Russia, I mean apart
00:00:27from threats of mass killing from Trump and Netanyahu at the UN General
00:00:31of Assembly, which we might talk about. What did you detect
00:00:35uh 12 years on since the coup in Ukraine at the UN General
00:00:39Assembly in New York? Well, these wars continue
00:00:43to rage because it seems nobody wants to speak the
00:00:46truth, and nobody wants to acknowledge
00:00:49ground realities. The war in Ukraine is a
00:00:53war that came as as you mentioned with a coup
00:00:57that overthrew a Ukrainian president, so
00:01:00of NATO could enlarge all
00:01:02the way to Russia's border?
00:01:04when the United States pushed the
00:01:08Europeans to agree to commit to Ukraine's
00:01:12membership in NATO, then German chancelor
00:01:16Merkel wrote in her diary that this was, as
00:01:20she knew,
00:01:21in tanto amount to a declaration of war. That's the way that the Russians would
00:01:25see it, and she was right, she
00:01:28of wasn't strong enough to resist George. W. Bush, she
00:01:31should have, we have been a slide to war
00:01:35ever since 2008, when US push for this
00:01:39NATO enlargement, 2014 started the war with the
00:01:43US backed coup on February
00:01:4622nd, 2014,
00:01:50and Europeans have gone
00:01:53with gusto, denying truth, denying logic,
00:01:57denying
00:01:58me the off-ramps to peace - and till today they are the
00:02:01war-mongers right now, they're championing the war, they're
00:02:05of talking about escalation, they're talking about
00:02:07remilitarizing Germany, God forbid, but this
00:02:11is the way things go. The
00:02:14of only glimmer, the only glimmer
00:02:17of light at the UN General Assembly was that
00:02:21the German foreign minister at least sat down
00:02:25for 20 minutes with his Russian
00:02:27of counterpart. It doesn't seem like much, but was the first
00:02:31time in years that that has happened. i've
00:02:34been pressing and writing open letters to chancelor
00:02:38merts and publishing pretty much non-stop in the german
00:02:42media hawk hawk because
00:02:44remember german reunification in
00:02:481990 came because you, the German leaders
00:02:52promised that NATO wouldn't move one inch
00:02:55eastworth. go talk, go learn what the
00:02:58Russian... point of view is, and when
00:03:02you understand the Russian point of view, this war could stop
00:03:06in a day on sensible terms that are sensible for
00:03:09Russia, for Ukraine and for Europe, and that's
00:03:13what I continue to hope for. You did advise Antonio Guteres, so did
00:03:17you get to manage to see him in New York and ask him
00:03:21why, as many have around the world, why the UN has not taken a
00:03:25more
00:03:27of muscular role and conven some kind of conference
00:03:29of in a new? space of course i mean we're hoping there'll be a conference here in the
00:03:33uae soon, well sure hope so,
00:03:36you know, all
00:03:38of of these wars that are raging right now,
00:03:41actually have, if i may put it this
00:03:44of way,
00:03:45of straightforward of exit ramps, the war in Ukraine
00:03:49would end by Ukraine returning to
00:03:52neutrality, which is what it was before the US
00:03:55of backed coup by NATO saying, okay, okay, we
00:03:59won't. to
00:04:00of Russia's border, and having an armistice
00:04:04line where both sides say, we have
00:04:07disagreements on borders, but we're not going to pursue them
00:04:11through
00:04:12in military means, the war in Gaza, the
00:04:16genocide in Gaza will end one of two
00:04:20ways a state of Palestine alongside a state of
00:04:24of Israel, or one binational state in which
00:04:28both the Palestinian. arabs and the Israeli
00:04:31Jews live in one state, either way,
00:04:35we need that, because the current way of a
00:04:39ruthlessly murderous Israeli state backed by
00:04:42of Europe and the United States is unforgivable, absolutely
00:04:46unforgivable, and the war in Iran is the
00:04:50of dumbest
00:04:51of all possible wars. President Trump
00:04:55brags that six previous presidents
00:04:58resisted it, but he... did it, I don't think that's a matter of bragging,
00:05:02I think it's a matter
00:05:04of the most shocking inconfidence that we probably
00:05:07of ever had in that office, but the war
00:05:10in with Iran, which... was a
00:05:14war of aggression and murder the Iranian leadership
00:05:18on February 28 uh of this
00:05:21year will end simply when the United
00:05:25States leaves. We don't even need an agreement,
00:05:28because if the US leaves, Iranians are going to open the straight
00:05:32off for moves wide open to sell oil and the rest
00:05:36the Gulf region where you are and all the rest will go
00:05:40back to normal life. "It's the US that provoked
00:05:44this with Israel, it's the US that kept it going, there
00:05:48is no reason for this war to continue, another hour, the United States
00:05:52should turn around and go home as far as I'm concerned, nobody has to agree
00:05:55anything, if you've done something unbelievably stupid, stop
00:05:59doing it. Yeah, but did you get to speak to Antonio Gateras, are you
00:06:03used to advise, why is he not organizing anything? I didn't, I
00:06:07didn't, I, I, I didn't speak to him this time because he was
00:06:11sitting on the podium."
00:06:12I was there cringing with every word of my
00:06:16president Donald Trump who said he had a hard
00:06:19choice to make, whether to make Iran a great
00:06:23country. I don't think he realizes Iran was
00:06:27a great country 2500 years ago, 10 times older
00:06:31than the United States, thank you, but any event, whether to do that
00:06:35or whether to annihilate Iran and send everybody to
00:06:38help, and this is a president the United States speaking this way.
00:06:43so yes, the UN has
00:06:46huge role, fundamental role, but the United
00:06:50States really blocks the role, yes, so the un, the UN
00:06:54has no role arguably, I mean back to Ukraine, I understand Jake
00:06:57Sullivan told you before Russia went in in
00:07:012022 that there'd be no NATO expansion, I'm just thinking
00:07:04what, what he said to me, specific, yeah, go ahead, I'm
00:07:08just the reason I'm talking is like, why has
00:07:11the UN secretary? had done absolutely nothing to stop a war in Europe,
00:07:15the UN was only created because the end of another war in
00:07:18Europe. I believe the UN should do
00:07:22lot more and can do lot more, but the reason that
00:07:26it is paralyzed as it is, is essentially the
00:07:30United States says we don't obey any
00:07:34rules, and the you, even Trump said, by the
00:07:38way, people will remember, when he was asked, are you
00:07:42bound? by international law, he said, I'm not
00:07:45bound by anything but my own morality, he said, by
00:07:49my will, that's the only thing that binds me, this
00:07:53is kind of madness, frankly, this is an old
00:07:56man who doesn't have all the
00:08:00marbles together as far as although
00:08:02it should be said, Trump has done a lot more for peace arguably than
00:08:06anything the UN has done as regards the war in Europe, at least Trump has set
00:08:09up meetings, at least Trump set up meetings. anchorage
00:08:13and tried rhetorically, rhetorically while at
00:08:17the same time supplying the weapons. I won't go that far,
00:08:21because he said in anchored
00:08:23privately, well NATO won't
00:08:26enlarge, but he didn't say it publicly because he's
00:08:29incompetent, and then when he was opposed by the military
00:08:33industrial complex in the United States and in Europe
00:08:37and by Zelensky, rather than being president the United States, he just
00:08:41back down and... That's why the Russians are saying, okay, what
00:08:45is all of this, you told us things you don't follow
00:08:48through, this is unfortunately the way it goes, unless you have a
00:08:52competent president, so I don't unfortunately uh
00:08:56give give many points for having a meeting and
00:09:00failing to follow through, and I give even fewer
00:09:04points for a complete, total failure
00:09:07to communicate basic truths, what is needed to end
00:09:11this wars. for a president the United States and a chancelor of Germany
00:09:15to say, NATO won't enlarge, that's the one
00:09:19sentence that's going to end this war, they won't say
00:09:22it. I'll get back to Europe a second, so do you want,
00:09:25do you think Putin made a mistake when he uh went to anchorage
00:09:29to meet Donald Trump, you think the Russians don't fully understand
00:09:33Trump? No, I don't, no, I don't, I don't
00:09:36think you make a mistake by trying, but I
00:09:40think that they are not sure. that it didn't work,
00:09:44putin famously said an interview that he gave
00:09:48in 2017 that he had by that time worked with
00:09:52three American presidents and
00:09:55they come into office with ideas, but then men in dark suits and blue
00:09:59ties come to tell them the way the world really is, and
00:10:03then you never hear of those ideas again, so Putin is
00:10:07very experienced with American presidents, he knows that they do
00:10:11not follow through. "and I don't think they're shocked
00:10:15by Trump's failure to follow through, I think they're disappointed, I
00:10:19think they hope, and I think it's always worth trying
00:10:22to have diplomacy. so I don't think
00:10:26that that's a matter of regret, to
00:10:30take that extra mile is extremely important, in fact what I
00:10:34completely think is the huge mistake of Europe
00:10:37is they don't even try diplomacy, they don't even know what it is, you
00:10:41you've been talking to the officials, I mean you've been writing letters, but you also have been
00:10:45talking to EU officials as far as I understand it, what is your, I
00:10:49mean, you're unable to persuade them, but what is your
00:10:52impression of why they don't even... seem to be that fearful
00:10:56the prospect of nuclear war? well, first of all,
00:11:00we have pundits and we have officials that say, oh, that's a
00:11:04bluff,
00:11:05you know, this threat of nuclear weapons. these
00:11:08people are so unbelievably
00:11:12reckless with your life and my life and my children's lives
00:11:16and my grandchildren's lives. i can't even tell you how disgusted I
00:11:20am by this blase
00:11:23attitude. we are. 'we are
00:11:27at dire risk of blowing ourselves up and
00:11:31to deny it and then just talk
00:11:33provocatively and Russia hate talk
00:11:37and oh yes maybe we can take Kaliningrad and on
00:11:41and on this kind of recklessness is
00:11:45shocking don't these people understand anything
00:11:49apparently not this is but by the way when I
00:11:52spoke with ' one very
00:11:56nice European official, and I said, just
00:12:00say NATO is not going to enlarge. He said,
00:12:04um, oh, well,
00:12:05you know, the United States has has said
00:12:08that to to President Putin, I said,
00:12:12uh, yeah, it may be true, they said it privately, they
00:12:16didn't follow through, and your government has never said it, so
00:12:20why don't you say it publicly, and he looked at a little
00:12:23quizically. like that was new thought,
00:12:27oh that's interesting, yeah, let me think about
00:12:30that, do they not understand
00:12:34what's going on? i don't know, i really don't know, it's a
00:12:38shocking to me that this is continued in this
00:12:41way for years, but i think that there is
00:12:45a tremendous amount of incompetence
00:12:49and awardices and unwillingness
00:12:52these politicians to... admit basic
00:12:56truths and that that keeps this going, it's just
00:13:00absolutely disastrous. professor Jeff Sax, I'll stop you there
00:13:04more from the director of Columbia University Center for sustainable
00:13:07development after this
00:13:09break.
00:13:18With joy in my heart and determination in my mind, I
00:13:22strive to keep the beautiful legacy of... My father, Samara
00:13:26Machel, alive and relevant to Africa today. My dad
00:13:30was visionary leader who fought tirelessly and
00:13:33selflessly for the liberation of our people in
00:13:37Mozambique and in Africa from colonialism. That's
00:13:40commitment to panafricanism taught us the strength of
00:13:44unity and collaboration across borders. Let us
00:13:48honor his memory by continuing his fight
00:13:52for better Africa, a continent that's strives for
00:13:55the renewed liberation, true independence and
00:13:59stands united for the betterment of all. this is
00:14:03our continent, the future is in our
00:14:06hands.
00:14:18welcome back to going underground, i'm still here with the president the UN sustainable development
00:14:21solutions network, professor Jeffrey sacks. professor sacks, you tell... me in part one
00:14:25about uh how a unnamed EU official seems surprised
00:14:29that uh the uh declaration of uh no
00:14:33expansion of NATO might be helpful in the situation. I
00:14:37don't suppose you could tell me who the EU official is. I i could,
00:14:41but I won't buse it was a conversation, but
00:14:44but but just to just to
00:14:47say you oh it's
00:14:50so odd because this is actually someone I've known for a long
00:14:54time.
00:14:55"i i
00:14:56this was foreign minister, i know his leader also very well,
00:15:00i think actually they probably want peace, but they cannot
00:15:03bring themselves to say basic truths,
00:15:07and this comes back to the conversation you
00:15:10mentioned before the break that i had with Jake
00:15:14Sulvin, which was one the most surrealistic
00:15:16conversations uh that i've had. now Jake
00:15:20Sullivan was the national security advisor under
00:15:23byiden." and Putin put security
00:15:27agreement on the table to try to avert
00:15:31this escalation he did that in December uh
00:15:352021 and it didn't have everything the
00:15:38US would ever accept, but it had lot of good stuff,
00:15:42including stop the NATO enlargement, so I called
00:15:45Sulovan and and I had a long
00:15:49conversation with him, and the gist of it was,
00:15:52I said, Jake, just just announce NATO is not going
00:15:56to enlarge and uh and avoid a war, and he
00:16:00said Jeff, Nato's not going to win large, I said,
00:16:03Jake, are you kidding? you're
00:16:07gna have a war? oh, he said, first, we we can't announce that NATO is
00:16:11not going to win large, we have an open-door policy.
00:16:15so Jake, NATO's open-door policy is the biggest
00:16:19bunch of BS imaginable. does the US have an
00:16:22open-door policy for Mexico that it can have a Chinese
00:16:26military base, or Canada can have a Russian military base, there is that
00:16:30America's open-door policy. how about a little bit of
00:16:33principle here? there is no principle of open door. "you
00:16:37don't put your military on Russia's border just like you
00:16:41don't want Russia to put their military on the US border,
00:16:45and we almost flew up the world when Russia, the Soviet
00:16:49Union did that in October 1962,
00:16:52so just say Jake
00:16:55that NATO is not going to enlarge. He said, Jeff,
00:16:58NATO is not going to enlarge. I said, say it
00:17:01publicly, said, "No, no, it's not going to happen, you know
00:17:05that, Jeff, I said, 'okay, we're going to have a
00:17:09war because of something that's not going to
00:17:11happen, he said, don't worry, don't worry, there's not going to be a
00:17:15war. this is the same national, what
00:17:18do you make of that? this
00:17:19is the same national security advisor who wrote to clinton that
00:17:23the USA was on the same side as al-qaeda in
00:17:27Syria, do you think he was just lying to you or he
00:17:30was that in competent that he didn't realize what the policy
00:17:34was? no, i think
00:17:37that um, I think the level of
00:17:40incompetence in our governments is
00:17:43staggering, actually, just staggering,
00:17:47and they believe that they can say anything without
00:17:51consequence, so they can twist
00:17:55things, they can create their own realities. It's a
00:17:58staggering incompetence is my my view of this, I don't
00:18:02think it was just line to me, because he was saying things that weren't
00:18:06exactly. lies, they were just foolish, foolishness,
00:18:10sounds like a lie, it sounds like a lie to many people, I mean, I've
00:18:14got to say that Sikoski, the Polish foreign minister will be at the Warsaur security
00:18:18conference today, famously saying you can kill lot of people, but you cannot win,
00:18:22the Russian empire is fallen, Russia lost the crimean war, lost the
00:18:25Russia, Japanese war, lost the first world war in Afghanistan, lost the
00:18:29cold war, Ben Hodges, the former US Army, Europe
00:18:33commander, said Finland alone would crush Russian
00:18:36forces. "the European Union Defense and space commission said, if we
00:18:40continue to be afraid of Russian escalation, we'll encourage Putin escalate
00:18:43more,
00:18:45time and time again, the speakers at this forum will be
00:18:48saying, I mean, the ex-nato military committee
00:18:52chair admil said, our whole of society, he's talking about
00:18:56western Europe, I presume, our whole of society effort must now be
00:18:59structured to withstand a hot conflict with
00:19:03Russia, these people are
00:19:06so..."
00:19:08going to, I'm going to double down, these people are so inconfident, it's
00:19:11beyond belief, it's not only war profiteering,
00:19:15although some them do that, it is
00:19:18incredible incompetence, I know these people, I know
00:19:22many them, not all them, I, I
00:19:23know, I, I won't go into
00:19:27personalities, but I know people for many, many decades, in fact
00:19:30I had was senior advisor to the Polish government, I helped them a
00:19:34lot, thank you, in the late 80s. in the early
00:19:381990s at the same time that I was meeting with the
00:19:41chancellor Cole and the same time I was advising President Gorbachov and the
00:19:45same time I was advising president and the same time I was advising
00:19:49Ukrainian President Kuchma and I
00:19:52know how the United States so
00:19:55profoundly messed up yes it's incompetence
00:19:59mixed with humorous all these people are arrogant they
00:20:03don't know history they're kill they're taking other people's
00:20:06lives. "of course they have no accountability, so there are
00:20:10many different dimensions to it, but I'm going to double down on
00:20:13incompetence is being a very major factor. We need governments
00:20:17of people who know what they're doing, and of course they
00:20:21have to care not to get lot of people killed, and so it's two
00:20:25criteria, some decency and some competence. I
00:20:29mean, the Trump administration is sending the former special
00:20:33presidential envoy, Keith Kellog, and the
00:20:36commissioner." for US European Command,
00:20:40Alexas Grinkovic, Kellog
00:20:44is, Kellog is a hardliner,
00:20:46Kelog, absolutely. could not
00:20:50put together a coherent thought when he was the formal
00:20:54advisor uh, last time I saw Kellog was on
00:20:57the uh on on the floor the UN general assembly year
00:21:01ago schmoozing with
00:21:03the with mr with the minister Sakorsky uh this is
00:21:07not someone who was pursuing peace or who knew what he was doing well in
00:21:11fairness Trump demoted him arguably but the current US Nato representative
00:21:15is guy called Matthew Wittaker who's on the record for saying the answer to Russia should be
00:21:19more support. for Ukraine. I suppose my question to you
00:21:22is, you know that there was a fair degree of opposition to
00:21:26Putin now within Russia, that he's not prosecuting this as
00:21:30well as he might do, and is being too
00:21:33liniant as the drone attacks on Moscow,
00:21:36the civilian casualties caused by MI6 and
00:21:40CIA Intel guided drones. What do you think Russia
00:21:44should do given that uh this is the kind of thing they say? This is you
00:21:48know Gabriel - Lansburgus the ex-Lithuania, foreign minister,
00:21:52Lithuania, just changed their nuclear weapons doctrine, said we are merely
00:21:56postponing a war that will swallow the rest of Europe if we don't defeat Russia on
00:22:00the battlefield. From Lithuania, can
00:22:04you believe, it's just
00:22:07so unbelievable,
00:22:09what is, it it's a little bit like Israel, but even
00:22:13even radically more so, which is they think the
00:22:17US, that they can say anything, that they can spew... as much
00:22:20anti-Russia hatred that they can talk about defeating
00:22:24a nuclear superpower with the
00:22:271,600 deployed nuclear weapons and
00:22:31about 6,000 in total, that they can say all of this because they
00:22:35think the US has their back. this
00:22:38is actually not how the world works and they
00:22:42are so reckless and stupid to talk in these
00:22:46terms and please i don't want anyone to call me a
00:22:50Putin apologist on this, because I have a
00:22:54presidential award from Estonia because I helped the Baltic
00:22:57states, I worked with Estonia, helped them introduce their national
00:23:01currency, got an award from their president, one the highest
00:23:05civilian awards, I'm not anybody's apologist,
00:23:08I just find what is being said right now,
00:23:12suicidal and unbelievably stupid and
00:23:16unbelievably devoid of historical awareness.
00:23:20and unbelievably reckless, just reckless
00:23:24and who the hell is lithuaniaa
00:23:26to talk about defeating Russia, come
00:23:29on, we absolutely
00:23:33have to behave like grown ups if we're going to survive and if we're going to
00:23:37save this world for our children and grandchildren, and these people are
00:23:41not behaving like grown-ups. anyone who's watching this program who also
00:23:44watches lot of uh western European broadcasts or American
00:23:48broadcasts, well the wire age Reuters associated press will say
00:23:52everything you've said is kind of Putin talking point. How is the
00:23:55media helped to promote the continuation
00:23:59of this war and the horrific numbers of
00:24:03dead and wounded on the front? the
00:24:06media is mouth piece for the military
00:24:10industrial conflicts in the United States
00:24:12and I counted in
00:24:162022 to 2023 in the first year the war.
00:24:20"the New York Times used the word unprovoked to
00:24:24refer to Russia's invasion, unprovoked, it used that
00:24:28word 26 times on the opinion
00:24:31pages, so I asked the
00:24:33editor in the opinion pages, let me
00:24:37write one high 700
00:24:41words to explain why this war was
00:24:45provoked, and she wouldn't let me do it, and I went around and
00:24:49around and..." for months, i couldn't get 700
00:24:53words, didn't even care if it was in print, i said just make it online, you
00:24:57have endless capacity online, these
00:25:00places don't want to hear facts,
00:25:04they don't want to debate, it's all closed up,
00:25:08and that's just the propaganda that we're living with right now, that's the
00:25:12tragedy, just finally, by the time this is being broadcast, we don't
00:25:15Israel or the united states might have deployed a nuclear attack on
00:25:20Iran, how would you advise the Iranian government in the
00:25:23circumstances given the seismic
00:25:27impact of this war? billions pushed - well,
00:25:31into poverty partly because the high inflation, let alone the mass
00:25:35casualty events we've seen in this region in the buzd uh
00:25:38since February. Look, Iran is, Iran
00:25:42is facing
00:25:44a an existential war. It was attacked in a
00:25:48brutal aggression. uh by the United States
00:25:52in Israel, I think people should
00:25:55remember that on the first day the attack, the
00:25:59leaders of Iran were together because the... were
00:26:02discussing the next round of negotiation,
00:26:06because
00:26:06there was a supposedly negotiating
00:26:09process underway, that's the American and
00:26:13Mosad style, which is, oh, get the other side
00:26:17to negotiate, and then when they're together, kill them, that
00:26:20is literally the policy that they followed,
00:26:24they were together to discuss what to say or how to respond in the
00:26:28next round of negotiation that was to take place in Vienna, the follow...
00:27:02years old, the history is that Persia has been there a
00:27:06very long time, and the Persian and the Iranian negotiators
00:27:10are very dignified, very intelligent, very well
00:27:14educated people, and the United States in Israel think that they're just
00:27:18targets for assassination, professor, professor Sax, unfortunately we
00:27:22run
00:27:22out of time, we'll have to have you on again to explain what what the
00:27:26advice might be, but thank you so much for joining us from Rome, thank you so much,
00:27:30great, thank you, thanks lot, that's it. for the show, our condolences
00:27:34to all those of you berieved or affected by NATO wars of aggression, we'll be back on
00:27:38Saturday with a brand new show, until then keep in touch
00:27:40of all our social media, if it's not censored in your country, head to our channel going underground tv on
00:27:44rumble.com to watch new and old episodes of going underground here
00:27:46saturday.
00:30:27welcome to crossstock bns where all things are
00:30:30considered. and its infrastructure
00:30:33being destroyed, the American administration makes an energy deal with Russia.
00:30:37Meanwhile, NATO Brass gathers in Kieve to assess the
00:30:41damage they have brought about. Also, can the Mecca defense Alliance
00:30:45save the House of Saad? Is new order coming about in the
00:30:49Middle East? To discuss these issues and more, I'm joined by my
00:30:53guest George Samueli in Budapest, he's a podcast for the Gogle, which be found on
00:30:56YouTube in Locals and here in Moscow, we cross the marks.