Austin J. App: Fundamentals of Peace, Part 2/2 [Der Weg 1947-11]
An Original Translation of "Grundlagen für den Frieden"
Title: Fundamentals of Peace, Part 2/2 [de: Grundlagen für den Frieden]
Author(s): Austin J. App
“Der Weg” Issue: Year 01, Issue 06 (November 1947)
Page(s): 407-409
Dan Rouse’s Note(s):
This text is originally published in English in America, but I have not found a copy of “Fundamentals of Peace!” and thus this is a doubly-translated version.
Reference Documents:
See Table of Contents for links to the Der Weg scans.
[LINK] History's Most Terrifying Peace
[NO LINK] Fundamentals for Peace!
[LINK] Ravishing the Women of Conquered Europe
[LINK] Slave-Laboring German Prisoners of War
[LINK] Charter of the United Nations, Chapter XII, Article 76
Fundamentals for Peace
IX. TRADE AND INDUSTRY
It is nearly axiomatic that wars stem, at least partially, from economic discriminations and injustices. Thus, genuine peacemakers must make it their foremost priority to ensure that the peace treaty delivers maximum economic justice to the defeated nations. Indeed, this also guarantees that the victorious nations reap the same benefits they currently do not possess. Any limitations on production, natural distribution, or consumption that hinder any nation's potential for achievable prosperity are harmful and sustain worldwide turmoil and discord. There should be no constraints or proclamations designed to depress or stagnate living standards.
Any deindustrialization initiative coercively enforced upon the vanquished must be promptly reconsidered. Factories or transportation infrastructures demolished under such initiatives ought to be viewed as casualties of capricious vandalism and must be restored by those accountable. Likewise, factories, workshops, or transportation assets disassembled or otherwise expropriated from their proprietors for deindustrialization purposes or as purported reparations should be regarded as plundered assets and reinstated to their legitimate owners, mirroring the obligation imposed on the Germans to return factories seized during their occupation of France.
In sum, the USA bears a moral duty to facilitate the rebuilding of both the conquered nations and all other war-ravaged countries.
X. PEACE GUARANTEE
While guaranteeing an unjust peace is morally indefensible, it is equally crucial to acknowledge that even a just peace cannot be infallibly secured. The USA should refrain from casting itself, whether independently or in concert with its wartime allies, as the paramount global enforcer. The concept of safeguarding peace via national or international policing entities is misguided and intrinsically unethical. The sole sound method for ensuring peace lies in moral integrity and conviction, reinforced by the determination and preparedness to scrutinize the equity of all treaties and stipulations and to modify them as needed to align with emerging and clearer necessities.
XI. WORLD ORGANIZATION
Any current or prospective so-called world organization only exacerbates the duplicity of power politics. A world organization established to ensure peace prior to the solid foundation of such peace, and which neglects to affirm that the peace to be ensured must also be equitable, is merely a mechanism of tyranny crafted for exploitation and subjugation.
XII. TRUSTEESHIP
“‘Trusteeship’ is not synonymous with freedom!”
proclaimed Colonel Ben C. Limb, Chairman of the Korea Commission —
“it denotes oversight, constraints, and supremacy.”
Regarding the North American “trusteeship” in the Philippines, Republican Senator Hoar observed:
“When I hear assertions that we are bestowing good governance upon the Filipinos and that they are better off than under Spanish dominion, it evokes memories of my father proudly announcing he had devised lighter and more comfortable chains for his slaves.”
To figures such as former USA Secretary of State Stettinius, the senator maintained:
“I hold that freedom, sound governance, and liberal establishments cannot be conferred by one nation upon another; they must be self-generated, arduously and over time, through years and centuries of effort.”
Yet, the United States, alongside the United Nations, has undertaken the duty to ameliorate and instruct the denizens of “trust territories,” inculcating in them the notion of global interdependence, a doctrine that "One-World-Willkie" and his compatriot Roosevelt sought to embed within the sovereign populace of the United States. The United Nations Trusteeship Committee strives
“to promote the political, economic, social, and educational advancement of the inhabitants of the trust territories, and their progressive development towards self-government or independence as may be appropriate to the particular circumstances of each territory and its peoples and the freely expressed wishes of the peoples concerned, and as may be provided by the terms of each trusteeship agreement…”
In actuality, the chief impetus for these international trusteeships, as forthrightly expressed by USA journalist Raymond Clapper on August 20, 1941, is to enable
“the United States and England to exert paramount control over the world's transportation infrastructure and principal raw material reservoirs.”
Such control would, of course, be vested in private international cartels, especially financial ones, which would be the system's prime beneficiaries.
“Who are these international financial magnates?”
inquires an English entity, the "Service for Economic Action," in a publication.
“Investigate the boards of banks, insurance companies, media outlets, cable enterprises, Imperial Chemical Industries, the financial institutions of London's City, and vast commercial conglomerates globally. Though adeptly concealed, much can nonetheless be discerned.”
The senior Robert La Follette admonished on November 18, 1919:
“Cloaked in altruism, with lofty discourse about imparting the gifts of Christianity and civilization to less advanced peoples, Europe's imperial powers have ruthlessly plundered the riches and peoples of Africa and Asia. The League of Nations Covenant sanctions the continuation of this exploitation under the mandate's aegis. No measures are instituted to enable dependent territories to safeguard their natural assets. There is not even a clause permitting a 'backward' nation to decline a mandate it recognizes as being instituted for egocentric purposes.”
“Beneath this framework of political and economic predation, Asia has endured three centuries of torment.” [...]
“Industries were eradicated to preclude rivalry with Lancashire and Manchester, relegating them to mere suppliers of raw materials. Their democratic village autonomies were obliterated, and governance was centralized to optimize exploitation. Their scholastic establishments were razed, depriving them of education or restricting it to qualify them solely for menial positions under European masters. Opium and intoxicants were thrust upon them with a four-pronged objective: augmenting revenues, easing economic domination, and achieving racial and cultural obliteration.”
Why not concede that this colonial system of exploitation is now slated for worldwide implementation? Civilian populations and military draftees alike are commodified for the exclusive advantage of certain orchestrated exploiters. International trusts confer upon the trusteeship system its authentic significance.
Until the “invisible” government is unmasked and expelled from its bastions of power, the 20th century's conflict will endure.