ACTION ALERT: Covid-19: Global Ceasefire, Now!
“Our world faces a common enemy: COVID-19. The virus does not care about nationality or ethnicity, faction or faith. It attacks all, relentlessly.
Meanwhile, armed conflict rages on around the world.
The most vulnerable — women and children, people with disabilities, the marginalized and the displaced — pay the highest price. They are also at the highest risk of suffering devastating losses from COVID-19.
Let’s not forget that in war-ravaged countries, health systems have collapsed.
Health professionals, already few in number, have often been targeted. Refugees and others displaced by violent conflict are doubly vulnerable. The fury of the virus illustrates the folly of war.
That is why today, I am calling for an immediate global ceasefire in all corners of the world. It is time to put armed conflict on lockdown and focus together on the true fight of our lives.”
— UN Secretary General António Guterres
(read his full statement below)
“The Fury of the Virus Illustrates the Folly of War”
António Guterres / The United Nations
NEW YORK, New York (March 31, 2020) — Our world faces a common enemy: COVID-19. The virus does not care about ethnicity or nationality, faction or faith. It attacks all, relentlessly.
Meanwhile, armed conflict rages on around the world.
The most vulnerable — women and children, people with disabilities, the marginalized and the displaced — pay the highest price. They are also at the highest risk of suffering devastating losses from COVID-19.
Let’s not forget that in war-ravaged countries, health systems have collapsed. Health professionals, already few in number, have often been targeted.
Refugees and others displaced by violent conflict are doubly vulnerable.
The fury of the virus illustrates the folly of war. End the sickness of war and fight the disease that is ravaging our world.
That is why today, I am calling for an immediate global ceasefire in all corners of the world.
It is time to put armed conflict on lockdown and focus together on the true fight of our lives.
To warring parties, I say: Pull back from hostilities. Put aside mistrust and animosity. Silence the guns; stop the artillery; end the airstrikes.
This is crucial…
To help create corridors for life-saving aid. To open precious windows for diplomacy. To bring hope to places among the most vulnerable to COVID-19.
Let us take inspiration from coalitions and dialogue slowly taking shape among rival parties to enable joint approaches to COVID-19. But we need much more.
End the sickness of war and fight the disease that is ravaging our world.
It starts by stopping the fighting everywhere. Now. That is what our human family needs, now more than ever.
António Guterres is the ninth Secretary-General of the United Nations, who took office on 1st January 2017
German Government Cancels US War Game
Remarks by General Wolters in a Press Briefing via Teleconference on COVID-19 Response / Luftpost
KAISERSLAUTERN/RAMSTEIN, Germany (March 20, 2020) — Luftpost Staff: Once again, we are joined here with General Tod Wolters, the commander of US European Command. Sir, do you have a — would you like to give us — starting with an opening statement?
General Tod Wolters: I would, Carly, and thank you, and — and good morning to all, and it’s good to be with you virtually, as all of us execute social distancing, and I thank you for that.
As many of you know, US European Command, together with all of our NATO allies and partners, is combating the — the coronavirus with extreme intensity. This is serious, serious business, and for months we have embraced precautionary measures to safeguard the health not only of our personnel, but also of our communities and the mission.
In keeping with our allies and partners, we continue to take the necessary steps to reduce the further spread of the virus. This week, we made the decision to further modify and cancel some length exercises to the long-planned Exercise DEFENDER-Europe 20. Yet, we are still maintaining our readiness through adjusted local training, despite the outbreak. We remain ready.
We’ve implemented prudent measures to reduce the exposure and transmission of the coronavirus to or from our forces, family members and home stations. We are adhering to the Center for Disease Control health protection measures, and the United States secretary of defense’s guidance on health protections and travel restrictions.
We’re also following World Health Organization guidance, along with our allies and partners.
The modification and, in some cases, reduction of exercises, is a precautionary measure. It does not impact the ability of our forces to respond to threats now or in the future. Our military men and women and civilian employees who serve across the EUCOM theater remain well prepared, (inaudible) and vigilant.
We are focused on sustaining our skills in all domains. And while we may not have completed all of what DEFENDER-Europe 20 was set out to do, there are valuable lessons learned that we’ve embraced along the way.
Just the mere aspects of the cooperation and planning that went into each one of the compartments of our exercises was a gain in training, and it certainly built trust.
We will continue to execute daily operations with measures implemented to reduce the exposure and potential transmission of the virus. Continuous assessments are ongoing and our willingness to listen to all chains of command is very, very important. Our nation’s allies, partners and potential adversaries should know that our forces remain ready. We are steadfast in our commitment to protect all allies and our shared values.
I look forward to embracing your questions. And, Carly, that’s it for my opening statement from this end.
Answering a question General Wolters added:
… in that large exercise, we had hoped to have approximately 17,000 US additional soldiers in Europe to be able to effectively shoot, move and communicate and stress the sys- tem, if you will, from our ground maneuver perspective. And what we’re going to wind up getting, when it’s all said and done, is approximately 5,000 to 6,000 additional US soldiers to be able to — to accommodate the pieces and parts of DEFENDER-Europe 20.
So we’ve — we’ve had to cancel some exercises that were — that were live-play exercises that extended out of Poland and that extended outside of Germany. But we’ve been able to take the forces that we have up to this point, and we’ll be in a position to where they’ll get some part-task training on shoot, move, and communicate within the confines of Germany and Poland, and — and they’ll certainly get the basic gunnery training requirements filled that they need to get.
So I — I would tell you that from a large exercise perspective, we — we probably were only able to accomplish about 40 percent of the desired effects that we sought in DEFENDER- Europe 20, but we’ve been able to get 30 or 40 percent accomplished.
And as time goes on between now and the middle of May and we continue to fine-tune the number of forces that we have, we’ll be able to get part-task training completed to a point to where, at least from a large exercise like DEFENDER-Europe 20, we’ll wind up with a 40 to 45 percent readiness gain as a result of what we’re able to do. So instead of getting 100 percent, you get to about 45 percent.
Posted in accordance with Title 17, Section 107, US Code, for noncommercial, educational purposes.
