{"id":780180,"date":"2022-08-22T04:30:17","date_gmt":"2022-08-22T04:30:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dissidentvoice.org\/?p=132730"},"modified":"2022-08-22T04:30:17","modified_gmt":"2022-08-22T04:30:17","slug":"an-interview-with-bruce-gagnon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/2022\/08\/22\/an-interview-with-bruce-gagnon\/","title":{"rendered":"An Interview with Bruce Gagnon"},"content":{"rendered":"

Events continue to unfold at a quickening pace. Facing an alarming escalation in tensions around the world, we asked Bruce Gagnon for his most current thoughts.<\/p>\n

Bruce Gagnon is the Coordinator of the Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space<\/a>, and was a co-founder of the Global Network when it was created in 1992. He was an early member of the Anti-Defense Lobby in the 1970s challenging the U.S. space program. Between 1983\u20131998, he was the State Coordinator of the Florida Coalition for Peace & Justice and has worked on space issues for 31 years.\u00a0Bruce has addressed audiences in England, Germany, Mexico, Canada, France, Cuba, Puerto Rico, Japan, Australia, Scotland, Wales, Greece, India, Brazil, Portugal, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Czech Republic, South Korea, Russia, Ukraine, Nepal and throughout the U.S., including numerous college campuses. Bruce is a Vietnam-era veteran and began his organizing career by working for the United Farm Workers Union in Florida organizing fruit pickers. He is currently an active member of Veterans for Peace.<\/p>\n

We focus on the realities of the international power struggle unfolding in real time, specifically addressing the role of the U.S. in the tensions and its capacity to reduce them. We are looking for paradigm-shift ideas for improving the prospects for peace. His responses below of are exactly as he provided.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Here is what Bruce had to say.<\/p>\n

John Rachel: <\/strong>We hear a lot of terms and acronyms bandied about. \u2018Deep State\u2019 \u2026 \u2018MIC\u2019 \u2026 \u2018FIRE sector\u2019 \u2026 \u2018ruling elite\u2019 \u2026 \u2018oligarchy\u2019 \u2026 \u2018neocons\u2019.\u00a0 Who actually defines and sets America\u2019s geopolitical priorities and determines our foreign policy? Not \u201cofficially\u201d.\u00a0 Not constitutionally. But de facto<\/u>.<\/p>\n

Bruce Gagnon: <\/strong>The banksters in London and Wall Street are the essential movers and shakers of US-UK-NATO foreign policy. The CIA is their primary arm of control. Add to them the burgeoning global military industrial complex and the political \u2018mis-leaders\u2019 they generously contribute to. The corporate controlled mainstream media are also accessories to the present day crimes. Together they add up to a formidable crew of what I call \u2018pirates\u2019 who are stealing the national treasures throughout the western capitalist world and using them to supress and colonize others across the Global South and here at home.<\/p>\n

JR: <\/strong>We\u2019ve had decades of international tensions. Recent developments have seen a sharp escalation in the potential for a major war. The U.S. apparently cannot be at peace. \u201cThreats\u201d against the homeland are allegedly increasing in number and severity. The trajectory of our relations with the rest of the world appears to be more confrontations, more enemies, more crises, more wars.\u00a0 Is the world really that full of aggressors, bad actors, ruthless opponents? Or is there something in our own policies and attitudes toward other countries which put us at odds with them, thus making war inevitable and peace impossible?<\/p>\n

BG:<\/strong> During the reign of George W. Bush in Washington, at the time of the US \u2018shock and awe\u2019 attack in Iraq, I was watching C-SPAN one evening. They introduced then Naval War College instructor Thomas Barnett (author of a book called The Pentagon\u2019s New Map<\/em> and they announced that in the audience were hundreds of top-level Pentagon officers and CIA bigwigs. During his talk Barnett told the assembled that due to globalization of the world economy every nation would have a specific role to fill. In the US he said we won\u2019t make \u2018consumer products\u2019 anymore because it was cheaper to send those jobs overseas. Our role in the US, Barnett said, would be \u2018security export\u2019. Thus it should be no surprise that the #1 industrial export product of the US today is weapons. When weapons are your #1 industrial export product, what is your \u2018global marketing strategy\u2019 for that product line?<\/p>\n

Barnett (introduced as Rumsfeld\u2019s \u2018strategy guy\u2019) also told the leading brass that the Pentagon would be endlessly fighting to take control of the \u2018non-integrating gap\u2019 around the globe \u2013 those parts of the world that were not submitting to the authority of corporate globalization. He instructed the audience to go and teach these \u2018new concepts\u2019 to those under their authority if they hoped to get promoted within the system in the years ahead.<\/p>\n

For more than a year after this Barnett presentation I witnessed him being squired around Washington speaking to Republican and Democrat audiences on C-SPAN. It was evident to me that his \u2018new doctrine\u2019 was a bi-partisan plan. Since that time it has become quite clear that this is true as we now see the Democrats leading the proxy war on Russia \u2013 using Ukraine as the hammer in this dangerous and provocative attempt to force regime change in Moscow. Pelosi\u2019s recent ill-fated trip to Taiwan also indicates the plan to force regime change in Beijing.<\/p>\n

Imagine that Washington and its NATO allies, who limped out of Afghanistan after 20 years of brutal occupation there, are now planning for war with Russia and China. The absurdity is beyond imagination. It reveals much about their psychopathology.<\/p>\n

As long as this reality persists then we will move from one war to another. Arundhati Roy says, \u201cOnce weapons were manufactured to fight wars. Now wars are manufactured to sell weapons\u201d. She is right on the money\u2026.<\/p>\n

The bad actors are largely inside of the western capitalist nations whose whole priority is global domination and profit \u2013 a continuation of hundreds of years of US-European colonialism. The neocon-led bi-partisan Washington elite have no conscience.<\/p>\n

JR: <\/strong>Our leaders relentlessly talk about our \u201cnational interests\u201d and our \u201cnational security\u201d, warning that both are under constant assault. Yet, we spend more than the next nine countries combined on our military. Why does such colossal spending never seem to be enough?<\/p>\n

BG:<\/strong> When they talk about \u2018national interests\u2019 they are actually talking about the interests of the banksters. When they talk about \u2018freedom\u2019 they are talking about their freedom to steal the national wealth from nations with resources and the people around the world. Washington claims that Russia wants to re-create the former Soviet Union and take control of Europe. In 2022 Russia is spending $66 billion on their military. It is a defensive military to protect their vast border regions. The US this year is spending $800 billion plus. When you add up the hidden military spending in the other pots of gold \u2013 like the nuclear weapons spending inside the Department of Energy budget – the US total is around $1.2 trillion this year. They are robbing us blind and we keep handing over our hard-earned tax dollars. Why?<\/p>\n

JR: <\/strong>It\u2019s evident that you, and the many individuals who follow you and support your work, believe that America\u2019s direction in both the diplomatic sphere and in the current conflict zones represents exercise of government power gone awry. Can you paint for us in broad strokes the specific changes in our national priorities and policies you view as necessary for the U.S. to peacefully coexist with other nations, at the same time keeping us safe from malicious attacks on our security and rightful place in the world community?<\/p>\n

BG: <\/strong>Reject the neo-con arrogance, hypocrisy, ignorance, and unnatural sense of entitlement. You’d think they’d get embarrassed. Dripping with deceit, they never stop lying to the people.<\/p>\n

(CIA controls the keys to this run-away freight train. Democracy was drowned when the CIA assassinated JFK. Every president since then is \u2018selected\u2019 by the ruling oligarchs.)<\/p>\n

Washington has destroyed any last thin-threads of international respect it had following its recent pirate escapades, aimed at Russia and China.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s time to shut these fools (and their ‘international’ lap dogs) down…. before it’s too late.<\/p>\n