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“I do not know with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.” – Albert Einstein[1]

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Major wars on the planet right now are the two and a half year Russia-Ukraine war, considered by many media sources as the “biggest war in Europe since World War II,” and the Israeli-Hamas war, which has annihilated more Palestinian lives than the combined death toll of conflicts since 2008.

In both these displays of militarism, we tend to focus more on the sad stories on the ground of the lives of citizens scrambling to survive horrific assaults. We imagine air assaults on buildings or tanks charging in obtrusively on foreign soil. But a lot has changed over the past 75-80 years.

There were no satellites during the 1940s. And before the world’s first atomic bomb was detonated, the nuclear threat was non-existent. Today, more than 2,000 satellites are in orbit, some of which help coordinate military activities on the planet. There are also sophisticated missile defense systems, space communications, command and control war fighting functions, and other technological novelties that aid in the cause of ensuring “victory at all costs!”[2]

But the ease of enabling war comes at a price. And the 30+ year collective known as Global Network Against Weapons and Nuclear Power in Space is trying to address these concerns and contest new technologies that pose a threat to space peace in the 21st Century.

More on the coming Keep Space for Peace week (October 5-12) can be found below and on the site space4peace.org

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On a separate level, two major wars in recent years were launched on October 7. One was the War in Afghanistan (2001). The other was the Israeli-Hamas War (2023).

Another similarity of these two wars is the multiple indications that what really happened in both cases is far more complex, and for that matter far more devious, than the simple official narrative of preventing and punishing a crime against humanity. In a nutshell, both were instances of what is called a “False Flag” such as Pearl Harbor or the Gulf of Tonkin incident, endeavours designed to stir up emotions in support of war.

This episode of the Global Research News Hour is addressing the currents of war active in the 21st century with two guests. Our first guest is Bruce Gagnon, coordinator of the above-mentioned Global Network. He will bring us up to date on the various mechanisms militarizing space. And he will talk about Keep Space for Peace Week which resumes starting on Saturday October 5.

Our second guest is the frequent guest Richard Gage, AIA. He is a prominent 9/11 Truther. But this week, he engages us with his documented research into the idea that the attack by Hamas was very much like the attack that he has spent the last twenty years investigating. Like 9/11, the Israelis let last year’s October 7 attack happen on purpose.

Bruce Gagnon is a long time peace activist and coordinates the Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space.

Richard Gage, AIA is a San Francisco Bay area architect and a member of the American Institute of Architects and founder & former CEO of Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth. He now leads the charge for a new World Trade Center investigation along with his courageous wife Gail at RichardGage911.org.”

(Global Research News Hour Episode 433)

LISTEN TO THE SHOW

Click to download the audio (MP3 format)

Transcript of interview with Bruce Gagnon, October 2, 2024

Global Research: Why don’t you take us through a couple of examples of the critical role that space is having. First instance, the current conflict that’s been going on for over two and a half years between NATO and Russia in Ukraine.

Bruce Gagnon: I think one of the most important things is NATO expansion. You know, at the time of the collapse of the former Soviet Union, NATO, the United States approached then President Mikhail Gorbachev of the Soviet Union and said that they wanted to reunite East and West Germany and would, uh, now that the Soviet Union was dissolving, would Russia agree to that? And Gorbachev said we would agree to it on one simple condition, that NATO not expand one inch towards Russia, to the East, towards Russia. And, uh, U.S. Secretary of State James Baker at the time and other NATO officials agreed to that.

But then when Bill Clinton became president, he began what he called NATO enlargement and began moving NATO towards Russia. And today it has expanded dramatically right up to the Russian borders, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Finland, Sweden, Norway’s in it, Romania, uh, you know, many other countries. And they want Ukraine to be a part of it.

They’d like to have Georgia as part of it, really an encirclement, if you will, of that part of the Russian, uh, European border, if you will. And so this is a grave danger. And in all of these places, the United States has begun installing a various space technology basis, uh, both what are called downlink facilities, radars that talk to satellites that help target a first strike attack on Russia that the U.S. Space Command has been war gaming annually for many years.

And in addition, in the case of Romania and, uh, Poland, the United States has built what they call Aegis Ashore launch bases where they can fire, uh, first strike attack, Tomahawk cruise missiles, nuclear capable, and also they can fire after the first strike hits Russia and Russia tries to do a retaliatory strike at the same bases in Romania and Poland, they have these, uh, SM-3 interceptor missiles. So after you fire the sword, the Tomahawk cruise missile, nuclear capable at Russia, and then Russia tries to respond, they then have the shield, these so-called missile defense systems that, uh, theoretically pick off Russian missiles, giving the U.S. a “successful first strike attack.” And so, uh, this is what’s happening throughout, uh, Eastern Europe now right up to the Russian border, and it’s all hooked up to space.

The Pentagon has long been saying that space technology directs every single thing the U.S. military does these days, no matter whether you’re a troop on the ground, in a tank, you’re on a boat in the, uh, in the Navy, in the ocean, or you’re flying an airplane, or you’re launching missiles. Everything the Pentagon does is coordinated and directed by space technology. And so the U.S. and NATO have supplied Ukraine today with lots of various technologies, drones, missiles, other such things, and U.S. AWACS planes and NATO AWACS planes are flying over the Black Sea, calling in the target coordinates inside of Russia and Crimea and other parts of Russia, as it, uh, as Ukraine then launches these missiles, uh, towards these targets inside of Russia.

Without the United States and NATO, uh, using their space technology capabilities, Ukraine would not have any ability to do that, to hit Russia whatsoever. And now they’re talking about long-range missiles that can go far deeper inside of Russia, uh, should, uh, NATO, U.S. and NATO give those to Ukraine. And again, they would only be workable because of U.S. space technology capabilities.

Similarly today in the Red Sea, the United States has deployed Navy Aegis destroyers made, uh, here in the mid-coast of Maine, where I live at Bath Iron Works, which is owned by General Dynamics. Onboard those ships, they have these same two technologies.

They have first strike attack nuclear capable Tomahawk cruise missiles, and they also have these SM-3 interceptors. So they’ve been operating, uh, since October in the Red Sea, trying to take out, uh, Houthi in Yemen, any strikes they launched toward Israel. And, uh, and they’ve also been firing their cruise missiles and trying to take out, uh, Yemenis, uh, military capabilities on the land.

So these technologies are very, very active in war fronts today. At the same time, the U.S. is now moving NATO into the Asia Pacific to try to encircle China. And they’re deploying these same capabilities there.

In fact, at Bath Iron Works right now, they’re working on seven new Aegis destroyers that will be sent to encircle both Russia and China. So it’s a really dangerous moment we’re in. And again, space technology is directing the entire U.S. offensive operation.

GR: Israel, I mean, beyond going into Lebanon, now they’re, they were faced with an unprecedented, uh, attack or retaliatory attack by Iran, about over a hundred missiles that were fired into their territory. Do you see this becoming an expanded war and what role will all of this technology have with the, in that new front?

BG: Well, actually my reading of yesterday was, uh, that, uh, Iran launched several hundred missiles and they primarily launched against two kinds of targets. One was Israeli air force bases where planes are sent to attack Lebanon, uh, throughout, uh, Gaza and Iran as well, uh, previously.

At the same time, they hit those and, uh, apparently quite a few landed, but the United States and NATO, Germany, France, UK, uh, Jordan were assisting the attempts of Israel to shoot these missiles out of the sky. But I’ve seen many videos now, and, uh, it’s pretty clear that, um, quite a huge number of them landed on targets at these, uh, Israeli military bases. At the same time, uh, Iran took out a couple oil platforms, these oil rig platforms, uh, owned by Israel, uh, providing them with oil or gas, I’m not sure which, but they took out a couple of those, which is going to further bleed the already, uh, very constrained and constricting, uh, Israeli economy.

So I think, uh, that Israel will be forced by its own public opinion to respond in some way, but Israel’s biggest goal right now is to drag the United States and NATO into a full blown war with Iran. But, uh, I think there’s some reluctance on the part of the US and NATO to do that, to go full bore, uh, for war with Iran, because not because they’re good guys, not because they, you know, care about peace, but because the United States has bases throughout the region. They have Iran virtually completely surrounded with US bases, which would be very clear targets it would be easier for Iran to hit those US bases around its borders than it is for them to hit Israel.

And they showed yesterday, uh, that they can hit Israel quite effectively. So I think this thing, uh, some people say we’re heading towards World War III. I think we’re already there.

The US and NATO are, uh, they’ve got three fronts going on right now. They’ve got the Middle East front, and they’ve got the front with Russia and Ukraine. And now they’re trying to open the front with China and Taiwan.

Uh, there’s no way that the United States and even NATO, because NATO was part of the war in Afghanistan, the US and NATO could not beat the Taliban in Afghanistan. How in God’s name do they think they can take on Russia, China and Iran all at the same time? It’s total lunacy, but I think it’s a sign of complete and utter desperation on the part of the colonial, uh, Western, uh, diminishing empire, 600 years of colonization of the global South by the US and Europe, uh, and, uh, stealing the resources from the global South. And now those days are over the global South through organizations like BRICS are rising.

And, uh, and with the support of China and Russia and Iran and other countries, uh, there’s, it’s a new world and the, uh, US and NATO, the Western elites, the Western colonists, the Western mobsters, I would call them, uh, are desperate. And they’re, so far showing that they’re going to try to fight their way out of this, at least destroy everything. If they can’t have it all, then they’re, they seem willing to destroy.

GR: As you point out in your, your writing and on your site, that the privatization of space is contributing to this, uh, your increased military, uh, uh, bent that they’re on. Could you explain a little bit about how that privatization is, is starting to enable more war.

BG: First thing that comes to mind is when Obama was president, he signed a new US law violating the outer space treaty of 1967 and the Moon Treaty, which were created at the United Nations. The US signed and assigned the outer space treaty.

The US never signed the Moon Treaty, but these treaties say that the, that space and the planetary bodies are the province of all humankind and that no country, no corporation, no individual can claim ownership of any of these planetary bodies. Well, Obama signed a law giving US corporations the right to go out and make land claims on various planetary bodies to begin the operation of mining the sky. And so for some time, all the way back in the 1980s, the United States government has been talking about building a military highway from the earth through space, connecting to the planetary bodies that they would control like the front gate of a military base.

You know, the US military controls the gate, decides who gets in and who gets out. And their plan today is to control the pathway on and off the planet earth into space so that these private entities in the United States and their allies, mostly in Europe, uh, can go out and mine the sky and grab the resources for, for benefit. In addition, uh, the, uh, orbits around lower earth orbit, if there are various orbits in space, but the one closest to the earth is called LEO, lower earth orbit.

And it’s becoming increasingly crowded because of the launch primarily by SpaceX, who’s already launched thousands of satellites into space and now has been given permission by the United States government to launch tens of thousands more. And the strategy today by the United States is to fill up lower earth orbit with as many satellites, they call them dual use, meaning, oh, they’re civilian, you know, but yeah, the military can use them too. But in fact, it’s all about military control of lower earth orbit, because whoever controls lower earth orbit has an advantage.

They can see the earth, they can see everything on the earth, and they can use these satellites again for targeting in wartime. Russia and China are very angry about this. And they say that we’re not going to allow you to fill up lower earth orbit because this would give you a military advantage.

And so China is now rushing to itself launch, uh, hundreds or even thousands of satellites in the space. A whole new area of military conflict is developing. And there’s two problems with this, crowding in lower earth orbit.

Number one is you start having war with each other. You start blowing up each other’s satellites or they, because they’re so crowded, accidents start to happen. It’s like a parking lot at a grocery store.

It becomes so crowded that soon cars are kind of bumping into each other. And this could very soon happen in lower earth orbit. And as a result of that, a NASA scientist has coined a phrase, the Kessler syndrome.

When things start crashing into each other, when satellites either get blown up in war, or just because of the crowded conditions, you start creating even more space debris, space junk, orbiting lower earth orbit at high speeds, and you have a cascading collision effect. And when that happens, guess what? Earth goes dark. Because most of what we do here on the earth, whether it’s internet banking, cell phones, air traffic control, cable TV, I mean, you name it, we rely on satellites to run our quote unquote modern life here on the planet.

In 1989, I organized a protest at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, opposing the militarization of space. And we had an Apollo astronaut, early moonwalker, Edgar Mitchell, come and speak. And he says, if we have one war in space, it’ll be the one and the only, because we will create so much space debris that we will be entombed to the planet.

We won’t be able to get a rocket off the earth through this minefield in lower earth orbit. And so he warned against this madness that we are seeing continue today.

GR: We’ve only got about 30 seconds left, Bruce.

Could you maybe just keep space for Peace Week? I mean, what exactly is the theme of this year’s Keep Space for Peace Week? And, you know, we can maybe mention a few of the things that you’re doing.

BG: The theme this year is how space technology guides and supports the genocide of Palestine, and I would say now Lebanon as well. So that’s our theme.

And we’re going to have on our website and my blog, my blog is called Organizing Notes. The address of the blog is space, the number for peace, space4peace.blogspot, B-L-O-G-S-P-O-T dot com, space4peace.blogspot.com. You go on there today, you’ll see a list of the actions that we know of so far that are happening all over the world. In England, there’s quite a few because England is being brought into this program.

The United States is trying to get the allies into the space launch program to help fill up lower earth orbit to have more launch sites to attack Russia and China with missiles in the future. So at many bases in England, there’s events going to be happening in South Korea. The U.S. is dragging South Korea in for the same reasons to prepare for the attack on China.

Here in Maine, Bath Iron Works, where they build these Aegis destroyers that I earlier talked about, will be having protests there. They’ll be at the White House, they’ll be in London at the Ministry of Defense. There’s going to be a protest there.

We’re going to have a space issues webinar on October 13th with various speakers from the Global Network Board of Directors around the world. There’s going to be a drone protest for six days at Creech Air Force Base near Las Vegas. Drone warfare is totally reliant on space technology.

In South Korea, because it’s a growing hotbed for militarization of space, again, under the control of the U.S., there’s going to be a national organizing meeting held in South Korea just after Space Week in order to put together a national campaign against space technology. So things are really growing and we’re very proud of our members and our board members around the world that are organizing these events.

The Global Research News Hour airs every Friday at 1pm CT on CKUW 95.9FM out of the University of Winnipeg.