And it was, the hero of this piece was a captain, he's now dead, a US captain who questioned the fact that he'd been given an order to fire a missile at China when in fact they were then, the crew was watching on television the Cuban Missile Crisis unfold and it had absolutely nothing to do with China. So he ordered several of his crew to go to another launch pad which had accepted this order, draw their 45s and tell them to stop. It was the kind of drama that one imagines, but really believes doesn't actually happen. But it did happen. And the former missileer John Bordne who gives this, who tells us in the film what happened, describes coming out into the fresh air that day and feeling the breeze and them discussing how they almost blew the earth to pieces.
That's a threat of nuclear weapons and at the moment we have Okinawa absolutely bristling, we don't know with nuclear weapons, maybe, and the ones that were almost fired were secretly on Okinawa, but bristling in 32 US installations about 500 miles from China. That's the kind of risk that we're we're observing today, or we should be.
Thom Hartmann: Yeah. You talk about how America maintains roughly a thousand military bases around the world, and as you as you mentioned in the movie, you graphically demonstrate this essentially noose around China. To what extent are these new US military bases as opposed to leftovers from World War Two?
John Pilger: Well, very, some are leftovers, I mean, Okinawa is, if you like, a leftover from World War Two. The Marines took it and almost claimed it as their own and really haven't given it up even though it's a state, a province of Japan. So, but, you know, from this so-called leftover base Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Iraq and Afghanistan have all being attacked by the aircraft that are based on Okinawa.
And at the moment, as I learned when I was on Okinawa, the whole configuration of these bases is towards China and North Korea and down the road on Jeju Island on the southernmost tip of Korea is a new base built by the South Korean navy, purpose-built for the US to, where nuclear submarines and destroyers equipped with the new Aegis missile will be based. That's about 400 miles from Shanghai. And this necklace of bases, some of which, as you say, left over, but why weren't they dismantled, that's the question, but many others built, such as this new one in Korea.
Also on Korea in the mainland, we're about to see these THAAD missile defense systems ostensibly aimed at North Korea to protect South Korea. Well, that's nonsense. They're aimed at China.
Thom Hartmann: Yeah.
John Pilger: And when we, that's the same missile defense system that they're talking about putting into Europe. It's not a defense system, of course. It's very provocative.
Thom Hartmann: You interviewed a former aide of Deng Xiopeng named Zhang Weiwei and he had this to say about China in your film:
"If BBC broadcast something they're happy to always mentioning this communist dictatorship, this autocracy. Actually with this kind of label, you know, you cannot understand this China as it is. But if you watch BBC or CNN or read Economist and try to understand China it will be a failure. It's impossible."
Thom Hartmann: So, John Pilger, why does the West struggle to understand China and how does that relate to our current tensions?
John Pilger: The West struggles to understand China because the West doesn't have a free media, and that's it in a nutshell. And those who haven't woken up to that, especially given recent events, when you had an entire US election campaign with these great issues of war and peace effectively left out, not up for debate. We do not have the kind of free movement of information that we're so proud that we do have. That's the short answer to that.
Why is it that, as I mentioned at the beginning, that the news talks about the airstrips that China is building in the South China Sea but anything to do with the US build up, this so-called pivot to Asia, which I would suggest most of the American public has never heard of, and yet it represents the biggest buildup of air and naval forces in the world since World War Two. It wasn't an issue. It's not discussed. It's downplayed, and that includes the respect -- I'm not talking about Fox News here, I'm talking about the so-called respectable media if you like: New York Times, Washington Post and the rest. We seem to be in that, at least it's familiar to me, it may be familiar to you, that catatonic embrace of the Cold War, what it was.
The difference with the Cold War -- the old Cold War -- is that there were red lines, then. There were red lines that you only crossed at your extreme peril. And both sides knew where they were. These days, there are no red lines. You have NATO, American-led NATO forces on the western borders of Russia. That would have been unheard of during the old Cold War. You have -- as I just mentioned -- a great armada of US Navy ships now heading for China. You have the greatest military - seagoing military - exercise in recent memory, Operation Talisman Saber which rehearsed a blockade of China across the Straits of Malacca. That happened only last year.
We don't know about this. That's my point. And why don't we know? And it's a question for us.
Thom Hartmann: Indeed. After the break, more with John Pilger on this extraordinary documentary that premieres in the United States Saturday night right here on RT America.
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