Forum; Peter Gilboy: Operation Fantasy Plan

from the longhorn radio network the university of texas at austin this is for him there are two different kinds of intelligence collection intelligence reform to see a former fbi agent handler your billboard author of operation fantasy plans published by william wyler they conduct intelligence were you actually run spies into other countries or recruit people from other countries to spy on their own country's another side of electronic intelligence which which is the areas they nsa and our romance reconnaissance organization which even the name was secret until about two years ago and there are another six or seven agencies that are so secret we don't even know the names of he's been

with this is only one form today author peter gill boy describes the intricacies of covert intelligence work and the salacious underground of southeast asia in his novel operation fantasy planet a former defense intelligence agency employee with advanced degrees in asian studies <unk> go boy combines his experiences in a work of fiction that he claims is far too close to fact peter gelb org there are two main types of operations intelligence one is clandestine operations where you go into other countries to try to gather information club information about the intentions of other countries as i've said in this covert operations we're going to try to disrupt economies assassinate people concerts use clandestine operations covert activities collective has major problems with clandestine operations i think are really quite legitimate you an idea that we pick up the newspaper we wanna know what's happening in the world we turn on tv because we want what's happening in our nation's

wanna know what other countries are doing also kind of getting inside is one of the one of the ways they do it and also find out who's trying to get inside our inside our government aside our technologies inside our business is well can we really afford to be everywhere we want to be or need to be i don't know how much money we really spending or clams and twenty seven of thirty billion dollars off a lot of money are world aid is only i think six billion dollars so we're still we're still intact so i guess we can afford in some sense to be doing some of these things but a lot of it is this is so secret and it and of course the the black budget is of thirty billion dollars let's at least that's what they meant and that's the cia's the pentagon and the iaea has another budget it's not covert budget but they have their own budget as well well when we are looking at candidates in a primary in political

conventions i don't think the population at large that as a rule stops to think about these potential candidates as someone who will be in charge of the fears are think it is yes and that i think is why the character of the person that were looking so important ah and i might add to that just as an individual as a character at the nation as a character as well and we want a president with a character who's going to be protecting the character of our nation when we say we're going to protect the nation was ever going to preserve a nation different things can be mentor we have been a part of an aspect of pernicious is the territory it's often more territory to get to be respected and protected we have the individuals in the nation that's all support the mission and then this is an unusual country and that we have a set of suppose they're also trying to protect and as part of the character of this nation

how you don't have that for example in china in china you have a new principal eighty eight the culture that they're protecting the territory that they're protecting didn't have the same ideals and principles that were protecting in fact their ideals and principles seem to change all the time in my claim communism but outgoing toward capitalism and chipping back and forth but the the principle of respect for the kid and the dignity of the individual and the ability for the individual to be self governing that's not part of chinas the part of japan as the part of the unknown that the poor of india's the part of iran as the part of most nations but those are some of the principles that we're trying to protect here in this country is well now if we go out and in our covert activities and betray the same principles that we ours pretending or saying that we're protecting them in what sense are we really protecting our nation if we betray these principles and we are betraying the nation and i think that's the biggest effect can we still indulge in these activities can be principled yes i

think so i think the clandestine activities are awkward the clandestine collection of information is legitimate if it's done at an approach where csi think we can revisit the game everybody plans no no because there has there's a balance because the world really is the survival of the fittest the really is the real world out there and we can't be naive about that there are people who would like to wipe us out as a people's as a nation as a territory as our principles on the other hand we were trying to defend the principles as well in the character of a nation not just because other people are doing at work for it for self preservation or twenty defended more and then exported or do we care about that no i think we definitely are trying to export some of our principles to other countries and an end unfortunate when the export your culture or

principles we export mtv wish for video games we are golden arches yes the golden arches or are everywhere now and that's what we end up exporting to think is unfortunate is that just happy accident at least for the business community are happy accident know that that's a potential and that's part of what the world cup listeners remember being in a small town in ireland walking downtown and the coast and thinking to myself this is the ideal place in the world this is where i would retire to it was just a beautiful quaint everything as i got close to the one restaurant i started hearing the pac man sounds of the video machines and has a video arcade for the sugar it's it's everywhere and that's really exploiting new below aspects of our culture not the high export high aspects of our culture you know and on the other side to try to export respect for the individual i think has is really quite worthy that is not a social law that i believe the natural law and we in this country have lost the sense of what is a social on was a natural

all week i teach at university of put ethics and and students say to me well who's to say you have to say with wright who's to say with wrong well that comes out of the nineteen sixties generation which i'm party where we decided to throw everything out the window or to reinvent the world and that everything be fine we've made quite a mess of things and i'm afraid i have to take responsibility for that and i try to explain to the students that that there are social lots we have a stop sign that you and i have agreed to stop at the moses did not come down and there's no law of nature that says we've got to stop there but that's not that circle and that's an agreement that we have between ourselves as a society and then there's another something completely different which is natural law that is wrong for one human being to own another human being is wrong not because i say it's wrong not because society says it's wrong but because it is wrong within the reality of nature the individual or to be free i'm one of the king had said when asked what is right and what is wrong he

said the same thing a small they said that which elevates the human individual is what is what is good that which degrades in an individual is wrong we don't know what is right and what is wrong we just need to ask ourselves a question what is it that all of its human individual and what is it that degrades women and it's really a simpler and as a society we were willing to make a contract with the rest of mankind saying we will treat you also with respect regardless i wish we would do that or i wish we would do that but i think it's not the kitchen i don't believe it is the case though in fact i am i am troubled i'm very troubled by human rights abuses for example in china and that our country will go and say i'm quite persuasive lawyer politician saying look we we we must not isolate china from the world community we must work with them too in time

change the can the complex nature of their society so that there are individual rights their will and i don't i don't see that i don't see that happening quote martin luther king again he said why should be a timetable for the person's freedom why should we set that time to the table and in fact other our political prisoners in china right now there are political slaves in china right now in thailand also matters what my book is about the sex slave trade in in thailand there are between two hundred thousand and a million young women who are sold into sex slavery right now as we said going to speak that's an atrocity that we permit to go on and by continuing to have traded in trade with thailand and permitting on the internet we consent for sex to our lives might seem to deleting and tantalizing and in some respects but it's

the human cost of this where we are a nation that has our own history of slavery and for us to turn a blind eye to slavery it's going on somewhere else the world right now is is republican and i should be reported to the american people but it snows it's not just one country that that whole area southeast asia are entitled to send them yes and if we would stop saying that such as the designer political interests such and such is in our economic interests over going to allow this to go on if we would stop sign at and say what is what is in our moral interests as a nation what is your moral interests so that we can maintain the character of our nation is there any nation that asks those questions exxon or another more of a but i would like this to be a special mission we claim to be a special mission which claimed have especially history as special future but i don't see that happening yet and i wish i wish it been me get another example in bosnia

we knew for years that the hundreds of thousands of people were being killed in bosnia another genocide and we stood by after world war two we said never again israel said never again and yet we let it happen again and i know it's difficult to going to work to a nation like bosnia understand all the military arguments of putting ground forces in but the quicker than something that we could've done sooner than we did at the goodman something israel could've done with strategic airstrikes or something else what israel had gotten when the muslims were being slaughtered and israel had gotten with airstrikes and told the world we said never again and we were just talking about the jewish people are saying this is repugnant to do everyone on the planet we will not permit this tool to to exist does doesn't mean you know the state has become the prism of the world again like we believe we were like and sixties what it means is that that genocide should not be accepted anywhere in the world and for the nine states to make a stand one's it created a mega stand once and call the rest of the nations of the well to make that same stand would protect people africa protect people in

asia and cambodia right now in the future because they would know that people would be coming in that that this type of genocide just would not be tolerated again do we have to wait for some critical mass before we don't know we don't we want brodersen this time in bosnia i'm i guess a critical mass to this time and opened two years to lead but we did not have to wait as a nation how we have unfortunately we have we have leaders that too often look to the people as to what for what they should do which means we've elected a follower but we should elect a leader someone who's going to put the direction and and take us there to the polls the poll said does this wasn't going to work out the military said this is too difficult to put ground troops and what was difficult book to put ground troops in but we certainly could have done more it's we are a nation that's never been bombed we talk about going to war and i don't know what it's like to be

bombed we don't know what its like to to have our home was overrun our art our jobs lost or cities destroyed that's foreign to us as foreign to us and we don't have the empathy because because of our history we don't have the empathy to understand and to feel the suffering other parts of the world but to europe as an example they experienced that first world war the great war not knowing that they needed to start a number of them that right and along comes the second world war and the same battlefields are back in business they wouldn't know they had direct experience they lost generation and they were they were reluctant to get into it again the korean war vietnam acquiring more of a love of afghanistan for the russians are hung over

them and they were looking to the past and afraid to act right now in the present but we consider ourselves what is the right thing to do now what is the just thing to do now and then act and i think that's what we needed to do and when human suffering is that great when there is genocide in the world then all of humanity needs to make a stand and we need a leader who's going to declare there and to do that do and totems effort of of any stride serve to send home yes even though the united states has said we would not go and afghanistan recent intelligence outfits into afghanistan we've sold weapons to the afghan rebels in other places to try to stop a soviet union from coming into afghanistan and some to slaughter that was going on there so so yes we're always clicking information electronically from the sky from human intelligence as to what was happening in bosnia but the function of

intelligence is is not reactive is more to click the information and to analyze information and then give review the results of the analysis to the executive branch and the executive branch can act or act act now perching laterally or some cases without congress but that can also appeal to congress for the capability of making war whatever it is they need to do by the way i'm not a warmonger from a peacenik either this is a real world and we need to act and we need to act fast sometimes it's difficult what roe is partisan politics does a trip in either oh sure sure i was very pleased that there was not partisan politics in our efforts in somalia as george bush when he was bill clinton who continued and then of course what we're americans american people saying an american politicians are saying

what are our interest there what was in george bush's political interest to go out there and and and i applaud them for that it was in bill clinton's political interest to stay there and he did and i applaud him for that too as it was in their economic interest to be there but it was in our moral interests as an example i think of something quite fine that we didn't despite the losses there we made a stand and we said we said for once are people just aren't going to rule their economic interests are going to hear about the sea that carried out other places as well well in your book operation fantasyland you've been able to construct your own world and the universe and one operates and doesn't operate within that how did you put fiction to your own tool use well i've learned that people learn through stories and i want to tell a good story and i want to bring in what i understood about intelligence

intelligence methods life in intelligence there's the central england this scene at once inflammatory maybe a sensational no no the social aspect of this is very real the question is how far will our government go to protect itself and for you and me how how sharp for what we want them to go in order that we can be safe it would be protected to give a concrete example we learned recently that the soviet bloc say russian mafia and selling missiles too coming cartels now is that something we want to know about was certainly or that that the china sold sido two missiles to iran which can reach our sailors in the golf is that information that we want yes we won and they know what cost

are we going to go to to get that information would tell a lie witchey we still what about one life if somebody has to die what about some women in sex slavery what we were to redraw the line and alabama line we're the person's future by their own choice are willing to the place that i live on that line or something about their lives and safety with that matter is we have a military that does that all the time but when we as a nation are using other people in another nation and that's the scenario i bring up in my book what we are when we are saying that the individual nice to be free autonomous at the same time we're using people toward our own ends then at what point we have to draw the line now that their again i'm not i'm not saying one side or the other i'm trying to present the tension between two needs the need to protect the autonomy of the individual

which we say we want to do and the needs of the real world which is that we got to protect ourselves because it is it is again nobody bought it a survival of the fittest and so there really is a tension there between those toothpicks that those two sides and the real world is the villain in the world the real world is not always the villain put out there in the real world are villains weeks later the dragon called communism and other lot of snake still out there in the snakes probably more dangerous to us than them a dragon ever was i might also add that to come back to one of my original points soviet union had said for a long time that the non state would only fall from within that would love it cannot be penetrated from without but that we would for from within the what we saw was there are corrupt nation like the soviet union was never was coming was to begin with was just a corrupt dictatorship it fell from within and that ended the core but but it was

in someone's interest for a very long time to make them appear to be a larger and stronger than what the world war ii yes yes it was on book about i would like to add that that many americans know claiming a victory and i'm afraid the last chapter on our nation hasn't yet and when there is not a question whether capitalism is good or bad versus communism began as a kid it's a question of the character of the people of this nation do we understand and now about the southeast asian leaders to appreciate what's going on in the region or i try to bring out in there are for my own expertise nation studies have partitions the decision traditions content creation cultures have advanced degrees in asian studies phd have tried to bring out in there some of the history of japan some in history japanese people some the japanese psychology that is that is revealed not buy american psychologist but by japanese psychologist themselves with a

japanese over cycle allies themselves and also explain what's going on inside thailand right now i'm and so yes i think i think through the book these things will be accessible burgess well i'm trying to tell a story and stories involve us in a way that facts do not we pick up the newspaper we read two hundred thousand people are about the sex slave trade or sudden it's happening in japan such at such as it is happening in bosnia and we turn that page factor not move us as educators we have that you know we just memorize facts were dated dump society but stories can move us because stories get inside us and we can begin to feel the pains the pressures the problems of the protagonist especially in the first person ese us in the book was written in the first person here and that the tightest peter games is a character who is not perfect he's troubled he's confused and james bond

has got is his decoder ring in his bmw in his knees he's getting under control you know and all the girls are after midnight no that's that's not the real world is that the real spy world and i really tried to present the real world the real world of an individual who's confused and the tudors know we're drawn a line a man who's been in the cia has been expelled from the cia a man who can't go on with his life until he goes back to try to and do something that is done it's terribly wrong that's also human because we we all have things we would like to go back and do the technical word an unkind word that we said once to somebody that we loved to do not do something in college or in work are something new in here is a man who is a chance to go back in and do something and stores but what unravels as you know unravels so for him personally and politically as he as he as he tries to undo this one thing so initially thought the redemption was something

simpler yes yes this week we think redemption a simple and it's not hand and would he what he finds out as he goes back is that the stakes are much much higher than you thought and then he has to make a decision was important is one person important are many people important is justice now important or is a third grader justice in the future that has to decide on and those are terrible questions that patients and people have to have to answer but what his training teachers is training taught him that the end justifies the means and he he believes that and he did that for a long time and then and there's a very persuasive argument for that is their hope for our culture of letting people find their own way and ending up in the right place terry that much of an optimist as i find that

one young people are told that they don't have to go into business that there is another alternative that there is such a thing as there's the harsh and then when young people are permitted other opportunities they will they will take them i remember in my classes once jeff was the question of theories of knowledge in reality in the first day of classes students how many of you were sent here for surgery by the computer at her vehicle and i said get out out and said you'll never be a philosopher and of course they never want to be a philosopher but now that i was saying that they'd never be won the bill want to be one screaming out how he'll never be a christmas we laugh because they're very interested in what it was what is it to be a philosopher now and now that was a new measure for them is that have to be a successful businessman i think we have become too much of an information oriented society we are a data dump

we are filling space with information and filling more more space with information on the internet now is encouraging us to feel even more space and says got more space are in our fillet be more space doerflinger would chat well our chat rooms and all of that for a car recall when henry thoreau said when they strung a wire between concord and boston and the telegraph wire he said but those boston have anything to say to concord accept that and says adelaide has little pink off well yes naturally have more and faster means a bit of communication but only really saying anything different or we saying anything new or re saying anything is going to make us a better a better people or are we only going to become more prosperous and open that were prosperous i should say i think the prosperity is why the problems in this country it's not one of the solutions prosperity without austerity means that we lose empathy we lose part of our ability to feel other people

and an end that could be the downfall of us my friend the guest peter gumbel author of a population that is published by william morrow and company the views expressed on this program do not necessarily reflect the views of the university of texas at austin where this station technical producer perform live harper production assistant and he's arty and your producer and host is available and navy purchased by writing for and cassettes communication giving the ut austin austin

texas seventy seventy one to that's for a cassettes communication at ut austin austin texas seventy seven went to the university of texas at austin this is the la morning radio network this week on for what you hear bugling there are two different types of pentagons cia operation fantasy this week on for