Category: Foreign policy

Zelensky’s Great Expectation

My regulars know that I am not a fan of all the funds and stuff we are pouring into Ukraine….I believe that this is just a funnel for the corruptible…..and we continue to feed that machine….just as we have done with other countries that we are saving from anarchy…..

The newest report coming out of Ukraine is that they are basically demanding the West (meaning the US) must guarantee their security…..

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Tuesday welcomed a proposal drawn up by senior Ukrainian officials and a former NATO chief that outlined a plan for security guarantees Kyiv would seek from Western countries.

The proposal emphasizes Ukraine’s desire to become a NATO member and says that until Kyiv joins the Western military alliance, it needs security guarantees from other countries.

The document says that the “strongest security guarantee for Ukraine lies in its capability to defend itself.” It says building up a sufficient defensive force requires “a multi-decade effort of sustained investment in Ukraine’s defense industrial base, scalable weapons transfers and intelligence support from allies, intensive training missions and joint exercises under the European Union and NATO flags.”

The security guarantees Ukraine seeks from other countries is a commitment for them to support Ukraine’s ability to create this force to deter future attacks through military aid, funding of reconstruction, training, intelligence sharing, and joint exercises.

According to the document, the countries Ukraine wants security guarantees from include but are not limited to “the US, UK, Canada, Poland, Italy, Germany, France, Australia, Turkey, and Nordic, Baltic, and Central European countries.”

As part of this arrangement, Ukraine seeks a “massive training and joint maneuver program of Ukrainian forces and partners on Ukrainian territory with international trainers and advisors.”

Zelensky on Wednesday welcomed the plan, which was drawn up with the help of Anders Fogh Rasmussen, a former NATO secretary-general. Zelensky said that the report “should become the basis of the future security compact.”

(antiwar.com)

Join NATO?

Is that not the major reason that Russia invaded?

This is nothing more than a demand for an open-ended deal to continue the funneling dollars and bombs into Ukraine indefinitely.

And this will happen come 2023 and the spineless creeps we have in our Houses of Congress.

Just another incident of the US saving ‘democracy’….like Iraq and Afghanistan to name the most recent failures.

Open you damn eyes!

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

The Original AUMF

Part 2 —the untaught history of America.

Some think that the Authorization for the Use of Military Force (AUMF) was when the US retaliated for the 9/11 attacks on the US….if you think that then you are wrong….off by 200 years…..

First of all, what is the AUMF?

Basically it is a law from Congress that allows the use of military might against an ‘enemy’……

Now to the very first AUMF.

The year was 1801……

According to the United States Constitution, if a sitting president wants to use the U.S. military against another nation, the office holder must first ask Congress for a specific declaration of war.

The United States has only actually declared war a handful of times. Since its ratification, the Constitutional function of war has only been used against Great Britain in 1812, Mexico in 1846, Spain in 1898, the Triple Alliance powers in World War I and the Axis Powers in World War II. But the U.S. has engaged in more than 102 conflicts since its inception.

The problem with a declaration of war (for Congress) is that a state of war gives the Office of the President incredible power under the Constitution. Instead of doing that, legislators would prefer to give the president limited power using an Authorization for the Use of Military Force (AUMF).

It’s the kind of legislation that has allowed presidents since George W. Bush to wage war for the past 20 years. But Authorizations for the use of military force are nothing new, though the names the U.S. government uses for it might be. The first AUMF-style authorization came before the first declared war, skirting the Constitution and allowing President Thomas Jefferson to bring the U.S. Navy to bear against American enemies.

Pirates from the coastal states of North Africa terrorized the Mediterranean Sea for centuries, even while the United States was still a colony of Great Britain. Ships from nations who refused to pay tribute to the Barbary Coast rulers were targeted for attack, their cargoes seized, and the crews sold into slavery.

America’s first authorization for use of military force came in 1801

So you see the AUMF is not something new….presidents have been using it for a couple of centuries….especially for wars that are not needed.

Class Dismissed!

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Who Wins In Ukraine?

This is a source of contention for many….but the question still needs to be asked…..After 6 months who is actually winning the conflict?

My question is asked because of the massive money and equipment that has poured into Ukraine from the US and the spigot is still full open……

He is a look into the conflict by VOX……

It has been six months since Russia invaded Ukraine, and it’s not obvious who’s “winning” the war.

The first stage of the Russian attack in February, a lightning thrust aimed at seizing Kyiv and decapitating the Ukrainian government, was a swift and humiliating failure. Stiff Ukrainian resistance forced the Russians to withdraw to the eastern part of the country, where their ambitions narrowed in the short term to a conquest of the Donbas region (much of which had already been controlled by Russian-backed separatists since 2014).

In the Donbas offensive, which began in late April, the two sides have been locked in an artillery duel — less rapid troop advancement and more firing shells and rockets from afar. This played to Russia’s primary strength, a numerically superior artillery corps, and led to high Ukrainian casualties and slow but steady Russian gains in the spring and early summer.

More recently, however, the momentum has started to swing back to the Ukrainian side. Western military aid — most notably an American rocket artillery system called HIMARS — has helped level the artillery playing field and wreaked havoc on Russian supply lines. Today, experts aren’t asking whether Ukraine will launch a counteroffensive aimed at retaking Russian-held territory, but when it will start and where it will focus.

Whether this means Ukraine is now “winning,” however, is a somewhat more complicated question to answer. We don’t know that the upcoming counteroffensive is likely to succeed; it depends on factors about which we have limited evidence, like Ukraine’s ability to conduct so-called “combined arms” offensive operations (ones that employ multiple components of military power simultaneously to accomplish a particular goal). Some important quantitative metrics, like the size of their respective ammunition stockpiles, are hard to estimate based on publicly available information. At this point, even leading experts on the conflict find it difficult to assess with real confidence who’s winning on the battlefield.

https://www.vox.com/world/2022/8/24/23311778/ukraine-war-russia-winning-six-months

As Vladimir Putin‘s war in Ukraine enters its seventh month now, a former U.S. diplomat said that more and more Russians support Moscow’s acts and want to eradicate its war-torn neighbor.

What Happened: Daniel Fried, distinguished fellow at the Atlantic Council and former Ambassador to Poland, in a tweet on Sunday, said, “It’s not just Putin’s war. Many Russians now support the Kremlin’s campaign of national extermination of Ukraine.”

Again these are just observations…..and the lack of questions about this conflict proves the power of propaganda.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Closing Thought–26Aug22

We hear lots of positive stories coming out of Ukraine….and equally disturbing reports coming out of Russia….

But the question is….are things going well in Ukraine?

The latest issue from the State Department raises many question and that is just one….

The US embassy in Kyiv is imploring any American citizens still in Ukraine to leave, citing intel that Russia might launch attacks on civilian areas and government facilities in the coming days, reports the Wall Street Journal. The warning comes ahead of Ukraine’s Independence Day on Wednesday, one that marks 31 years since Ukraine left the teetering Soviet Union. The day also marks the six-month anniversary of the Russian invasion. As such, there will be no celebrations or parades this year; instead, Ukrainian officials are instituting curfews and warning citizens to stay home.

Andrii Yusov, spokesman for Ukraine’s ministry of defense, said “missile attacks and other provocations” are likely on or around Wednesday, per CNN. “[The Russians] are crazy about dates and symbols,” Yusov said, “so it would be quite logical to … be prepared for the fact that Independence Day will also be attacked.” President Volodymyr Zelensky also warned in a weekend video message that “we must all be aware that this week Russia could try to do something particularly ugly, something particularly vicious” in the coming days.

The warnings follow the murder of Darya Dugina—daughter of ultranationalist Alexander Dugin—in a car bomb attack on Saturday, as well as a series of attacks far behind Russian lines, including a military airfield in Crimea and strikes on several ammunition depots and command posts in occupied areas. Meanwhile, as the New York Timesreports, a skeleton crew of “stressed, tired, and scared workers” at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant are “all that stands between the world and nuclear disaster.” And in a possible signal that Ukraine is preparing for new counteroffensives, the Pentagon on Friday announced an $800 million assistance package that reportedly includes short-range TOW missiles, armored mine-clearing vehicles, and other weaponry suitable for “closer combat,” according to the Washington Post.

If things are going well then why does the State Department thinks it needs to issue this warning?

So again….are things really going all that good in Ukraine?

Turn The Page!

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Who Controls American Foreign Policy?

A question that few Americans want to ask because for the most part they do not care…..but they should for foreign policy will effect us all in some way.

Think tanks and lobbyists control everything in DC….especially foreign policy.

In a piece of news that shocked the mainstream media, but which shocked no one familiar with the academic industry writ large, retired US Army general John Allen was forced to resign as president of the Brookings Institution after it was revealed the FBI was investigating him for lobbying on behalf of the Qatari monarchy.

Of course, the real news, scarcely noted by the Washington Post, New York Times, or any other purported paper of record, is that Allen was only really in trouble because he hadn’t fulfilled the pro forma legal requirements for those lobbying the US government on behalf of a foreign agent or government.

The Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA), under which such activities are regulated, includes several exceptions that allow for such activities without declaring a conflict of interest. Think tanks, a misnomer if ever there was one, operate under an “academic exception” that allows for engagement in “bona fide religious, scholastic, academic, or scientific pursuits or the fine arts.”

Anyone who has ever picked up one of the many deadly dull social science journals where actual, bona fide empirical academic work is done knows this constitutes perhaps a fraction of what think tanks almost daily churn out.

Rather think tank commentary, touted as objective analysis, is regularly featured or cited by publications and outlets as apparently diverse as the Wall Street Journal and NPR.

Of course, think tanks are hardly alone. As Ben Freeman, a specialist on foreign influence on US policy, has documented, such democratic bastions of liberal values as the UAE and Saudi Arabia donate hundreds of millions, even billions, to universities around the country.

https://mises.org/wire/who-really-makes-us-foreign-policy-who-benefits-and-who-loses

If they churn out crap on the behest of any foreign government then they should be held accountable and register as a foreign agent.

Department of Justice’s Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) Unit issued guidance indicating that think tanks and non-profits doing work at the behest of a foreign government likely have an obligation to register under FARA.

In a new Advisory Opinion — the FARA Unit’s public, though heavily redacted, responses when organizations ask if they should register or not — the Chief of the FARA Unit argues that the unnamed organization in question should register under FARA as its work for foreign principals included outreach to policymakers in the defense community, facilitating “meetings and new partnerships in the United States, particularly with U.S. government officials,” and has agreed to prepare a study that would “foster bilateral exchange and cooperation between” a foreign government and the United States.

As the Chief argues, each of these actions constitutes “political activity” under the FARA statute, defined as attempts to “influence any agency or official of the United States or any section of the public within the United States with reference to . . . the domestic or foreign policy of the United States.”

Can think tanks be foreign agents?

There is your answer….Think tanks is one of the controlling agents of American foreign policy.

When I left college I was offered a position with a think tank….I refused because they give a conclusion they want and I was to fit the research to fit that conclusion.  (BTW that refusal on my part made it possible for me to never get a gig with a think tank….I would not play ball).

Time for these people to be held up to the light.

Wake Up!  Pay attention!

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Ukraine/Russia–Who’s Winning?

For 6 months the conflict between Ukraine and Russia has been raging….personally I think ‘raging’ is a bit of a stretch….the US and the West was sunk billions into the conflict trying to sway the direction of the conflict.

For me the big question is with our massive investment in Ukraine I ask who is winning?

News has it Ukraine is holding their own.  Russian news has them succeeding…..who is winning?

The American Conservative has an answer……

What’s happening in the nearly six-month-old Russo-Ukrainian war? It’s hard to say. Moscow expected a proverbial cakewalk and bungled its initial attack. After rebuffing Russia’s assault, the Zelensky government expanded its objectives, expressing its desire to reconquer portions of the Donbas seized by separatists with Russian support in 2014, as well as Crimea, which had been formally annexed by Moscow.

In recent months, however, Russian forces have made slow progress in the Donbas and now occupy a fifth or more of Ukrainian territory. But Ukraine and its advocates have been threatening counteroffensives against Moscow’s supposedly overstretched forces. Conflicting claims have been made about casualty levels, the impact of high-tech allied weapons sent to Ukraine, and both sides’ prospects in the war.

Both Russia and Ukraine have lied and will continue to lie in search of future advantage. Of course, it makes sense to mislead one’s enemies. British Prime Minister Winston Churchill famously observed: “In wartime, truth is so precious that she should always be attended by a bodyguard of lies.”

Alas, governments, including Washington, also lie to their own people. Virtually everything the George W. Bush administration claimed to justify its disastrous invasion of Iraq was false. Prior administrations and their allies shared fake atrocities to back earlier military interventions against Yugoslavia and Iraq. The Reagan administration made a series of unfounded statements after the U.S. shoot-down of the Iranian airliner in the Persian Gulf in 1988. And the Johnson administration used spurious claims of a North Vietnamese attack on U.S. forces to win passage of the Tonkin Gulf Resolution, which authorized deployments that metastasized into the Vietnam War, in which 58,000 Americans died.

Who is Winning the Russo-Ukrainian War?

My personal opinion is that we are funding a war that will do nothing for the US….no matter who wins life in the US will not change one iota…..corporations will continue their control and the workers will continue to sink further into poverty.

Thoughts?

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

The Black Hole Of War

Our country has been at war since the end of WW2….and each of these wars has become a black hole or a money put.

In recent years a prime example is Afghanistan….a country into which the US pour dollar after dollar and in the end got nothing for the price we paid.

And now we have the war in Ukraine to take the place of Afghanistan as the money pit…the black hole with no end……

The Western countries and the US have pledged a long term involvement in Ukraine….

At a conference in Denmark on Thursday, 26 Western nations agreed to continue supporting Ukraine in its war against Russia for the long term and pledged more than $1.5 billion in new military aid.

The $1.5 billion includes donations from the UK, Denmark, and Norway, but more countries are expected to pledge money. “It will grow,” said Danish Foreign Minister Morten Bødskov. “Some of the countries need to go back home and get the support of their parliaments.”

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky addressed the conference via video link, and Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov attended the meeting in person. Neither official specified what sort of weapons Ukraine was going to receive from the new aid.

The UK said Thursday that it would provide Ukraine with more multiple rocket launch systems that have a range of about 50 miles. Norway said that it will start training Ukrainian troops in Britain.

The new aid pledged by 26 nations on Thursday is just a fraction of what the US has been sending Ukraine. On Monday, the US announced $4.5 billion in budgetary aid for the Ukrainian government and a new $1 billion weapons package.

Ukraine is expecting to receive $3 billion of the new budgetary aid this month and for the remaining $1.5 billion to arrive in September. According to the US Agency for International Development (USAID), the new funds brings the total budgetary aid the US has provided Ukraine to $8.5 billion.

Since Russia invaded on February 24, the US has pledged over $9 billion in weapons for Ukraine. The funds are being pulled from the $40 billion Ukraine aid bill that President Biden signed into law back in May, which is meant to last through September 30.

(antiwar.com)

A report on the money spent on Afghanistan…..

Pentagon contractors operating in Afghanistan over the past two decades raked in nearly $108 billion—funds that “were distributed and spent with a significant lack of transparency,” according to a report published Tuesday.

https://www.commondreams.org/news/2022/08/09/pentagon-contractors-afghanistan-pocketed-108-billion-over-20-years

The US goes even further and is basically censoring zany reports in the MSM about the war in Ukraine……

Following objections from the Ukrainian government, CBS News has removed a short documentary which had reported concerns from numerous sources that a large amount of the supplies being sent to Ukraine aren’t making it to the front lines.

The Ukrainian government has listed its objections to the report on a government website, naming Ukrainian officials who objected to it and explaining why each of the CBS news sources it dislikes should be discounted. After the report was taken down and the Twitter post about it removed, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said this was a good start but still not enough.

“Welcome first step, but it is not enough,” Kuleba tweeted. “You have misled a huge audience by sharing unsubstantiated claims and damaging trust in supplies of vital military aid to a nation resisting aggression and genocide. There should be an internal investigation into who enabled this and why.”

The CBS News article about the documentary was renamed, from “Why military aid to Ukraine doesn’t always get to the front lines: ‘Like 30% of it reaches its final destination’” to the far milder “Why military aid in Ukraine may not always get to the front lines.” An editor’s note on the new version of the article explicitly admits to taking advisement on its changes from the Ukrainian government, reading as follows:

The Ukrainian Boondoggle as a Black Hole

All this is about keeping the money flowing into the pit….and trying to keep the American people out of the equation….and Taiwan will be the next black hole.

The voters have new shiny objects to chase other than the wasted resources and cash thrown at Ukraine….as always the attention span is limited.

Maybe it is time to involve yourself and stop the flow of cash to black holes we create…..if you are worried about the deficit then stop all misadventures and wars that do nothing but waste money.

Get involved….be the voice of the nation….

Enough said!

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Don’t Pee On Ukraine’s Parade

I have been a very vocal opponent to all the cash and stuff we are throwing at Ukraine in their struggle with Russia….

I have also said that I believe the PR firms and lobbyists are controlling the narrative that we Americans see and hear….and a recent occurrence does little to ease my mind…..

CBS News retracted a documentary it briefly released on Sunday after pressure from the Ukrainian government. The original documentary (watch it here) CBS put out examined the flow of military aid to Ukraine and quoted someone familiar with the process who said in April that only 30% of the arms were making it to the frontline.

“All of this stuff goes across the border, and then something happens, kind of like 30% of it reaches its final destination,” said Jonas Ohman, the founder of Blue-Yellow, a Lithuania-based organization that CBS said has been meeting with and supplying frontline units with aid in Ukraine since the start of the war in the Donbas in 2014. “30-40%, that’s my estimation,” Ohman said.

After the documentary sparked outrage from the Ukrainian government, it was removed from the internet by CBS. In an editor’s note, CBS said it changed the article that was published with the documentary and that the documentary itself was being “updated.”

The editor’s note also insisted that Ohman has said the delivery of weapons in Ukraine has “significantly improved” since he filmed with CBS back in April, although he didn’t offer a new estimate on the percentage of arms being delivered.

The editor’s note also said that the Ukrainian government noted US defense attaché Brig. Gen. Garrick M. Harmon arrived in Kyiv in August for “arms control and monitoring.” Defense attachés are military officers stationed at US embassies that represent the Pentagon’s interests in the country. 

Previously, it was unclear if there was any sort of military presence at the US embassy in Kyiv after it reopened in May.

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said the retraction by CBS was not enough and called for an investigation into the documentary. “Welcome first step, but it is not enough … There should be an internal investigation into who enabled this and why,” he wrote on Twitter.

In the documentary, Ohman described the corruption and bureaucracy that he has to work around to deliver aid to Ukraine. “There are like power lords, oligarchs, political players,” he said. “The system itself, it’s like, ‘We are the armed forces of Ukraine. If security forces want it, well, the Americans gave it to us.’ It’s kind of like power games all day long, and so eventually people need the stuff, and they go to us.”

Other reporting has shown that there is virtually no oversight for the billions of dollars in weapons that the US and its allies are pouring into Ukraine. CNN reported in April that the US has “almost zero” ability to track the weapons it is sending once they enter Ukraine. One source briefed on US intelligence described it as dropping the arms into a “big black hole.”

(antiwar.com)

This sounds like the preferential treatment that Israel is allowed in the US media.

This sounds a lot like Iraq and Afghanistan…..no one is tacking where and how our money for aid is spent….but yet Congress is so worried about any funds we spend domestically….

Now you tell me who runs the government.

Turn The Page!

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Who Pays?

The US Congress has voted overwhelmingly to allow Sweden and Finland into NATO…..a bad idea from my point of view…..since the 1990s the US and NATO have been poking Russia in th eye at almost every turn…..and then Ukraine happened.

Now the finger poking begins again….and how will that end? Better question is if Russia retaliates against Europe who pays?

An excellent question and with the US domination of the arms industry….who do you think will benefit the most?

If Europe wants to flex its underused muscle….what will be the outcome?

After Russia attacked Ukraine, European governments claimed to be serious about defense. However, so far few have acted on their latest promises. The continent’s continued reliance on America is evident from European proposals for military escalation — which could only be pursued by Washington. The Biden administration should insist on an alliance rebalance.

For more than seven decades, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization has stood for North America and The Others. It was not supposed to be this way. Warned Dwight D. Eisenhower, NATO’s first supreme commander: “We cannot be a modern Rome guarding the far frontiers with our legions if for no other reason than that these are not, politically, our frontiers. What we must do is to assist these people [to] regain their confidence and get on their own military feet.”

However, even after recovering economically from World War II, European governments preferred to invest in their welfare states rather than their militaries. American policymakers preferred to dominate the continent’s decision-making rather than limit the U.S. public’s military liability. As a result, the U.S. consciously acted as a modern Rome. Still, Washington wanted the Europeans to do more. Alas, America’s clients provided promises rather than performance, reducing U.S. officials to begging.

A decade ago, soon-to-retire Defense Secretary Robert Gates criticized Europe’s lackadaisical military efforts: “I’ve worried openly about NATO turning into a two-tiered alliance: Between members who specialize in ‘soft’ humanitarian, development, peacekeeping, and talking tasks, and those conducting the ‘hard’ combat missions. Between those willing and able to pay the price and bear the burdens of alliance commitments, and those who enjoy the benefits of NATO membership — be they security guarantees or headquarters billets — but don’t want to share the risks and the costs. This is no longer a hypothetical worry. We are there today. And it is unacceptable.”

So if Europe wants to escalate against Russia who foots the bill?

If push comes to shove in Europe the US will be on the hook with either troops, money, or weapons…..or all three.

An unacceptable situation that will be reality for the M-IC will always gets it’s way….it is why lobbyists throw money at Congress.

Time for a re-set.  NATO should have ended wit the fall of the Soviet Union.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Is China Bluffing?

Now there is a damn good question.

Well Pelosi goes to Taiwan and pisses China off….and China in retaliation…..

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has departed Taiwan—and China has launched what are believed to be its biggest-ever military drills around the island, which it has long vowed to reunify with the mainland, by force if necessary. For the first time since 1996, China has fired missiles into waters around Taiwan, reports Reuters. The drills, which China says will last from Thursday to Sunday, are taking place in six zones around the island, some of them stretching into Taiwan’s territorial waters, encircling the island and disrupting shipping in what experts describe as a temporary blockade, the Wall Street Journal reports. More:

  • Taiwan says China “imitated North Korea.” Taiwan’s foreign ministry strongly condemned China’s actions, accusing the country of imitating North Korea with its missile launches, the Guardian reports. The ministry urged the international community to join the condemnation and support Taiwan’s democratic government.
  • “Precision strikes.” China, which had warned of “serious consequences” if Pelosi went to Taiwan, said it carried out precision strikes in exercises involving its air force, navy, and other service branches, the AP reports. “Long-range armed live fire precision missile strikes were carried out on selected targets in the eastern area of the Taiwan Strait,” the People’s Liberation Army said in a statement. “The expected outcome was achieved.”

A trial run for invasion? Analysts—including Major Gen. Meng Xiangqing, a professor of strategy at the PLA’s National Defense University in Beijing who was interviewed on state TV—see the exercises as a trial run for a longer blockade and possible invasion, the New York Times reports. “Under the guise of signaling, they’re trying to basically test their ability to conduct complex maneuvers that are necessary for an amphibious assault on Taiwan,” says Oriona Skylar Mastro at Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies at Stanford University. Meng said the encirclement “creates very good conditions for reshaping the strategic situation in a way that benefits unification.”

China says it’s an internal affair. China rejected accusations of violating international law, saying its dealings with Taiwan are an internal affair. “Our punishment of pro-Taiwan independence diehards, external forces is reasonable, lawful,” China’s Beijing-based Taiwan Affairs Office said, per Reuters.

  • Shipping disrupted. The drills have forced ships using the Taiwan Strait, one of the world’s busiest waterways, to reroute, which will add to the global disruption of supply chains, the BBC reports. More than 50 international flights to and from Taiwan were canceled Thursday because of the drills.
  • In China, some wanted more. Social media users in China who applauded Beijing’s tough rhetoric ahead of Pelosi’s visit said they were disappointed her plane hadn’t been shot down or blocked from landing, reports the New York Times. Before censors shut down the comments section on a WeChat video of a military exercise, commenters accused Beijing of being “cowardly in foreign affairs,” and a few people said they wanted to quit the Communist Party out of shame.

Some may say that Pelosi, now 82, has entered her second childhood. If so, it’s a delinquent one. Certainly her political inhibitions have dissolved, allowing her natural inclination to foment trouble to run rampant. One looks in vain for a rational motivation behind her ad hoc trip to Taiwan, an act of belligerency that might have sparked a war with another nuclear power. But to what end? China is not going to relinquish its entirely legitimate claims to Taiwan. Far from a model democracy, Taiwan is a former gangster state, whose repressive government was shaped by Chiang Kai-Shek, who retreated there in 1949 with his battered gang of CIA-financed KMT thugs, where he promptly instituted a violent crackdown on leftists known as the White Terror, a vicious form of martial law that lasted for the next 45 years.

Sure Pelosi represents many rich Chinese exiles, who have made fortunes in San Francisco and now fantasize about sticking it to the CCP from the safety of their Nob Hill mansions. But Pelosi doesn’t need their money or support. She’s well beyond that now. (Though her husband Paul (net worth: $130 million) is surely watching with avaricious eyes the reaction of the markets to this junket of the damned.) Antagonizing China over Taiwan doesn’t solve any of the global crises (climate, North Korea, Ukraine, Covid) hurtling toward us on all fronts–not even the “problem” of Taiwan.

Why Pelosi picked China as her target du jour is no mystery. Like Biden (and Bernie Sanders, for that matter), Pelosi has always been a Cold Warrior. It’s the way she chooses to understand the world, even if it’s a world that no longer quite exists. The political economy Pelosi has done much to help engineer over the last 35 years needs perpetual enemies to justify the trillions sunk into the weapons-and-surveillance complex. And not ephemeral scrub units like Al Qaeda and ISIS. Big ones like Russia and China. But more sophisticated politicians, from Nixon to Obama, have understood that the trick is to keep the threat elevated without actually risking a war. Pelosi seems to have lost this inhibition, as well.

Thus the brazenness–one is tempted to say, desperation–of her Taiwan excursion is a pretty clear sign of imperial (as well as mental) slippage. Far from a show of strength, Pelosi’s antics in Taipei revealed the frailty of the US hegemon in the Pacific. Sure, China postured a bit in response with naval exercises encircling Taiwan, drawing out of climate talks and slapping sanctions on Pelosi. But Beijing, a much more reflective (if equally lethal) government than our own, must have viewed Pelosi’s frantic finger-wagging as little more than a parody of power, a shrill manifestation of America’s political decrepitude.

(Jeffery St. Clair)

(This will be interesting to see just how successful the propaganda machine has worked on the American people)

But back to the original question….One could say that China may not be bluffing…..

Across the Eurasian continent, China finds itself being provoked by the US’s oleaginous adherence to the One China policy to which it is a signatory. Beijing has in recent days warned of severe consequences to be borne by the US and separatists in Taiwan (there are vociferous protests in Taiwan against Pelosi’s visit) if US House speaker Nancy Pelosi were to land in Taiwan.

Nonetheless, Pelosi is now in Taiwan, saying her visit “honors America’s unwavering commitment to supporting Taiwan’s vibrant democracy.” Even NY Times columnist Thomas Friedman said that Pelosi was being “utterly reckless, dangerous and irresponsible.”

Has China Been Bluffing?

What is the next move in this real game of “Risk” (registered trademark)

Could this situation escalate?  Events are starting to spiral again….and that usually means that the US will be a war somewhere in the very near future.

This is your world now….the US ends one war and starts looking for another to replace the lost defense industry profits….none of this bodes well for the American people…..in 80 years nothing has changed….the US goes from one war to another…..a cycle that seems unbreakable.

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I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”