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http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/57175.htm

Producing New Enemies for No Reason Whatsoever

Why did Nancy Pelosi go to Taiwan?

A good friend of mine, learning of the impending visit of Speaker of the House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi to Taiwan, recalled Homer’s description of Helen of Troy, “The face that launched a thousand ships and burnt the towers of Ilium.” Well, Nancy ain’t no Helen of Troy, but she might nevertheless be in the business of launching warships and burning cities due to her bizarre interpretation of her foreign policy prerogatives as Speaker.

It is like watching a train wreck developing in slow motion. Witnessing the highly dangerous behavior of the Biden Administration and its acolytes in power like Pelosi, one feels compelled to ask whether the White House and Congress are now setting the stage for the elevation of China to the status of foreign enemy number one? Indeed, if one has been hanging around Washington for the past twenty-five years or so, it was hard to miss the often-surfaced bipartisan contention that China is America’s major over-the-horizon adversary, or even enemy, with its growing economy, its successful geopolitics, and its huge industrious population. I can still recall my shock at hearing Democratic Senator Jim Webb, an honorable and highly intelligent Iraq War critic, telling a conservative gathering in 2015 that the real future threat to the United States would be coming from China.

Fear of China, sometimes dubbed in racist language as the “Yellow Peril,” has a long tradition in the United States and in Europe. In the current context, the US government is certainly apprehensive about where the increasing rapprochement between China and Russia is going, summed up by Secretary of State Tony Blinken as “The deepening strategic partnership between the People’s Republic of China and the Russian Federation and their mutually reinforcing attempts to undercut the rules-based international order run counter to our values and interests.” Ironically enough, that development stems from the inept US diplomacy exemplified by Blinken’s tunnel vision that most recently allowed a negotiable crisis to develop into a full-fledged war over Ukraine.

But a much more significant development stems from the Chinese success when playing at what might be called the global geostrategy game. The Chinese Silk Road project threatens to create a new economic reality for Eurasia, squeezing the US out and creating unique networks for marketing, transportation, and the contractual exploitation of third world natural resources. Again ironically, the US was once upon a time the master at creating such networks to benefit the American economy and workers, but unmanageable debt plus inflation combined with outsourcing and lack of any industrial policy means that that advantage has largely vanished. To put it bluntly, China has outcompeted the United States, and whether that constitutes a threat depends on which side of the fence one is standing on.

NATO alliance Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, is also part of the gamesmanship, observing how “China is substantially building up its military forces, including nuclear weapons, bullying its neighbors, threatening Taiwan … monitoring and controlling its own citizens through advanced technology, and spreading Russian lies and disinformation.” Stoltenberg and Blinken’s indictment of China was followed by a NATO issued “strategic concept” document that declared for the first time that China poses a “systemic challenge” to the alliance and declarations by the heads of the CIA and MI6 that China constitutes the “biggest long-term threat to our economic and national security.”

One would not expect China to be silent when confronted by the threats from the West and, indeed, Beijing has made clear that that Washington is “playing with fire” and that there would be “consequences.” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian observed that the “so-called rules-based international order is actually a family rule made by a handful of countries to serve the US self-interest,” adding that “[Washington] observes international rules only as it sees fit.”

It would be correct to describe the US-China relationship as currently occupying a low point. The result has been to create an international crisis where there was none to start with, and it goes on. There have been two more interesting developments in the US versus China saga in the past two weeks. First came a video-link two hour and seventeen minute “summit” between US President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping. Biden’s declared mission was to address those issues that impeded a more manageable relationship between the two countries, or at least that is how it was described.

The issues discussed by Biden and Xi included not taking any steps that would challenge the status quo re Taiwan as well as Chinese territorial claims in the South China Sea which the US maintains have inhibited “freedom of the seas” for foreign vessels transiting the area. China has responded that it is only exercising its sovereignty and stresses that its international presence is largely derived from its perfectly legal commercial and business activity. Other issues under discussion included what to do about climate change and the evolving situation in Ukraine. The possibility of rolling back some tariffs imposed by Donald Trump apparently was not discussed.

More provocative by far than the Biden phone call, which at least was ostensibly intended to mend fences, is the decision by Nancy Pelosi to make an August trip to Taiwan, which has now been completed. It was the first visit by an American official at that level since 1997 and it sought to confirm the US total commitment to defend the Taiwanese if China were to seek to establish full control of the Island. The proposed visit had been linked to moves by Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, who shifted US military resources in the Far East to provide possible protection for Pelosi’s travel on a US Air Force plane if the Chinese were to attempt to block her by declaring a no-fly zone over the island. Austin ordered the Commander of US Forces in the Indo-Pacific region (aka INDOPACCOM) to send the Ronald Reagan Carrier Strike Group into the South China Sea as a “show of force,” which was construed as a deliberate demonstration to the Chinese that they have no actual sovereignty over Taiwan.

In the event, China responded to the Pelosi visit with a live fire military exercise in the air space and in the waters around Taiwan and whatever takes place next will have to be dealt with by the Taiwanese. The Pentagon is reportedly preparing “options” if China actually does choose to invade. But nevertheless, the visit, which cost the US taxpayer $90 million, was clearly intended to send certain signals to Beijing and those signals were not only not friendly but even threatening. Pelosi assured Taiwan’s president, Tsai Ing-wen, that there would be US support despite threats from China, saying “Today the world faces a choice between democracy and autocracy. America’s determination to preserve democracy here in Taiwan and around the world remains ironclad.” Sounds familiar, doesn’t it? It is also language that is largely intended to appeal to the domestic audience in the US with midterm elections coming up in November. It always is popular to take cheap shots at Russia, Iran or China.

Interestingly, President Joe Biden, apparently supported privately by Austin, actually opposed the Speaker’s trip as it reportedly could disrupt his intention to actually meet Xi face-to-face at some point in the future. Pelosi, who lacks having any actual constitutional foreign policy role apart from approving budgets, has provided ammunition for those among the Chinese leadership who have come to believe that the United States cannot be trusted to honor any agreement made with a foreign government. The Speaker clearly had not heard about or understand the “One China Policy” and the “strategic ambiguity” that governs the relationship between China and the US over Taiwan to avoid any military escalation regarding that issue. Joe Biden, admittedly, has also muddied the waters by declaring three times that the US might have to use force to defend Taiwan if it is attacked as Ukraine was, even though he and his aides later insisted that he was not changing policy. The US, for its part, actually concedes the island is part of China, though “strategic ambiguity” has meant that Beijing has not yet sought to assert direct political control over it. Given that status and the threatening moves by Austin to protect Pelosi’s trip, one might imagine what the American reaction would be if China were openly making plans to fly its fighter jets into US airspace in order to forcibly land a senior Chinese official without an invitation from the State Department.

As always, there have been other possible developments, including reports that the US-funded National Endowment for Democracy (NED) is active in currently unstable Myanmar (Burma), fomenting trouble to distract China in its own backyard. NED is notorious for its role in regime change operations that were once the responsibility of the CIA, including the 2014 Maidan revolt in Ukraine. China is surely aware of the American involvement in regional meddling. Pushing from the other direction, North Korea is threatening to use nuclear weapons if it is attacked by the US and South Korea, which will inevitably involve China. Pyongyang was responding to reports that Seoul and Washington are planning war games that will include a “decapitation exercise” simulating the assassination of North Korea’s leader Kim Jong Un.

On balance, the United States has little to gain and much to lose by ratcheting up the pressure on China and its leadership in an attempt to create the “Pearl Harbor Moment” so much desired by the neocons and the hardliners in government. On the contrary, Nancy Pelosi should have stayed home and the White House should be working even harder to identify and pursue those opportunities for cooperation between the two countries. The ongoing bipartisan framing of China as an enemy of both the United States and of NATO is not the way to go, as it will literally force the Chinese to respond in kind. If one considers what is going on with Russia in terms of disruption of international trade, just imagine what would happen if the world’s biggest economy in China were to begin its own round of sanctions and selective withholding of manufactured goods. And then there is the risk of igniting yet another needless war, one that also comes with nuclear weapons as a last resort if either side were to perceive that it was “losing.” It is just not worth it, is it? But then again, it never is.

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https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2022/08/03/the-us-military-was-just-used-to-help-a-dementia-patient-try-to-start-ww3/

The US Military Was Just Used To Help A Dementia Patient Try To Start WW3

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has left Taiwan after a brief but diplomatically corrosive visit, the aftereffects from which may be felt for years to come.

Toward the end of her speech alongside Taiwan’s President Tsai Ing-wen, Pelosi’s brain underwent one of its increasingly common software glitches, causing her to begin babbling inarticulately.

Here is a transcript of what Nancy Pelosi’s brain said:

“In our earliest days at our founding of our country, Benjamin Franklin, our presidency, said, freedom and democracy. Freedom and democracy, one thing, security here. If we don’t have- we can’t have either, if we don’t have both.”

Of course Benjamin Franklin was neither a president of the United States nor a “presidency”, and the quote Nancy’s floundering brain was reaching for was “Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.” These are not difficult things to remember or articulate for someone with functioning gray matter.

This is right up there with other famous neural malfunctions by the speaker, like her “Bernie loves hearing” gibberish from last year or her bizarre “Good morning, Sunday morning” restart in the middle of an interview a couple of years ago, and it calls to mind a DC pharmacist’s casual remark in 2017 that he had filled prescriptions to treat Alzheimer’s disease for some powerful decision makers on Capitol Hill.

None of which would be a problem, if we were talking about some little old lady whiling away her twilight years at a retirement home in Florida. But we are not; we are talking about one of the most powerful elected officials in the most powerful government on earth, third in the line of succession to the presidency after the vice president.

More importantly, we are talking about someone who just participated in an incendiary visit to Taiwan which has ensured the escalation of dangerous cold war tensions between major world powers, and could potentially have triggered a hot war with China.

US war machinery, including aircraft carriers and large planes, were mobilized to provide security for Pelosi’s visit ahead of her arrival. The United States military was literally just used to help a dementia patient try to start World War Three.

China’s response to Pelosi’s provocation has thankfully been relatively measured, though we’re about to see Taiwan fully encircled by the Chinese navy for a show of force unlike anything we’ve seen in decades, and Chinese sanctions upon Taiwanese commerce are still being announced. There will be political pressure in Beijing to escalate tensions with the US so as not to look weak, and the intensity of the new cold war has certainly been ratcheted up a notch, but when it comes to hot war it looks like humanity’s better angels have prevailed for now.

None of this makes it acceptable for the world’s most powerful government to send a politician whose brains are leaking out her ears to try to stir up hostilities under cover of its military forces.

The world is a worse place now than it was before Pelosi’s plane touched down. Less safe, less wealthy, less kind, and more frightening. Not one ordinary person has benefitted from her insanely hawkish provocation made in her final years on this earth, especially not the people of Taiwan.

The US empire is sick, and it is playing sick games with all our lives. As far as I’m concerned, its downfall can’t come soon enough.

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http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/57185.htm

Putin lashes out at West’s 'vanishing' hegemony, outlines Russia’s goals

On multipolar world order

The contours of a multipolar world order are being actively shaped. "Increasingly more countries and peoples are choosing the path of free sovereign development based on their uniqueness, traditions and values."

The objective processes of shaping a multipolar world are being "opposed by Western globalist elites who stoke chaos by igniting old and new conflicts and implementing the so-called containment policy, which essentially undermines any alternative sovereign paths of development."

The globalist elites are "at all cost, trying to cling to hegemony that is slipping through their fingers, and seek to keep countries and peoples in the grip of the neocolonial order." "Their hegemony spells stagnation for the entire world and for all of civilization, and it includes bigotry, cancel culture, and neoliberal totalitarianism."

The era of a unipolar world order is vanishing into the past. "Only by substantially bolstering the system of a modern multipolar world it is possible to diminish tensions worldwide, overcome threats and risks in the military and political sphere, increase the level of trust between countries and ensure their stable development." 

On Ukraine

The West needs conflicts "to hold on to their hegemony." "This is precisely why they planned to use the people of Ukraine as cannon fodder, implemented the ‘anti-Russia’ project, turned a blind eye to the spread of neo-Nazi ideology, to the mass slaughter of the Donbass residents, and have been flooding and continue to flood the Kiev regime with armaments, including the heavy weapons."

Under these conditions, Russia decided to conduct a special military operation in Ukraine in full compliance with the UN Charter. "The goals of this operation have been clearly defined - it is to ensure the security of Russia and our citizens, and the defense of the Donbass residents from genocide."

"The situation in Ukraine testifies to US attempts to prolong this conflict. And it acts exactly the same way by igniting a conflict potential in Asia, Africa and Latin America." 

On West's actions

"The US and its vassals are grossly interfering in the domestic affairs of sovereign states. They organize provocations, state coups and civil wars. Using threats, blackmail and pressure, they attempt to force independent states to bend to their will and live according to rules that are alien to them."

The West’s goal is to "hold on to its domination, using this model that enables it to feed off the entire world as it has done for centuries and such a model can only be sustained by force."

The West brushed aside Russia’s proposals for mutual security measures. Meanwhile, NATO is expanding eastward, beefing up its military infrastructure. "Verbally, it is hypocritically explained by the necessity to bolster security in Europe, while just the opposite is occurring in reality."

Aggressive military political unions, such as AUKUS (Australia, the UK and the US) are being formed by the West in order to "spread to the Asia-Pacific region its bloc system analogous to NATO in Europe."

US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan was a carefully planned provocation. "Once again, the US deliberately attempted to add fuel to the fire to destabilize the situation in the Asia-Pacific region. The American scheme with regards to Taiwan is not just a trip by one irresponsible politician but part of a deliberate conscious US strategy to destabilize and sow chaos with the situation in the region and worldwide, [this is] an obnoxious display of disrespect to the sovereignty of other countries and to its own international obligations."

By acting this way, Western states attempt to distract their citizens from critical socio-economic problems by shifting the blame on to Russia and China for their own failures. "The so-called collective West is deliberately destroying the system of European security." 

On Russia's plans

Moscow and its allies will continue to "refine the existing mechanisms of international security together with its allies, partners and associates and create new ones, consistently bolstering national armed forces and other security structures, and boosting their level of being outfitted with modern armaments and military equipment."

Russia will also continue to ensure its national interests as well as the protection of its allies, and "take other steps to build a more democratic world."

It is necessary to "restore respect to international law, and to its fundamental norms and principles." It is important to bolster the positions of the UN and other international dialogue venues.

"The UN Security Council and the General Assembly, as it was initially conceived, should serve as effective instruments to decrease international tension and prevent conflicts, while working to guarantee reliable security and the well-being of countries and peoples."