Posted on 08/04/2022 3:11:53 AM PDT by Cathi
Arguments in the foothills of war are always the same. Those for war shout loudest and beat their chests, eager for tanks to rumble and jets to roar.
The visit to Taiwan of the US congressional speaker, Nancy Pelosi, has been so blatantly provocative it seems little more than a midterm election stunt.
A similar ambiguity infuses the west’s attitude towards Russia over Ukraine. The US and Britain reiterate that Russia “must fail and be seen to fail”. But can Russia really be relied on to tolerate ever greater destruction of its armaments without escalation?
The west is blighted by weakened and failing leaders, striving to boost their ratings by promoting conflicts abroad.
Never in my lifetime has the Ministry of Defence had to defend my country against a remotely plausible overseas threat, least of all from Russia or China. Instead, in the cause of “interests and values” it has killed untold thousands of foreigners in my name and to virtually no gain.
Russia and China are both experiencing border disputes of the sort that occur in most corners of the world. The days when western powers could ordain the spheres of interest of states such as China and Russia are rightly over, as was acknowledged during the cold war. Since that conflict ended, the west’s global interventions have become parodies of imperial outreach, notably across the Muslim world. With few exceptions, neither China nor Russia has shown a comparable desire to possess the world. They have merely desired, however callously, to repossess ancestral neighbours.
But it is one thing to declare yourself “rather dead than red”, quite another to inflict that decision on others.
Both sides are now flirting with disaster. The west should be ready to back off – and not call it defeat.
(Excerpt) Read more at theguardian.com ...
I’m travelin’ down the road
I’m flirtin’ with disaster
I’ve got the pedal to the floor,
My life is running faster
I’m out of money, I’m out of hope,
It looks like self destruction
Well how much more can we take,
With all of this corruption
Well the big question is does senile Joes crippling of America agenda continue? He succeeded in scamming Americans to support his Ukie war, ( like the Covid vax hoax), I wonder if Americans will wake up in time and realize they have been hoodwinked twice already…..fool me once, fool me twice….
That song is already stuck in my head now.
We should go to war with Mexico instead. They are the ones invading our border.
I have one big question.
Ok, so Pelosi is doing this as a stunt that she hopes will distract from the massive amount of corruption and the financial ties between Pelosi, the Bidens and China, therefore making her think she could taunt the Chinese and they’d ignore it. Meanwhile, Joe’s current “spokesman” is out there casually renouncing former US policy and saying we’ve never supported Taiwan as a separate entity and essentially giving bidens support to the “One China” takeover.
So my question is simple: who the h*ll is running the country and who the h*ll is doing our foreign policy?
Good to see Western Maoists weighing in on this.
Well, well, well. Look what what we have here.
The “West” has become exactly what the Guardian always wished it would be. A compliant, brainwashed socialist utopia ruled by a GloboHomo oligarchy.
Now, all of a sudden, those Bolsheviks at the Guardian don’t like what the West is doing in Taiwan and Ukraine. You reap what you sow, buttwipe, now wallow in it. /spit
Ukraine, Taiwan, Israel.
Three small neighbors of much larger ones, able to pursue policies at variance with their larger neighbors in the (false) belief that the United States military a) is strong enough, and b) is prepared to, back their foreign policies.
These beliefs are false. They endanger millions, perhaps even billions.
People are constantly proclaiming, loudly, the US “obligation to defend” these small states, when no such obligation exists.
Another commie weighs in.
In both cases, the west is trying to short circuit another world war. World wars happen when an authoritarian state decided to conquer another state...usually, a more democratic state. It is a high stakes gamble, yes. But not taking the gamble is to sit idly by while an authoritarian state gobbles up a democratic state.
Today’s world is the richest, and most level playing field in history. Since the end of WWII, the US has held up the global order as a security strategy to stop the Soviets from gobbling up the entire world. The idea was to quickly bring the entire world into a global golden age. And it worked. More so in some places than others, but it worked. The US created freedom and the opportunity for prosperity. What each country did with that opportunity was decided locally. So, we got a North and a South Korea, as far apart in economics and freedom as the Earth from the Moon.
The West is trying to enforce the rule of law and equality for everyone by challenging Russia on Ukraine and China on Taiwan. The difference between civilization and anarchy is a weak person in a civilized world can interact and contribute without fear. In an anarchic world, everyone cowers from the big bully. The question is, which world would you rather live in?
Stap in. Here’s a bit of philosophy.
First they came for the Jews, but I did nothing because I’m not a Jew. Then they came for the socialists, but I did nothing because I’m not a socialist. Then they came for the Catholics, but I did nothing because I’m not a Catholic. Finally, they came for me, but by then there was no one left to help me.
Martin Niemoller
Somewhat speculative but still a pretty good analysis here by Mercouris:
China Says US ‘Responsible’ for Taiwan Crisis After Pelosi Visit; Chinese Military ‘Rehearses’
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-TBcbDUPVgs
How Pelosi’s Visit Hurts Taiwan
[New from Moon of Alabama. This is what I’ve been saying all along about China ratcheting up a sea and air blockade step by step. Pelosi just gave China an excuse to accelerate the blockade.]
https://www.moonofalabama.org/2022/08/how-pelosis-visit-hurts-taiwan.html
When Nancy Pelosi made her ‘woke’ flight to Taiwan the U.S. seemed to hope for a Chinese military reaction to it. It positioned an aircraft carrier and two amphibious landing ships in the region. It also shipped additional fighter planes to Japan and South Korea.
Chinese and international commentators drew up potential scenarios for a clash like a forced diversion of Pelosi’s plane. However, the Chinese government kept its calm. The reintegration of Taiwan into China is not an urgent matter. It had planned for longer term measures designed to press the pro-independence government in Taiwan into obedience.
Chinese military exercises will now be held around the island without regard for what Taipei claims as its borders. These missile launches, sea and air maneuvers will not be threatening enough to cause a dangerous military confrontation. But they will be repeated over the next years and will steadily move closer and closer to Taiwan’s coast.
The median line between China and Taiwan, never officially recognized but adhered to, will now be ignored.
China essentially decided to boil the proverbial frog of Taiwanese independence by slowly, slowly increasing the pressure:
[rest at link]
.
Fixed it for you.
Those for war shout loudest and beat their chests, eager for tanks to rumble and jets to roar.... And then deploy their tanks and their jets not against the people they reckon are the real threat, but against a belligerent next-door neighbor.
Putin and Xi are the warmongers. The West is just done with appeasement.
NATO wouldn’t be arming the Ukes today if Russia had (a) not invaded and (b) hadn’t kept threatening to invade. Lebensraum bullshit talk followed by Lebensraum bullshit walk.
Taiwan wouldn’t be a hotspot if China just gave up its Lebensraum bullshit and stopped acting like it *wants* to be their enemy. Taiwan is doing perfectly fine without China and simply sees nothing good in it for them. They saw what China did to Hong Kong.
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