Posted on 03/10/2005 3:36:52 AM PST by RobFromGa
The Iraq project was not utopian: it was a high-risk gut call...
Just so. There is a difference between small measures taken toward utopian aspirations - communism, for example - and large programs with specific end-points in mind. The objective of this particular project was the ending of a system in which international borders and plausible deniability made possible the state-level funding of terror organizations that grew from a few dozen disgruntled bomb-throwers to private armies with all the trappings of state organizations: funding, logistics, infrastructure, arms acquisition, and propaganda. It was a relatively risk-free means of making war, and war was indeed made. The shock on the part of the international community with which our formal military response was met was the shock of a con artist who's been found out, and the knowing winks and regurgitated cant that emanated from our European enemies made it clear that they knew perfectly well what the game was and were only outraged that the board had been upset.
The threat multiplier that is modern technology certainly does empower smaller groups of individuals from threatening larger ones, as Noonan points out. But that is a form of threat different from the private armies at drill on the plains of Afghanistan or Iraq, not only in degree, but in substance. The sad fact is that no level of civil defense will be sufficient to protect us from a group of a dozen lunatics with a nuclear device - our only real resort is to ensure that they do not get one.
There is hope in that direction. It turns out that (1) chemical weapons aren't really as deadly or as easy to make as the lessons on the Internet or taught in the Ansar al-Islam camps would lead one to believe; (2) nuclear devices are not simple black boxes that may be easily transported and then opened, and (3) biological weapons capable of killing millions aren't really something some bearded nut can cook up in his garage. All of these require the sort of research and production that is not normally available to small groups of malcontents, at least in the absence of outside funding. That is, after all, what the WOT is really about.
One anomaly of our modern age is that there is a source of funding of state-level magnitude that is not necessarily under the control of a formal state: oil money. Couple that with religious fanaticism and international infrastructure in the form of madrasas and you have a ready-made source of terror armies, but not the rest of the package, the geographical sanctuary, etc, etc. So it does devolve on breaking the system.
As for civil defense, much of what Noonan mentions is potentially beneficial, IMHO, but some of it carries a double edge just as the civil defense programs of the 50's and early 60's did. For example, if you want smallpox vaccine you must keep a supply of the virus. But other simple civil defense measures such as routes of egress from cities and prudent supplies of emergency water and food are beneficial not only against a terror threat but that of natural disaster as well. I welcome her call for the augmentation of these. It just makes good sense.
Which references,
God is Back, The Wall Street Journal, September 28, 2001.
No, but maybe some folks can pitch-in and pay for an education so that you may understand the difference.
"The largest number of unfree, oppressed people in the world are in China. Bush never talks about liberating them. Do you think we should invade China?"
Why should we invade anyone, if they are not invading or threatening us? With regard to safe guarding are country and assets...why not spread the idea of democracy with the hope that it ignites the quest for freedom in places like China. Free countries are peaceful and do not attack their neighbors. Once these people, as they have in Taiwan, have had the taste of freedom they will not return to oppression without a fight.
nick
Peggy was right about the inaugural address. President Bush declared that the power of human freedom was the supreme force guiding human events. It isn't, which is not to say that human freedom isn't a very good thing. Offering freedom to the supporters and beneficiaries of terror, such as the Palestinians, won't necessarily make them good neighbors.
Not all is rosey with the Iraq elections. While worrying that that the Shia might oppress the Sunni, or that either or both might oppress the Kurds, we've ignored the oppression of the Assyrian Christians in the North by those very Kurds. Thousands of Assyrians were prevented from voting by Kurdish corruption and intimidation.
If Iraq goes bad, it will be the Christians who will suffer the first blow.
... domestically, it's high time for a pivot.
Nothing is bigger than civil defense. At the beginning of an actual and metaphoric spring it is something we should turn to with renewed commitment. We'll regret it if we don't.
Anti-Peggy Freepers would do well to remember her prescience before September 11:
Three billion men, and it takes only half a dozen bright and evil ones to harness and deploy.
What are the odds it will happen? Put it another way: What are the odds it will not? Low. Nonexistent, I think.
When you consider who is gifted and crazed with rage...when you think of the terrorist places and the terrorist countries...who do they hate most? The Great Satan, the United States. What is its most important place? Some would say Washington. I would say the great city of the United States is the great city of the world, the dense 10-mile-long island called Manhattan, the city that is the psychological center of our modernity, our hedonism, our creativity, our hard-shouldered hipness, our unthinking arrogance.
If someone does the big, terrible thing to New York or Washington, there will be a lot of chaos, and things won't be working so well anymore.
The psychic blow will shift our perspective and priorities, dramatically, and for longer than a while. Something tells me more of us will be praying.
* From "There Is No Time, There Will Be Time," a piece by Peggy Noonan in Forbes, November 1998.
She was right in 1998, and she is right today. We are complacent on the homefront. Tax dollars have secured over 300 million doses of smallpox vaccine, yet the Bush Administration refuses to make it available to the public. Illegal aliens and suspected terrorists cross our borders almost at will, and President Bush refuses to fully fund not Border Patrol hiring.
One can acknowledge the successes to date without trunning a blind eye to the shortcomings of the President's conduct of the war.
What's the difference? Chinese people and their human rights are worth less, is that what you see as the difference? If there's some other "difference" that explains why Bush talks about liberating Arabs, but not Chinese, please tell what it is.
Have the Chinese attacked us? Gee, last I knew it was Muslims/Arabs who have declared they want to destroy our country. Are you such a lowly paid opinion shaper that you don't understand the difference?
Bush says he wants to spread freedom. But he never talks about spreading it to Red China - - where there are more unfree people than anywhere on the globe.
We went to war in Iraq for a multitude of reasons. Freedom was one of them. Freedom for people so perhaps they won't hate us so much they want to kill us.
Show me where we've been attacked by the Chinese.
Well, he certainly said something along those lines, because I do not recall him saying that he wants to spread freedom on your timetable.
LOL.
He's not really concerned for the Chinese. He just makes posts to try and make the administration look bad. It's his MO.
China threatens to use neutron bombs on U.S. aircraft carriers
News/Current Events News
Source: Stratfor.com
Published: 8/20/99 Author: Stratfor.com analysis of Global Times Article
Posted on 08/20/1999 10:45:50 PDT by jimbo123
Summary:
China has once again raised the level of its threats against Taiwan, warning in an article in the Global Times that, "If the Taiwan authorities think the mainland can only launch a propaganda or psychological war, they are mistaken." Included in the article, entitled "USA, do not mix in," China claimed that it "has already finished all preparations for any use of force against Taiwan." In addition to threatening Taiwan, however, China also warned that no external force could protect Taiwan, and, in a statement directed at the United States, that, "China’s neutron bombs are more than enough to handle aircraft carriers." China is now clearly signaling to the United States that it intends to act over Taiwan President Lee Teng-Hui’s state-to-state comments. More importantly, China is also informing Washington that, if the U.S. interferes, China will not hold back as it did in 1996. For the United States, China’s warnings necessitate a careful calculation of its potential responses to a variety of possible Chinese actions and the ultimate consequences of those responses for both the U.S. and China.
Analysis:
China raised the level of its threats toward Taiwan August 19, warning "At present, mainland China has already finished all preparations for any use of force against Taiwan. Military mobilization, troop movements, combat-readiness training, logistics support and other aspects are already arranged." The statement was made in an article entitled "USA, do not mix in" in the Global Times, a weekly magazine from the official Peoples’ Daily. In the article, China threatened a military response to the perceived separatist statements of Taiwan President Lee Teng-Hui, saying, "if the Taiwan authorities think the mainland can only launch a propaganda or psychological war, they are mistaken." Along with re-emphasizing China’s commitment to action, the article cautioned Taiwan not to rely on external support for help.
The article also cautioned the United States against trying to interfere with whatever action China takes. The article stated, "Although China has set a development strategy centered on economic construction and the United States the world's strongest military power, history will not forget that Chinese are never afraid of warfare ... or of difficult wars." More directly, in an obvious reference to the U.S. decision to send two carrier battle groups to the Taiwan Strait in 1996, the paper said, "China's neutron bombs are more than enough to handle aircraft carriers."
While the notion of China detonating a neutron bomb over the USS Kitty Hawk is more propaganda than clear and present danger, the message to the United States is crystal clear. China will take military action against Taiwan, and if the U.S. intervenes, U.S. lives will be lost. In a contest for Taiwan itself, the calculation is relatively straightforward. The U.S. can not allow the chain encircling China to be broken. No matter, China does not have what it takes to stage a serious amphibious assault on Taiwan. The problem arises with the consideration of potential U.S. responses to a Chinese gambit short of an invasion of Taiwan.
As Stratfor has discussed previously, one likely option for China is to launch an attack on Quemoy and Matsu, Taiwanese islands close to the mainland. In taking these islands, China would not only satisfy domestic concerns by proving that the central government is still in charge and that separatists will be stopped, it would also gain a military option the U.S. will be hard-pressed to counter. With Quemoy and Matsu as primarily military outposts, China taking the islands without threatening the main island of Taiwan would require the U.S. to seriously assess the risks and benefits of offering military support in such forward areas.
China has determined that the benefits of its military action are of such import that American casualties are acceptable. However, in the interest of avoiding such a contingency, China has given the U.S. notification that it should not interfere. This is the situation which the U.S. must now assess. If U.S. lives are lost in an attempt to defend the forward islands of Taiwan, U.S. public sentiment will require retaliation. While the U.S. may be willing to go to war with China over the Taiwan island, the loss of Quemoy and Matsu may not warrant such drastic actions. The U.S. instead would be left with wide-ranging economic sanctions against China in response to Chinese action against the U.S. military.
In the Global Times article, China addressed this very issue, pointing out that the U.S. has as much to lose from economic sanctions as China. The article said, "Everyone knows that US economic and strategic interests in the mainland are greater than those in Taiwan." In fact, the claim that the U.S. would lose as well on broad sanctions is not far off the mark. According to the U.S. department of commerce, U.S. foreign direct investment in China rose from US$0.93 billion in 1996 to US$1.49 billion in 1998. The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Trade and Economic Cooperation places the numbers substantially higher, at US$3.44 billion in 1996 and US$3.91 billion in 1998. This investment would effectively be lost were China to shut its borders, both literally and financially, in response to U.S. sanctions. As well, in 1998, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, U.S. exports to China amounted to US$14.2 billion, ranking 12, while imports from China were US$71.2 billion, ranking 4.
Besides the loss of investments in China, the psychological effect of suddenly being unable to import Chinese goods to the U.S. would be tremendous. Everything from clothing to pens to toys would be affected, causing initial shortages and a rapid rise in prices. The losses by major U.S. companies investing in China would also send a ripple through the U.S. stock markets. While China would undoubtedly suffer from no longer having the U.S. as an export market, the U.S. would be impacted as well, albeit on a different level.
Washington must now decide first if China is serious and second if it is worth risking economic consequences or even a potential all out war over a Chinese move that falls short of an invasion of Taiwan proper. Stratfor does not view the Chinese threats of a military action lightly, and the threats against the U.S. are equally serious. As China raises the level of its rhetoric and the level to which it is willing to escalate the potential conflict with Taiwan, it makes not only its intentions but also its warning very clear to the United States: this is not 1996 and China will strike.
OMG. You really crack me up. You're desperate.
You take an article from stratfor as proof that China has attacked us and is a threat to us? OMG
No, Neville. Show me where China has attacked the United States and killed our citizens. You know, like the jihadists have done for years. Starting in 1993 at the first WTC. I'll wait. tap, tap, tap
February 29, 2000
China threatens U.S. with missile strike
By Bill Gertz
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
China stepped up its war of words over Taiwan yesterday, bluntly threatening to fire long-range nuclear missiles at the United States if it defends the island.
The warning, published in the official People's Liberation Army newspaper, comes as a U.S. aircraft carrier and two cruise-missile destroyers recently began exercises off Japan. Defense officials said the warships could be sent to the Taiwan Strait in a crisis.
The official military newspaper, Liberation Army Daily, stated in a commentary made public in Beijing that U.S. intervention in a conflict between China and Taiwan would result in "serious damage" to U.S. security interests in Asia.
The military then warned that China could resort to long-range missile attacks on the United States during a regional conflict.
"China is neither Iraq nor Yugoslavia but a very special country," the newspaper stated.
While China is a permanent member of the Security Council of the United Nations, "on the other hand, it is a country that has certain abilities of launching strategic counterattack and the capacity of launching a long-distance strike," the article said.
"It is not a wise move to be at war with a country such as China, a point which the U.S. policy-makers know fairly well also," the newspaper said.
"The U.S. military will even be forced to [make] a complete withdrawal from the East Asian region, as they were forced to withdraw from southern Vietnam in those days," the paper said.
The article was unusually harsh, according to Pentagon officials familiar with the translation, and echoed a private warning made in 1995 by Chinese Lt. Gen. Xiong Guangkai.
Gen. Xiong, the PLA's top intelligence and foreign policy official, told a former Pentagon official at that time that Washington would not help defend Taiwan because it cared more about Los Angeles than Taiwan. The remark was reported to the White House as a threat to use nuclear weapons.
China's nuclear arsenal currently includes about 24 CSS-4 long-range missiles that are capable of hitting most of the United States with warheads of up to 5 megatons ó the equivalent of 5 million tons of TNT. It is building two other road-mobile ICBMs and a new class of strategic missile submarines.
One U.S. official said PLA threats appeared to be a response to statements made last week by Walter Slocombe, undersecretary of defense for policy. Mr. Slocombe told reporters China would suffer "incalculable consequences" if it attacked the island.
Mr. Slocombe's statement also brought a complaint from some pro-China officials at the White House and State Department who objected to the Pentagon's tough stance.
Meanwhile, several ships from the carrier battle group led by the USS Kitty Hawk began conducting exercises in the Pacific on Wednesday ó two days after Beijing issued an ominous written warning that it will use force against Taiwan if the island continues to delay reunification with the mainland.
Pentagon officials said privately the carrier deployment is part of U.S. diplomatic efforts to discourage China from conducting threatening war games, as occurred in 1996 around the time of Taiwan's first presidential elections.
A senior military official said the carrier exercises were scheduled weeks ago. However, the official noted that carriers in the past have been used to send diplomatic signals.
"Timing is everything in these things," the official said.
The ships are deployed in waters east of central Japan.
The ship will be at sea for 12 days before returning to its home port of Yokosuka, Japan.
Officially, Pentagon spokesman Lt. Cmdr. Terry Sutherland said the Kitty Hawk is engaged in "general quarters" training after spending months in port in Japan. The deployment is not related to the release of China's white paper or the upcoming Taiwanese presidential elections, he said.
However, asked if the battle group could be called into action in a Taiwan crisis, Cmdr. Sutherland said: "Sure. That's the purpose of forward-deployed carriers."
The Chinese government on Feb. 21 released a "white paper" threatening, again, to use force against Taiwan if it seeks formal independence. The paper stated that Beijing will use "all drastic measures possible, including the use of force."
"Any attempt to separate Taiwan from China through the so-called referendum would only lead the Taiwan people to disaster," the report said.
U.S. Ambassador Joseph Prue-
her sought to play down the threat contained in the white paper.
"The white paper has a lot of good things, from our point of view, to say, like stressing peaceful unification and the like, and only one sentence adding a condition under which force would be used," Adm. Prueher said in a speech here.
Asked if the white paper is tied to the recent unsuccessful high-level visit to Beijing by Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott and other senior U.S. officials, Adm. Prueher said: "I was in that room during the talks and China never mentioned anything about a white paper. Did the visit trigger the white paper, I don't know. It might have, it might not have."
Adm. Dennis Blair, commander of the U.S. Pacific Command, is now in Beijing and, according to unnamed U.S. officials, discussed Taiwan in meetings today with senior Chinese military leaders.
On Monday, the admiral met Lt. Gen. Xiong Guangkai for "a wide exchange of views on international and regional security and bilateral relations," China's state-run Xinhua News Agency said.
Lt. Gen. Xiong is a deputy chief of the general staff of the Chinese People's Liberation Army and a key voice in making Taiwan policy. Adm. Blair also met Shi Yunsheng, commander in chief of China's naval forces, Xinhua said.
"It was a chance for everyone to get to know each other," a U.S. official told the Associated Press on condition of anonymity. "The atmosphere was very cordial. I think the Chinese want to succeed in re-establishing a military-to-military relationship."
Taiwan was discussed, along with other Asian security concerns, the official said. The U.S. side also repeated "its concern about the white paper" in which China last week threatened Taiwan, he said.
The Pentagon spokesman's com-
ment about making the Kitty Hawk available in a crisis in the Taiwan Strait is further than a senior State Department official would go.
Susan Shirk, deputy assistant secretary of state for East Asia, wrote an unofficial electronic message to a group of California academics recently saying the carrier will not be sent to the region.
"Want to let everyone know that one carrier, the Kitty Hawk, is engaged in routine training off the coast of Japan, no intention to move near the Strait, nothing to do with Taiwan, white paper, etc.," Miss Shirk wrote.
The statement angered some in the Pentagon because it undermined efforts by Adm. Blair and others to discourage China from conducting war games in the next few weeks.
One official said the e-mail was "potentially dangerous" because it was an official statement by a senior official. "It could be viewed [by the Chinese] as a green light to attack Taiwan," the official said.
In March 1996, Chinese military forces conducted large-scale exercises near Taiwan that included short-range M-9 missile launches north and south of Taiwan. U.S. officials said the exercises were a bid to intimidate voters on the island.
China's latest threats against Taiwan also come against the backdrop of a presidential campaign that includes discussions about declaring formal independence. The Taiwanese are set for their second presidential election March 18.
Gus Constantine contributed to this report, which is based in part on wire-service reports.
Hon. Buy a clue.
Threats do NOT consitute the same thing as the jihadists killing our citizens. Get it? I doubt it but keep repeating after yourself: The Chinese have threatened everyone for as long as I've been alive. They've yet to attack the United States of America.
Now try and show me where they have killed our citizens the way the jihadists have killed our citizens both here and around the globe, and maybe I'll buy into your argument that the president should go to war with China to free their citizens. That's if I can stop laughing hard enough to read your asinine posts.
If your message here is, let's put the rhetoric aside and get real with our homeland security, I agree, but nothing short of a Orwellian state where there are video cameras and robots watching us 24/7 is going to assure our protection. But how are we going to have even a modicum of surveillance if there is widespread dissent against the Patriot Act?
I'm sorry to say this, but our complacency will not be shaken from its slumber unless there is another homeland attack and a big one.
nick
You mean Peach isn't. You don't care about freedom in communist China. You've never posted about it once. And when I express concern for Chinese - and wonder why Bush, while talking about liberating oppressed peoples, never mentions the plight of the Chinese - you attack me. I'll go back to ignoring you now. Have a great day!
LOLOL!
Yeah. Right. Everyone knows your the most overpaid opinion shaper on the forum. Try a little harder next time Neville. You've given me the best laugh I've had all day. Thanks.
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