Posted on 07/07/2021 4:56:49 AM PDT by Kaslin
As our July 4th celebrations were beginning, the U.S. quietly closed and abandoned Bagram Air Base, the largest American military base between the Persian Gulf and the South China Sea.
Afghan looters were soon seen scavenging inside the base.
The long retreat of the American Empire is under way, and this longest war is likely to end in bloody retribution for the Afghans who sided with us against the Taliban and are left behind.
When the last American departed Bagram, The Wall Street Journal reported that the U.S. is making plans for "an emergency evacuation of the American embassy in Kabul amid concern that a worsening security situation in Afghanistan could imperil the remaining military and diplomatic corps."
Apparently, we are preparing for a possible Saigon '75 finish to the war launched by George W. Bush 20 years ago. Pressed by reporters on the grim situation in Afghanistan, President Joe Biden did not want to reflect on or talk about what might be coming.
"I want to talk about happy things, man," Biden told reporters. "Look, it's Fourth of July ... it's the holiday weekend. I'm going to celebrate it. There's great things happening."
In that same edition, the Journal reported that China has moved 50,000 troops to the border region with India where forces of the two nations, in June 2020, had their bloodiest skirmish in decades.
Other reports suggest that China intends to fill the vacuum left by the departure of America's power and provide billions from its Belt and Road Initiative to build a highway from Kabul, Afghanistan, to Peshawar, Pakistan.
As America executes its strategic retreat from Central Asia, China is on the move.
In addition to militarizing its frontier with India, China is reasserting its maximalist claims to the South China Sea, ending independence and crushing democracy in Hong Kong, continuing cultural genocide against the Uyghurs, and regularly sending swarms of warplanes toward Taiwan to transmit the message to Taipei that annexation is but a matter of time.
Nor was Chinese President Xi Jinping's address on the 100th anniversary of the establishment of the Chinese Communist Party an exercise in nuance.
"We'll never accept insufferably arrogant lecturing from those 'master teachers!'" said Xi, drawing a roar from the crowd of party members and veterans. Clad in a Mao suit, Xi had other warnings for those who seek to stand in the way of Communist China's destiny:
"The Chinese people will never allow foreign forces to bully, oppress or enslave us ... Whoever nurses delusions of doing that will crack their heads and spill blood on the Great Wall of steel built from the flesh and blood of 1.4 billion Chinese people."
Undeniably, Xi and his predecessors have an awesome record, as the Financial Times relates:
"China's emergence over the past four decades ranks as the biggest and longest-run economic boom in history. Its annual gross domestic product rose from a mere $191bn, or $195 per capita, in 1980 to $14.3tn, or $10,261 per capita, in 2019. It has raised more than 770m people from poverty and transformed the Chinese economy into a high-tech powerhouse that is on course to eclipse America's in size. This transformation is the landmark achievement of the Chinese Communist party, which celebrates its 100th anniversary on Thursday."
China's growth could not have been achieved had it not been for the U.S. decision to throw open the world's largest consumer market to Chinese-made goods, to bring Beijing into the World Trade Organization, and to sit idly by as a huge slice of U.S. industry and manufacturing was transshipped to China for production there and not here.
Between 1990 and 2021, U.S. imports of Chinese-made goods provided Beijing with the trillions it has accumulated to finance its strategic objective of becoming the first power on earth.
But this is water over the dam. Where do we go from here?
China's assets are impressive. At 1.4 billion people, it has the largest population on earth. If its growth rate continues, it will have the largest economy. Its strategic arsenal of nuclear weapons is a fraction of ours, but given the horrendous damage these weapons can do, a nuclear war would be ruinous if not mortal for both countries.
In terms of conventional military -- ships, soldiers, planes, guns, missiles and bases in the East Asia-Western Pacific theater where any war between us would be fought -- China's advantages are greater.
And of the issues over which we might fight -- islands, rocks, reefs in the South and East China Seas, and Taiwan -- none of them is claimed by us or vital to us. All are claimed by China as rightly theirs.
In the Cold War with the USSR, time, it turned out, was on our side. But in the last decade, Xi Jinping might fairly see time as having switched sides. Either way, we are surely better off relying upon our abilities rather than our weapons to win the competition and settle the rivalry that may settle the future of mankind.
the Clintons and the USPTO have given the CCP
everything they could want or steal.
It will have the largest starving population at 1.4 billion people; they can't even sustain itself agriculturally.
Our government has already forgotten the lesson of Japan leading up to WWII, where Japan had already outgrown its available resources,
and needed expansion just to survive.
Is Buchannon confused?
He has fled his isolationism and seems to be dreading our leaving Afghanistan.
Amazing headlines these days that are (IMO) part of the misinformation tactic to actually destroy America.
We pulled out of Afghanistan JUST LIKE PRESIDENT TRUMP PROMISED. .... remember ? ..... like when everybody cheered his maturity and wisdom ?
And now we're receding ?
I don't care why Pat Buchannon wrote this way .... it's the wrong message.
We in FR need good and reliable information, data and commentary that supports and advances the cause of America .... not slip in negative thought processes.
I have seen estimates that China’s population is at 1.2 billion or less and the government is lying. Due to the one child policy the population is in decline and is the fastest aging population in the world. The demographic pyramid, Old at the top, young at the bottom, looks like a diamond. This creates huge problems as China will be the first country to age into demographic decline before it gets rich. The wealth it has now is due to a demographic bonus of excess youth they had in the last twenty years. Now, those younger people are rapidly moving into retirement with many fewer younger people to take their place.
China recently shifted to a three child limit, but there has been no bump in the population growth. That’s because people who lived on farms had plenty of children for the free labor. People living in apartments who can barely afford room and board do not have extra children and a significant percentage of people say they can’t afford even one child. The Chinese government is talking about “forcing” women to have children. (Oh, yeah, those will make happy, well-adjusted adults.)
The problem China faces is similar to Russia’s, in that if they need to make their country more defendable so it can be protected with fewer troops, they must do so now. (Uh-oh...)
” It will have the largest starving population at 1.4 billion people; they can’t even sustain itself agriculturally. “
You naively believe western propaganda . You underestimate the Chinese . They shall not starve .
Agreed.
COME BACK, PRESIDENT TRUMP. MAGA.
I think he’s more taking a victory lap for having predicted it would go poorly, and in that much he was correct. I still don’t quite know what we SHOULD have done instead, but clearly just trying to take over the country and hope that the nice ones would end up in charge did not work as planned. There were not any nice ones.
Buchanan is very good at viewing the long historical perspective. After all, he is the original Trump. The ChiComs, with their communist system, are ascendant. America is in decline. America is deeply politically divided, bordering on civil war. Our political system has been totally corrupted. Faith in election integrity is gone. Domestic ChiCom collaborators infest our academic and media institutions, spreading ChiCom propaganda, undermining America’s will to survive America is buried under national debt. Bankruptcy looms. The rule of law is fully compromised. Crime is tolerated and flourishes in urban centers. The CIA, DOJ and NSA have switched sides and now work for the ChiComs. Our military has been infiltrated with Chicom operatives focused on the destruction of domestic enemies.
When Buchanan says time isn’t on our side, he is pulling his punches. Softening the blow. He could have said we’re doomed.
Because China doesn’t have to worry about world opinion and what their own people think.
This country now is too sensitive to such things, we are not allowed to do what it takes to win quickly and then GTFO.
...Thereby surrendering to the Taliban.
The difference is... the Biden action of withdrawal gave the Taliban a date certain of our retreat. Trump’s intent was to stage that withdrawal far slower.
Have you ever traveled there?
AQ based in Afghan, so we were justified in degrading them.
We should have given the Afghan govt, 6 months to stabilize and left with the warning to the Taliban, that we will come back for you, if you allow AQ a base from which to attack us.
Go in...break, destroy and annhilate....leave in 6 months.
Threaten...and out.
bkmk
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