Posted on 12/14/2001 10:34:47 PM PST by spycatcher
Last spring, President George W. Bush faced his first major foreign-policy challenge when an American EP-3E surveillance plane was hit by a Chinese fighter and forced to land on Hainan Island. Tensions flared even further as China detained the 24 American crewmen for 10 days, the standoff eventually resolving after both plane and crew were finally released. Still, U.S.-Sino relations remained ominously chilly throughout the year, until they were overshadowed by the events of Sept. 11.
Post 9-11, the Bush administration's focus has, of course, been riveted on the terror war, and China has gone off the main radar. But despite Beijing's public support for the coalition's war on terror, regular rumblings of Chinese complicity with the terrorists have surfaced. Among them was a WND report of some Chinese fighters assisting the Taliban.
Now, author Gordon Thomas has written a book claiming that Beijing had an actual role in the Sept. 11 attack on America. In "Seeds of Fire," Thomas purports to show how Beijing is positioning itself to become America's "new major enemy."
An investigative journalist from Ireland and author of 38 books, Thomas points out that on Sept. 11, a transport plane from Beijing landed in Kabul. A Chinese delegation had gone to Afghanistan to sign a deal with the Taliban – reportedly brokered by Osama bin Laden – to provide the Afghans with missile-tracking technology, state-of-the-art communications and air-defense systems. In return, says Thomas, the Taliban would order Muslim separatists in northwest China to stop their activities.
In a Sept. 13 report, the Washington Post confirmed that Beijing had just signed a deal with the Taliban to provide Afghanistan "with much needed infrastructure and economic development assistance."
Due to the fall of the Taliban at the hands of opposition forces and the United States, however, "the goods were never delivered," Thomas told WorldNetDaily.
The delegation, says Thomas, included senior officers of the People's Liberation Army and the Bureau of State Security, as well as managers from two of China's leading defense contractors.
In his book, Thomas contends that hours after the plane landed in Kabul, CIA Director George Tenet received a coded "red alert" message from Israeli Mossad agents that presented a "worst case scenario" – that China would use a surrogate, bin Laden, to attack the United States.
Thomas also claims that the head of Pakistan's intelligence service was in Washington to meet with Tenet on Sept. 11, and that he briefed Tenet that day on the links between bin Laden and China.
The intelligence agent "told [Tenet] that China had made a decisive decision," wrote Thomas. "It was prepared to infuriate America and its allies in supporting bin Laden and the Taliban because Afghanistan fitted into China's own long-term strategic plans."
Saying that bin Laden has traveled to China numerous times to meet with officials there, Thomas contends that "almost certainly he talked to them about obtaining" material to build weapons of mass destruction.
China's President Jiang Zemin, adds Thomas, waited three days to contact Bush about the Sept. 11 attack and told the U.S. president that, vis-à-vis the war on terrorism, China would find itself in a "difficult situation, given our well-known position of opposing any interference in the internal affairs of any country."
Washington sources say that Bush "gritted his teeth and said he would push on without China," Thomas wrote.
The author also cites what he calls the "happy parties in the streets of Beijing" following the 9-11 attacks. "They're selling videos there with commentary saying, 'America had it coming,'" said Thomas. "Their message is: 'America can be defeated.'"
On another note, Thomas believes President Bush's decision to pull out of the ABM treaty will cause Russia and China to strengthen their ties – to the detriment of the United States. "It's in China's interest to see the U.S. destablilized," he added.
We practiced our own version of asymmetric warfare. What you called 'Some bombs', with precision coordinates from our Special Forces designator units were the devastating key to this war and was the only thing that allowed the Northern Alliance to move out of its defensive crouch to aggressively shoot the wounded and collect the other bombed-out prisoners fleeing their 'impregnable fortresses'.
Nor was there a need for it, as our target is not 'Afghanistan' nor the Afghan people, but rather the occupiers of that land. If we wanted to kill Afghans we'd have better luck if we bonbed the refugee camps that have been on the Paki border for the last several years.
But even if so, the nation of Afghanistan is not related to Al Quaeda.
Quite correct; Afghanistan hasn't had a real Afghan government in years. It was basically a state in near chaos being run by nutcases for the benefit of people who aren't even Afghans.
In fact if you want to allow for this kind of sloppy logic, we need to start bombing Canada, England, Germany and The U.S. because all allowed Al Quaeda to operate within their borders.
We have not 'allowed' them to operate here, except in that civil liberty advocates have been uncannilly good at preventing law enforcement from doing anything about it, and the last administration didn't push real hard since it felt more threatened by the likes of Billy Gram. The US government has nonetheless been actively following members of these groups here with the ultimate goal of trying to get enough on the suspects to pin them. The squatter-government of Afghanistan- the only one in power at the time- was made up of terrorists and so was in no way even attempting to hunt down or keep an eye on known terrorists. It was indeed protecting them in every way and was making no effort to prevent known terrorists from going back and forth as they pleased, to buy arms, to confiscate property for training camps, etc. It was also executing people who opposed al Qeada and Taliban rules, and permitting its officials to plunder the country at will.
The nation of China clearly brought down one of our planes.
The nation of China let a pilot hotdog too close, in an effort to get us to give ground and not fly just outside of its territorial waters. Ours came down after the accident and the Chinese pilot went chumming. While it MIGHT have been a calculated trade on China's part, there is no evidence to support the idea that the Chinese pilot was trying to physically hit the plane. If the Chinese had really wanted the plane they could have taken it out on many of the previous flights where their flyboy tried to play chicken. There was no need to wait until several opportunities had passed.
If we weren't bullies, then we could have easily attacked China justifiably.
What does 'bullying' have to do with it? If we were bullying, we could have taken on China over the issue. It would still be stupid if we did so, since we have no reason to believe they were doing anything else other than trying to ruffle our feathers. Such confrontations are not 'acts of war' but are just part of the risk of flying such missions on the edge of international waters.
Why didn't we? Because we don't like the odds.
We didn't go after China because China didn't fly planes fully loaded with fuel into the WTC, killing roughly 3000 people. Al Qeada did do so, and Al Qeada's well-known leader was using Afghanistan as a base with the knowledge of the Taliban, who were for all practical purposes the closest thing to 'government' that Afghanistan had. What is more, the Taliban were in no way interested in turning over bin Laden or even investigating bin Laden and his ilk, even when his people voiced their enthusiasm and support for what happened.
Now, why didn't China just attack the WTC instead of using Al Qaeda surrogates? If they were involved, maybe they didn't do it directly because they are gutless cowards? Or maybe because they wanted no part of it or had no part of it, after all? THe fact is, we don't know if they were in it or not, nor do we know if the chinese jet/EP-3 collision was intentional, or just a sloppy effort at intimidation.
All that aside, it is ALWAYS smart to pick your targets and weigh your actions using cost/benefit analysis. It is NOT wise to charge into anything just because you feel 'righteous' or feel a need to avoid looking like a wimp. Those who think smart live long and happy lives, free to fight under their terms and not the enemy's, and will prosper amid all the daisies pushed up by people who used testicles in place of brains.
As Patton said, 'it's not your duty to die for your country- it's your duty to make other poor dumb SOBs die for theirs.' Let the failed nations and philosophies and all their dead call us bullies if they can. It matters not if they cry from their graves.
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