DRUDGE: Condi Rice rebukes China's Xiong on nuke threat to L.A.

Drudge Report ^ | 12/10/2002 | Matt Drudge

[constable tom]

"After the Chinese nuke Los Angeles?

Send them a thank you card."

Extremely not amusing. You don't like California; fine, don't live there (I'm relatively sure you don't). But it's part of the United States of America, for crying out loud, no matter how many elements of southern California culture/society/whatever you obviously hate. Real Americans would die in the millions. Talk about anti-American statements. Get a life/clue/lobotomy - something.

[constable tom]

FWIW, I do have a sense of humor (if you doubt it, do a search against my login name and the keywords "Timberline Tales"). But joking that it would be OK for China to nuke LA, SF, Seattle, Boston, etc. isn't funny. I'm all for making fun of liberals and liberal cesspools like Berkeley, Boulder, etc. But not nuking major American cities (or even small ones). Given Oklahoma City, 9/11, etc. joking about millions of Americans being wiped out crosses the line.

[Orion]

Sure and they got was appropriate.

Was it appropriate for the President of the mightiest nation in history to grovel and have terms dictated by a thrid-rate basket-case power? You would have thought Clinton was still president.

[The Westerner]

It was that very incident that made me queasy on Condi. In an interview she gave shortly thereafter, she smiled and almost giggled as though she had made a triumph of it.

Packing the pieces of the plane in boxes, sending a bill for the mess (which was paid if not in full) and keeping Americans hostage were acts of thuggery. I don't see how Bush and Co. came across as strong throughout that debacle. Certainly not Condolezza Rice. She is a compromiser, whatever postures she takes for Chinese dictators or Palestinian terrorists.

[Orion]

Ask yourself...
If Condi Rice was not black and female, would she have been NSA? Wouldn't an ex-mil officer have more experience in the field?

It just smacks of tokenism. Based on GWB's amnesty program, we know he thinks that way.

[Orion]

But it's [LA] part of the United States of America, for crying out loud,

Not for very much longer.

[The Westerner]

Ms. Rice has a good mind, is well spoken and is accomplished. I wouldn't call it tokenism. It's her ideas that bother me. It bothered me that Madeline Albright's father was her teacher. It worries me that she is a Russian scholar but seems to have led Bush into a "friendship" with Putin. It bothers me that she seems to take Colin Powell's side of many debates. But no, I don't think of her as the token.

[weegee]

SHHHHHHHHHH! can't you see? He's sleeping.

Aw, what the hell, go ahead and wake him. Anyone got a balloon and a pin?

[Orion]

Please correct me if I am wrong, as I am not well versed on CR's resume...

Isn't her background academia? What experience does she have in the National Security field that I or anyone else does not have?

[The Westerner]

I don't believe she had experience in security. She was hired to educate Bush in foreign policy issues. They got along well, it seems, and he appointed her to the post. I'm not too familiar with the job of NSA. What kind of people usually get picked for that job?

[Orion]

My guess is that you get picked for the job based upon politics of some sort. The question is "what qualifications would be most valuable in the NSA?" My answer to that is someone who has a lifetime of command in matters relating to our enemies, their intentions, their capabilities, as well as ours.

Academicians in power scare me. What works in the classroom or a book on theory usually does not translate well into reality. That's fine if you are Secretary of Labor or Education, but NSA is a critical post.

No one has yet to convince me that CR would have the job if she was not both black and female.

[The Westerner]

Well, good night there, Orion. I wouldn't be surprised if you are right.

[uglybiker]

Anyone got a balloon and a pin?

I was thinkin' spitballs...

[MeekOneGOP]

[albee]

"...Going after France isn't sporting."

Kind of like kicking a crippled, retarded mongrel!

[wunderkind54]

100 B-list actors and actress' have signed a letter to Condi asking her to not anger this fine Chinese gentleman!!

[piasa]

nothing funny about nuking LA or Tennessee

Well, there's nothing funny about nuking Tennessee, at least.

;oD

[weegee]

I was thinkin' spitballs...

Spitballs? Watch out or he may elevate to using biological warfare against you!

[rintense]

A Condi rules BUMP!

[piasa]

Strictly out of curiousity, what would you have done about the EP-3 incident?

I mean, what would you have done that wouldn't have ended in a phyrric victory, with the crew dead or put on a show trial, the plane in Chinese hands for years to come, perhaps as a monument like the US Pueblo is in another country over that way?

The PRC was POed and was put in their place - they now have an American air base on their flank in Afghanistan, and the US is firmly set in central Asia, having taken Pakistan out of the Chinese camp, even if it came kicking and screaming. China had gone through a lot of work with the Pakis, trying to work their way into the Indian ocean through that country. Now it's blown all to heck... and some of their best buyers are running into problems with the US, like Iran and Iran, and others. Those nearby US 'zones of influence' in Central Asia are going to have an effect on the Chinese government and they are not going to like it. Nor are they gpoing to like it if we can engineer a little help for the folks in Venezuela now worried about their pink PRC and Cuba lovin' leader Chavez.

So they got a bogus letter of sympathy from the Pres that they had to 'edit' during translation because it didn't say what they wished it had said, and couldn't leave it as-is for the Chinese public to read. Oh, and they got not the money they had requested, but only the amount the US usually offers when ANY US aircraft uses ANY foreign field. It was like giving a penny to a bad waitress- much more insulting than not tipping at all.

The idea was to let the chinese gov save face and back down rather than force them to choose between say, apologizing to us for wrecking our plane and endangering our crew... or doing something REALLY stupid. Why? Because foreigners, by and large, ALWAYS choose to do something really stupid and while it costs them more dearly when foreigners overreact and decide to fight us, it also costs us some lives, and considerable sums of money, and a lot of trouble we don't need.

We didn't need to fan the flames then with the Pentagon the mess it was, just for the sake of pride. We didn't need to lose our aircraft crew just for the sake of 'looking tough' and for some technology that was already obsolete before it went through the bidding process, construction, and delivery to the navy.

Now, personally, I would probably have bombed the plane, and let the Chinese go apesh*&^ over us bombing their airstrip. But that wouldn't have helped too much since he crew would still be in Chinese hands, and we would then have to look forward to a very long show trial and all the problems that would bring, and the economy would be in a shambles over the threat of war that would make our current woes look small by comparison. And al Qaeda would still have attacked us, and Iraq too would still be there. Playing John Wayne would feel good, but it would be a royal mess and we would still be dealing with it today.