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.
Where the hell were you? Saudis and Afghans hijacked planes and crashed them into buildings with our people in them. They attacked us, with our planes, destroying our buildings and killing our people. This is why the dumbing down of America is killing us. I cannot believe that you said that. How can anyone deny what happened? Oh wait, there's a whole legion of fools ready to defend an ideology of compassion and understanding, even when it means the demise of the land they live in.
This is why ignorance should be punished, and not rewarded.
China, it should be remembered, considers us the Main Enemy, the "hegemon", the most serious obstacle to its territorial ambitions, and has repeatedly said war with us is inevitable.
Regarding the bandying about of the label of "bully" by one or two on this thread, consider:
The left made much of the May, 1970 accidental killing of four Kent State students.
By official decree, Chinese troops slaughtered between two and six thousand students demonstrating for democracy in the events commenced on June 4, 1989 in Tiananmen Square and proceeding to violent "Strike Hard" massacres in 140 locations throughout China.
Recall that Bill Clinton claimed George Bush "coddled the butchers of Beijing" in a direct reference to the Tiananmen massacre--yet Bill Clinton sold our missile guidance and nuclear warhead advantage (and much more) to the Chinese, for campaign donations from the likes of PLA Gen Ji Shingde whose boss Gen Xiong Guangkai was in charge of provocations during that operation and who sat with Clinton in talks reestablishing "military-to-military ties" in January 1999 in Washington.
Clinton not only did not accept the offered foreign intelligence help in arresting bin Laden--he so degraded our military readiness that it is common knowledge we were not able to scramble fighter protection in time to protect against the attacks of 911.
Clinton provided China with guided tours of every U.S. military base, installation, facility, exercise, and platform, and systematically degraded U.S. military readiness, training, retention, morale and supply.
One last address of the "bully" charge--where is the first Tootsie Roll, egg roll, sesame roll or baloney sandwich from a compassionate Jiang Zemin to a starving Afghani population? The Chinese feed the muslims what they feed the Tibetans and the Falun Gong: fists, lead, prison camps and death.
Jiang Zemin has much in common with Osama bin Laden in the compassion department. Bully buddies.
Next time: Beijing opens McMethedrines in Burma with 15,000-man Wa Army--to be followed by Burmese PLAN base on Bay of Bengal.
They're wolves in sheeps clothing, driven by a pathological hatred for the United States.
You're not me. Worry about yourself.
The fact that he's not you means he has no worries.
243 posted on 12/15/01 5:58 PM Pacific by Roscoe
Not unlike the British journalist Robert Fisk beaten by Afghanis and loving it, loving them doing it, loving them for doing it. (See also: Clinton, Bill It's All America's Fault)
A self-loathing multiculturalist gets his due.
BY MARK STEYN
For that matter, America-loathing is the pastime of Hanoi Jane.
That whole incident was beyond creepy.
No one denies that these folks are going to need a lot of help and guidance to keep them from returning to utter chaos.
Ah, so you're a nation-builder. I'll stick with our president, who has numerous times said "no" to nation-building. You want to give lots of help and guidance? Go for it. Take a leave of absense from your job and help them. I don't want to pay for it (but then again, I didn't want to destroy it).
Yeah. We can just see it now. The letter just scares terrorists to death!
HAHAHA You don't even know what it is. Idiot!
Have a look at what? I'm not in your stinky bathroom so I don't know what you're reading.
Caught in a corner, aren't you sink? You don't know sh!t about the NA and your ignorance has been exposed. Go read something. It will do you good.
After a 6 month deployment like Iraq but with less hospitable foes.
By that time it would have been network sweeps and the public would have been more interested in who won Survivor.
Uh, you know, there was this thing. You know, uh, it was on September 11, 2001. Uh, there were these guys, and, and, they hijacked some airplanes, and, and,
Hey dude, here's a clue: the Afghans did not attack us. None of those who attacked us were Afghan. So save the sarcasm and go back to your Geraldo.
Huh?
Are you drinking?
The mess that happened in Afganistan with the NA was largely due to Russia's installation of a ruling group that was totally un-acceptable to the Pashtuns. Civil war resulted and then Pakistan encouraged the Taliban to have a go at it. I don't think this senario will repeat.
You believe the NA will take the back seat I have a bridge to sell you. They did the heavy lifting. Russia comes out of this whole thing in the best position, not surprisingly. Bush is busy gushing about what a buddy Putin is, and the russkies are busy kicking ass and using the situation to their advantage. I would say overall game set and match Russia. They got a hell of a lot and WE are the ones who spent the billions getting them there.
oooooh you been bad again! LOL
"War is an ugly thing but not the ugliest of things; the decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feelings which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse. A man who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself."
-- John Stuart Mill
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