US trade, legislative and propaganda war rage against China.
Will it turn hot after hawkish interventionists infesting the Biden/Harris regime’s national security team take over in January?
Is what’s unthinkable possible? What’s gone on since the Obama/Biden regime’s 2013 Asia pivot, greatly escalated by Trump hardliners, is the stuff that preemptive wars are made of.
While neither side wants hot war with the other, the absence of mutual trust — combined with US hegemonic rage to control planet earth, its resources and populations — makes the unthinkable possible.
While the US is militarily superior to other nations — except Russia because of its unmatched super-weapons — war with China would be against a far more formidable adversary than any Washington ever attacked preemptively.
Twice post-WW II, the US waged two failed Asia wars, one ending with an uneasy armistice, the other in humiliating defeat — both against nations far less powerful than China today.
Pentagon joint chiefs are very leery about war with Iran, a nation able to hit back hard if attacked.
Nuclear-armed China with intercontinental ballistic missiles and other super-weapons would be able to exact a heavy price on the US in response to aggression if launched.
While it’s clearly possible ahead by accident or design, it’s highly unlikely.
Pentagon commanders no doubt want another humiliating Asia war defeat avoided.
Most likely, Republicans and Dems will stick to war by other means on China, including use of intense propaganda — amplified by establishment media.
China’s growing political, economic, industrial, technological, and military prominence on the world stage made it Washington’s public enemy No. one.
Yet no foreign threats to the US and West exist, invented ones alone to maintain a perpetual war on humanity by hot and other means.
Pompeo and material on the Trump regime’s State Department website keep up a steady drumbeat of anti-China propaganda.
It currently features fake news about nonexistent “Chin(ese) military aggression in the Indo/Pacific region.”
It’s how the US operates globally in stark contrast to China’s pursuit of peace, stability, and cooperative relations with other countries, confrontation with none.
Below is a litany of Pompeo OK’d bald-faced Big Lies about China— likely to be repeated by incoming Biden/Harris regime interventionists:
“Across much of the Indo-Pacific region, (China) is using military and economic coercion to bully its neighbors, advance unlawful maritime claims, threaten maritime shipping lanes, and destabilize” regional territory (sic).
All of the above describes how the scourge of US imperialism operates worldwide — polar opposite China’s law-abiding higher standard.
US “conduct increases the risk of miscalculation and conflict,” not China’s or any other independent nation free from Washington’s control.
US policy under both wings of its war party militantly oppose “a free and open Indo-Pacific” they seek unchallenged control over.
Beijing seeks to strengthen its military capabilities because of possible US aggression, not to advance its regional “footprint” as the State Department falsely claimed.
Nor does evidence exist to suggest that China aims “to project and sustain military power at greater distances (sic).”
In stark contrast, the US empire of bases operates worldwide.
Pentagon conventional and special ops forces are based in or occupy over 150 countries on every continent — posing a major threat to world peace and stability.
According to TomDispatch’s Nick Turse, Pentagon “commandos (are) deployed (in at least) 141 countries.”
Many US “secretive bases (are) left off the (Pentagon’s) books.”
Officially it “maintains (about) 4,775 ‘sites, spread across all 50 states, eight US territories, and 45 foreign countries.”
Officially, the Pentagon operates about 800 bases globally.
Unofficially — including mini-bases and others shared with host countries — it operates thousands at home and abroad.
What’s secret and off-the-books avoids congressional and other public scrutiny.
Countless billions of dollars are spent annually to maintain the US empire of bases.
According to the Overseas Base Realignment and Closure Coalition, around 95 percent of foreign military bases are US ones.
At most, China and Russia have a scattered few abroad by comparison, none used as launching pads for hostilities toward other nations the way the US operates.
The Pentagon recently admitted having a military presence (including about “4,800 defense sites”) in 164 countries — with little or no further elaboration.
According to Turse, the Pentagon doesn’t define what it means by a “location,” adding:
“The annual cost of deploying US military personnel overseas, as well as maintaining and running those foreign bases, tops out at an estimated $150 billion annually, according to the Overseas Bases Realignment and Closure Coalition.”
The cost of maintaining outposts is about “one-third” of the above total.
Including for intelligence, off-the-books black budgets, homeland security, and other related categories, annual US military/security-related spending at home and abroad matches or exceeds other world community of nations combined.
It represents a monumental black hole of waste, fraud and abuse.
In February 2018, Project Censored reported a whopping $21 trillion gone missing from the federal budget throughout the 1998 – 2015 period.
Most likely it went for militarism, warmaking, Wall Street bailouts and speculation, trillions more to the present day — an abuse of power left unexplained by US officials and establishment media
Countless trillions of dollars go for so-called national security, with little or no oversight, at a time when America’s only enemies are invented.
No real ones exist — not China, Russia, Iran, North Korea, or any other nations.
All of the above goes on endlessly while vital homeland needs go begging — especially at a time of manufactured economic collapse with over one-fourth of working-age Americans left jobless.
The State Department falsely accused China of “stealing” South China Sea resources.
It accused Beijing of a “might makes right” agenda, “imposing its will on the region…intimidat(ing) and challeng(ing) its neighbors.”
All of the above and much more applies to US hegemonic practices worldwide, polar opposite China’s geopolitical agenda.
Claiming the US “partners (with other nations) for peace and prosperity” ignores its endless wars on humanity at home and abroad.
China, Russia, Iran, and other nations on the US target list for regime change seek cooperative relations with other countries, confrontation with none.
Washington under both right wings of duopoly rule seeks unchallenged global dominance — endless wars by hot and other means its favored strategies.
When Biden/Harris most likely replace Trump in January, longstanding US dirty business as usual at home and abroad is sure to continue at least largely unchanged.
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Award-winning author Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. He can be reached at [email protected]. He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG)
His new book as editor and contributor is titled “Flashpoint in Ukraine: US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III.”
http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanIII.html
Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.
