Letter from Beijing: Europe’s inglorious, ignominious infamy
Jeff J. Brown, 44days.net
“It is incredulous that the NATO countries in Europe, as well as Angloland (the US, Canada, UK, Australia and New Zealand) are openly supporting, financing and lying for a blatant Nazi government and fascist junta…”
[dropcap]I[/dropcap] will never forget the day in 1990, when at a French Embassy public reception in Beijing, a diplomat asked me why I had not applied for French citizenship.
I had married my French wife in September, 1988 and had no idea about the possibility of doing so, although my friends over beer will razz me otherwise. We’re still together after 26 years, so it must be love. I was immediately intrigued and honored. Even that far back, my sense of patriotism and support for the United States, my birth country, was already starting to be challenged.
Compared to my knowledge today of Western history, with its 500 years of false flag operations, war, slavery, colonization, genocide and human and natural resource expropriation around the world, I was bone dead ignorant. But still, something was not sitting right in my soul. Something about America’s actions around our Pale Blue Dot was sticking in my philosophical crawl.
The new true blue and gold flag of the EU. Fascism is back with a vengeance across the Old Continent, because the Princes of Power and Profit want it that way. (image by fairtrade.co.uk + media.tumblr.com)
The internet in 1990 was very primitive and resources in general were limited. I was even subscribing to The Nation, The Oklahoma Observer, rotating The Utne Reader, Harper’s and The Progressive into the mix. All this at no small cost, due to international shipping costs. I also subscribed to The International Herald Tribune and The Economist, which at the time I took for enlightened, cutting edge journalism. I held my nose when they endorsed George I in 2000 and never looked back, when they again endorsed Bushy Boy in 2004. Unforgivable.
I was still living in an age of innocence, where I always gave America and Europe the benefit of the doubt: the “noble” cause of anti-communism, the wisdom of the West’s democratic principles and their sincere wishes and efforts to help the downtrodden around the world to achieve a better life. Over the next 35 years, those ideals I held so dear for the United States, and the West in general, were smashed to nanometer dust, as I stopped reading so much fiction and moved towards reading history and current events books, as well as getting very adept at researching on the Internet.
Jeff Brown: No longer in the clutches of the American brainwash, now a messenger of truth about world realities.
[dropcap]M[/dropcap]ind you, I was way ahead of the curve, compared to most Westerners. I had lived in Africa and traveled all over this vast and (Western-) tortured continent, as well as three years in almost all the countries in the Middle East. I spoke Arabic flawlessly, thanks to two years in the Peace Corps in Tunisia, 1980-82, as well as French, so my ability to get up close and personal with many of the locals was linguistically made easier. Also, my jobs after the Peace Corps, 1982-90, were agricultural in nature, so I was not one of those crass traveling salesmen who get a room at the Intercontinental in the capital and go to a few meetings around town, before jumping back on a plane to the next capital. No, I would rent a car at the airport, drop by a shop and buy a bagful of cassettes of all the local music stars, African and Arab, and drive for thousands of kilometers, music blasting away, going from region to region and farm to farm. I saw so many vistas, social and cultural scenes, that were so moving, I would cry with joy. I would not trade my ten years in Africa and Middle East for any other experience in the world. It defines who I am today as a citizen of Planet Earth.
In Beijing in 1990, I remember reading an article about the Iran-Iraq War, with credible evidence that the United States was heavily involved with Iraq’s use of chemical weapons on the Iranians. That raised warning signs in my conscious. Of course, thirty five years later, we now know that the United States is the world’s biggest user of chemical weapons, and with NATO, nuclear weapons in Iraq and Serbia, using depleted uranium. Then I read articles about how the United States duped Saddam Hussein into seizing Kuwait, as a pretext to invade his country. Over the ensuing years, I learned that false flag operations are de rigueur for any government, large and small, from deep history (Ancient Rome) to today (Ukraine, Venezuela, Georgia, Russia, and all the cookie cutter “color revolutions”). They are so common as to be banal. At the top of the list in modern times, the kings of false flag operations are the United States, NATO and Israel. It’s the only way they know how to “conduct foreign affairs”, or rather control the precious natural and human resources of the world’s dark skinned people, the 85%, the ones I call the True Moral Majority.
[dropcap]B[/dropcap]ut in the nineties, I was still making an innocent distinction between Europe and the United States. The US had already sold its soul to rigged markets and greed is good capitalism, and outside of embarrassing Maggie-Mini-Me Britain, I thought Europe was morally superior to America, especially France. I always admired Charles de Gaulle for leaving NATO in 1966 and the country did not join back in until Monsieur Mini-Me Nicolas Sarkozy, renouncing his country’s sovereignty in the process, officially let the CIA/MI6 Gladio secret armies back on French soil.
Back when I applied for French citizenship in 1990, François Mitterand was President of the Republic, a Socialist who governed like one. The US had just suffered through a decade of Reagan and George I, so the contrast was superficially remarkable. I truly believed France was committed to Liberté, Egalité and Fraternité, not just at home, but around the world. I felt after Vietnam, Algeria, along with its string of DOM-TOM territories encircling the planet, not to mention two savage, bloody world wars across Europe, when Fascism was on the march, that France and (continental) Europe had learned their lessons about colonialism and exploitation. I deluded myself into thinking that the EU was different than Uncle Sam and knew better.
Thus, sincere pride was felt when I got my French passport less than a year later. Being married to a French woman and speaking fluent French surely accelerated my approval, and cynics can say that because I’m a white person, this probably didn’t hurt my cause. I demur. Without going into all the details, I began declaring I was French-American and whenever I could, I would travel on my French passport, especially in Europe. I was using my French passport as a political and philosophical statement: I was different than those money crazed, credit laden, materialistic Americans back home.
[dropcap]W[/dropcap]hen we came back to China in 2010, I used my French passport for my Chinese resident visas and always tell the Chinese I am French. The difference in their approach if you tell them you are American is remarkable. With Iraq, Afghanistan and on and on around the world, the Chinese get more of the truth about America than Americans do, and they still cut France some slack, being the first Western country to recognize the People’s Republic in 1964, again, thanks to de Gaulle, who, like Vladmir Putin, always put the interests of his citizens first, damn Uncle Sam. Going back to the United States, my daughter and I (who is also bi-national) have learned when and how to present our passports at airports and customs. We flubbed up the first time and it was very confusing, almost getting us in hot water.
Over the ensuing years, I continued to give the EU the benefit of the doubt, that is, until Ukraine. Now, all bets are off. Scores of millions of Europeans and Asians died at the hands of the Fascist Axis before and during World War II. It is incredulous that the NATO countries in Europe, as well as Angloland (the US, Canada, UK, Australia and New Zealand) are openly supporting, financing and lying for a blatant Nazi government and fascist junta. The whole kit and caboodle has been meticulously planned since 1990 by US/NATO, paid for to the tune of at least $5,000,000,000 (according to Department of State’s Victoria Nudelman/Nuland), in a country that was at the vanguard of fascist genocide, thanks to Hitler’s right hand Ukrainian psychopath, Stepan Bandera.
You can always add Israel to these Western regime change schemes. They too are supporting Jew-killing fascists in Ukraine, with the hopes that all the Jewish oligarchs in Ukraine and Russia can divvy up the spoils of a balkanized, puppet state Russia, composed of several smaller countries, like the West did in Serbia, South Sudan, is currently doing in Syria and Iraq, and with plans for Somalia, the Middle East and beyond.
So, in honor of Europe’s inglorious, ignominious infamy in Ukraine, Greece and all the secret Gladio armies puppeteering Europe’s controlled, Potemkin democracy, today I raise the true blue and gold flag of the EU, which proudly flies the fascist Svoboda Party’s insignia, the Wolfsangel. It has glorious roots in European history. It was proudly flown in Nazi Germany by:
The 2nd SS Panzer Division Das Reich
The 4th SS Polizei Panzergrenadier Division
The 34th SS Volunteer Grenadier Division Landstorm Nederland
The Sturmabteilung “Feldherrnhalle” Wachstandart Kampfrunen (Assault Unit—SA–“Warlord’s Hall” Guard Regiment)
The NS-Volkswohlfahrt
My fellow Europeans, it makes you break out with goosebumps of pride, doesn’t it, to know the Wolfsangel is now back up on flagpoles in your homeland? Unlike the very moving scenes I lived in Africa and the Middle East, I am moved by tears of shame, not joy.
Ukrainian Nazis (Right Sector) proudly marching with their emblems through Kiev. Anyone can see them, except the Western press.
It is illegal to display this Nazi symbol in Germany. But no matter. Today, Angela Merkel, François Holland, David Cameron and the 500 million citizens of Europe have come clean: fascism is as European as apple strudel, linguini and Camembert cheese. It looks like the Russians are again going to have to do the bloody, dirty work of killing off Nazism one more time, less than a century after the last time they saved Europe and the world from Hitler’s Wehrmacht. And they will do it, even if it means war with the West.
China fought Japanese imperialism and Chiang Kai-Shek’s gangster fascism (lavishly supported by the US), losing millions of citizens in the process. While Europeans beam with pride at their new flag, it is raising eyebrows of the severest consternation in the halls of power in Beijing and among its nation of 1.3 billion souls, who are well schooled in deep and modern history. If it means keeping fascism out of the People’s Republic, and that is what would happen if America were successful with its Asian Pivot, and its carbon copy balkanization plans for Russia, then the proud Chinese people would go to war with the West, to keep it from happening.
Ukraine: The scourge of fascism in broad daylight, and proliferating, courtesy of NATO’s machinations, criminal oligarchs, and a bankrupt “free press.”
In the eyes of the world’s 85% – the True Moral Majority – the West crossed a demented, odious Rubicon in Ukraine. There is no turning back in the eyes of Russians and Chinese. Only the United States and its supine, satrap Eurangloland, can turn back the Arrow of Time and stop World War III. The 2nd Law of Thermodynamics demonstrates that the Arrow of Time cannot be reversed or deviated. Yet, somehow, some way, Eurangloland had better figure out how to defy the laws of universal physics and pull a political rabbit out of the bag. The fate of humanity hangs in the balance.
By the same author—
44 Days by Jeff Brown
Want a fun, low cost honorary degree in Chinese Studies? Jeff’s book, 44 Days, will have you laughing while learning and becoming an expert on all things Middle Kingdom. If you live in China, buy it on the 44 Days website, clicking on either Print Book, Ebook or Color Ebook.
A COUPLE OF REVIEWS
(Note: This book is a Greanville Post selection endorsed by the editors.)
“We are in a revolutionary moment”: Chris Hedges explains why an uprising is coming — and soon
SALON }
The status quo is doomed but whether the future will be progressive or reactionary is uncertain, Hedges tells Salon
[dropcap]In recent years,[/dropcap] there’s been a small genre of left-of-center journalism that, following President Obama’s lead, endeavors to prove that things on Planet Earth are not just going well, but have, in fact, never been better. This is an inherently subjective claim, of course; it requires that one buy into the idea of human progress, for one thing. But no matter how it was framed, there’s at least one celebrated leftist activist, author and journalist who’d disagree: Chris Hedges.
In fact, in his latest book, “Wages of Rebellion: The Moral Imperative of Revolt,” Hedges argues that the world is currently at a crisis point the likes of which we’ve never really seen. There are similarities between our time and the era of the 1848 revolutions throughout Europe — or the French Revolutionary era that preceded them — he says. But in many ways, climate change least among them, the stakes this time are much higher. According to Hedges, a revolution is coming; we just don’t yet know when, where, how — or on whose behalf.
Recently, Salon spoke over the phone with Hedges to discuss his book, why he thinks our world is in for some massive disruptions, and why we need revolutionaries now more than ever. A transcript of our conversation which has been edited for clarity and length can be found below.
Do you think we are in a revolutionary era now? Or is it more something on the horizon?
It’s with us already, but with this caveat: it is what Gramsci calls interregnum, this period where the ideas that buttress the old ruling elite no longer hold sway, but we haven’t articulated something to take its place.
That’s what that essay I quote by Alexander Berkman, “The Invisible Revolution,” talks about. He likens it to a pot that’s beginning to boil. So it’s already taking place, although it’s subterranean. And the facade of power — both the physical facade of power and the ideological facade of power — appears to remain intact. But it has less and less credibility.
There are all sorts of neutral indicators that show that. Low voter turnout, the fact that Congress has an approval rating of 7 percent, that polls continually reflect a kind of pessimism about where we are going, that many of the major systems that have been set in place — especially in terms of internal security — have no popularity at all.
All of these are indicators that something is seriously wrong, that the government is no longer responding to the most basic concerns, needs, and rights of the citizenry. That is [true for the] left and right. But what’s going to take its place, that has not been articulated. Yes, we are in a revolutionary moment; but maybe it’s a better way to describe it as a revolutionary process.
Is there a revolutionary consciousness building in America?
Well, it is definitely building. But until there is an ideological framework that large numbers of people embrace to challenge the old ideological framework, nothing is going to happen. Some things can happen; you can have sporadic uprisings as you had in Ferguson or you had in Baltimore. But until they are infused with that kind of political vision, they are reactive, in essence.
[printfriendly]
Remember: All captions and pullquotes are furnished by the editors, NOT the author(s).
What is $5 a month to support one of the greatest publications on the Left?
Kiev Wants Foreign Troops Aiding Its War on Donbass
Stephen Lendman
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
[printfriendly]
Remember: All captions and pullquotes are furnished by the editors, NOT the author(s).
What is $5 a month to support one of the greatest publications on the Left?
Patrolling the hood from (China) sea to shining sea
[box type=”download”] CLICK TO ENLARGE
[dropcap]I[/dropcap]f only Mad Men in real life were like Don Draper – channeling his true inner self, after many a rocky season, to finally click on “I’m OK, you’re OK.”
Instead, we have a bunch of (Pentagon) madmen provoking every major geostrategic competitor all at once.
The Masters of War at the self-described “Don’t Do Stupid Stuff” Obama administration are now announcing they’re ready to dispatch military aircraft and ships within 18 kilometers of seven artificial islands China has built up in the Spratly Islands.
Beijing’s response, via the Global Times, couldn’t be other than There Will be War; “If the United States’ bottom line is that China has to halt its activities, then a U.S.-China war is inevitable in the South China Sea … The intensity of the conflict will be higher than what people usually think of as ‘friction’.”
According to Beijing, two lighthouses on Huayang Reef and Chigua Reef — sites of reclamation works — were built “to improve navigation safety in the South China Sea.”
There’s no evidence China will cease its island-building work even with U.S. warships hangin’ out in the naval hood. Will the U.S. Navy go heavy metal and unleash “friction” to prevent civilian Chinese vessels from moving around? Does the U.S. Navy expect Beijing to just roll over and collapse?
What the Global Times implies is that China will definitely strike back if the Americans come within 18 kilometers of the islands.
Beijing already has electronically jammed Global Hawk long-range surveillance drones spying on the Nansha Islands. And Beijing is contemplating setting up an Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ) in the South China Sea once the work on the seven artificial islands is completed.
This South China Sea exceptionalist adventurism could alarmingly get out of hand. Couple it with the “patrolling” of the Western Pacific – as the U.S. and Australia are about to be joined by re-militarizing Japan in their regular bi-annual war games. The result is a Shangri-La Dialogue – the regional security summit held every year in Singapore, starting this Friday — even hotter than usual. Assorted agent provocateurs better not mess with Admiral Sun Jianguo, deputy chief of the People’s Liberation Army’s General Staff, who will be the guest star of the show.
All about the Maritime Silk Road
[dropcap]T[/dropcap]he latest escalation happens just as Beijing releases it new Military White Paper outlining in detail a new defensive strategy — which is now, for all practical purposes, defensive/offensive in Full Spectrum AirSeaLandCyber Space mode (the full text is included here). Pentagon planners, eat your collective hearts out; the “pivoting to Asia” is about to meet its match.
Among the highlights, we now know China “will not attack unless we are attacked, but we will surely counterattack if attacked” – which is a blueprint for what may happen next in the South China Sea.
Beijing will be focused on “winning informationized local wars” (a whole lotta electronic jammin’ goin’ on).
And the PLA Navy will gradually shift its focus from “offshore waters defense” to a mix of “offshore waters defense and open seas protection.” Welcome to the (China) sea to shining sea doctrine.
Zhang Yuguo, senior colonel with the general staff department of the PLA, clearly enjoyed himself at his press conference when he stressed, “Some countries adopt preemptive strategies, emphasizing preventive intervention and taking initiative in attack. Ours is totally different.” And then came the Sun Tzu-style clincher; “Being ‘active’ is only a kind of means and ‘defense’ is our fundamental purpose.”
For those who insist in not getting the message, the white paper is the graphic proof China is now positioning itself as an aspiring great sea power.
It’s genetic, really — as China displayed the world’s greatest naval fleet at least two centuries before Christopher Columbus, duly employed by the Ming dynasty to explore Asian, Indonesian archipelago, African and Middle Eastern shorelines.
And guess what they were up to then; “win-win” trade/commerce, allied with cultural interchange. Make business, not war. Centuries later, it’s all remixed in the New Silk Road(s), or One Belt, One Road project.
And don’t forget Urfa
Beijing’s strategy for the South China Sea has always been clear. Everyone – no discrimination — will have right of passage. All disputes – from oil and gas exploration to fishing rights — are to be solved bilaterally within the cadre of ASEAN. And the whole process has absolutely nothing to do with Washington.
The U.S. government insists the China nine-dash-line does not comply with international law. That’s risible; the line was actually dreamed up by the Chinese nationalists of the Kuomintang two years before the birth of the People’s Republic of China in 1949.
Washington argues that implementation of the nine-dash-line will allow China to control navigation in the South China Sea. Once again, Beijing does not want control, but more business, which is already a fact, as 80% of commercial traffic is by Chinese vessels.
There’s no way Beijing will back down from bilateral negotiations inside ASEAN – as the South China Sea is a key element of the Maritime Silk Road. What Beijing wants is “win-win” deals with everyone, from Vietnam to Philippines, especially in terms of exploring all that submerged energy wealth.
As for Washington — as it is seen from Beijing – the paramount obsession is to remain the naval hegemon everywhere from the Western Pacific to the Straits of Malacca and the Indian Ocean.
Cue to the white paper reminding everyone and his neighbor that the South China Sea is not an American lake, as much as the East China Sea and the Yellow Sea are not Japanese-American lakes, and the Indian Ocean is not an American Ocean.
There’s no contest. All these crucial developments were studied in detail early this week at the 11th round of the China-Russia strategic consultation in Moscow – when Chinese State Councillor Yang Jiechi, a very active, policy-making second foreign minister, sat face-to-face with Russian Security Council Secretary Nikolai Patrushev.
As the Pentagon huffs and puffs, Beijing releases its no-nonsense military doctrine; the Russians and Chinese finesse their strategic partnership; and they get their act together for the crucial, upcoming Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit in Urfa this summer.
Expect the bunch of madmen to go bonkers. Oh yes, no more romantic sea cruises from now on.
[box] Pepe Escobar is a Brazilian journalist. Simply one of the best of today’s “roaming correspondents” in the world, he writes a column – The Roving Eye – for Asia Times Online, and works as an analyst for Russia Today as well as Al Jazeera and Iran’s Press TV. As part of his turf, Escobar has focused on Central Asia and the Middle East, and has covered Iran on a continuous basis since the late 1990s. [/box]
[printfriendly]
Remember: All captions and pullquotes are furnished by the editors, NOT the author(s).
What is $5 a month to support one of the greatest publications on the Left?
Why is Obama Goading China?
MIKE WHITNEY } COUNTERPUNCH
US Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter is willing to risk a war with China in order to defend “freedom of navigation” in the South China Sea. Speaking in Honolulu, Hawaii on Wednesday, Carter issued his “most forceful” warning yet, demanding “an immediate and lasting halt to land reclamation” by China in the disputed Spratly Islands.
Carter said: “There should be no mistake: The United States will fly, sail, and operate wherever international law allows, as we do all around the world.” He also added that the United States intended to remain “the principal security power in the Asia-Pacific for decades to come.”
In order to show Chinese leaders “who’s the boss”, Carter has threatened to deploy US warships and surveillance aircraft to within twelve miles of the islands that China claims are within their territorial waters. Not surprisingly, the US is challenging China under the provisions of the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, a document the US has stubbornly refused to ratify. But that’s neither here nor there for the bellicose Carter whose insatiable appetite for confrontation makes him the most reckless Sec-Def since Donald Rumsfeld.
So what’s this really all about? Why does Washington care so much about a couple hundred yards of sand piled up on reefs reefs in the South China Sea? What danger does that pose to US national security? And, haven’t Vietnam, Taiwan and the Philippines all engaged in similar “land reclamation” activities without raising hackles in DC?
Of course, they have. The whole thing is a joke. Just like Carter’s claim that he’s defending the lofty principal of “freedom of navigation” is a joke. China has never blocked shipping lanes or seized boats sailing in international waters. Never. The same cannot be said of the United States that just recently blocked an Iranian ship loaded with humanitarian relief–food, water and critical medical supplies–headed to starving refugees in Yemen. Of course, when the US does it, it’s okay.
The point is, Washington doesn’t give a hoot about the Spratly Islands; it’s just a pretext to slap China around and show them who’s running the show in their own backyard. Carter even admits as much in his statement above when he says that the US plans to be “the principal security power in the Asia-Pacific for decades to come.” China knows what that means. It means “This is our planet, so you’d better shape up or you’re going to find yourself in a world of hurt.” That’s exactly what it means.
So let’s cut to the chase and try to explain what’s really going on, because pretty soon no one is going to be talking about Ukraine, Syria or Yemen because all eyes are going to be focused on China where our madhatter Secretary of Defense is trying to start a third world war.
Here’s the scoop: Washington has abandoned its China policy of “containment” and moved on to Plan B: Isolation, intimidation and confrontation. In my opinion, this is why the powerbrokers behind Obama dumped Hagel. Hagel just wasn’t hawkish enough for the job. They wanted a died-in-the-wool, warmongering neocon, like Carter, who is, quite likely, the most dangerous man in the world.
READ BELOW ibtimes.com’s account of this brewing confrontation.
[learn_more caption=”China complains, but the Global Bully pushes on regardless. “] READ ON: ibtimes.com[/learn_more]
REGULAR ARTICLE RESUMES HERE
[dropcap]C[/dropcap]arter’s assignment is to implement the belligerent new policy of incitement and conflict. His actions will prove to the skeptics that Washington is no longer interested in integrating China into the US-led system. Rather, China has become the biggest threat to Washington’s plan to pivot to Asia. And, just to remind readers how important the pivot is to America’s future, here’s an Obama quote I lifted up from Tom Engelhardt’s latest titled “Superpower in Distress”:
“After a decade in which we fought two wars that cost us dearly, in blood and treasure, the United States is turning our attention to the vast potential of the Asia Pacific region….As we end today’s wars, I have directed my national security team to make our presence and mission in the Asia Pacific a top priority.”
The so called pivot is Washington’s “top priority”, which means that China’s unprecedented ascendency must be slowed and its regional influence curtailed. Thus, the dust up over the Spratly Islands will be used in the same way the US has used other incidents, that is, by demonizing China’s leaders in the media, by assembling a coalition that will publicly oppose China’s activities, by implementing harsh economic sanctions, by launching asymmetrical attacks on China’s currency and financial markets, by excluding China from critical trade agreements, and by inciting social unrest (color-coded revolution) through the support of dissidents living in China. These are the all-too-familiar signs of US meddling directed at “emerging rivals” who threaten US global hegemony. China now finds itself at the top of the list.
Hagel just wasn’t hawkish enough for the job. US powerbrokers wanted a died-in-the-wool, warmongering neocon, like Carter, and that’s what they got. Now Carter is, quite likely, the most dangerous man in the world.
US powerbrokers know that bullying China involves significant risks for themselves and the world. Even so, they have decided to pursue this new policy and force a confrontation. Why? Why would they embark on a strategy so fraught with danger?
The answer is: They don’t see any way around it. They’ve tried containment and it hasn’t worked. China’s growing like crazy and its regional influence threatens to leave the US on the outside looking in. Carter even admitted as much in a recent speech he gave at the McCain Institute at Arizona State University. He said: “We already see countries in the region trying to carve up these markets…forging many separate trade agreements in recent years, some based on pressure and special arrangements…. Agreements that…..leave us on the sidelines. That risks America’s access to these growing markets. We must all decide if we are going to let that happen. If we’re going to help boost our exports and our economy…and cement our influence and leadership in the fastest-growing region in the world; or if, instead, we’re going to take ourselves out of the game.”
See? It’s all about markets. It’s all about money. Here’s more from Carter’s speech: (The) ”Asia-Pacific…is the defining region for our nation’s future”… “Half of humanity will live there by 2050″ and that “more than half of the global middle class and its accompanying consumption will come from that region.”….”There are already more than 525 million middle class consumers in Asia, and we expect there to be 3.2 billion in the region by 2030…President Obama and I want to ensure that… businesses can successfully compete for all these potential customers. ….Over the next century, no region will matter more… for American prosperity.” (sic)
This is why the Obama administration is making a general nuisance of itself in the South China Sea. It’s so the big US mega-corporations will have new customers for their IPADs and toaster ovens.
For that, they are willing to risk a nuclear war.
[box] MIKE WHITNEY lives in Washington state. He is a contributor to Hopeless: Barack Obama and the Politics of Illusion (AK Press). Hopeless is also available in a Kindle edition. He can be reached at fergiewhitney@msn.com. [/box]
[printfriendly]
Remember: All captions and pullquotes are furnished by the editors, NOT the author(s).
What is $5 a month to support one of the greatest publications on the Left?