Pentagon officials quoted in Reuters today say there is strong consideration ongoing about sending US warplanes and ships to the area around a series of artificial islands being built by China in the South China Sea.
The new islands are being built near the Spratly Islands, which are partially held by China, Taiwan, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Vietnam. The Sultanate of Brunei also has claims in the islands.
The area is an important shipping lane, and the Pentagon officials say they want to send warships through the area to “demonstrate” their freedom of navigation through the waters, irrespective of newly minted Chinese claims on newly manufactured islands.
In practice, the US has been backing the claims of every single power in the South China Sea, except for China itself, in every single maritime dispute. China seems to be hoping the new islands will shore up their ability to defend their own claims in the region, if it comes to that, as the Philippines in particular has long talked up the US being required by treaty to enforce their conflicting claims militarily.
Leave it to the Pentagon to come up with one moronic idea after another.
In the name of Quemoy and Matsu, why are we yet again sticking our noses in the opposite side of the world?
Hey, they're spreading democracy and freedom for all!! What are you, some kind of Isolationist?
Doesn't China build these islands to keep their rapidly deflating construction frenzy going? What else is one gonna do with all the concrete….
There was a time when the Chinese were called "the Yellow Peril". When, after Mao ousted Tsjiang, the Chinese were producing pig iron in their backyards it was called a hapless giant. Now "Yellow Peril" is revived and the simple reason is that the Chinese are no longer making pig iron in their backyards but have become an economic and industrial world power. This has all the markings of Great Britain vs. Prussia/Germany after 1870. We know what happened then.
President Obama has obviously concluded that the world's strongest navy must be used to teach this upstart nation to know its place. In alliance with Japan. And Great Britain. And France.
General Wesley Clark: Wars Were Planned – Seven Countries In Five Years
"This is a memo that describes how we're going to take out seven countries in five years, starting with Iraq, and then Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and, finishing off, Iran." I said, "Is it classified?" He said, "Yes, sir." I said, "Well, don't show it to me." And I saw him a year or so ago, and I said, "You remember that?" He said, "Sir, I didn't show you that memo! I didn't show it to you!"
General Wesley Clark Asked About 7 Country War Plan
"The means of defense against foreign danger historically have become the instruments of tyranny at home." James Madison
F.Y.I.: The U.S. Department of Defense owns more than half a million properties worth in excess of $800 billion dollars.
The military’s real estate holdings span the globe and, all together, sprawl across 30 million acres. Pentagon auditors can’t explain what half the properties are for—and doesn’t have a plan for finding out. All this according to a Sept. 8 report from the Government Accountability Office. The nearly trillion-dollar real estate glut is merely another example of egregious military waste.
https://medium.com/war-is-boring/the-pentagons-80…
20 August, 2014 Pentagon’s Strategy for World Domination: Full Spectrum Dominance, from Asia to Africa
Current US military space policy is primarily geared toward two countries, China and Russia. In May 2000 the Washington Post published an article called “For Pentagon, Asia Moving to Forefront.” The article stated that, “The Pentagon is looking at Asia as the most likely arena for future military conflict, or at least competition.” The article said the US would double its military presence in the region and essentially attempt to manage China.
http://www.pipr.co.uk/all/the-pentagons-strategy-…
The only time our news media grants Taiwan "Statehood" is when it is falsely portrayed as having claims opposing China's on all of the island disputes. In fact, not one country opposing China has diplomatic relations with Taiwan and treats Taiwan as part of China in that regard. Also, Taiwan's territorial claims and mainland China's claims are identical in all of the island disputes. Rather than listing Taiwan in the same sentence as the PI, Vietnam, Japan, etc., as opposed to China in this regard, they should be listed as with China against the other claimants. Democratic Taiwan's claims are identical to China's because they have the same historical claims.