19 August 2006
Chinese ambassador tells US to "Shut Up!"
When I first heard a BBC radio broadcast in which China's ambassador to the UN in Geneva said:
"It's better for the US to shut up," he said. "Keep quiet. It's much, much better."
I was both surprised and delighted that someone had finally responded to the Bush regime's hypocrisy in language that Team Neo-Con may better understand. What provoked the ambassador, Mr Sha Zu Kang, to respond in such refreshingly practical language?
Repeated whinings by US Secretary of Defence, Donald Rumsfeld, that China was consistently under-reporting its defence spending, and that such large expenditures posed a threat to global stability! Can you beat the sheer audacity and hypocrisy of this man? Coming from the world's chief destabiliser bar none, it's a source of much bemusement, to say the least.
For more detailed background on this issue, please refer to earlier posts on this blog, "The old whiff of rank hypocrisy" and "Who is the real threat today?" At the heart of Rummie's complaints, is the need to justify America's continued gargantuan defence spending to voters.
Make no mistake, Team Neo-Con doesn't give a rat's brass razoo what the rest of the world thinks. After all, if that wasn't the case, Iraq wouldn't be the rubble strewn and wretched wasteland it is today.
One of the things driving Rumsfeld is something called mid-term congressional elections looming in November this year. Amid rising voter disgust over the Republican Party corruption scandals, and the ongoing disaster of Iraq, Team Neo-Con is practising the political scoundrel's time honoured tactic of pointing to some external threat to divert attention away from internal scandals.
The short term political agenda of Team Neo-Con also dovetails with the ruling civilian and military establishment's long term agenda of sustaining gargantuan defence budgets. There's nothing like creating a state of fear in a country's citizens to receive a blank cheque to spend big on defence while eliminating real democracy and freedom to scrutinise the integrity and morality of those who presume to lead.
But hey, don't take my word on it. Read Prof Chalmers Johnson's book "The Sorrows of Empire" to learn how many decent Americans have been hoodwinked into allowing their beloved country to be transformed into an Imperial Empire, so despised by those on the receiving end of its behaviour.
Perhaps they may understand that non-Americans actually don't dislike the US because, as Bush claims, "we [Americans] stand for freedom and democracy." I mean, some poor working stiff scratching out a living in some place outside America doesn't have the time nor interest to give a rat's brass razoo what happens in America. After all, how would Bush being the US president affect them if all he did was rampage around in the US?
Really, it's only when Bush and his henchmen and henchwomen inflict themselves upon other countries, that non-Americans hate what is being done to them by the US government. This is why it is a treat when people like Ambassador Sha bluntly put Team Neo-Con back into its box.
Just as Team Neo-Con doesn't take lectures from anyone else, China (whether you support them or not) doesn't need lectures from a very sooty black pot!
"It's better for the US to shut up," he said. "Keep quiet. It's much, much better."
I was both surprised and delighted that someone had finally responded to the Bush regime's hypocrisy in language that Team Neo-Con may better understand. What provoked the ambassador, Mr Sha Zu Kang, to respond in such refreshingly practical language?
Repeated whinings by US Secretary of Defence, Donald Rumsfeld, that China was consistently under-reporting its defence spending, and that such large expenditures posed a threat to global stability! Can you beat the sheer audacity and hypocrisy of this man? Coming from the world's chief destabiliser bar none, it's a source of much bemusement, to say the least.
For more detailed background on this issue, please refer to earlier posts on this blog, "The old whiff of rank hypocrisy" and "Who is the real threat today?" At the heart of Rummie's complaints, is the need to justify America's continued gargantuan defence spending to voters.
Make no mistake, Team Neo-Con doesn't give a rat's brass razoo what the rest of the world thinks. After all, if that wasn't the case, Iraq wouldn't be the rubble strewn and wretched wasteland it is today.
One of the things driving Rumsfeld is something called mid-term congressional elections looming in November this year. Amid rising voter disgust over the Republican Party corruption scandals, and the ongoing disaster of Iraq, Team Neo-Con is practising the political scoundrel's time honoured tactic of pointing to some external threat to divert attention away from internal scandals.
The short term political agenda of Team Neo-Con also dovetails with the ruling civilian and military establishment's long term agenda of sustaining gargantuan defence budgets. There's nothing like creating a state of fear in a country's citizens to receive a blank cheque to spend big on defence while eliminating real democracy and freedom to scrutinise the integrity and morality of those who presume to lead.
But hey, don't take my word on it. Read Prof Chalmers Johnson's book "The Sorrows of Empire" to learn how many decent Americans have been hoodwinked into allowing their beloved country to be transformed into an Imperial Empire, so despised by those on the receiving end of its behaviour.
Perhaps they may understand that non-Americans actually don't dislike the US because, as Bush claims, "we [Americans] stand for freedom and democracy." I mean, some poor working stiff scratching out a living in some place outside America doesn't have the time nor interest to give a rat's brass razoo what happens in America. After all, how would Bush being the US president affect them if all he did was rampage around in the US?
Really, it's only when Bush and his henchmen and henchwomen inflict themselves upon other countries, that non-Americans hate what is being done to them by the US government. This is why it is a treat when people like Ambassador Sha bluntly put Team Neo-Con back into its box.
Just as Team Neo-Con doesn't take lectures from anyone else, China (whether you support them or not) doesn't need lectures from a very sooty black pot!
Labels: budget, bush, chalmers johnson, china, defence, defense, destabiliser, destabilizer, imperial, neo-cons, neo-conservatives, neocons, rumsfeld, sorrows of empire
17 August 2006
Case for a multi-polar world
An oft-heard whine we hear from Team Neo-Con and its supporters is that the rest of the world refuses to fall on bended knee in obsequious gratitude for deliverance from the bad guys of the world. Team Neo-Con is right about the rest of the world having an aversion to genuflecting. But they are dead wrong about the reasons.
To understand the reasons, we need to go back to Team Neo-Con's holy day. 11th September 2001, is often quoted by many as "The Day the Whole World Changed." For the Bush regime, it gave them the opportunity to launch a crusade to smite those who were not with them in their holy mission to deliver us from the bad guys of the world. Of course, the irony of Team Neo-Con sounding an awful lot like the Islamic Fascists they wish to kill, is lost on these morons.
As an aside, the narcissistic pomposity of "The Day the Whole World Changed" grates on many as well. Anyway, let's try a little perspective calibration on this holy day of justification for Team Neo-Con...
1st September 1939
Germany invades Poland, thereby sparking WW2; in which about 56 million people died (vs 2,752 deaths in the WTC attack). Now that's what most people would regard as a world changing day.
20th March 2003
America invades Iraq in a pre-emptive strike to destroy non-existent NBC weapons. British medical journal The Lancet estimates about 100,000 civilian deaths. I'd say the whole world changed for these casualties and their families.
With just two simple examples, I wonder how far off the zero reading would the WTC attack register on the scale of calamitous events in world history?
In reality, the WTC attack simply provided justification for Team Neo-Con to accelerate transformation of the US from an admired nation to that of a rabid mongrel biting anyone not subscribing to Pax Americana's imperial agenda. If anything, I'd suggest a minor world changing day occurred not on 11th September 2001 but on 9th December 2000. That was when a Republican-dominated US Supreme Court stopped a statewide ballot recount in Florida; thereby giving the presidency and a free reign to terrorise, to Bush.
But I digress.
Bush supporters often love to ask if Bush critics prefer a world dominated by China. My answer to them is that they're asking the wrong question. The real question is whether we prefer a uni-polar or a multi-polar world?
You see, we have been proven wrong in assuming that a uni-polar world would be relatively peaceful, led by a benevolent hyper-power, the US. Under US "leadership," the invasion of Iraq scandalised and radicalised a good number of moderate Muslims sufficiently to move Islamic militants into the mainstream.
As the US government's own CIA has admitted many times, Iraq was not a centre of terrorism pre-invasion. But now it is. Iraq has also sparked off home-grown terrorism elsewhere in the world, despite the self-serving declarations to the contrary by Team Neo-Con's pet poodle Tony Blair. Excellent own goals, Einsteins!
So in the absence of a wise and benevolent hyper-power leading a uni-polar world, an infinitely better alternative is a multi-polar world. Greater independent assertiveness on the part of the EU, Russia, China and India will all help in ring fencing a rabid Team Neo-Con. And while these states cannot match the military might of Team Neo-Con, they do possess a reasonable degree of economic and financial leverage over the US.
Provided they are prepared to threaten economic mutually assured destruction, it's possible that the rabid mongrel may pause from biting everyone for a while. This is a lesser evil than the status quo.
To understand the reasons, we need to go back to Team Neo-Con's holy day. 11th September 2001, is often quoted by many as "The Day the Whole World Changed." For the Bush regime, it gave them the opportunity to launch a crusade to smite those who were not with them in their holy mission to deliver us from the bad guys of the world. Of course, the irony of Team Neo-Con sounding an awful lot like the Islamic Fascists they wish to kill, is lost on these morons.
As an aside, the narcissistic pomposity of "The Day the Whole World Changed" grates on many as well. Anyway, let's try a little perspective calibration on this holy day of justification for Team Neo-Con...
1st September 1939
Germany invades Poland, thereby sparking WW2; in which about 56 million people died (vs 2,752 deaths in the WTC attack). Now that's what most people would regard as a world changing day.
20th March 2003
America invades Iraq in a pre-emptive strike to destroy non-existent NBC weapons. British medical journal The Lancet estimates about 100,000 civilian deaths. I'd say the whole world changed for these casualties and their families.
With just two simple examples, I wonder how far off the zero reading would the WTC attack register on the scale of calamitous events in world history?
In reality, the WTC attack simply provided justification for Team Neo-Con to accelerate transformation of the US from an admired nation to that of a rabid mongrel biting anyone not subscribing to Pax Americana's imperial agenda. If anything, I'd suggest a minor world changing day occurred not on 11th September 2001 but on 9th December 2000. That was when a Republican-dominated US Supreme Court stopped a statewide ballot recount in Florida; thereby giving the presidency and a free reign to terrorise, to Bush.
But I digress.
Bush supporters often love to ask if Bush critics prefer a world dominated by China. My answer to them is that they're asking the wrong question. The real question is whether we prefer a uni-polar or a multi-polar world?
You see, we have been proven wrong in assuming that a uni-polar world would be relatively peaceful, led by a benevolent hyper-power, the US. Under US "leadership," the invasion of Iraq scandalised and radicalised a good number of moderate Muslims sufficiently to move Islamic militants into the mainstream.
As the US government's own CIA has admitted many times, Iraq was not a centre of terrorism pre-invasion. But now it is. Iraq has also sparked off home-grown terrorism elsewhere in the world, despite the self-serving declarations to the contrary by Team Neo-Con's pet poodle Tony Blair. Excellent own goals, Einsteins!
So in the absence of a wise and benevolent hyper-power leading a uni-polar world, an infinitely better alternative is a multi-polar world. Greater independent assertiveness on the part of the EU, Russia, China and India will all help in ring fencing a rabid Team Neo-Con. And while these states cannot match the military might of Team Neo-Con, they do possess a reasonable degree of economic and financial leverage over the US.
Provided they are prepared to threaten economic mutually assured destruction, it's possible that the rabid mongrel may pause from biting everyone for a while. This is a lesser evil than the status quo.
Labels: bush, china, iraq, islamic fascists, multi-polar, neo-cons, neo-conservatives, neocons, pax americana, uni-polar, wtc attack
