China Nights
With tensions increasing between Japan and China, America has a plan to fix the problem. The relations between the two Asian giants have been sinking to a post-war low and naturally the administration has been looking for a solution.
“BEIJING/CHENGDU, China, Sept 16 (Reuters) – Chinese protesters took to city streets for a second day on Sunday to denounce Japan in a row over disputed islands, prompting the Japanese prime minister to call on Beijing to ensure protection of his country’s people and property.”
In the biggest flare-up, police fired tear gas and used water cannon to repel thousands of protesters occupying a street in the southern city of Shenzhen, near Hong Kong.
The protests erupted in Beijing and many other cities on Saturday, when demonstrators besieged the Japanese embassy, hurling rocks, eggs and bottles, and testing cordons of police.
Demonstrators have looted shops and attacked Japanese cars and restaurants in at least five Chinese cities. Protesters also broke into a dozen Japanese-run factories in the eastern city of Qingdao on Saturday, according to the Japanese broadcaster NHK.
The Washington Post says “Anti-Japanese sentiment, never far from the surface in China, has been building for weeks, touched off by moves by Tokyo and fanned by a feverish campaign in Chinese state media. Passions grew more heated this past week after Japan’s government purchased the contested East China Sea islands — called Diaoyu in China and Senkaku in Japan — from their private Japanese owners.” Recently the Japanese have even expressed doubts over whether the US will defend its ally in the Pacific.
When the U.S. defense secretary arrives in Asia this weekend, his biggest challenge may not be convincing China that America will give its full support to longtime ally Japan in the escalating dispute over islands in the East China Sea. His biggest challenge may be convincing Japan.
“There is a perception in Japan that the U.S. commitment is ambiguous,” says Yoichiro Sato, director of International Strategic Studies at Ritsumeikan Asia Pacific University, in southern Japan. “If China thinks Japan will hesitate to respond, or that America will hesitate, that will embolden the Chinese. It’s better that America sends a clear, explicit message now than have to respond to something worse later.”
Even Australia is beginning to doubt America’s future in the region. John Lee at the Wall Street Journal writes:
In a matter of weeks, the Australian government will release a White Paper entitled “Australia in the Asian Century.” According to my sources, the report will look at how Australia can best exploit future economic opportunities in the region focusing on China, Japan, South Korea, Vietnam, Indonesia and India. Conspicuously absent from the primary analysis will be America.
This should raise alarm bells in Washington and the region. It signals that America’s staunchest ally in Asia may be losing faith in the revival of the U.S. economy. If so, steadfast support for the alliance will not be far behind.
With the stakes so high the Administration’s ongoing solution is brilliant. It is going to build a closer military alliance with China. “(Reuters) – U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta will look for ways to deepen military relations with China during a visit to Asia this week, even as he works to bolster U.S. alliances in the region as part of a strategic shift that Beijing views with concern.”
The United States is officially neutral on the territorial disputes and has urged the parties involved to settle their disputes peacefully, a point Panetta said he would raise in Beijing.
“The United States does not take a position with regards to territorial disputes, but we do urge not just China but the other countries that are involved to engage in a process in which they can peacefully resolve these issues,” Panetta told reporters on his plane en route to Tokyo.
He said he would encourage China to engage in the dispute-resolution process promoted by ASEAN, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, in an effort to try to resolve the disagreements peacefully.
“What we don’t want is to have any kind of provocative behavior on the part of China or anybody else result in conflict,” Panetta said. “And my purpose will be to urge that they engage in the effort by the ASEAN nations to try to work out a format for resolving these issues.”
What could go wrong? Not everyone is convinced. Dean Cheng, a China analyst at the Heritage Foundation think tank expressed his doubts. “The relationship is not in the deep freeze, but there is, at best, limited evidence of any kind of progress,” he said. “The Chinese military remains averse to transparency as the West understands it and remains hostile to things like U.S. military ships transiting China’s EEZ (exclusive economic zone) without prior permission.” Nothing that can’t be fixed with a really sincere apology from the administration.
America is an interesting strategic situation. A large ground force is in a landlocked country where it can only be supplied through Pakistan, Russia, or Iran. It has withdrawn from Iraq. It’s energy policy has just refused a Canadian oil pipeline which is now purposed for China. Its defense expenditures are sequestered. It is going to share missile defense information with Russia. It is working to dismantle its nuclear weapons. It’s foreign policy has arguably lost the Middle East and is adding Syria to the list of Jihadi controlled countries. It has broken openly with Israel. It has refused to enforce its immigration laws. And it may re-elect the President responsible for all of this.
They may re-elect him in the name of “cool”. In the name of sophistication and enlightment. Under the banner of “it’s for the unions” or “it’s for the children”.
And now the question is: what is the administration up to in Asia?
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And now the question is: what is the administration up to in Asia?
Don’t feel bad if you don’t know, Richard. The administration doesn’t know either.
The island problem isn’t an island problem but an exclusive economic zone problem.
I’d suggest that the islands be put up for bid between China and Japan, with the one bidding the smallest exclusive economic zone for them getting them.
0bama’s Administration is simply signaling the obvious, they plan to implement sever cuts in the military in favor of Social programs! It is as simple as that. Demoncrats don’t want to “rule” the world or be the “Policeman” they just want to rule us!!!
@ rhhardin. Actually not a bad idea, except maybe Japan could sell them for the sum of the price paid the private family and, say, a significant chunk of its debt…We will then find out how much money China really has…
China would hem and haw, and feel insulted, but we (actually Japan) could at least get a read on how much they really, really want the islands.
They’re trying to be everybody’s friend. What they haven’t figured out is that the result of that effort will make them everybody’s enemy.
I really don’t understand the lack of clarity regarding the Most Magnificent President and Planetary Savior’s foreign policy. He has refused the Keystone pipeline in order to let out his inner Keystone Cop.
Completely OT but a non-editorial conversational aside to stoicheion. I know you don’t have a comment on this thread yet but I just had a thought that may make you smile. For some reason I was watching an old video of Gene Chandler singing “Duke of Earl”.
Now in your recent comments you’ve been consistently hammering the nuclear option. As I listened to Gene Chandler the phrase “Duke of Nuke” floated across my mind and I smiled. It’s yours if you want to use it down at the donut shop.
And now the question is: what is the administration up to in Asia?
It starts with a lot of bowing.
The obvious point of the Kenyan goat herder administration is to turn us into France but without better food and topless beaches. France is a has been world power with pretensions and that is what all the old drug wasted hippies like Barrie’s friend Bill Ayres want us to be. This isn’t hard to figure out but it is VERY hard for normal unenlightened guys who own businesses and have money invested in the REAL America to fathom and accept. Most of us just aren’t enlightened enough but they will have camps to help us become more so during the second administration.
I hope the one I am sent to has great French food and maybe a topless beach close by!
IIRC, Duke of Nuke was the main character in “Duke Nukem” a video game back in the dark ages. But I appreciate the thought. I see nukes as a potential game winner in the clash of civilizations.
Then again my dream team would be General Le May as POTUS and Al Capone for Secretary of State.
We have tried getting along with the Muslims but they refuse. Enemies are for killing. No point to them otherwise. That 1.5 Billion is a bogus number. That said there are a lot of them. Nukes would be more merciful then eating sand. I REALLY prefer the ‘Y’ Plan. Gene warfare so they no longer have Male babies. Watch Islam slowly die as no more males are born. Not as pretty as a 10 megaton explosion but just as effective over time.
8. Josh I’m wondering what will happen in the Islamic crescent once attention is on the Pacific. Barak “JImmah Obama and his clown posse have proven they cannot walk and chew gum at the same time. So you know the MDM will push now that the “pivot” is taking place.
Japan should rest assured that if China dares to threaten them, the U.S. will condemn China in the strongest diplomatic terms.
s @ 11: I’m wondering what will happen in the Islamic crescent once attention is on the Pacific.
Well, we already have two-plus carrier groups crowded into the punchbowl of the Persian Gulf. Assume at least one never comes back because, unknown to the public, it was sent out without live ammunition, to prevent unfortunate accidents. We have to mothball the other to pay for food stamps and Obamacare, maybe we can sell it to China. Couple of naked destroyers offshore from Libya get potshotted by anti-ship missiles. Ambassador Rice assures us the FBI is looking into it. So, then we turn our attentions to the Pacific, which I’m sure will impress everyone.
We can expect to see more media reports about issues like Japanese sexual tourism, misogyny, government and corporate corruption and WWII atrocities.
I believe our Western Culture, our American society is so whacked by our Education system, Academia, one-sided Journalist/ main stream media and our elitist upper class that there is no hope other than darkness. Good men are sent to die with no bullets or their ability to defend them self’s are the decision of Lawyers and Political hacks who have no skin in the fight and in some case resent them more than their enemies!
10. stoicheion
Darn, Duke of Nuke is already old. Oh well, nothing left to do but continue to strongly disagree with your opinion on using nukes.
As Mark Twain correctly observed, history doesn’t repeat, but it does rhyme.
The Chinks and Japs have been at war
For many ages now
And we have seen so oft before
The Chinese emperor bow
To Japanese who seem to win
Despite the number gaps
Can they give fortune one more spin
The answer is perhaps
The Kamikaze came and blew
The Mongol fleet away
And later Meiji armies knew
That they had won the day
In ’37 Nanking fell
And China lay prostrate
Knocked down but then saved by the bell
Pearl Harbor changed their fate
Yes China now’s a different case
But still, as we all know
The PRC lost beaucoup face
Not many years ago
When Viet Nam beat them real good
At odds of one to ten
For China never understood
That war was more than men
And so some islands are the cause
Of tensions on the rise
You’d think that history would give pause
But it is no surprise
That China, rich and smug and fat
Would think it’s time to strike
That tiny island nation that
They always did dislike
A billion Chinese more or less
Japan one two five mill
But numbers, history will confess
Count not as much as will
So if it’s war ‘twixt Japs and Chinks
If they should come to blows
The winners are the Japs, methinks
That’s how the history goes
‘Gainst China Japs just seem to win
The odds against them still
Will fortune give them one more spin
The answer is it will
Hmm, will this spur the creation of the Japanese nuclear bomb?
Chinks and Japs? Really? A lot of Americans, especially those of us on the west coast, find those terms pretty offensive. It’s not up there with “nigger” only because most asians aren’t politically outspoken. Trust me, they’re offended..
As we pivot to the Western Pacific China is pivoting to the Indian Ocean, the Persian Gulf, MENA and Africa.
The Chinese pivot is all about oil, gas,food and other strategic natural rescources.
China is increasing its trade with Iran, Syria ,KSA, Iraq and despotic regimes in Africa that control the energy and mining wealth that China wants and needs.
In the last 9 years about 2 million Chinese have emigrated to Africa and this rate is increasing dramatically.
China’s dispute with Japan in the East China Sea is all about oil and gas and fish – as Japan has given up on nuclear it needs much, much more oil and gas-oil was the proximate cause of Japans attack on Pearl Harbor.
Iran crude is now at $150
Time for the US to get around the table with Iran to make deals that further American fundamental interest re Afghanistan, Iraq and the oil/energy markets-
The US Military and Intelligence Community want such direct negotiations with Iran– with Turkey as our broker-that is why General Dempsey et alia are in Turkey today.
The US Military and Intelligence Community want such direct negotiations with Iran does not want war with Iran and Iran does not want war with America
The probability of US/Iran war is less than 0.10
It is what it is
The Iran Revolutionary Guard is primarily a business conglomerate-we can talk business mutual self interest.
16. stevesmith
I guess that is what makes it a conversation. Better then an echo chamber.
So what is your solution? Just put up with the political waterboarding of terror attack at frequent intervals? We tried talking. Didn’t work. Kill a bunch of Jews? That has been tried and it didn’t work either. Pretend they don’t exist? Good Luck with that. Send our children off to die in some fooking mudhole of a country. That didn’t turn out so hot either.
I see the whole issue as this generations problem. We haven’t won because the ONLY possible solution involves violence. Not our choice, theirs. If we are going to go postal, might as well give them the full monty.
So if you got any game winners, lets hear them.
I had fun with some yahoo that didn’t see anything wrong with Iran building nukes. So I pointed out that if Iran with nukes was such a great idea, why not sell them some. Shut his mangy liberal ass right up.
“I say we pull out and nuke ‘em from orbit. It’s the only way to make sure.”
- FO Ripley.
The US Military
US Intelligence
US Accountancy
US High Tech Companies
All have mandatory retirement at age 60 years any a very few at 65 yrs
For good reasons
War and commerce is no country for old men
Gee whiz, why would the Clintons raid federal and state union pension funds for seed money to fast track China after Moscow had fallen?
Why would deep technicians like Frank, Rubin, and Obama create junk mortgage bonds and derivatves to quickly refloat those depleted coffers?
Why would DC campaign professionals work in foreign elections?
Gee, look how dumb they are!
They don’t get capitalism or the Constitution!
Of course not. They ignore that petty, parochial crap, and focus instead on creating puppet allies in a Tier 1 organized crime syndicate. Demsoc fights war without bullets.
Why not take over assets that are still intact?
It’s a Takeover, not ineptitude!
Capture is their Industry! Covert funding is the means. Pillage is the reward.
Hey look conservatives, there’s a pothead a’sinnin’ over there! Go get ‘em!
(Gotta keep the Profit Protection Teams- I mean the DEA, ATF, CIA, NSA, DOD, and TSA, sorry- in fulll employment, and the money laundries well funded)
I was in 7th grade when Pearl Harbor was attacked, was alive during the Bataan Death March, read the papers and listened to the radio as Japs killed our Marines by the thousands on Guadalcanal and Peleliu and Okinawa, watched helplessly as Chinese “volunteers” poured across the Yalu and killed friends at Chosin. I have my own West Coast, and Japs and Chinks it is.
Walt
‘Dean Cheng, a China analyst at the Heritage Foundation think tank expressed his doubts.’
The Heritage Foundation… Did they hatch this plan to make trouble overseas? Because nobody cared until the supply of iPhones into democrat and republican hands was being threatened.
Yes, I think I’ll blame them this time. RAND Corp gets a pass.
“Let’s just sell ‘em some!”
Snicker. Best evah. Ripley rules.
The IRGC and the PLA ARE conglomerates, after all, just as the Ivy Democrats and the Aussie Greens.
Africans are telling me the Chinese are the new British.
They just avoid the whole just courts and clean hospitals thingie, and the roads just go from the mine to the port.
They mean to stay and take wives. I hope they dont get the Idi Amin treatment- he slaughtered the Indian managerial class, so everything stopped running. I wonder if the ANC raids on the miners has a Chinese production angle- need more, faster, the moneys running out.
My question is: Is China coordinating with the Aussie Left and Muslim Pacific, now that Japan is old and broke?
Josh @ 13 Assume at least one never comes back because, unknown to the public, it was sent out without live ammunition, to prevent unfortunate accidents.
Surely you joketh, right?
21. stoicheion
I am pondering a considered reply. My brilliant logic won’t be produced until a later thread.
Josh @ 8:
As Takuan Seiyo (the internet presence said) of Obama’s bow to the Emperor of Japan, ‘He bowed as if he were a broken backed toilet attendant bowing to his ultimate master.’
Yup, pivoting to the Western Pacific will work out well for Obama.
The world has viewed the US’s foreign policy via Obama and applied the ancient Talmudic tests:
MENE, MENE, TEKEL, UPHARSIN
“… what is the administration up to in Asia?”
This reminds me of a joke logic question. After a series of irrelevant facts, regarding train speeds and departure times and the fuel consumption rates of the ’48 Ford and the ’39 Nash, you are asked what time it is in Cleveland.
What is the Administration up to in Asia? Bluff and bluster Sir. Just bluff and bluster. The same in Asia as everywhere else.
27. epignosis; Yes, he has never loaded a ship for deployment. It is an all hands evolution. Even a carrier. A bird farm carries airplanes. Those airplanes need parts, munitions and men. Those men (3 to 5 thousand of them once the air group boards) eat. Carriers normally deploy for 6 months at a time. Do you have any idea how much food 5,000 men eat? Toilet paper, typewriter ribbons, shoestrings, toothpaste, etc, etc. Under weigh replenishment is normal but you cannot fill a carrier that way.
A crane drops the supply pallet on deck and depending on what it is a tow motor (fork lift/warehouse tractor) take it toward where it goes. After that it’s up to that quaint military tradition called ‘the work party’
I’ve done it on a FFG, a DDL and a AGTR.
Anyway, there is a Lt. Commander (O4) working for the weapons officer (O5) who checks things off his clip board and tells the ordinance chief where it needs to go. There are also officers from the squadrons that will be “co-ordinating”. If there are no bullets in with the beans they will inform the captain, who will inform the Admiral. Then stuff the rotary impeller full of feces. The Captain has the right and duty to report his ship unready for combat. At that point all sorts of bad things happen. None to the Captain or crew.
The US Navy has been going to war for over two centuries. They have the routine down pat. No chance of a US Navy warship heading out with empty magazines. Some Navy ships are unarmed. A subject of discussion in many a wardroom.
Josh was kidding, I think. As far as resrticted waters, that works both ways. Remember if your enemy is in range, so are you. While not true 100% of the time, it’s a good enough rule of thumb to remember. Civilians seem to think a CVBG is just some ships steaming in circles waiting to be hit. Not at all. A CVBG is the powerful military weapons system ever invented. 1 Fleet carrier carries more combat aircraft then most countries own. Good ones too. The support group has several hundred cruise missile and almost a thousand SAM’s. If you want to feel sorry for someone, feel sorry for Haji. The CVBG can take care of itself.
PS, Riply would love them, they carry nukes.
War and commerce is No Country for Old Men
Some Old men want nuclear war because they have nothing to to lose- as they are almost already dead.
In contrast to this geriatric culture of death-Pope Benedict preached the Culture of Life today in Lebanon
31. stoicheion preaches the Culture of Death-that of a burned out old man
Christians promote the Culture of Life -for of those of faith for all ages of men and women
e @ 27: Surely you joketh, right?
With this regime, who knows:
Sometimes you get the joke, sometimes the joke gets you.
what is the administration up to in Asia?
Obama will announce a beer summit with all Asian leaders. The Asian leaders will politely decline, citing prior engagements. Obama says he’s tried, and onto another money grab in Las Vegas.
@32 re:old people suck at war and technology and have to retire at 60
not always
George S Patton: Died at the age of 60 in a car crash. Ask Rommel and Hitler if he was too old for his job.
Brian Ritchie: died at 70 with all his programming brains intact.
Having worked in tech start ups I can also say yeah lots of young guys there. But like no other place there is a brad range of phd’s , college dropouts, old farts, young farts breaking all the rules as fast as they can and don’t even know they are doing it.
Stupid is as Obama does.
15. CharlesWhite
I believe our Western Culture, our American society is so whacked by our Education system, Academia, one-sided Journalist/ main stream media and our elitist upper class that there is no hope other than darkness.
//////////////
Do it yourself and save: Open-source revolution is driving down the cost of doing science September 13, 2012
The DIY movement has vaulted from the home to the research lab, and it’s driven by the same motives: saving tons of money and getting precisely what you want. It’s spawning a revolution, says Joshua Pearce.
Three converging forces, all open source, are behind this sea change, he explains in an article in the Sept. 13 issue of Science: software, 3D printers and microcontrollers. With these tools, researchers from all over the world are driving down the cost of doing science by making their own lab equipment. The open-source Arduino microcontroller is key. “The beauty of this tool is that it’s very easy to learn,” said Pearce, an associate professor at Michigan Technological University. “It makes it so simple to automate processes.” Here’s how it works. The Arduino—which retails for about $35 at RadioShack— can run any number of scientific instruments, among them a Geiger counter, an oscilloscope and a DNA sequencer. But it really shines when it operates 3D printers like the open-source RepRap. This microwave-sized contraption starts at about $500 and can actually make parts for itself. Once you have one RepRap, you can make an entire flock. Pearce’s lab has five.
Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2012-09-open-source-revolution-science.html#jCp
21. stoicheion
16. stevesmith
I guess that is what makes it a conversation. Better then an echo chamber.
So what is your solution?
…………..
Here’s my solution.
Defund all the madrasses in Pakistan and elsewhere in the middle east.
How to do that? Defund the gulf states.
How to do that. Collapse the cost of oil.
How to do that. Drill in the green river formation of southwestern Wyoming and north western colorado. Oil shale there can be converted to oil and brought to the surface–according to three separate reports to the House energy subcommittee–for $20-$30 @ barrel. That compares with $40-$60@ barrel to extract shale oil from the bakkan and elsewhere. There is more oil locked up in shale in the green river formation than in the entire easy oil reserves of rest of the world combined. At a cost of $20-$30 a barrel–gas can be produced for $1.50@gallon.
This would leave the gulf states with not enough money to pay for the madresses–and return US relations to the middle east to the period that predates the first oil embargo of 1973.
Several companies are currently developing portable mini nuclear reactors that could power pumps. If you drop the price of electricity with portable thorium reactors to ¼ of current cheapest costs—then the cost of extraction will fall much further.
The result? This is what the Rand Corporation said about the Green River Formation. On June 3, 2011, Rand’s James T. Bartis appeared in the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Energy and Power. “At crude oil prices of $100 per barrel, the value of the oil that might be recovered from federally owned land is over $60 trillion,” Bartis said in written testimony. “The public wealth embedded in our oil shale lands is staggering.”
Considering most of the Green River Formation sits on federal lands and Federal Debt is 15 trillion, the oil mined in-situ from the Green River Basin could well pay some bills in an environmentally friendly way. Even if the surplus oil drives oil prices down to 30 dollars a barrel–that would still leave the federal government with 18 trillion dollars–just enough to pay off the national debt. However, the collapse of energy prices would cause an explosion of national and international wealth. This would increase government revenues—and restore the financial design margins the USA enjoyed 40 years ago—before the first arab oil embargo of 1973.
Dave@19 “A lot of Americans, especially those of us on the west coast, find those terms pretty offensive.”
Why don’t you compile a list of all the words somebody might find offensive? I’m sure you will find such a list to be an eye opener; we might too.
stevesmith; Here is a little inspiration for you;
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pVUV8vZholk&feature=related
Music is strange. Gypsy meets synthesizer doing rap. Turn the sound down. The turd cutter in the Ukrainian flag bikini is world class. God was having a good day when he made that one.
38. Charles; Yes I’ve been cheering that since ’94 (96?) when Clinton shut down the pilot program. It does nothing to solve the waterboarding Islam is giving America. The best it will do is lower OPEC’s income slightly. They will have a 10 to 40 US$ per bbl price advantage. There are no “friends” in the OIL business. There are only customers and competitors. Competition is ruthless. That is why in Texas there are more men needin’ killing then horses needin stealin’
I seriously doubt that any sort of embargo will work without violence. Smuggling was invented in that part of the world.
The point I’m swinging and missing on is that Islam WANTS WAR. They will settle for nothing else. The MDM wants to control the violence so it is to their advantage.
In Iraq and Afghhanistan we proved that we are much better killers then they are. Something like 40 to 1. They avoid being slaughtered by attacking our women and children. I’m of the Sherman school of thought. “IF war is the solution our enemies want, give them all they want.” They are not going to quit. If we give them what they want (Israel) they will just ask for more. Paying the Danegeld never gets rid of the Dane.
War is the ultimate result, NO MATTER WHAT WE DO. So to me the question is how. I’m not in love with nukes, I just think they would be useful in this circumstance.
Another option is Combat droids. Within 2 years the USA could deploy Combat driods. In the millions if we wanted. Not sure how having robots kill Haji is better then nukes but I don’t have a phobia about nuclear weapons. As long as we filter the OIL for radioactive elements.
I suspect that once it became apparent that we were willing to kill all of them, they would surrender. After all, Islam is all about surrendering.
When you look at all the events that are going wrong for the PC elites of the world and the speed of those events, I look for fear, panic, ineptitude, and war to hit in October.
“It is going to share missile defense information with Russia.” Wretchard with all due respect the first U.S. President to propose some limited SDI sharing was…wait for it…Ronaldus Maximus. It shocked and horrified his more hard line advisors of course who thought even at that perestroika time of 1987 Reagan had gone senile. And Putin did offer Dubya the Gabala radar at Azerbaijan which is right on the flight path of any Iranian missile fired at Europe only to get rebuffed in 2007 by Darth Cheney and co. They WANT to be at war with Eurasia.
40. stoicheion
Bit of a cheeky link. Is that leading from behind?
I went through a bunch of your posts and am taking you at your word. Your stance seems to be covered by two of your statements:
1) “All we need to fix the economy is a short victorious war. Start in Morroco and go east until there are no mosques left on earth.”
By my count there are 50 countries in Asia, the Middle East and Africa where at least 50% of the population are Moslems. So your short victorious war would start in Morocco and proceed to nuke another 49 countries around the world.
I call “totally impractical” on that one.
2) “America and Islam are two scorpions in a bottle. One will live, one will die. The point is killing them before they kill you.”
There are an estimated 1.6 billion Moslems in the world. About 1 billion are in Asia; 322 million are in the Middle East and N. Africa; 240 million are in sub-Saharan Africa; 44 million are in Europe and about 5 million are in the Americas.
In order for 300 million Americans to survive you say they will have to kill 1.6 billion people all over the world including 5 million in the Americas.
Now that seems downright strange and once more impractical. I do not think Americans’ survival depends on killing 1.6 billion people. Even if it were feasible, it would prove wretchard’s point in the Three Conjectures – by this deed America would have come to be evil – more evil than the enemy it had destroyed.
I don’t think you have made a case to argue for because your suggested mass annihilations are not feasible projects. For that reason it isn’t even necessary to discuss the dire consequences to the U.S. from nuclear retaliation by the victims or their allies; the disruption of the world economy caused by wrecking supply chains, markets, infrastructure, communications and trade; or the moral decay that would destroy America from within like a national cancer.
To sum up I’m calling double horse feathers on your position. I’ve kept it brief and hope this gives you enough fissionable material for lobbing a few missiles across the border.
Seen on the net, on a patriots’ forum: “What Is at Stake on November 6th”.
This is a portion of it. Classical Americanism (old-fashioned love of freedom) vs. Statism.
>>By their very nature, the American Statists believe that their rights flow from government. They believe that government must ensure their safe passage through life, and in return for this security, they freely trade the rewards of liberty. They disavow the principles of classical Americanism, since they believe that everyone is entitled to security and benefits that only the state, not the individual, can furnish.
It is for these reasons that the statist seeks to deny American history, for the story of America is the story of Classical Americanism producing the most successful nation in the history of humanity, by any meaningful measure. The idea that a society could permit one exceptional person to succeed beyond their dreams while their less-capable neighbor struggles with the basics in life is anathema to the statist.
In many ways, the emergence of the American Statist is a product of Classical Americanism, for it is the creation of great wealth that sets the stage for the illusion that it is possible to prosper without personal effort. Indeed, the American statist believes that their ideology must replace that of their forebears if America is to reach their version of its lofty ideal of equality.
The American experiment with liberty has been an unqualified success. The idea that an individual could be completely free, such that they could fail completely, and therefore also succeed greatly, remains the single greatest political construct in the history of mankind. But this freedom is not free. It is won again each day with personal responsibility. Work must be done to ensure that needs are met; that freedoms are preserved.
What is at stake in this country on this election day is nothing less than the choice of direction between these two sets of ideas about the way lives should be lived.
Do we still believe in the power of individual liberty and personal responsibility? Or shall we empower the state to see to our needs, to relentlessly march us toward an ideal of equality of results, to a tyranny of conformity and subjugation as the state grows beyond the power of its subjects to restrain it?
Like never before, the American Statists are equipped to succeed in dismantling the Republic. They are led by a man committed to their ideals, who in four years has done much to tip the balance of the federal scales toward statism. They are aided and abetted by a corporate media alliance that is devoted to the statist agenda. Four more years of this administration may place a return to our first principles permanently out of reach for America.
Importantly, a political victory over the American Statists is only an opportunity to begin the work of restoring America. Much that was done over generations in service to lofty populist ideas must now be undone in service to preservation of the Republic and individual freedom. This will be a hard fight, and enemies will come from every direction once livelihoods nurtured by our enormous government begin to be affected.
I would submit to you that while few of us have had personal experience with a choice like this, it has been presented to humanity many times in the past. In search of a way to benefit from the efforts of others, societies have chosen to submit themselves to a powerful state, on the basis of the promise of ease and/or security.
If there is one thing I would like all Americans to understand, it is that in the history of humanity, the subordination of one’s personal sovereignty to a statist authority, however benign in appearance, has never — not once — ended well. In our case, it would prove to be the end of the greatest political experiment in the history of civilization: and even worse, it would happen on our watch.
Will Americans really vote to put the one true light of liberty out?
–“SecondMouse” <<
How long would it take Japan to build a few carrier groups if for some reason China decided to attack Japan and seize the Senkaku islands by force – causing the Japanese people to revoke article 9 of their constitution and decide to build a proper military?
Just an observation: there were a LOT MORE headscarves on mooslimahs out in the streets of New York this weekend. Parading around with defiant, slyly triumphant expressions on their faces, as if to say, “Suck it, dhimmis!”
That reminded me of a young man, large Middle Eastern male, who was strutting along our subway platform the week after September 11th, 2001, with a fool blonde in tow. He banged with the flat of his hand on our subway car windows, and laughed triumphantly when we flinched. Did it all along the train. They love all this: humiliating the Americans! makes them feel all manly.
As for me, I get massively tired of hearing people over here in Europe tell me that Americans are a bunch of unruly teenagers, don’t know squat about the world, aren’t sophisticated enough to walk and chew gum at the same time. I assume I’ll hear something now about, “How unsophisticated you are not to know that you can’t make anti-Muhammad movies!”
If something irks me even more than that, it’s hearing how great/wise/wonderful/blah/blah China is these days–even to the point of some incredible quasi-sociologist idiocy about their “success” being based on their devotion to Confucian principles! Saying that Confucius has much to say to modern China is like saying Catholicism animates the soul of modern Europe.
I’ve been saying, in as polite a way as possible, “Hey, you want America out of the world scene? Want us to go away? We’re about to, it seems, and you’ll get just what you asked for, a world without the U.S. policing it. Hope you like it.”
Ben Stein in his diary at American Spectator writes that all sorts of average, everyday people he meets on his daily rounds are saying in effect, “Hey, this sure looks like the End-Times, doesn’t it?” Why are we Americans the only people smart enough–and actually, half the country is just as blinded, moronic, truly lost as the Europeans–to see this?
Meanwhile, my Central European wife tells me that had I been here during the Communist years, I would have knuckled under, gone along to get along, done whatever I had to do to survive. This started because I said I wouldn’t have changed my name to fit in, as did some author she was discussing–changed his name from a German name to one that fit in in this particular country. Actually, my wife’s father suffered quite a bit for his devout religious faith–they took him out of school just as he was about to graduate just because they found a holy card in one of his textbooks. Kept him out a whole year. Made him work in a factory. He never got to be a high-level, fancy-pants university professor because of it, just a high school teacher in the boonies.
You wonder how many people like him the regime in China treats likewise.
So I cut her some slack. But even so, I quoted to her T’ealc’s great line from Stargate SG-1, which he uttered at various times of great duress: “I will die free.” Truly, so many people exist who just can’t apprehend that thought. So many, many people are like the People Israel who wanted to go back to Egypt and slavery, because freedom out in the wide wild world scared the Hell outta them.
Nothing ever really seems to change, does it?
An Préachán
Japan is a demographic nightmare. The birth rate is so far below replacement(1.4) that Japan will soon be losing about 1 million people per year. The population as a whole grows older (23% over 65 and increasing). There is almost no immigration. Even a moderate consumption of military age males could lead to civilizational oblivion.
Chinese mandarins with eternal glory on their mind can see a once in an epoch opportunity to turn Japan into a permanent vassal with just enough Japanese survivors left to till the fields and staff the great houses. Modern Helots in every aspect.
If history speaks again the opportunity may prove overwhelming.
Keeping North Korea nuclear, rogue and permanently belligerent makes a lot of sense in this context.
The Norks are going to do something provocative pretty soon. They really hate being left out.
Mini-Kim probably gets just as “ronery” as his daddy used to. (If you haven’t seen Team America – and you should – you won’t get that reference)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cHTu9g54WMA&feature=player_embedded
That would worry me if I was the Chinese military. But History shows there is no shortage of fools in leadership positions. An Aegis Cruiser plugged into combat Ccubed system has a very big foot print of destruction covering both the air, sea, and land. Especially if they have some Tomahawks loaded into the mix.
US Government is a Joke! Most of the Clogs are of inferior material and don’t even spin in the correct direction let alone work as a reasonable machine if at all towards the same purpose… There are only individuals now, each with his own truths and culture. America is a dream that was!
“Now that seems downright strange and once more impractical. I do not think Americans’ survival depends on killing 1.6 billion people. Even if it were feasible, it would prove wretchard’s point in the Three Conjectures – by this deed America would have come to be evil – more evil than the enemy it had destroyed.”
Re-butt-al #2 first. That 1.6 billion is an inflated number. Go through either the CIA factbook or the UN census figures and add them up. I did that and got 800 million.
That is just a quibble, of course. What I failed to communicate to you is that we HAVE to do something. Islam is EVIL. Are you one of the useful fools who fail to comprehend that? If you are, stop hearing their lies and look at their deeds. Suicide bomber in a Pizza Hut? EVIL. Setting fire to an elementary school and using automatic weapons on the children as they flee the flames? As evil as evil gets.
Nukes are logical. Once you get past ridiculous political theories. Nations are not evil, people and political/religious movements are. Nations DO NOT commit crimes, people do. The theory that the population of a country (nation/state) is held accountable for the actions of that country derived from the peace of Westphalia. Mainly to reinforce the THEORY of the rights of Kings. That theory is as dead as the kings that profited from it. Time for a new theory.
Regardless of theories, the right of survival is paramount. Dead nations care as little about theories as dead people do.
So I reject your argument of EVIL. Don’t Christians think suicide is evil? Islam either doesn’t see it that way or makes vigorous exceptions. Eschewing Nuclear weapons means Islam wins. That is just as “evil” as using nukes. Maybe even more so in the long term.
RE-butt-al #1
“By my count there are 50 countries in Asia, the Middle East and Africa where at least 50% of the population are Moslems. So your short victorious war would start in Morocco and proceed to nuke another 49 countries around the world.
I call “totally impractical” on that one.”
No, it’s just a matter of logistics. What is 22,000 divided by 49? I get 448.9, it looks like we need to make a few more. Do you really think 450 nukes won’t tear the heart out of any country (nation/state) on earth. Not the USA, Maybe not Russia. But NONE of the Islamic nations will be able to survive it. Fact, not anti-nuke propaganda.
We use droids to hunt down the survivors. Takes a few years to get them all but the serious killing will be done in 2 or 3 days.
Nothing physically impossible about this. IF we don’t do it our children (grandchildren?) will. They will have no choice.
Survival trumps ALL other factors. If you disagree, your ass has never been in a crack, with your life depending on doing the right things in the right order. Rules and theories don’t matter then.
As a point, Muslims are not stupid, just ignorant and fanatical. A light first strike, kill 30 to 50 million will give them something to think about. If it doesn’t a 2nd strike killing 10X that many will let them know that we are serious, if they don’t get with the program, they will be extinct. Something like hanging EVERY Mullah and tearing down or burning every Mosque would do. Any mosque that we can see from orbit gets nuked as part of the 3rd wave.
Let me ask again.
What is your plan. From here it looks like surrender. Go ahead if you want. Americans won’t.
TWANLOC: Those Who Are No Longer Our Countrymen
52. stoicheion
“What I failed to communicate to you is that we HAVE to do something.”
No, you are communicating that point well. Our self destroying leaders have handed the advantage to Islam. Of course we have to do something. The disagreement is on what we should do.
Victor Hanson has a timely article about what’s the matter with Islam, what’s the matter with Obama and what to do about it, on PJMedia right now. In part Mr Hanson says:
“…the wrath of the Muslim Street is elemental and existential … It can be explained in terms something like this: Islamists have convinced the Arab masses that their present mess (so easily fathomed in a globalized world in second-by-second, instantaneous comparisons with other cultures — via cell phones, the Internet, DVDs, and cable television) is not their own fault.
….The Islamist explains to the illiterate masses that they are poor and angry because, despite their renewed zealotry and supposed ancient majesty, the evil Westerners have, quite unfairly, all the power, wealth, and influence — and yet don’t deserve it, given their godlessness, decadence, and corruption. .. And thus true believers, by sheer force of religious fervor, can slap down these Westerners, as was true in the ancient past. Presto — go torch an embassy and empower me as you leader!”
The Moslem world is screwed up, bitter and twisted. Their only way out is to join the modern world but so far they have been totally incapable of doing that. We have to concentrate on our actions independently of delusions about what the Moslem world is about to do (Arab Spring) or won’t do (kill an American ambassador just for fun).
Here’s a list of things I think we should do:
-Stop blaming ourselves for the general disaster that is the Moslem world. Blame them because it’s their fault, not Bush’s fault and not Romney’s fault.
-Stop apologizing for all our achievements, institutions, inventions, capabilities, type of government and civilization
-Stop sending them money which they use to attack us. Make sure they know that western friendship must be earned and it must be truly reciprocated.
-Start restricting travel and visas from the Middle East to N. America
- Meet our energy needs from within N. America. Stop buying oil from the Middle East and other wackos like Chavez.
- Meet force with force. Canada found out how useless trying to be a holier than thou peace keeper really is. Peace keepers are not needed in peace time, nor are they needed in wartime. For example I think the U.S. should blockade all the Libyan ports to prevent any oil going offshore. Let the Italians whine all they want.
- Make the Moslem world believe that an attack on Israel is an attack on N. America.
As Hanson says, make ourselves as immune from Middle Eastern passions as possible. None of these actions have the brilliant flash of a nuke. All of them require grinding persistence and continual effort. I’d rather grind them than nuke them.
stevesmith, stoicheon. (alphabetical listing) I hear, and have heard both of you. Each have some interesting comments/ ideas, but overload yourselves with single options, one the hammer the other the fist (economic).
I suggest (and have been suggesting for years) an alternate that seems to be a middle ground. To whit:
The fist. Islam is evil and corrupt. That is a given and inarguable. Its primary problems are 1. The narrative of the ‘faith’ and 2. the ignorance of vast numbers of its believers. You cannot evangelize and convert them, not fast enough, nor effective enough. What is needed is an alternative narrative. For example, we create a ‘new islam’ based on ‘files found on bin Laden’s computers’ etc. I have begun the new narrative, but it is far to lengthy for this forum. Simultaneously we begin a stream of insults to islam and mo. Deliberately intended to p*ss them off. Keep islam in a state of constant agitation. Use up all that pent up energy. Be relentless in derision and critique.
Surely the psyops guys can do this, well.
Next, like the old story of the mule and the 2 x 4, we need to whack them and get their attention. A bunker buster or two or (just for Stoicheon) a tactical weapon against a large rock in Mecca. When allah fails to respond, the point will really be made.
Finally, the balance of Steves list at #53, plus a new doctrine. “You riot, kill, dhimmi-fy anyone you get hammered”. Large bunker buster on government houses/ military/ petroleum fields etc. i.e. a definitive list of “You do this, we do that” WITHOUT REGARD AS TO BLAME!!! No hiding behind mobs and extremists etc. You manage your countries, your OK, you don’t, it hurts, badly.
ta.
stoicheion
I think we have just about talked this out. I’ve got some pork ribs in the freezer that demand my attention so I’m going to concentrate on food now. Cheers.
#45 David
Right thought, wrong currency.
CVBG’s are the currency of localized conventional force superiority, and require the backing of a nuclear armed sponsor state when facing a nuclear armed hostile entity. Japan is realizing that under Buraq Hussein, the United States is not only no longer a sponsor of Japan’s national integrity; but will also betray them to any enemy despite defense treaty commitments. CVBG’s take years to build and make operational; Japan does not have the military age population to man them, nor in fact the cultural inclinations right now to do so, and any effort to do so will face the full-throated opposition of both a nuclear armed China, and a nuclear armed United States.
In a multi-polar nuclear armed world, with no “global policeman”; the sole possible guarantor of national survival is the possession of the ability to project a credible nuclear countervalue deterrent. That is not as sure as the ability to project a counterforce deterrent, but it takes having your homeland nuked without recourse out of the calculations for any conventional dispute with a nuclear power.
Japan has neither the time, nor the ability, to produce and deploy a CVBG deterrent; and in the absence of a nuclear countervalue deterrent shield for their homeland, one would be pointless.
As I have noted in earlier threads, Japan has the capability to produce nuclear weapons AND an ICBM delivery system capable of at least countervalue accuracy and likely some counterforce capability. THAT is the level the game is being played, in reality.
In my background, I have been involved in some wargame scenarios run by military professionals. I have been told by those professionals that I have an ability to place myself in the mindset of a foreign staff officer. Putting myself in the position of a Ministry of Defense advisor to the Prime Minister of Japan; my best professional advice to the Prime Minister would be along these lines:
1) Covert work to make such a nuclear deterrent a reality is in the highest national interest of Japan. [I, of course, in reality do not know if they have begun that previously, although I suspect that they have. They may be years or a few wrench turns away]. It needs to be expedited.
2) At a point where the public threat to Japan is greatest and public opinion acknowledges a threat, from either China or the United States, the government needs to announce that Japan has developed a limited nuclear strike capability; whether it is true or not. It does not have to be huge, just enough to make the continued existence of Beijing, Shanghai, Shenyang, Wuhan, and Canton dependent on not threatening Japan. There will be an implication that American planners will pick up on, that a similar number of American cities can be at risk.
3) Japan is fortunate that it has an extensive anti-missile early warning system based on the AEGIS radars; already deployed due to the North Korean nuclear threat. The government can make part of its announcement that it reserves the right to launch on warning of a threat of a nuclear strike from any adversary.
4) The deterrent may or may not be in existence yet. But who is going to take the chance that it is not? And ASAP, it needs to be made fact.
5) The public hostility and threats that Japan will receive from both China [who will defecate enough bricks to restore the Great Wall along its entire length] and the United States can be used to further rally Japanese public opinion to the government’s actions.
6) It would be an opportune time for discreet talks with the ROK, ROC, and the Phillipines on the subject of a defensive [deterrent] military alliance, which may or may not be consumated.
stevesmith -v- stoicheion at several posts
With all due respect for both of you, may I add my $0.02?
A) It only takes one side to make a war. We are under military, political, and cultural attack by the Islamic Ummah. No amount of talks, discussion, diplomacy, “meetings of minds”, or concessions short of absolute submission [Islam to use their word] will end this war. It has been going on since the year 610, with periods of relative calm. Those periods have always been preceded by a successful application of force [not "talks, discussion, diplomacy, "meetings of minds", or concessions"] sufficient to physically throw them back and make it clear that if they continue to attack at that moment they will be handed a wide assortment of their own body parts.
B) In this war, which is for our survival as ourselves, we are losing. Islam is on the march, and with the active collaboration of TWANLOC, they are winning. If we lose, it may be forever, and will be at least as many generations as Spain was held by Islam.
C) Stoicheion is accurate, if bluntly impolitic. The “Three Conjectures” are accurate, and we have used up our design margin to the point where avoiding open conflict is not possible. I will note that there are multiple targeting modalities that will vastly reduce the number of warheads below what he has estimated. Israel has sufficient to destroy the Ummah if used efficiently. The choice is whether we will be morally dead or in submission; or whether we will be immorally alive and in the context of whatever conditions exist “free”, however it comes to be defined.
Part of the loss of design margin includes the existence of Islamic nuclear weapons, both in Pakistan and soon in Iran; and the existence of widespread Islamic terrorist movements supported by Islamic states and leaders with no formal accountability. We ARE going to be nuked by either a state actor, or more likely a terrorist movement covertly sponsored by an Islamic state actor. That actor may not be Pakistan or Iran, but likely will be. Absent immediate action to roll back Islam and their nuclear capabilities; that is our fate and it is coming soon. We are under extreme time pressure. The can cannot be kicked any farther down the road, except as a deliberate act of suicide.
D) Stevesmith is accurate in his list of actions necessary:
However, in the current world, where we are governed by TWANLOC willing collaborators in our own destruction, these FIRST STEPS are as much a fantasy as immediate active strikes on the Dar-al-Islam are. We may be coming to both, but Stoicheion is closer to the inevitable future unless we submit.
I will leave it to the reader to decide if any of the above may be applicable to Israel.
Subotai Bahadur
Homeland security has purchased 200,0000,0000 rounds of ammunition. That means they plan to shoot 200,000,000 people. Whom could they plan to shoot? Are there 200,000,000 enemy aliens in the US? Japanese or Philipino refugees? Or are they just going to shoot Americans unhappy with how the votes will be counted to re-elect Obama?
56. Subotai Bahadur
“For example I think the U.S. should blockade all the Libyan ports to prevent any oil going offshore. Let the Italians whine all they want.”
The Italians get from Libya via submarine pipe.
I suspect Japan is much more reluctant to weaponize than you think, based on their historical sensibilities. They are wedded to the idea of their armed forces being defensive only, and have a sensitivity to nuclear weapons we lack. Also, they are cautious about giving the military more power, due to past performace.
I suspect Taiwan or SKorea would be more inclined to weaponize if they felt a need, though they may lack the technical capacity the Japanese enjoy. You probably know better than I do if they have capable materials and delivery systems.
Assuming those three could overcome their differences (or were forced to by imminent threat), they would make an effective coalition to contain China. The Koreans have military experience, Japan has technology, and Taiwan has location and motivation.
It all comes down to something we call “manning up”. Manning up includes being able see reality as it is, and see who the threats are, and look a threat in the face. If you can’t do that, it doesn’t matter how many missiles or bombs you have.
If your nation can “man up”, then your civilization will be ok. If not, you get eaten by someone who did man up.