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Octogenarian House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has decided to spend her final years on this mortal coil trying to start World War Three, pushing the Biden administration to designate Russia an official “state sponsor of terrorism” and planning a freakishly incendiary trip to Taiwan just in the last few days.
Beijing has made it clear that the first visit to Taiwan by a major US official in decades would be seen as an aggressive escalation and an egregious transgression of Washington’s official one-China policy.
“The U.S. side is wrong to believe that it can continue to flagrantly disregard the feelings of the Chinese side on Taiwan without more serious consequences,” a Chinese official told the Washington Post in response to the news of Pelosi’s planned trip in August, adding that “actors like Nancy Pelosi are committed to destabilizing China under the guise of morality” and that Pelosi has “openly threatened China’s development.”
Chinese state media put it even more bluntly, stating, “Pelosi’s Taiwan visit is a blatant provocation which will surely be met with a forceful response from China, including unprecedented military pressure. She is creating a dangerous moment, placing us on the brink of war. Nobody can guarantee there will be no mishaps.”
.@SpeakerPelosi. Nancy, I'll go with you. I'm banned in China, but not freedom-loving Taiwan. See you there!
— Mike Pompeo (@mikepompeo) July 24, 2022
Pelosi’s insane escalation is finding support from some of the worst people on this planet, many of them from the other side of America’s illusory political divide.
“Nancy, I’ll go with you,” tweeted the Trump administration’s warmongering secretary of state and CIA director Mike Pompeo. “I’m banned in China, but not freedom-loving Taiwan. See you there!”
“Let Pelosi go to Taiwan,” tweeted Trump’s bloodthirsty National Security Advisor John Bolton. “It will tell us a great deal about who actually controls American foreign policy: Washington or Beijing. Doing anything more than blustering is far riskier to them than to us.”
“It is my personal view that the one-China policy has outlived its usefulness, that it is time to move away from strategic ambiguity,” the Trump administration’s secretary of defense Mark Esper said in the wake of the news of Pelosi’s visit during a meeting with Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen.
“I think it’s important that we begin that national discussion [on strategic ambiguity] back in the United States. It would help us educate the American people if we can also point to bold decisions being made in Taipei,” Esper added, an apparent call for open domestic propaganda about the issue.
“I think China should not have any say over where American officials travel. I think if the Speaker wants to go she should go,” Esper said on CNN’s New Day.
“Speaker Pelosi absolutely should take a bipartisan congressional delegation to Taiwan,” tweeted former Republican House speaker Newt Gingrich. “I am the highest ranking US official to visit Taiwan. John Dingell and other Democrats joined GOP members. Communist China cannot dictate a Speakers travel!”
“Would it surprise you to learn that Nancy Pelosi got a round of applause at a meeting of the Trump-backed America First Policy Institute?” journalist Michael Tracey tweeted from the meeting on Monday. “Because that’s exactly what just happened, when Newt Gingrich declared support for her upcoming trip to Taiwan.”
Would it surprise you to learn that Nancy Pelosi got a round of applause at a meeting of the Trump-backed America First Policy Institute? Because that’s exactly what just happened, when Newt Gingrich declared support for her upcoming trip to Taiwan. “I commend Nancy,” said Newt pic.twitter.com/FJ1Xh8H0PK
— Michael Tracey (@mtracey) July 25, 2022
“Speaker Pelosi should go to Taiwan and President Biden should make it abundantly clear to Chairman Xi that there’s not a damn thing the Chinese Communist Party can do about it,” Republican Senator Ben Sasse said on Monday. “No more feebleness and self-deterrence. This is very simple: Taiwan is an ally and the speaker of the House of Representatives should meet with the Taiwanese men and women who stare down the threat of Communist China.”
Taiwan is in fact not a formal ally under current US policy, but that’s exactly what all these calls to abandon the one-China policy and strategic ambiguity are geared toward changing.
Sasse’s comments are particularly annerving because they suggest that if the Biden administration does anything to deter Pelosi’s Taiwan brinkmanship it will be weaponized by the GOP to attack Biden as a puppet of Xi Jinping. This would be an exact inversion of the way the Democratic Party spent four years using accusations of Kremlin loyalty to put political pressure on the Trump administration to ramp up cold war escalations against Russia, which helped pave the way to the dangerous aggressions between those two nuclear powers we now see today.
We’re already seeing these frenzied accusations of Beijing loyalty from Republican spinmeisters like Tucker Carlson, which is something I warned would happen under a Biden presidency before the 2020 election.
https://t.co/SeCQFhvCqE https://t.co/OK4S29If7l pic.twitter.com/FckO0SU2ZC
— Caitlin Johnstone (@caitoz) July 13, 2022
When it comes to China, the so-called “populist right” is in lockstep with both Nancy Pelosi and with murderous neoconservatives like Bill Kristol, Max Boot and John Bolton. Steve Bannon’s support for regime change in Beijing is indistinguishable from Bill Kristol’s support for regime change in Beijing. You will never, ever see a Trump supporter address this perfect harmony between their faction and neocons and liberal hawks with any degree of intellectual honesty.
In reality, though Democrats tend to lean more toward supporting aggressions against Russia while Republicans lean more toward favoring aggressions against China, they’re both just manufacturing consent for the same unipolarist agenda of total global domination. They pretend to be on opposing sides, but if you ignore the narratives and just look at the actions what you see is a steadily escalating “great power competition” designed to facilitate the US empire’s longstanding agenda of securing unipolar planetary hegemony at all cost.
The drums of war are growing louder and louder, and the psychopaths who feed off it are growing more and more aroused. Let’s hope this evil empire ends as soon as possible in as peaceful a manner as possible, before these freaks get us all killed.
_________________
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43 responses to “Warmongering Republicans Have Throbbing Hard-Ons For Pelosi’s Taiwan Trip”
We need to elect 3rd Party Candidates but not the Forward Party which is a fake combination of Republican and Democratic Parties. That party was created by former Republicans and former Democrats such as Andrew Yang. Andrew Yang is too close for comfort with Israel and so are many other members of that party.
We should have a party that reduces tension with Russia and China as well as a party that reduces tension with Latin America, Africa and the Developing Nations of Asia. It would be a party that never meddles in the affairs of other nations and lifts sanctions against them, turns endless wars into ended wars, removes bases in other nations and focuses much more on domestic than foreign affairs.
its the the truth what’s being said but the difficulty is that the ruling elites do not see it that way. For them everyone who is not part of them is an enemy.Hence the appetite for endless wars and provocations. Governments, if they can still be regarded as such, no longer govern on behalf of those they govern but serve the interests of shadowy formations of moneyed elites who, for them wars are the means to huge profits.
I hate to curb your enthusiasm. But having many parties in a parliament does not necessarily make a parliament more democratic or better. In Germany, the current government is made up of 3 parties with basically very different programs. The SPD (once social democrats ‘labour-like’), CDU/CSU (once: conservative) and Bündnis90/Die Grünen (once: environmentalists).
The “once” is there because each of these parties has lost any original identity and everything that emanates from this 3-party governing coalition (they call it the “traffic light coalition” by the way) has fused into an ideological mush. A mixture of US subservient NATO lackeys with anti-social neoliberal paint parroting russophobia and sinophobia when Washington says them to do so.
There are a total of 7 parties in the German Bundestag. 3 form the current government and 4 an – absolutely divided “opposition” that delivers only poor counterforce to the governmental coalition and when it’s about demonizing Russia/Putin or China/Xi Jinping most of this “opposition MPs” kiss the governmental coalition’s tri-colored arse.
Half of Amrrican troops are poisoned other half are effeminate.
Love your articles for many tears /years now . Spasibo Bolshoy – I don’t see a US Democratic or Republican Party – only the Zionist Party . This is the Party the Americans and Europeans need to address . And without any fear – just go after the Main Party – not the fake ones.
Caitlan, I would be interested in your reaction to Michael Hudson’s, “The End of Western Civilization”. It struck me as a likely basis for all of America’s actions – to defend our predatory creditor status over much (soon to be all) of the world. It fits with the “taking out” of Saddam and Al-Qadhafi who were planning/proposing new currencies to escape the controlr the dollar based system held over them.
Imagine trying to tunnel rat this subway station in Chongqing. You gotta fight your way down through 31 stories of automated mines and boobey traps, and only then you do get to root out the enemy in the 300 miles of subway tunnels that underpin the city.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FWW9idT4Zww
Looks like this extra deep station might double nicely as a nuclear bomb shelter, no?
China was going to become self-sufficient in chip industry, that was inevitable. It was arguably the most important of those 20 to 50 year plans they starting laying down in earnest in the early 90s, even more so than achieving total food security, an easier goal and one that was met more than a decade ago. Well, it turns out, one of the last of China’s Achilles’ heels is about to be eliminated.
https://www.moonofalabama.org/2022/07/exclusions-and-sanctions-help-enemies-to-build-their-own-capabilities.html#more
Another central plan box gets a checkmark, and as usual modern day China, much ealier than expected.
We should sign up for the Belt and Road, before its too late. We won’t, of course, we are too … proud. And so we will be destroyed. Not by any aggressive action by our so called enemies, but by being ignored, not only by them but by a majority of our so called friends as well, and left to our own devices, it is pretty clear to this long time American citizen, that my country will rot on the vine long before harvest.
I’ve got this fluttering thought these days: imagine things get rough, the US starts a conventional war with China and Russia and their usual shock and awe fails for the reasons you mention as well as the extent of the enemies’ territory (10,3 million square miles) and all the debt slaves plundered by US piracy and maintained under the US boot through military threat round the world get emboldened to start attacking the famous 800 US bases on their respective territories, how much ammo do these bases have and how long could they hold the fort? Might look a bit like the Alamo, most of them, wouldn’t they?
Good questions. I don’t know. Depends on a lot of variables I suppose.
Something tells me we’re going to find out.
It was one the central themes of Chalmers Johnson’s blowback theories. Why not voluntarily give up most of the bases now, and earn some good will around the world, before you have them taken from you by force?
Because one way or another, the global base structure of the USAF is unsustainable, and will collapse.
Couldn’t agree more Caitlin. I’ve always been wary of Pompeo since the ghastly unlawful murder of Soleimani, and he’s one of the few issues I have with Trump. Frankly, Pelosi going to Taiwan is ridiculous. It’s not her role, and she has nothing to offer. It’s clearly a provocation, and that’s never a good idea.
Agree big time, Pompus is a pathetic and ugly specimen of Manhood !!!!
What is happening with Pelosi and Taiwan is nothing more than Counting Coup. Thus our politicians give the Plains Indians a bad name by their poor imitation.
I posted this on the antiwar.com site 5 days ago but so it occurs to me what the fuck is Pelosi supposed to do in Taiwan? Fundraise? Inspect the fortifications? March in a parade? Is there some conceivable reason for her trip besides antagonizing China? Does she not antagonize enough people here in the states? With a hundred and fifty some odd other countries in the world is there some reason besides preening warmongering that a steady parade of US politicians needs to go to Taiwan? WTF?
I think it’s more about domestic American politics and Biden’s approval ratings (he’s polling behind Trump for 2024) than anything that’s happening in Taiwan. They want the kind of bump that Bush got after 9/11, and they didn’t get it from Ukraine.
I don’t think either of those albatrosses are going to be allowed to run by their respective parties in ’24 because anyone else would beat ’em like a rented mule. Ghislaine Maxwell could out poll either one of ’em. Don’t worry though, both sides have lots of other abominations to offer the public. So, yes, things will probably get worse.
ha ha ha slow clap
To paraphrase Lincoln, you can antagonize half the world all the time or all the world half the time but you can’t antagonize all the world all the time.
This is what the US warmongering gerontocracy is actively doing though. “No communist China is gonna tell me where to go, goddammit!”
It’s the word “communist” that’s important. If the propaganda machine has done its job properly, the average redneck will get red in the face too at hearing these three syllables and sing “Go, go Nancy go go!” on the tune of Johnny B. Goode.
And she’ll probably go too, with Pom Pompeo in tow, which will be seen as a provocation by the US’ main commercial partner.
Now, it’s interesting to have a look at what the US and Nato have in stock in case of war – apart from nuclear of course which would solve the problem in a few minutes.
I wasn’t able to find how much ammo the US has left – weapons are one thing but just as important are the ammo – because it’s classified. However, when the $40 billion was voted, the media detailed that $9 billion would serve to replenish US stocks. So they’re probably not sky high…
But then of course the US has Nato allies. The two main armies in Europe are in Britain and France. A French senator sitting on some defense committee declared lately that in the best of cases, France would have ammos for fifteen days. And in a high intensity war like Ukraine, where the Russians fire 5,000 to 6,000 missiles A DAY, if France wanted to keep up, its stock of ammo would only last three or four days. Wow!
OK, so they’ll make more ammo. Problem: the armament industry is presently involved in just-in-time production. To produce more, they would have to build new manufacturing lines and that would take between 18 and 36 months for the simpler stuff like bullets to five or six years for shells and missiles which, once the line is operational would require another two years to produce. Wow (bis)!
And what about Britain? According to the July 4 edition of The Times, “Ben Hodges, a retired general who commanded US forces in Europe, told MPs that the British Army got through ‘every bit of important ammunition’ in about eight days during last year’s Warfighter exercise. A land warfare conference [the week before] heard that at Russian rates of fire [Britain] would run out of artillery shells in just two days”. Wow (ter)!
And we haven’t even talked about the energy necessary to move the launchers around which essentially comes from… Russia. Forget about having US tankers bringing oil to Europe in case of war. Think sitting ducks…
Of course, one can always argue that the US on its own can take on the whole world given its military budget but you’ll always find a killjoy to object that they avoided putting boots on the ground in Serbia and that the Afghan “experiment” was not all that impressive. What about against Russia? And what about against Russia AND China?
So one question comes to mind: what the fuck are these gerontocrats thinking about? Suicide to put an end to the miseries brought about by old age?
US military has tough time finding fit candidates, since kids now grow up playing videogames, meaning sit 12 hours in front of a pc.
The military had to relax their standards ( include drug addicts) and also lower recruitment age to get kids sign up before they can reason well.
Since younger Bush signed ” no child left behind” legislation, US military has a right to access your child’s school records.
Every year our school district resets my selection from “No” to “Yes”, and I have to find it among pages and pages of electronic school forms and register my parental objection again.
This is really f*cked up.
Most military dictatorships that pretend to be “free” and “democratic” ARE seriously fuqued up. I believe the US has become the archetype of that societal model.
Reportedly Iran was fighting 20 y of war against Iraq by throwing lots of nearly kids into war, poorly armed.
Sounds like the US took note of this historical record as a possible strategy for its own future wars.
Or maybe US has to fight a hybrid war bcs that’s what they think they are good at. No winner, no loser, can drag on forever, and eat up the whole US budget. Sounds like a winner, too.
That was 10 years
Imagine fighting and winning a conventional street battle through just one Tier 1 city in China. It is not exaggeration to say it would be the equivalent of fighting 10,000 Battles of Mariupol.
Check out the last ten minutes. A smallish, outer ring “suburb” of Shanghai. To take it against a determined enemy might cost an invading army one million casualties.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WClW8KHIA9E
After you take it, then you get to the larger, inner-ring “suburbs,” and if you get through those, you are in to the city proper, which might be 20 miles across in some spots, with rings of “suburbs” on the other side.
And let’s not forget the thousands of miles of massive interconnected concrete tunnels down below! Gotta clear those out! Lmao …
It’s a joke, the idea of fighting a conventional war against China … or Russia for that matter.
The reluctance of anyone in the West, and I mean anyone, to discuss what it would take to win an air battle over Ukraine, the infamous no-fly zone non-discussion, told me everything I need to know about the confidence the Pentagon has in its conventional warfare fighting capabilities against a peer.
It has none.
That’s why it WILL GO NUCLEAR should the US choose to start a non-proxy war against China or Russia, because the Pentagon has NO OTHER OPTION.
Against the big boys, if we want to “win,” whatever that means, we can only fight a war to the total death, and one the lasts no more than 30 minutes. That’s it.
Note: You are absolutey right about ammo. The reasons why the Russians are figthing this war so methodically are two, they are doing their damndest to limit civilian casualties, but even more importantly, the math of war is such that they can’t fire off their “high-tech good stuff” willy nilly.
There’s not enough it. Not yet anyway. One thing missing from the analysis of this war so far, at least in my opinion, is how much better the Russians are getting at it as we go along.
Every aspect, including how to produce and distribute war material quickly to the front.
In other words, the Russians are mastering the art of modern logistics, a part of warfare they were historically quite good at to begin with.
@Max: Quite! And I don’t think the US Army would go along with nuclear. Remember how Miley Cyrus – sorry Mark Milley – hurried to phone his Chinese counterpart after the 2020 election behind his lame duck president’s back – and obviously in accord with the deep state – to tell him that all was quiet on the western front?
So there’s probably a lot of bullshitting in this obviously election-oriented brinkmanship in the old folks home (aka Congress). They often get mean and grumpy at that age :o)
I read that most of the bullets used and stockpiled in America are made in RUSSIA! Think they will continue to sell to us when we make war on them?
~
Also, most of the mechanical replacement parts for most everything, from vehicles to weapons, are now manufactured in China. Think they will continue supplying us?
~
Too bad that almost all our factories were disassembled and relocated to the Far East, so it will be hard to “mobilise industry” to wartime production like we did during WWII.
~
I think that Washington always counted on winning all wars very quickly via “shock and awe” tactics, and, if that didn’t work, go nuclear. And if that didn’t work, basically commit murder/suicide with the nukes, but never surrender. Oh, and that you and I, and everybody else outside of the American Deep State have no say in the matter of our life or death.
It’s either that (“March or Die”) or they get a kick out of bungee jumping but double check beforehand that the elastic cord is splinter-proof.
That sounds like treason – outsourcing of the weapons production to the strategic competitors.
If memory serves, it was only a short time ago that Caitlin, in an aside, referred to Jordan Peterson as a freak or something along those lines. I have fundamental political disagreements with him, being much more in align with Caitlin’s, for want of a better term, eco-socialism. But I just stumbled upon the following interview and took the time (56 min.) to watch it, as I’ve watched a few others. I invite others with the time and inclination to also view this interview and ponder whether dismissing Jordan Peterson as a freak is warranted–whether Caitlin hit a home run, a base hit, or struck out with that swing.
https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=jordan+peterson+the+collapse+of+our+values&view=detail&mid=24CAFA3D38BA3575DE6424CAFA3D38BA3575DE64&FORM=VIRE
does he oppose nancy pelosi going to taiwan?
Let’s wait and see if this isn’t sheer brinkmanship on the part of the US elites. At the same time, they have never shied away from danger by nature and on many occasions they either bite the dust or retreat in disorganized haste. By reason of not fearing the spilling of blood , they easily spring into a conflict, forgetting that they have just come out of another one or are still engaged in one. They are oblivious to the impoverishment of their own while pursuing endless bloody conflicts across the world. They know no danger which might befall them or which they are plunging weaker opponents into. The problem is that their UK /EU partners, who should be the ones rebuking or advising them earnestly, they are are darn puppets and too timid to do the right thing.
Global warring distracts from global warming:
https://covertactionmagazine.com/2022/07/18/a-defund-the-cia-democratic-candidate-for-congress-is-calling-biden-a-war-criminal-and-demanding-his-immediate-impeachment/
Somebody inside the beltway needs to pick up the phone and ask the Pentagon whether it is prepared to take on both Russia and China at once. With real weapons.
What if the Chinese government blockades Taiwan’s airport so her plane cannot land there?
I can’t help but wonder what is motivating her. Is it the prospect of making more money? Does she actually believe the narrative that China is an existential threat to the US that must be defeated in armed conflict? She is very old and her life will soon end. What kind of legacy will she be leaving, a wrecked country and a world at war?
I think she believes in this. All these 75 to 90-year-olds who run things seem to think in terms of the 1970s or 80s when the USA did have the military prowess to intimidate the Soviets and Chinese.
American foreign policy has degenerated to the hysterical binary of either go around the world kicking sand in everyone’s face or be their ‘puppet’. Such a hostile approach leaves no room for diplomacy, statesmanship and cooperation. Washington Republicans AND Democrats are both in thrall to this lunacy, and in a world of nuclear superpowers every politician who doesn’t stand against it should be removed from office — or we are not long for this Earth.
I realise it’s OFF TOPIC, but folks really need to become awares of this little development.
NRA Approves Releasing Radioactive Wastewater Into Ocean
https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/Japan-NRA-Approves-Releasing-Radioactive-Wastewater-Into-Ocean-20220722-0008.html
Published 22 July 2022
And take exceptional notice of the reach of the contamination through out the Pacific Ocean. Looks like those AUKUS subs and war ships are going to glow in the dark, and the Islanders are going to starve cause they won’t be able to consume contamiated marine life. Good thing they have the Chinese to help them out cause one things for sure, Australia won’t.
China needs to blockade Taiwan with it’s Navy, and if the Americans are still intent on committing suicide, take out the plane they’re flying in. Easy as. Time for talking is OVER.
China needs to blockade Taiwan with it’s Navy, and if the Americans are still intent on committing suicide, take out the plane they’re flying in. Easy as.
So Taiwan is Washington’s ally, is it? Secret treaty or some such? I presume this means that when America begins its formal world war against Russia–you know, the mano a mano hot shooting war, not this present “hybrid war” or “proxy war” stuff–that Taiwan will join the military festivities and conduct bombing sorties over Vladivostok or Sakhalin Island. I’m sure Beijing will look the other way because, after all, what business is it of theirs, according to AmericanThink? Silly foreigners, nobody in the USA gave them permission to have a formal policy on anything! Even if we did sign a treaty…
I’ll be tough action for the US to bend Taiwan’s “leadership” – or whatever disgruntled mini-cabal we can conjure up – to our will. The polling has been pretty steady for more than a generation now, the vast majority of Taiwan’s citizens are perfectly satisfied with the status quo, and of the rest, almost all of them would prefer to join China than separate from it.
And Taiwan’s trade with China is nearly double that of it’s trade with the US.
So it’s hard to imagine a scenario by which we could convince anyone in Taiwan to do anything on our behalf, let alone become our allies or proxies in an apocalyptic type “war” scenario.
The lads at The Duran think Washington is going to chicken out and Pelosi won’t be sent. I’m sorting hoping this isn’t the case. In fact if I was advising Emperor Xi in Beijing, I’d say; “let the Speaker of the House of Insider Trading come without uttering a peep of protest, if anything, we should advise Taipei that if they want to roll out the red carpet and fete her for a fortnite, that would be perfectly ok with us.
Let the old woman work all the dark magic she has left in her decaying, drunken body.
It will be our to benefit … Mein Emperor!!!”
Note: “Oh, and before I go First Comrade Xi, will ya knock out the proposed 80 mile long road/rail combo tunnel bridge across theTaiwan Strait already? You are starting to remind me of Mao and his canal with this one.
Get it built, come hell or high waves, and put all this nonsense to bed.”
Just popped in my TubeFeed. My algo has been on fire lately. It’s been following me around with bloodhound precision and delivering the exact information I need at the moment.
Good job algo!
Street interviews with Taiwan citizens on the “situation.” Excellent questions, even better answers.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C0YGLDafG1o
For balance. I’ve been absorbing a little too much China propaganda lately. I need the objectivity, or the ambiguity, not sure which (both?), and this video more than provides it.
These freaks Pelosi and Pompeo act like some characters from a bad screenplay. Wonder who is running their teleprompter if not the CIA itself. They are a bunch of writers after all.
Interesting that both names are Italian, reminding me of recent discussion of the Cia- Vatican connection.
It makes sense when someone belongs to that court in Washington.
https://youtu.be/kx_G2a2hL6U