Another
Jolly Little War
By Eric
Margolis
April
10, 2017 "Information
Clearing House"
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It seems
that every new US president has to prove his
machismo…or make his bones, as wiseguys say...
by bombing the usual Arabs. By now, it’s almost
a rite of passage. The American public loves it.
So we just
saw the US launch 59 or 60 $1.5million apiece
cruise missiles at a western Syrian airfield to
express President Trump’s outrage caused by
seeing injured children allegedly caused by a
Syrian government toxic gas attack.
But what,
Mr. President, about all those Iraqi, Syrian and
Afghan babies killed by US B-52 and B-1 heavy
bombers? Or the destruction of the defiant Iraqi
city of Fallujah where the US used forbidden
white phosphorus that burns right to the bone?
Washington
claimed its radar had conclusively identified
Syrian warplanes dropping chemical weapons. This
sounds to me to be unlikely. Where was the US
radar? Hundreds of miles away aboard ships? Was
the info from Israel or Turkey, both with axes
to grind? Is US radar so sharp that it can tell
the difference between a chemical and high
explosive bomb at great distance? Sounds highly
fishy to me.
The cruise
missile strike was planned well in advance and
the missiles programmed accordingly. This was
likely done before the alleged chemical attack.
What a hell of a rude act to launch the attack
just before China’s leader, Xi Jinping, sat down
to dinner with Trump in Palm Beach. This was the
most important China-US meeting since President
Richard Nixon went to meet Chairman Mao in 1972.
What a monumental loss of face for Xi and for
China. He was made to look small and irrelevant.
Was this planned in advance? Xi should have
walked out, gotten onto his plane and returned
to China.
Couldn’t
Trump have waited till Xi’s visit was over, a
mere additional day? What was so urgent about
bombing a Syrian air base? Do we not think that
Russia, China and Iran, all Syria’s ally, will
take some negative action? Trump had actually
blasted former President Barack Obama for even
thinking about attacking Syria…and now here he
goes and does the same thing.
While the
new president was showing how tough and decisive
he is by bombing the usual Arabs, the US is
openly threatening war against North Korea.
Washington’s most urgent objective in the
Florida summit was to somehow convince, cajole
or coerce China into lowering the boom on
irksome North Korea and ending its nuclear
programs.
The huge
insult to Xi will hardly motivate China to
invade North Korea and depose Kim Jong-un. In
fact, North Korea is quite useful for China in
spite of its eccentric ways and offers no threat
to them. The DPRK helps protect China’s
sensitive northeast region and Manchuria from
US/South Korean intervention. Collapse of the
Kim regime would drive millions of starving
refugees to China, South Korea and Japan.
Worse, a
now threatened US attack on North Korea could
cause it to fire nuclear-armed missiles at
Japan, South Korea and US bases in Japanese
Okinawa and Guam. Two nuclear warheads would be
enough to turn Japan into a vast wasteland.
There are some 88,000 US troops and large
numbers of dependents in the region. South
Korea’s 20-million people capitol, Seoul, is
partly in range of Kim Jong-un’s 170mm heavy
guns dug in on the Demilitarized Zone.
An
accidental naval or air clash over the South
China Sea between the US and China seems
inevitable. The US is making a big fuss over
atoll airbases that China has created there, but
are these really so different from US Navy
aircraft carriers cruising the China Sea?
The US has
lost its old strategic superiority over China in
the western Pacific. China’s land, air, naval
and rocket forces are near parity with those of
the US and well advanced in plans to drive the
US far from its coasts. Any clash would see US
forces fighting half a world away against
home-based Chinese forces. US military officials
are struggling to invent new strategies while
cautioning the White House to avoid a fight it
could lose.
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As if
potential wars against China and North Korea are
not enough, the US is kicking sand into Russia’s
face and beating the war drums over eastern
Ukraine and Crimea, two regions utterly unknown
to Americans. There seems collective amnesia
that Russia has thousands of nuclear-armed
missiles, many pointed at the US. Anti-Russian
hysteria in the US has assumed epidemic
proportions and makes the US look silly.
The US is
also broadening its little wars in Yemen and
Somalia in an effort to dominate the Red Sea.
The hottest new US command is the new Africa
Command.
This while being at bayonets drawn with China
and Russia. Amazing strategic stupidity that
would make old Bismarck turn in his grave. Add
America’s forgotten, foolish war in Afghanistan
and northern Pakistan, and its provocations of
Iran.
Trump
likely views these issues through the eyes of a
businessman, not realizing that Empire has its
costs that do not fit on a balance sheet. Sure,
the US pays more for NATO than other members.
NATO is an organ of the US Empire, not a simple
partnership. Ruling the globe costs lots of
money. Even worse, much of it is being borrowed.
Interestingly, America owes more money to
Comrade Xi Jin-ping’s China than anyone else.
Eric
S. Margolis is an award-winning, internationally
syndicated columnist. His articles have appeared
in the New York Times, the International Herald
Tribune the Los Angeles Times, Times of London,
the Gulf Times, the Khaleej Times, Nation –
Pakistan, Hurriyet, – Turkey, Sun Times Malaysia
and other news sites in Asia.
https://ericmargolis.com/
The
views expressed in this article are solely those
of the author and do not necessarily reflect the
opinions of Information Clearing House.
