Russia And China Ascendant

8/28/2008

Elaine Meinel Supkis

As the US celebrates the two conventional conventions which feature crushing abuse of demonstrators and even the highest levels of the media, the situation in the Black Sea continues to broil. The grossly over-extended US empire is pretending to muscle everyone even as the chief rivals play games of cat and mouse with our over-muscled but physically weak empire. Like a weight lifter about to die of a heart attack, the US flexes its military muscles while everyone laughs behind their hands, pointing at our red, puffed up visage.

Russia wins backing from China, Central Asia over Georgia

(AFP) — Russia won support Thursday from China and Central Asian states in its standoff with the West over the Georgia conflict as the European Union said it was weighing sanctions against Moscow.

Russia's President Dmitry Medvedev said he hoped the "united position" of a summit of Central Asian nations would "serve as a serious signal to those who try to turn black into white".
*snip*
China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan voiced support for Russia's "active role" in resolving the conflict in Georgia, according to the draft of a joint statement released by the Kremlin.
Leaders from the countries met in the Tajik capital of Dushanbe as the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, a regional group set up in 2001 to counter NATO influence in the strategic Central Asia region.

One thing about Agence France Presse is they are French and therefore, not all that prone to cough up propaganda. So if they say that Russia has support from China and others, Russia has this. Some commentators this month have suggested that China would not support Russia in this matter because China sensibly doesn't want to be broken up into shattered shards like Russia. Russia, we better remember, become this way due to going bankrupt! The US, incidentally and obviously is going bankrupt, too.

The US has heartily endorsed the break up of all other nations since WWI. We went from fighting our most vicious war in 1860 over the concept of there being no right to break up the United States into individual confederations to proposing all other nations be chopped apart according to language, religious or ideological lines! NO nation is EVER consistent in philosophy. All follow just one rule: do as you wish whenever you want.

Since this is the only rule, it is very important to figure out what this means: all alliances are temporary. And all alliances are an equal danger as well as strength. Alliances can lead to massive wars. Or prevent them. Depending on the skills, sensibilities and desires of the leaders.

Russia fails to win support of Asian alliance

CNN) -- Russia's hopes of winning international support for its actions in Georgia were dashed Thursday, when China and other Asian nations expressed concern about mounting tensions in the region. The joint declaration from the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, or SCO, which includes China, Russia, Tajikistan, Kyrgystan, Kazakhstan, and Uzbekistan, said the countries hoped any further conflict could be resolved peacefully through dialogue.

The Chinese have this ritual: they want everything to be resolved via diplomacy. As well they might. Two of the world's greatest diplomats are Hu and Wen. Both go about the planet, making deals, setting up systems and in general, building a huge imperial complex based on joint interests and money. For the Chinese have something the US doesn't have: money. Credit. Power. The US goes about the planet waving guns like some desperado because the US has no more power except the gun. Like any street thug with no job, we have a pug on a leash with spikes on its collar and we trundle about, threatening little old ladies trying to cash their Social Security checks. Or beating up little Palestinian or Iraqi boys for throwing rocks at us.

CNN has to lie to Americans because it pays to lie. If the truth were told, we would not be seeing this election. This election is all about projecting US power. And what is being projected is the image of a clown. The US should hope that Obama wins simply because he has some small talents in the realm of being civilized. He knows how to eat without spitting out food while talking with his mouth full like Bush tends to do. Or throwing up in the Japanese prime minister's lap like Bush Sr. He doesn't talk funny or sing silly songs about bombing innocent civilians. So he isn't a monkey or a chipmunk waving a wooden sword. McCain's bellicosity is exactly what the Chinese want. The two top diplomats of the world can point to this blustering old dottering man who can't remember his home address and say, 'We must disarm him.'

Since Israel, Europe and the US has made disarmament the #1 topic in international politics, I would think the US would happily disarm once the Chinese request this at the UN. And Russia is already going to the UN to demand NATO disarm. And morally, Russia is in the right. Europe and America refused to protect Russian peacekeepers from a sneak attack, after all. Europe and America refused to condemn this sneak attack. Europe and the US have armed and supported a country that has attacked peacekeepers. This is so embarrassing, watching the bellicosity in the US media whip up outrage in America while being totally in the moral wrong here.

G7 condemns Russian recognition of Georgian regions

(Reuters) - The Group of Seven rich nations Wednesday issued a stinging condemnation of Russia's decision to recognize Georgia's breakaway regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, the United States said.

The G7 is a federation of powers which have latched onto the US military machine after WWII and taken it over. Germany and Japan went from defeat to total victory over the US in a mere 50 years. By 1980, both nations had financial control over the US. The US negotiated one deal after another to fix this and failed. Both nations fund US military power via loans which are climbing rapidly in cost. Paying the interest on these loans which were run up so we can patrol Europe and Asia on behalf of Germany and Japan is now bankrupting the US. And are so large, these two victors in the 20th century struggle for global dominance cannot fund the US anymore.

So Russia and China, the two nations that lost the Cold War's struggle for power are now the ones mainly funding US spending on military dominance. Thus, these two losers are changed magically into winners of the Cold War. The US is astonishingly trying to restart the Cold War while being owned by the same powers that lost the previous Cold War. This is sheer insanity. The G7 are no longer 'rich' nations. They have in their group, one rather poor nation: the United States of America. And since this poor nation is the centerpiece of the G7 powers, it is the key to destroying the entire G7's powers. The US goes under financially, both Germany and Japan will be exposed to the full fury of two great powers that HATE them with a passion and who were NOT paid reparations for WWII when Germany and Japan ravaged both China and Russia!

NYT editorial: Stuck in Georgia

And if that isn’t unnerving enough, President Bush has decided to dispatch Vice President Dick Cheney, that master of diplomacy, to the region.

Awash in oil wealth and giddy after crushing tiny Georgia, Russia’s leaders are striking back at real and imagined humiliations. The West’s failure to fully marshal its leverage is painful to watch. But Russia also has a lot to lose. Moscow’s decision to recognize South Ossetia and Abkhazia will only harden battle lines and sow further regional instability.
*snip*
We know some in the Kremlin don’t care if ties with the West are broken. Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, the dark hand behind Russia’s aggression, blustered this week that Russia would be better off if it didn’t join the World Trade Organization.

HAHAHA. The WTO is hated across the planet. Before the US turned into a total Soviet police state, we used to have huge, lively anti-WTO demonstrations. All over the place, whenever the WTO tries to meet, there are riots! The WTO has to now meet in isolated resorts surrounded by heavy military installations. Russia defying this organization makes Russia more, not less, popular with the global masses! China doesn't mind using the WTO to colonize the US. Japan loves the WTO because they have a million tricks up their kimono sleeves for restricting global penetration of Fortress Japan. This comedy of errors should be terminated as fast as possible by the US. For of all nations, the US has been ravaged the worse thanks to the WTO.

It is our real enemy. It is why we are now dying as a sovereign power and are now going bankrupt.

NYT is totally for the WTO, incidentally.

A blustering visit from Mr. Cheney would also make it far easier for the Europeans to avoid doing what they need to do: send their own clear message to Moscow that there will be no business as usual. That does not mean completely isolating Russia. But when the Europeans meet next week, they should agree to put on hold a trade and security deal with Moscow so long as it continues to occupy Georgia and threaten its neighbors.

Ties between Russia and the West are now the worst in a generation. It will take toughness and subtlety to ensure they do not lock into a permanent confrontation — not more bluster from anyone.

This blustering, stupid editorialist doesn't seem to clearly understand that if Europe yells at Russia and demands Russia stop trading, Russia will stop. Then Germany and France can freeze to death and watch all their factories close down due to lack of energy. As Putin might say, 'Make my day.'

What the NYT wishes to imagine is, Europe can pick and choose which things they want from Russia. Then they can punish Russia while not cutting off their own noses. But Russia will cut off their noses! Russia has no interest in selling energy while being punished. Tit for tat. As I said at the beginning of this analysis, in international politics, the rule is, leaders do whatever they want, when they want. Treaties or no treaties. Punishments or no punishments. If they happen to be getting along, they get along. When this ceases, they go off and do whatever they want.

The US wanted both oil and to stop Saddam from funding the Palestinian uprising against Israeli invaders in the Middle East. So we cooked up charges, disarmed Saddam and then lunged at his throat. Now, we squat there, dying every day, going bankrupt rapidly, trying to strongarm Iraq's Shia government into some sort of treaty that will lock them in as our servants and weaken them as much as humanly possible. But this is a total failure. The longer this process takes, the stronger the Shi'a become and the weaker the US becomes. Time is of the essence for the US. And the Iranians know this. So they are not eager to see the US stop negotiations. They want this to continue forever or until the US collapses.

Europe needs Iraqi and Iranian oil. Europe wants this oil under the aegis of the US military power. Europe has no means of securing this precious oil without the US. But the US hates the Shi'ites, the US wants to weaken them so they can't support their own people in Lebanon. The US is all mixed up in its goals because the #1 goal here is actually to secure Israel, not the US nor Europe. Since this is a totally contradictory goal, this means the mode of operation as well as the diplomatic goals are utterly at odds with each other and therefore, unattainable.

Now to go to Antiwar.com, a great web page for all information about the US thrashing about the planet, uselessly:

One would think that a coast guard vessel has a fairly straight forward task: patrol the littoral waters surrounding the country.

However, it appears that the US coast guard, like the national guard, has a history of being used in imperial warfare. For instance, the USCGC Dallas, the largest coast guard ship currently in commission, has just made a pit stop in Georgia. Not the Peach State, but rather in the Black Sea near the Caucasus.

Here is my reply to the many military personnel who posted proud answers to this charge that the US military is NOT protecting the US but is scattered about the planet:

2008-08-28 04:51:08
9/11 showed the world, the US military and other organizations is so focused on patrolling the entire planet, no one is protecting America. After 9/11, our desire to patrol the entire planet has done two things: left the US utterly unprotected and bankrupted our government.

The dilly-dallying about the planet with our forces scattered to the winds is the usual thrashing around of a dying empire. When England went bankrupt during WWI, they continued to expand their empire afterwards [including a disastrous war in Iraq] and they scattered their forces even more across the planet.

All this, knowing that their home base was totally vulnerable to a frontal attack. So of course, this happened a second time. Unlike WWI, in WWII, the attacks were directly on England and England nearly collapsed. As it was, the rolling up of the English empire was so easy, soldiers on bicycles in Asia were able to overwhelm the bedraggled last strands of the British Empire in Southeast Asia.

The US is using up all available tools at hand in a wild, last attempt at securing our empire. We foolishly imagine, if we have token troops in 130 different countries, this will control all potential rivals. To do this, we have handed over our sovereignty to dire rivals who have only one goal: the termination of the US empire.

China and Russia hold very significant amounts of US debts. Both did this thanks to wild US misspending on global domination systems. Both intend to use this as a way of toppling US international power. The fact is that the US ships are madly trying to muscle so many distant shores has weakened US power which cannot be brought into action anywhere due to this. If we send the vast majority of our fleets into three cul de sac water systems surrounded by hostile powers, we should not be surprised if we lose all our fleets at once.

The truth is, Russia and China can sink our entire navy in a flash if our navy is trapped in these dead-end seas. In WWII, Britain was very lucky that Germany didn’t have enough subs to sink all British ships in the Mediterranean. Since the US was supplying Britain, the Germans concentrated on the North Atlantic instead. Otherwise, the Brits would have had virtually no navy outside of the one attached to the US empire.

The US foreign policy fools who have driven the US right off the cliff should be arrested for treason. Sending our local as well as overseas navies to these obvious traps is treason. Even if nothing happens to them—this time—the trap is still set, jaws opened wide. This level of irresponsibility is as great as the 9/11 levels. The Pentagon and White House sat idle during a long multi-level attack because they wanted it to succeed.

They intend to do this again with our navies as ‘bait’ to Russia and China. Then they get the Cold War back. But this is stupid because it will bring us WWIII instead.

Francis Fukuyama at the warmongering Washington Post:

Are we entering the age of the autocrat? It's certainly tempting to think so after watching Russia's recent clobbering of Georgia. That invasion clearly marks a new phase in world politics, but it's a mistake to think that the future belongs to Russian strongman Vladimir Putin and his fellow despots.

I'm particularly interested in trying to discern the shape of the new international moment, because I wrote an essay in 1989 entitled "The End of History?" It argued that liberal ideas had conclusively triumphed at the end of the Cold War. But today, U.S. dominance of the world system is slipping; Russia and China offer themselves as models, showing off a combination of authoritarianism and modernization that offers a clear challenge to liberal democracy. They seem to have plenty of imitators.
*snip*
China's problem today, unlike in imperial times, is that it doesn't have a well-articulated sense of what the country represents in the larger world. The so-called Beijing Consensus, which mixes authoritarian government with market economics, is popular in many developing countries, and with good reason: Under Beijing's rules, national leaders can just do business and make money, without being hectored about democracy and human rights.

At the Democratic Convention, an ABC reporter was manhandled, nearly choked to death and arrested by Denver goons who claimed, he had no right to stand on a sidewalk and film all the fat cats who were hosting parties for the corrupt and evil Senators. So much for US propaganda about how evil China was for not allowing pro-destruction of China demonstrators! In the US, even the act of gathering the news about the Real Rulers is verboten. Anyone doing this is hammered into the ground. The DNC didn't condemn this any more than Kerry's refusal to stop the repeated tasering of a student in Florida when he asked 'an interesting question.'

Pelosi recently had a reporter for public radio arrested for asking HER an 'interesting question.' She didn't have him tasered, too. But I bet, she wanted to do this. We no longer have a republic or a democracy. We have an autocracy. So why is the Washington Post wasting space with the blathering about how China and Russia are not like the free US where reporters are beaten to death for asking interesting questions....ah. This sort of bloody stupidity is great propaganda for anyone who has zero awareness of the real news which is the vast majority of Americans.

I have been increasingly horrified by the swift loss of civil rights in this nation. We see the beginnings of the Soviet state style of rule that a bankrupt government needs to impose marshal law on angry masses. The average America is totally unable to understand or survive a collapse of our economic systems. Scattered all over, we don't even have the strength of extended families to protect ourselves from the ravages of economic destruction. We can't withdraw into our own villages since we are 'atomized' across the land.

While researching financial matters, I came across this old article from the last major cycle of imperial destruction:

TIME magazine, August, 1930: "Insane Hopes"

"We have not forgotten the wound on our eastern flank and the lopping off of the Vistula district, nor have we forgotten how shabbily Woodrow Wilson urged the unnatural severing of East Prussia from the Fatherland. . . . We intend, of course, to fulfill our European mission without going to war, but, on the contrary, only soldiers with front experience can liquidate the War."

So spoke blunt Gottfried R. Treviranus, Minister Without Portfolio in the cabinet of Chancellor Bruning, to cheering crowds assembled last week before the steps of the Reichstag. Six hours later the protests started, piled up in wave upon wave of outraged French and Polish anguish to a holocaust of denunciation.
*snip*
Poland, jealous of every move against her dearly guarded corridor to the sea, was just as vociferous. Foreign Minister August Zaleski made formal protest to Berlin.

"Poland is set!" screamed the Gazeta Polska, "and ready to defend her frontiers to the last drop of blood!"
Startled by the speed and strength of these attacks, Dr. Treviranus insisted last week that he had been misunderstood, repeated one phrase in his speech which had not been quoted in French and Polish papers:
"The way of peaceful understanding is the only possible one for ending the wrong of drawing up boundaries as they are now."

This is a cold reminder of what happens to empires playing the ethnic card when sparring with other empires. England and France wanted ethnic identity in Eastern Europe but NOT in Ireland or southern France, just for example. So they carved up Germany and Austria but took over or extended their own powers of rule in distant lands like Southeast Asia, Africa, the Pacific or other areas. Overextended and bankrupt, owing billions to the US, both England and France were utterly incapable of resisting a resurgent Germany that basically rolled right over Poland as well as all of Europe in less than 2 years of warfare.

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Comments

[Ralph]

David Rockefeller has asked the Japanese Emperor for permission to use 2000 trillion yen worth of Japanese gold that is held on US territory. The gold would be used as follows: 500 trillion yen to deal with the sub-prime crisis, 500 trillion yen to get the cabal out of debt, another 500 trillion yen to finance a vast space exploration project, 350 trillion yen to pay off Iraq war debt and 150 trillion yen to invest in China.

Furthermore, control of the US cabal would be handed over to a younger, and supposedly more enlightened generation.

This is the same source who promised last autumn that Al Gore would be made president. While that did not happen, he did subsequently get a highly publicized movie, a Nobel Prize, an Academy award and a big advertizing budget, indicating serious power in the hands of the faction that made this promise.

[DeVaul]

What do the Japanese get in return for giving up their gold?

Continued patroling of the Sea of Japan by US warships? More US soldiers guarding Fortress Japan? Nuclear weapons?

Sounds like extortion: you help fix our problems or else....

[don]

Japanese govt. is offering a stimulus
package worth 10 Trillion yen..95 billion
dollars....slowing global and Japanese
economy..you headed on the head Elaine..

[Elaine Meinel Supkis]

$95 billion isn't all that much. Japan holds over a trillion dollars in FOREX reserves.

[klintock]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tpsDegqioVA&feature=related

Think this sums up where we are going pretty well.

[GK]

We all know what happened to the UK when their empire died (WWII Luftwaffe).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yV6sodlzfcc

[GK]

The military industrial complex finally admits the true rate of inflation as only the people building the weapons to destroy us physically or financially (they don't care which) are kept alive.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=al2U24OOe7uM&refer=home

Boeing Final Offer Raises Machinist Compensation 38% (Update2)

[Abelian]

Corporate Socialism continues:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/29/business/29lutz.html

G.M.'s Bob Lutz says carmakers "deserve" loan guarantees.

Hmm...

1. Produce technologically inferior cars with crappy designs.
2. Make your whole business model rely on hugely profitable , low gas mileage behemoth SUVs and refit military type vehicles.
3. Pay management huge salaries and underfund pensions.
4. Kill the first electric car and set out to reproduce 10 years later at a higher price and less efficiency.
5. Lobby for the Ethanol scam, diverting resources to ADM and corn growers instead of investing in real alternative energy.
6. Transfer jobs out of the U.S. and lower worker wages in the U.S.

And to top it all off: He says the following at the end of the article.

" Mr. Lutz said small cars would ultimately become considerably more expensive, filling some of the void created by the evaporation of big profits from trucks. "

Elaine, you would do a great article analyzing the American auto industry and how they are more pigs at the tax payers ( think debt) trough.

[OC]

Elaine,

Looks like Russia got Chinese support by diverting European oil and gas supplies to China.

' Russia may cut off oil flow to the West '
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/main.jhtml?xml=/money/2008/08/29/cnrussia129.xml

The claws are coming out!!

[Elaine Meinel Supkis]

HAHAHA. Gads. What on earth do they expect? Germany hisses at Russia, 'Ve vill destroy you, ja!' And Russia stomps Germany into the ground. History says, 'Anyone picking a fight with Russia should expect a long march out of Moscow in the dead of winter.'

[WG]

Great article Elaine. Your insights on the news are unmatched anywhere on the web. Had a good laugh too when NYT referred to Cheney as "that master of diplomacy".

[carli]

If Putin were as ruthless as Bush & Co., he would offer 70% of Russian oil and natural gas production to China and India, on condition they help pay down 50% of Russian corporate debt, and invest in the balance. Then he would tell the UE that it has 6 months to disband NATO and join the SCO or face a frozen winter for the next 10 years. Is that about right?

[Elaine Meinel Supkis]

Why be so obvious? Russia is triangulating. Only if Europe has total amnesia and doesn't remember WWI and WWII, will they not figure out the obvious. And cease harassing Russia so much.

[Elaine Meinel Supkis]

Hitler was VERY popular with many leaders in the 'west' because he said he would destroy the communists. This is why the West didn't say a peep when Hitler helped the Spanish fascists crush the left there. Nor did they complain when he destroyed the left in Germany.

When he decided to roll over FRANCE instead of going straight to Russia, this was the shocker! The joint invasion of Poland by the Soviets and the Nazis took all the West by surprise. Totally.