On October 27, the US Navy guided cruise missile destroyer the USS Lassen sailed within 12 nautical miles of Spratly Islands in the South China Sea despite repeated warnings from China that such overt action would be taken as a deliberate provocation in an already strained relationship between the United States and China.
Alarmed Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Zhang Yesui immediately summoned US Ambassador to China Max Baucus chastising him for the naval envoy’s near island pass-by, calling it an “extremely irresponsible action” and “a threat to China’s national sovereignty.”
China’s Communist Party run Global Times declared that by exercising tactful restraint but preparing for the worst, China is showing the White House that it “is not frightened to fight a war with the US in the region.” The article goes on to say that should any US ships linger in the area, China must “launch electronic interventions, and even send out warships, lock them by fire-control radar and fly over the US vessels.”
China’s leading military newspaper The People’s Liberation Army Daily took a bullseye pot shot at US Empire of Chaos’ track record in Iraq and Afghanistan:
“Cast-iron facts show that time and again the United States recklessly uses force and starts wars, stirring things up where once there was stability, causing the bitterest of harm to those countries directly involved.”
Despite knowing the US naval destroyer would be perceived by China as a direct act of aggression, the Pentagon had been pushing for a naval challenge to China’s claims over the islands since last May. US military strategists insist that US patrols in the area need to be ongoing and regular as opposed to more than three years apart which is when a US naval vessel last passed through the Spratly archipelago. As if to egg China on, an anonymous US official boasted, “We will do it again. We sail in international waters at a time of our choosing.” Clearly with so much at stake, warmongering hawks are pressuring Obama into yet more confrontation with US adversaries Russia and China.
Other US puppet nation allies like the Philippines, Vietnam, Taiwan and Japan are also disputing claims of their own with China over island territories and are eager for their USA protectorate to prove that its global hegemony still reigns supreme despite Russia’s recent challenge to US control over the Middle East. Like virtually everything, the bottom line is money, $5.3 trillion a year in global trade and 30% of the world’s oil supply pass through the busy Asian Pacific sea lane.
Already embroiled in a fierce currency war as well as a heated cyber-war, not to mention a covert saboteur war of incendiary explosion exchange, it now appears Obama is willing to add to his war itinerary by risking to ignite a world war. Author-journalist John Wright wrote in an article featured in RT entitled “China is no longer a colony of the West and will not be bullied:”
“We can only continue to expose the rampant hypocrisy and double standards that informs US engagement with other nations and regions… Also clear is that the only path to peace and stability is a multipolar alternative to the unipolarity enjoyed by the US over the past three decades.”
Fresh off having his bluff called by Putin in the Middle East when earlier this month Putin outed Obama’s fake war against ISIS, the bruised, sagging superpower ego of US Empire of Chaos appears now on a diehard cruising-for-a-bruising mission in the South China Sea. Or as neocon Defense Secretary Ashton Carter arrogantly baited China earlier this month:
“Make no mistake, the United States will fly, sail and operate wherever international law allows, as we do around the world, and the South China Sea is not and will not be an exception.”
Ships navigating outside a twelve nautical mile range of coastal waters are considered within an international neutral zone where nations’ vessels exercise free navigation rights. But the US naval destroyer sailing closer than the twelve mile limit has triggered an intense international drama with still unknown and undetermined consequences.
The US bone of contention is what the feds call the artificial buildup of land, an estimated 3000 acres of turf built upon reefs and rocks that China’s been busily reclaiming, digging up sand drudge from the ocean floor and constructing facilities that include a future airstrip. Despite Chinese president Xi Jinping’s assurance last month echoed again this month by a prominent Chinese general that the island development is strictly for civilian purposes, previous statements out of Beijing have specified intentions for both civilian and military use. Because these newly emerging islands that China is claiming are not considered natural land masses, the US government maintains that a patrolling warship that sails less than twelve nautical miles from artificially built up islands is not in actual violation of any international sea law, and by technicality, this contention is correct.
But once again the United States is taking full advantage operating on its long cherished yet grandiose notion of US exceptionalism. In virtually every Obama speech he incessantly invokes American exceptionalism as his justification passport for every global transgression committed by the US Empire. As if granted by God given decree, the US alone holds exclusionary rights to go and do anything it wants anywhere it wants in the world by land, air or sea, while the rest of the world must comply in strict accordance with agreed upon international law.
This phony double standard has worn ever so thin on the rest of the world. Moreover, if roles were reversed and a foreign power’s nuclear armed warships were defiantly resisting all Empire demands to cease and desist vowed acts of aggression, the US would feel fully justified in attacking any invading force as it sees fit. But invariably for well over a century now the imperialistic US Empire automatically invokes a license cloaked in self-anointed exceptionalism that hypocritically permits it to freely operate killing people and nations around the globe at will with absolute impunity. Those days are over for the no longer invincible sole world superpower delusionally bent on maintaining its unipolar prowess to do as it pleases wherever and whenever simply because it can.
As an emerging global giant of a nation possessing the most people on earth, China has been flexing its muscle economically as evidenced earlier this year when the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank drew all of America’s foremost allies rushing to join as founding members. Clearly this marked a turning point where international balance of power is rapidly shifting from West to East. But then when truth be told, can anyone really blame China and Russia for exercising their unified power to join forces in order to defend themselves against global superpower bully America?
Pressed by America’s overly aggressive yet failed strategy to isolate both Russia and China by pinning them in along their national borders and overtly instigating conflict at their doorstep as in Ukraine and covertly throughout Central Asia, aligning former Soviet Eastern bloc nations as NATO-EU members, and pointing nuclear warhead missiles directly into Russia, the two Eastern powers quickly reformed a defensive political and economic alliance that includes a $400 billion dollar natural gas pipeline deal and a commitment to extend their influence and power globally.
In the immediate aftermath of February 2014’s US induced coup in Kiev and Putin managing to keep his Crimean naval base intact after the people of Crimea democratically voted to be annexed, the West led by a foiled Obama proceeded to demonize Putin and instantly restart a second cold war installment that brought about US manipulation of drastically lowered oil prices and economic sanctions that are hurting Europe far more than Russia.
These turn of events came just months after Putin saved face for Obama while perhaps saving the world for the rest of us by averting potential world war when Putin brokered a last minute deal with Assad to turn in his chemical weapons after Obama had falsely accused Assad over the Damascus chemical weapons attack that in fact was perpetrated by Obama-backed Islamic terrorists. Obama knowingly used the bogus false flag attack in August 2013 as his flimsily disguised excuse to preemptively launch air strikes on Assad forces and willfully risk WWIII. Thankfully the world with Putin’s help stopped the globalist puppet in his tracks. But with the invention of the latest fake US monster ally-on-steroids ISIS, Obama and company deceitfully finagled their way back into Syria to resume acting out their OCD compulsion for an Assad regime change.
Putting up with continual abuse from US Empire as the world’s only superpower over the last quarter century, as karmic payback Russia and China are now leading the way with BRICS to remove the US dollar/petrodollar as the standard international currency. Even longtime European allies United Kingdom, Germany and France have made overt moves toward abandoning the USD. Also due to Empire’s global destruction and very real threats, in recent years Russia and China have been forced to escalate their own buildup of military budgets, military strength and arms proliferation, so much so that Pentagon generals are publicly worried their armed capability may even surpass in key strategic areas such as air and space hypersonic weaponry the unmatched until recently US Empire killing machine. As it is, back in January this year any hope that Russia and the US might come to an agreement over nuclear disarmament was lost, opening the floodgate to yet another high speed global arms race that can only lead to even more destructively horrific consequences.
Yet for many decades the annual US military budget dwarfed all nations in comparison, up until a few years ago spending nearly as much as the rest of the world combined. But times have changed and though Russia still only spends $50-78 billion while China military spending is up by 10% this year to over $140 billion compared to America’s near $600 billion on national defense, recently Russia and China have significantly closed the gap in military strength. Of course the Pentagon losing $8.5 trillion it somehow cannot account for since 1996 explains how China and Russia have caught up to US making far more prudent use of their defense budget than a thoroughly corrupted Empire in decline. Take for instance the strides in Russian technology to disable cruise missiles and enemy military space satellites along with sophisticated electronic intelligence weaponry Russia is now operating inside Syria, threatening to neutralize and effectively shut down Israel’s vast surveillance apparatus and military dominance over the region.
Putin’s air strikes in Syria are doing what Obama’s fake efforts never could, actually killing terrorists and forcing 3000 of them to run for shelter back to their support bases in Turkey. In the first week alone Russian air strikes destroyed 40% of Islamic jihadists’ infrastructure. The highly touted buffer zone that US-NATO-Turkey insist on maintaining in Syria is no less than their cover to ensure that ISIS’ supply line from Turkey remains open and protected. But Syrian and Kurdish forces with Russian air support are closing in on even cutting off the buffer zone that in effect will leave a bruised and battered ISIS forces under siege. In a feeble attempt to save face earlier this month while Putin was eradicating Obama’s terrorists, Obama continued to defiantly keep his Islamic State-Al Nusra supply line open in Syria by airdropping yet 50 more tons of arms to the very enemy he is supposed to be fighting against for over a year now. The world is waking up and now onto the traitor president – Barack Hussein Obama.
With Obama’s declared Asian pivot a couple years ago (which has also failed miserably), the US boldly called for expanding Empire presence through militarization of East Asia, installing US military and naval bases in the Philippines and Vietnam, giving the go-ahead for Japan to increase its military strength, and despite South Korea’s three-point proposal seeking reunification with North Korea, the Empire of Chaos and Destruction will have no part in any effort toward peace, singlehandedly polarizing the globe on every continent towards a disastrous West versus East military showdown. Just as the USS Lassen’s voyage this week, again it’s all about curbing the rising power of China.
The US military occupies armed bases in over a thousand locations on this planet. The US Special Operations alone are secretly deployed in over 147 nations around the world – that’s in over 75% of the planet’s total number of countries. Just this week in response to all the US military bases in Europe, Putin told a BBC reporter, “Why are you threatening us?“ and “what business have they got there?” No other nation on earth comes even remotely close to wielding so much blatant naked power over the rest of the world as US Empire. During this last year alone the planet has undergone more multinational joint military exercises and unprecedented show of force by both sides than any previous time in modern history, all ostensibly prepping in lockstep madness towards a World War III scenario. Last December the House of Representatives granted Obama full war power approval to initiate war against Russia. The US government has proposed preemptive nuclear strike plans against Russia.
And now with Empire’s latest brazen act of defiance in the South China Sea, the mounting cold war tensions are reaching the boiling point, risking what could easily become the fuse that ignites an irreversible, catastrophic world war. Unquestionably it would be the direct and deliberate result of the maniacal, warmongering neocons who for decades have hijacked Washington, and are now in the final stages of insanely pushing humanity off the doomsday cliff.
In possession of the world’s largest army, China is challenging US Empire’s global hegemonyattempting to assert its own regional power and presence within the South China Sea. China has repeatedly warned the United States to stay clear of its disputed Spratly Islands. But not wanting to be seen as any more of a paper tiger weakling than he already has, and still no doubt fuming over being outmaneuvered again, outplayed, outclassed and thoroughly humiliated by Putin’s take charge offensive in the Middle East, Obama now has sent a nuclear armed missile destroyer into harm’s way in total defiance of Chinese warnings, automatically placing the entire world population in harm’s way. And it won’t be the last time.
What we have operating here is a lame duck administration that currently appears to no longer have complete control over its mental faculties, willing to plunge the earth into global conflict that could potentially end all life on planet earth. With US already run out of money and collapse of its house of cards economy overdue, war profiteering globalists never fail to manufacture war as their go-to option, knowing a cataclysmic world war will allow them to usher in their centuries old global objective of one world government.
The eugenic-minded, anti-life evildoers in Washington actually believe that as the elite’s chosen puppets with well-prepared luxurious underground bunkers as their emergency contingency plans carefully in place, they and their globalist puppet masters will win their next big war and survive to celebrate their victory. In contrast, it seems that the only real voice of reason coming from this unraveling global stage gone berserk is Putin who readily admitted a weak ago that “there are no winners in a global conflict,” especially if all of us above ground earthlings are dead.
Joachim Hagopian is a West Point graduate and former US Army officer. He has written a manuscript based on his unique military experience entitled “Don’t Let The Bastards Getcha Down.” It examines and focuses on US international relations, leadership and national security issues. After the military, Joachim earned a master’s degree in Clinical Psychology and worked as a licensed therapist in the mental health field for more than a quarter century. He now concentrates on his writing and has a blog site at http://empireexposed.blogspot.co.id/
The original source of this article is Global Research
Copyright © Joachim Hagopian, Global Research, 2015
