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Almost War with China

Comment by Larry Ross, June 4, 2007

This vitally important article in the US Congressional Quarterly is a very important revelation of how close the world came to a major US nuclear war with China. This almost happened because Taiwanese politicians were encouraged by US Defence Department highly-placed necons to declare independence from China. This was clandestinely encouraged by top neocon members of the Bush regime, such as Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Feith, Cambora and right wing Republicans in particular. We can thank Colin Powell, and the US State department at that time, for correcting this impression with independence-minded Taiwanese politicians, saying the US may not defend Taiwan if it declares independence.

These revelations by Lawrence B. Wilkerson seem particularly credible as Wilkerson served as Colin Powell's chief of staff through two administrations. As encouraging Taiwanese independence was against Bush stated policy, the neocons and their allies denied Wilkerson's revelations. However the neocons have a long record of lying to further their policies as indicated by the lies they invented for Bush to fool and deceive Americans into supporting his illegal assault on Iraq.

Nothing the neocons can say can be trusted especially if there is a credible source like Wilkerson who claims they are lying.

If the neocon plot had worked, and Taiwan declared independence, the neocons knew that could have triggered a US-China nuclear war over Taiwan. Although allegedly against Taiwan declaring independence, Bush did say the US would defend Taiwan if China attacked it. So he, as well as the US public and the rest of the world including US allies, could have been tricked into this major war by a neocon plot that neocons deny today, and would have denied then if China had attacked Taiwan after it had declared independence.

The US would probably have attacked China in defence of Taiwan as Bush had promised. Most US allies would have automatically supported the US, and like Blair and Howard over the neocon-inspired Iraq war, automatically repeated Bush neocon lies and justifications for joining in attacking China.

The lesson here is that a major nuclear war could have be due to a criminal plot by neocons who hold high office in the US today. While it's true Rumsfeld may be gone from his position as US defence secretary, his influence and policies may still be active. The other neocons are still in high positions and what El Baradei calls their "crazy policies for war with Iran" still rule US foreign policy.

Another reason to trust the veracity of the Wilkerson testimony, is that a US war with China would reflect the neocons' policies and plans for US global domination being followed today by the Bush Administration.. That also includes a war with Iran which neocons in the Bush Administration, including President Bush are working hard to commence. They may yet succeed with this, again using a series of tricks and subterfuges. If they succeed, and it does not trigger a World War III, China could become a target later as implied in the "US Nuclear Posture Review". Also, the neocons have developed several dangerous new nuclear and defence doctrines - allowing the President to wage pre-emptive nuclear war - more or less on his own 'judgment' - and declaring that US dominance must continue and that the US will not allow it's dominance to be challenged by any other nation (such as China). The doctrines for a multiple series of wars are in place, the neocons are still very much in power, and Bush is very obviously vigorously pursuing the neocon-created agenda. This is underscored by Bush escalating his 'surge' to include more troops for Iraq than he originally admitted, and also plans for indefinite occupation of Iraq. This has also been underscored for some time by the new permanent US military bases in Iraq, as well as building the biggest US Embassy in the world in Baghdad. Thus the Bush statements about leaving Iraq have always been a fraud for public consumption, and to give the democratic opposition a meatless bone to chew on. However the Democrats seem to have got the message and after a few noises about troop withdrawal dates, have agreed to finance the Iraq War indefinitely with no dates for US troop withdrawal.

So we may get a war with Iran that becomes as calamitous as a war with China. It could lead directly to a series of other wars, if not a World War III. If they somehow avoid a World War III, the neocons may plan to have their war with China when the US is ready for that step at a later date.

Many people are counting on the Bush Administration losing power before they can engineer more wars including a war with Iran. However my reading of the facts and Bush policies is that Bush may find an excuse to stay in power as President and postpone elections indefinitely, or a similar regime may replace Bush and carry on the same general global domination plan, perhaps calling it something else. Or they may orchestrate events (as the neocons almost did for a US war with China) so that it looks as if the US was either 'forced' to go to war, or had to go to war 'to defend our allies', etc.

To stop the Bush-neocon war machine, the only course seems to me to be to impeach Bush and top neocons in his Administration. That's mainly a job for Americans but others could help as we could all be victims of Bush's war policies.

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Defense Officials Tried to Reverse China Policy, Says Powell Aide

by Jeff Stein, Congressional Quarterly, June 1, 2007

The same top Bush administration neoconservatives who leap-frogged Washington's foreign policy establishment to topple Saddam Hussein nearly pulled off a similar coup in U.S.-China relations—creating the potential of a nuclear war over Taiwan, a top aide to former Secretary of State Colin Powell says.

Lawrence B. Wilkerson, the U.S. Army colonel who was Powell's chief of staff through two administrations, said in little-noted remarks early last month that “neocons” in the top rungs of the administration quietly encouraged Taiwanese politicians to move toward a declaration of independence from mainland China — an act that the communist regime has repeatedly warned would provoke a military strike.

The top U.S. diplomat in Taiwan at the time, Douglas Paal, backs up Wilkerson's account, which is being hotly disputed by key former defense officials.

Under the deliberately fuzzy diplomatic formula hammered out between former President Richard Nixon and Chairman Mao Zedong in 1971, the United States agreed that there is only “one China” —with its capital in Beijing.

But right-wing Republicans in particular continued to embrace Taiwan as an anticommunist bastion 125 miles off the Chinese coast, long after their own party leaders and U.S. big business embraced the communist regime.

With the election of George W. Bush in 2000, some of Taiwan's most fervent allies were swept back into power in Washington, particularly at the Pentagon, starting with Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld.

They included such key architects of the Iraq War as Paul Wolfowitz, the deputy defense secretary, Douglas Feith, the undersecretary for policy, and Steven Cambone, Rumsfeld's new intelligence chief, Wilkerson said. President Bush's controversial envoy to the United Nations, John Bolton, was another.

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