Wayne Madsen

Kerry’s Southeast Asia war experience and U.S. - China ties

To say that departing U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton soured U.S.-Chinese relations with her constant saber-rattling rhetoric about China’s intentions in East Asia is an understatement. China’s new leadership will be closely examining the record of prospective Secretary of State John Kerry, a Navy SEAL officer during the Vietnam War, for past statements decrying America’s military intervention in Southeast Asia. How Kerry responds to growing friction between China and neighboring nations over maritime waters and island disputes may reflect his past experiences in fighting in an unpopular war in Asia and his later activism against such future wars involving America.

One of Mrs. Clinton's lasting legacies from her time as Secretary of State is her penchant for encircling China with governments that are advancing America's interests in the region. For example, Clinton’s use of India to confront China in the South China Sea officially avoided getting the United States involved militarily in the Sino-Southeast Asian maritime conflict while assuring claimant countries like the Philippines and Vietnam that other non-claimant naval powers like India, in addition to Australia, have stakes in the maritime dispute with China.

However, it is the future of Sino-Japanese relations, especially with the advent of a right-wing revanchist Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) government in Tokyo and a new and younger Chinese government willing to flex China’s new-found financial and military might that poses the greatest challenges and risks for a Secretary of State Kerry.

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Ellen Brown

The “fiscal cliff” has all the earmarks of a false flag operation, full of sound and fury, intended to extort concessions from opponents. Neil Irwin of the Washington Post calls it “a self-induced austerity crisis.” David Weidner in the Wall Street Journal calls it simply theater, designed to pressure politicians into a budget deal:

The cliff is really just a trumped-up annual budget discussion. . . . The most likely outcome is a combination of tax increases, spending cuts and kicking the can down the road.

Yet the media coverage has been “panic-inducing, falling somewhere between that given to an approaching hurricane and an alien invasion.” In the summer of 2011, this sort of media hype succeeded in causing the Dow Jones Industrial Average to plunge nearly 2000 points. But this time the market is generally ignoring the cliff, either confident a deal will be reached or not caring.

The goal of the exercise seems to be to dismantle Social Security and Medicare, something a radical group of conservatives has worked for decades to achieve. But with the recent Democratic victories, demands for “fiscal responsibility” may just result in higher taxes for the rich, without gutting the entitlements.

The problem is that no deal is going to be satisfactory. If we go over the cliff, taxes will be raised on everyone, and GDP is predicted to drop by 3%. If a deal is reached, taxes will be raised on some people, and some services will be cut. But the underlying problems – high unemployment and a languishing economy – will remain. More effective solutions are needed.

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Stephen Lendman

Previous articles explained fiscal cliff duplicity in detail. At issue is destroying America's social contract. Both parties agreed early in Obama's first term. They plan killing it incrementally by a 1,000 cuts.

Class war rages. Private wealth and power are pitted against essential public needs. Property rights, individualism, and free-market mumbo jumbo hammer ordinary people mercilessly. Neoliberal harshness reflects it. Warren Buffet once said, "There's class warfare, all right, but it's my class, the rich class, that's winning."

Obama, Boehner and complicit congressional leaders agree. Plans are to give corporations and America's privileged class more. Unprecedented wealth extremes will widen. Public needs will grow. Shared sacrifice is one-way. Both parties concur. Obama and Boehner publicly dance around what both leaders agreed on months or years ago. Media scoundrels pretend otherwise.

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