Medved and Jed Babbin: Warmongering
Published by Mike Stark May 24th, 2006 in Michael MedvedIt’s all they have - war. It looks like Babbin is prepping for the day, probably several years away, that we need to convince Americans that China is the big bad guy on the block…
spare me. (full disclosure: my wife is Chinese, my daughter is 1/2 Chinese)
He talks about China’s militarism and quotes a single Chinese colonel saying something military style about accumulating power… I would have loved to have had a follow up because I think just about every American officer has either quoted or had quoted for them Sun Tsu’s Art of War. The Army’s War College is nothing but war planning, war theory and the like…
Anyway…
Let’s get back to what China’s actual record… I’ve been alive since 1968. What conflicts have the US been involved in since then (either directly or through proxy)?
Vietnam
Grenada
Libya
Nicauragua/Honduras
Afghanistan vs. Russia
Iraq vs Iran
Panama
Iraq
Somalia
Haiti
Bosnia
Afghanistan (again)
Iraq (again)
Iran (according to some reports)
In that time, where has China engaged?
Tibet
And China is the country bound and determined to exert its will through military force?
13 Responses to “Medved and Jed Babbin: Warmongering”
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If by proxy, you mean supplying arms, I respectfully disagree with your assessment. Data is readily available from multiple sources to track who sells what to whom. China sells a lot. China might end up being the only superpower in 20 years, so I suggest we make nice with them.
BTW, lengthy conversations over (bad) Chinese cigarettes with Chinese citiizens has taught me two things. 1. The Chinese are extremely friendly people who smoke horrible tobacco. 2. The average Chinese citizen sees political dissent as a traitorous act (they had watched the Daily Show and thought it should be banned). If and when they become the dominant force in the world, we will get to see how “liberal” the communists are.
nah - I don’t mean supplying of arms - rather, I speak of fighting wars that are in our interest at least as much as they are in the interest of the proxy state… whether it kept the USSR from encroaching on the epicenter of oil production (the Afghanistan war) or whether it involves a secular dictator fighting an theocratic regime that had overthrown the American supported autocrat (Iraq vs Iran), many war were fought with other nation’s blood - but at our behest… oh yeah, Central America also…
Yeah - i still haven’t figured out the Chinese in my family - outwardly meek and deferential, but their iron wills and incredible discipline has propelled their fortunes to an extent you don’t see often amongst those born in this country. There’s a lot to respect about that mysterious culture…
I agree with that. America (unfortunately) has been reading too many comics. Superman is a great ideal, but we aren’t from Krypton. Coldhearted as it may sound, Dictators and Tyrants should be allowed to move unchecked against our interests and those of the human race. Liberty is probably best homegrown and after lots of blood. Forget that Muslims in Crotia renamed a street after Clinton, Milosevic would have been stopped eventually. Warlords have always existed and always fail. Be it through the treachery of their own advisors or the overwhelming force of the populace, they can’t sustain the long haul.
America has simply attempted to fix the lamp shade too many times whilst breaking the lamp and the table it was on. Good intentions can be found in every single conflict you listed, but that is unimportant.
The father of a good friend was arrested in Kuwait by Iraqi soldiers. While being Kuwaiti would have been bad enough, he is Iranian. After an interview, his Arabic revealed itself as such. He was brought before an officer that told him he wolud be shot and put him into a holding pen. After a changing of the guard and a bad turnover, he was released by accident and lives in America(with his family) today. I truly feel bad for those souls about to be extinguished through execution for no good reason. Since we have really made few friends in the pursuit of doing what we perceive as “the right way”, I prefer a lot of talk and ultimately inaction (see U.N. response to Rwanda).
Not that I want to nitpick, but your U.S. conflicts list should also include El Salvador and Israel vs. Lebanon.
You must understand that Medved is a person who thinks that the Russians and the Chinese are going to march across the rivers into Babylon, where the Apocolypse is shining bright beneath the blowing trumpets of the Angels of God. Medved, along with many others, is telling you that they want the end times to come true so that they can be raptured into heaven. They are miserable here on earth and they want God to take them away.
Anyway these people can kick start the rapture, whether its by taking Hussein out and Rebuilding Babylon as in the description in the book of Revelations, or by kickstarting the march across the Euphrates River by Pan-Asian and Russian forces, they will do it!
C3
america the stolen.blogspot.com
China invaded Vietnam in 79, amounted to a border clash.
Also border clashes with USSR in 69 and 78, INDIA in 62
and dont forget Skirmishes with Taiwan.
good catch daily… but…
I’d point out that each of these (and Tibet) were border type clashes - they don’t represent China attempting to shape world affiars through militarism.
War mongering is usually done for economic gain by the mongers. In modern America’s case, the bonanza is had by the defense industry. If there was peace “industry” this would be a different world. The Medveds of the world win until they lose, and if the war’s they incite go badly they are put to the wall.
Earlier comment that warlords always fail: yes, but there is always another one right behind them. A warlord culture is what Medieval times were for Western Culture. It seems to be China’s status quo until communism “modernised” them. I don’t doubt they would continue it if left on their own. I grant this is mysterious. Also, not a people I want to sell my country to.
China is a strange case. They are strangely subservient to announced authority, and seem to be of exaggerated self-interest in some areas (commerce I’m thinking about), and exaggerated self-denial in others.
What scares me about talking to Chinese people today is, they seem to have learned nothing from Mao. Within the lifetimes of today’s older adults, there were 30,000,000 dead in the Cultural Revolution, and they still see political dissent as treason. You gotta wonder.
The first whiff I got about the wingnut “China is a monster” meme came from Slots Bennett in March 2005. Bill Geertz from the WashTimes has been beating the drum for a long time and more recently Dan Blumenthal, a hack from AEI, had an op-ed in the WaPo about the Chinese Menace.
“We’ve always been at war with Oceania”
Southern sons “A warlord culture is what Medieval times were for Western Culture” is a confusing statement. War is as old as man. We are no longer in the medieval times, yet there is still war. The “Aztec Warrior” chant is not just a joke that you see in movies with a Mexican guy gyrating his hips, they fought too.
People have classically been brutal and at the same time loving towards one another. One of the more moving documentaries I’ve ever seen is one about the Khmer Rouge. The level of brutality and pure evil demonstrated through those years is amazing to look back on. Watching a former torturer explain how it was more of a “torture lest you and your family be tortured” was heart wrenching. But still he tortured without sacrifice, at least no sacrifice of his own. Tyrants are brought down through someones sacrifice.
A great book about an American Communist who gets screwed over in China is “The Man Who Stayed Behind”. Here was a full blown water carrier for the communist movement who fell in love with the ChiCom system as a translator during WWII. He stayed there after the war and did absolutely everything he could to be the best Maoist alive. Not only did he fail, but the system imprisoned, tortured, and re-educated him for 16 of the 35 years he spent there. The worst part was that every time he was arrested and imprisoned, he blamed himself like a rape victim. His Chinese could be better, his understanding of the revolution needed to be refined. He always came up with some excuse for a government that he truly thought was infallible. He was so well known in the beginning of his stay that he even knew Zhou Enlai and Mao. The worst thing the Party ever did was apologize to him for “past mistakes”. His eyes then opened to the possibility that Chinese incarnation of government is the same as everyone elses, faulty. Men who make mistakes cannot create a government free of them. This man now lives in America with his family. Imagine that.
What will our cozy relationship bring forth? Eventually we will bend to their will in the event of a troubling hitch in our relationship(s), they are importing 235 billion dollars of cheap economic goods, most of it set up, funded and financed by those American corporations making minute amounts of the American people uber-wealthy while more jobs are replaced by service industry jobs here. Maybe we should be as worried about North Korea as we are the Chinese, it is the North Koreans who imbue in their entire country of people a common hatred of America as the great evil. They would likely be the kind of soldiers who would gleefully slaughter American troops, who could never match their numbers, even with S.Korean help.
The point is our meddling makes us hated not only in the Middle East but parts of Asia as well, and no one should think that a confrontation with China is not possible. It is because of Americans and their cash flow through economic means that China has become the worlds fourth largest economy and may likely someday be first.
mike,
i was hoping to hear you call into medved when he had on bernie goldberg….goldberg is scum
Read your history!!!
Do not forget that it was General Douglas MacArthur was the one who drew China into the Korean War.
As far as Tibet goes, (and I am a Buddhist), the Dalai Lama was a CIA operative and held all of the wealth of Tibet. Under the Dalai Lama, there was no infrastructure. There was no electricity, running water and sewage or trash systems in place. The people of Tibet lived like animals.
Tibet is and has been a part of China, as has Taiwan, that is a fact.
I agree with Pete S. My wife is Chinese and we go back every year. Her family is well educated and professional. I also am related to a retilred four-star Chinese officer.
We talk about all these things on many occasions.
China has no intentions of invading other countries. They just want to be left alone. They have enough problems of their own to worry about without esclating the situation.
Americans have been brainwashed about China. It is just another attempt by the Corporate Imperialists to create tension and sell arms.
Wise up America. China could be our best ally.