China, Russia Cop The Demonisation Treatment In American Mainstream Media
Monstrous Defence Budgets Always Require Monstrous Enemies
The fact that this story appears in "the Bush family's favourite newspaper", the Washington Times, doesn't make the claims that are raised factually true, or untrue. In reality, it's probably a bit of both.
But it does mean someone in the Pentagon, or the White House, wanted the so-called 'intelligence' on China arming terrorists who are trying to kill Americans to get out into the mainstream media, and to smack heavily onto the news desks of right-wing talkback radio and Fox News.
This is the latest chapter in the growing demonisation of China and her military plans fashioned for an American audience.
At the same time, Russia is also getting the demonisation treatment in the mainstream American media.
As the Bush administration loses further ground in Iraq, and it becomes all but impossible to claim that the troop "surge" is working, or needs more time to work, the media voices blaming Iran, Russia and China for America's problems in Iraq and Afghanistan will only get louder.
Such leaked 'intelligence' serves to not only fill news time and column inches that would otherwise be devoted to the horror of Iraq, or the ceaseless bad news about the Bush administration, but it creates a need in the minds of Americans that they must continue to spend stunning amounts of money on defence - an estimated $530 billion in the next twelve months alone.
That China, as one of the top five weapons and arms manufacturers in the world, is selling military product that eventually winds up in the hands of terrorists and insurgents is barely an issue at all.
The other key arms makers - Russia, France, the UK, Germany, Israel and the US - also sell their weapons of war in open markets across the planet that constantly infiltrated by middle men who see no problem selling weapons on to genocidal thugs in Africa, jihadist tribes in Afghanistan, or IED-planting insurgents in Iraq, and face little international restrictions when it comes to doing so.
The international sales and export of bombs, missiles and bullets and the means to deliver them into humans is the biggest legal industry in the world, worth more than a trillion dollars a year.
When it comes to filling the world with appallingly vicious weapons of war, the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council, who also happen to be the five biggest manufacturers of the weapons of war, are all as guilty as each other.
From the Washington Times :
New intelligence reveals China is covertly supplying large quantities of small arms and weapons to insurgents in Iraq and the Taliban militia in Afghanistan, through Iran.But here's the disclaimer, the double-cover :
U.S. government appeals to China to check some of the arms shipments in advance were met with stonewalling by Beijing, which insisted it knew nothing about the shipments and asked for additional intelligence on the transfers. The ploy has been used in the past by China to hide its arms-proliferation activities from the United States, according to U.S. officials with access to the intelligence reports.
Some arms were sent by aircraft directly from Chinese factories to Afghanistan and included large-caliber sniper rifles, millions of rounds of ammunition, rocket-propelled grenades and components for roadside bombs, as well as other small arms.
The Washington Times reported June 5 that Chinese-made HN-5 anti-aircraft missiles were being used by the Taliban.
According to the officials, the Iranians, in buying the arms, asked Chinese state-run suppliers to expedite the transfers and to remove serial numbers to prevent tracing their origin. China, for its part, offered to transport the weapons in order to prevent the weapons from being interdicted.
The Bush administration has been trying to hide or downplay the intelligence reports to protect its pro-business policies toward China, and to continue to claim that China is helping the United States in the war on terrorism. U.S. officials have openly criticized Iran for the arms transfers but so far there has been no mention that China is a main supplier.Behind the demonisation of China over allegedly supplying weapons to terrorists are a ream of vastly under-reported financial and business-related stories.
Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates said Wednesday that the flow of Iranian arms to Afghanistan is "fairly substantial" and that it is likely taking place with the help of the Iranian government.
Defense officials are upset that Chinese weapons are being used to kill Americans. "Americans are being killed by Chinese-supplied weapons, with the full knowledge and understanding of Beijing where these weapons are going," one official said.
The arms shipments show that the idea that China is helping the United States in the war on terrorism is "utter nonsense," the official said.
The US wants China to devalue its currency, and to help wind back attempts by Iran and Russia to cease pricing its oil and energy in Euros, or other non-US currencies.
Bush himself said that China, and other Asian nations, must encourage its citizens to stop saving so much of their money, and start spending it, preferably on American goods and services, or even better, on American stocks and bonds.
But of course, those stories are nowhere near as exciting, or instantly infuriating, as hearing that China is supplying weapons that terrorists use to kill American soldiers.
War may break out one day between China and the US, probably over the independence of Taiwan, as many have long predicted.
But the trade war between China and the United States is already well underway. As readers of the history of World War I well know, the trade war always begins a few years before the military war fires up.
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