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Post by jdredd on Jun 13, 2019 13:55:45 GMT -5
www.nytimes.com/2019/06/13/opinion/hong-kong-protests-trump.html?action=click&module=Opinion&pgtype=Homepage"Hong Kong and the Future of Freedom" "Under Trump, Uncle Sam no longer puts up his fists in defense of Lady Liberty." "Hong Kong’s relationship with the mainland is supposed to be governed by the principle of “one country, two systems.” But as with any form of pluralism, it’s a principle that poses inherent dangers to Beijing. It was little West Berlin that, merely by being free, helped bring down the mighty (as it seemed at the time) Honecker regime in East Germany in 1989. The Chinese supreme leader, Xi Jinping, isn’t about to let that happen to him via Hong Kong. Then again, maybe he shouldn’t be so worried. Throughout the 1980s the free world was politically united and morally confident: It believed in its liberal-democratic values, in their universality, and in the immorality of those who sought to abridge or deny them. It also wasn’t afraid to speak out. When Ronald Reagan called the Soviet Union “the focus of evil in the modern world,” one prominent liberal writer denounced him as “primitive.” But it was such rhetoric that gave courage to dissidents and dreamers on the other side of the wall. What’s really primitive is to look upon the oppression of others and, whether out of deficient sympathy or excessive sophistication, remain silent." I guess this is as good a place as any to start this thread, with a piece of Cold War nostalgia starring Ronald Reagan. He gets the credit for a lot, deserved or not. I think many Americans think we are directly responsible for the implosion of the Soviet Union. Hey, you can spin history any way you like. But America continues it's arrogant ways under The Donald despite what Bret thinks IMHO, and now our wrath is directed at China for being so uppity and not knowing it's place. It's our way or the highway still. Also, "Uncle Sam no longer puts up his fists in defense of Lady Liberty" makes me smile. It's so Great War.
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Post by jdredd on Jun 15, 2019 11:18:52 GMT -5
www.nytimes.com/2019/06/15/us/politics/trump-cyber-russia-grid.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage"The administration declined to describe specific actions it was taking under the new authorities, which were granted separately by the White House and Congress last year to United States Cyber Command, the arm of the Pentagon that runs the military’s offensive and defensive operations in the online world. But in a public appearance on Tuesday, President Trump’s national security adviser, John R. Bolton, said the United States was now taking a broader view of potential digital targets as part of an effort “to say to Russia, or anybody else that’s engaged in cyberoperations against us, ‘You will pay a price.’” Power grids have been a low-intensity battleground for years. Since at least 2012, current and former officials say, the United States has put reconnaissance probes into the control systems of the Russian electric grid. But now the American strategy has shifted more toward offense, officials say, with the placement of potentially crippling malware inside the Russian system at a depth and with an aggressiveness that had never been tried before. It is intended partly as a warning, and partly to be poised to conduct cyberstrikes if a major conflict broke out between Washington and Moscow."
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Post by jdredd on Jun 17, 2019 0:40:09 GMT -5
www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2019/06/17/asia-pacific/politics-diplomacy-asia-pacific/trump-raise-hong-kong-protests-xi-g20-mike-pompeo/#.XQcm_oWImQk"WASHINGTON - U.S. President Donald Trump will discuss the mass protests in Hong Kong with his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, at the upcoming G20 summit, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Sunday. “I think we’ll get the opportunity to see President Xi in just a couple weeks now at the G20 summit. I’m sure this will be among the issues that they discuss,” Pompeo said in an interview with “Fox News Sunday.” “We see what’s happening, what’s unfolding in Hong Kong. We are watching the people of Hong Kong speak about the things they value,” Pompeo added. Trump said last week he hoped the protesters — who have taken to the streets to denounce a controversial extradition law — would “work it out” with China, while stopping short of condemning the legislation which has now been suspended. Pompeo insisted “the president has always been a vigorous defender of human rights” and said Trump’s imposition of widespread tariffs on Chinese goods as part of a trade dispute showed his willingness to confront Beijing. “For an awfully long time under Republican, Democrat presidents, we allowed China to take advantage of us on trade and in other ways. President Trump has pushed back very strongly against them.” America the self-righteous.
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Post by jdredd on Jul 24, 2019 1:29:51 GMT -5
www.nytimes.com/2019/07/23/world/asia/trump-afghanistan.html"KABUL, Afghanistan — Afghanistan demanded a clarification on Tuesday of President Trump’s comments a day earlier that he could have had the country “wiped off the face of the earth” but did not “want to kill 10 million people.” "Abdul Latif Pedram, an Afghan presidential candidate who is opposed to the Taliban and who has met informally with Taliban officials, accused Mr. Trump of “shameless arrogance.” In a statement, Mr. Pedram called on the United States to withdraw its troops and for Afghans to fight Americans “until the withdrawal of your very last soldier.” Addressing Mr. Trump, Mr. Pedram added, “Many occupiers have tried to capture this country, but they found only a graveyard. This country will be your graveyard.” On the street and on social media, ordinary Afghans responded with a mix of fury and bewilderment. “He is not a sane person,” Khan Ali, 35, a street vendor, said of Mr. Trump. Mohammad Arif, 50, a shoemaker, said of the president’s comments: “This is in no way possible. Trump has a kind of madness.” Another Facebook user, Masoud Hemayat, posted, “Until there is only a single American in Afghanistan, we will not see a happy day in our country.” Good job of winning the "hearts and minds" of the Afganis, Donald.
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Post by jdredd on Aug 8, 2019 0:49:24 GMT -5
www.nytimes.com/2019/08/06/opinion/trump-china-trade.html"As this column has argued, Trump should have signed the Trans-Pacific Partnership free trade agreement, which would have aligned all the major Pacific economies — except China — around United States trade values, norms, interests and standards, and lowered thousands of tariffs on American products. Instead, Trump tore up the TPP. Then Trump should have lined up all the European Union countries, which have the same trade problems with China as we do, on our side. Instead, Trump hit them with tariffs on steel and other goods, just as he did China. Then Trump should have told Xi that we and our Pacific and European partners wanted to negotiate with him “in secret” on a new trade regime and no one would lose face. But in that secret negotiation, it would be “the world’s trade standards and values versus China’s.”Instead, Trump went it alone — and made it America versus China alone. If everything is “America first,” why should anyone help us?" So old Tom is arguing that we should be torpedoing China's threat to America's hegemony, but we should do it in a smarter way. By the way, if our "values" are so awesome, why do we have a lunatic President who can even make the Chicoms look virtuous?
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Post by jdredd on Aug 14, 2019 16:26:03 GMT -5
www.nytimes.com/2019/08/13/opinion/trump-china.html?action=click&module=Well&pgtype=Homepage§ion=OpEd%20Columnists"In his confusion, Trump has never spelled out what he considers “victory” in the trade war with China, which he initiated and declared to be “easy” to win. Are we seeking reciprocal treatment for U.S. companies in China (which should be the goal) or to eliminate our trade deficit with China? The first takes a lot of work with China, the second a lot of work at home. But let’s assume that it’s the first. There are two ways to go about this: with tariffs or with allies. Trump has chosen to bludgeon China with tariffs on all $500 billion-plus of China’s exports to America and to go it alone — without the rest of the world — arguing that China only understands force. A leader who claims an adversary "only understands force" is a leader who himself only understands force.
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Post by jdredd on Aug 31, 2019 12:36:43 GMT -5
www.nytimes.com/2019/08/30/opinion/sunday/hong-kong-protests.html?action=click&module=Opinion&pgtype=Homepage"In addition, Chinese news coverage of the protests has resulted in a wave of anti-Hong Kong nationalism on the mainland that may add to the pressure to suppress protesters. In fairness, mainlanders do make one valid point: If protesters in America were throwing Molotov cocktails at police officers, the United States might well have seen more than the single warning shot fired by the police so far in Hong Kong.This great city may be at a turning point, and Trump and other world leaders should make clearer that Xi will pay a severe price if he uses force — whether by troops or by triads — to try to crush Hong Kong. Granted this must be done delicately, because publicly siding with protesters risks confirming Xi’s narrative that America is secretly steering the movement. One helpful step would be for Congress to pass the bipartisan Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act, which would sanction officials who suppress freedoms in Hong Kong." Here is the NYT's "China Hand" chiming in. Alas, I think Congress should butt out. Our "help" can only hurt. But America the Arrogant cannot help butting in.
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Post by jdredd on Sept 3, 2019 22:46:15 GMT -5
www.nytimes.com/2019/09/03/opinion/hong-kong-protests.html?action=click&module=Opinion&pgtype=Homepage"But the Hong Kong protesters are not waging a color revolution. Their goal is not some abstract ideal of democracy, but the memory of a way of life they have no intention of letting Beijing take away. They are fired not by foreign agents but by China’s attempts to deny them full participation in their government, which they were promised through 2047 in the agreement under which Britain ceded control over Hong Kong. That’s a just cause, even if the protesters have at times resorted to violence. In the past, the United States would be expected to intercede as the world’s greatest champion of human rights. Alas, President Trump has so far treated the Hong Kong protests largely as a diversion from his trade war with China, at one point telling Mr. Xi that the United States would not interfere in what China did in Hong Kong. Mr. Trump has since issued a variety of conflicting tweets and remarks, of which the most supportive of the pro-democracy demonstrators was a demand that Mr. Xi “work humanely with Hong Kong.” If the U.S. is the "world's greatest champion of human rights", then human rights in the world are in deep sh*t.
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Post by jdredd on Sept 29, 2019 14:32:21 GMT -5
First Trumpy went after Huawei, now he's going after Cosco. Do I detect a pattern here? It simply looks like America is going after Chinese corporate competitors using any pretext they can conjure.
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Post by jdredd on Oct 7, 2019 23:53:26 GMT -5
www.nationalreview.com/2019/09/us-china-trade-war-smart-geopolitics/"Perhaps Trump’s most serious misstep has been the failure of his administration to explain the trade war in geopolitical terms, instead preferring to talk about closing trade deficits and thereby ceding the terms of the fight to the free traders. Vice President Pence outlined a comprehensive anti-China strategy just last year, but that narrative has failed to embed itself in the public consciousness, and now popular understanding of the trade war is unhelpfully colored by Trump’s improvised economic musings on Twitter. 52 Americans have been taught to see free trade as core to our identity, and the Republican policy firmament remains filled with thinkers who can’t acknowledge that a neutral policy of “let the market decide” means, in this case, “let the Chinese Communist Party decide.” As Marco Rubio put it in a recent report on China’s rise: “In a world of state competition for valuable industries, a domestic policy of neutrality is itself a selection of priority.” If we refuse to allow even short-term harm to come to consumers while China resolves to “eat bitterness,” we will lose the long-term geopolitical competition for productivity, innovation, and power. And if we continue to believe that the world is better off with a liberal democracy at the helm rather than an authoritarian surveillance state, that cannot be allowed to happen. When geopolitical advantage rather than low consumer prices is the desired end, tariffs help get us there. Out of patriotism, we must now be willing to eat some bitterness of our own." Let me get this straight: Consumers are supposed to be thrilled to pay higher amounts for almost everything so we can win some contest that exists in the paranoid minds of right-wing geopolitical types? The argument for this confrontation might have resonated somewhat more before 2016, before we had an ignorant bully in the WH.
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Post by jdredd on Oct 11, 2019 14:27:09 GMT -5
www.nytimes.com/2019/10/11/us/politics/turkey-sanctions-syria-kurds-trump.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage"WASHINGTON — The Trump administration on Friday belatedly threatened new sanctions against Turkey that officials said could cripple Turkey’s economy in response to its military offensive against Kurds in northern Syria. President Trump will sign an executive order giving the Treasury Department new powers to punish Turkish government officials if Turkey targets ethnic and religious minorities in its operations against the Kurds. The White House also warned that if any Islamic State fighters being held in prisons in the area were allowed by Turkey to escape, the United States would respond forcefully. “We can shut down the Turkish economy if we need to,” the Treasury secretary, Steven Mnuchin, said in a briefing at the White House." Ha-ha! This is fun! America threatening to shut down the economy of a NATO "ally"! The list of countries Trump is bullying just keeps getting longer.
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Post by jdredd on Nov 17, 2019 20:23:40 GMT -5
www.nytimes.com/2019/11/16/opinion/hong-kong-protests.html?action=click&module=Opinion&pgtype=Homepage"In the end, however, there is no choice for those who cherish freedom but to support the protests, as a bill pending in the United States Congress does. The protests may be counterproductive, destructive, leaderless and even futile, but for these same reasons they are an altruistic, self-sacrificing and genuine demonstration that people who have known freedom, even in a limited form, refuse to surrender it." Oh boy! A bill! Totally useless and self-righteous but I'm sure it will pass unanimously. No politician would want to look "Soft on China". Can we mind our own business for once? Of course not. Oh wait, we can mind our own business when some right-wing generals somewhere murder THEIR people. In fact, we usually reward them.
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Post by jdredd on Nov 30, 2019 2:17:58 GMT -5
www.nytimes.com/2019/11/29/opinion/cuba-ferrer-prison.html?action=click&module=Opinion&pgtype=Homepage"Those are words that Ferrer would instantly recognize as coming from a kindred spirit. Andrei Sakharov, Liu Xiaobo, and Nelson Mandela would have recognized them, too. The struggle for freedom is a single struggle. The plight of a dissident in a Cuban dungeon matters not only to Cubans. The fight for women’s rights in Iran matters to anyone who cares for human rights. As for the U.S., championing dissidents once played a unifying role in a bipartisan foreign policy. Donald Trump’s reluctant but correct decision this week to sign a bill to support Hong Kong’s protesters suggests the tradition isn’t dead. Dissidents deserve that support not just because of who they are, or what they have suffered, or the cause they embody. It’s also because they are, potentially, our most potent weapon in undermining our enemies.
Their cause isn’t, and must never be, lost. On this long weekend, thank Ferrer, the Alinejads and everyone else lighting lanterns of liberty in the world’s dark corners." Bret lets the cat out of the bag. Our support of dissidents is just another arrow in our quiver against our "enemies".
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Post by jdredd on Dec 27, 2019 21:24:28 GMT -5
www.nytimes.com/2019/12/27/us/politics/trumps-human-rights-congress.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage"WASHINGTON — In a rare show of bipartisan unity, Republicans and Democrats are planning to try to force President Trump to take a more active stand on human rights in China, preparing veto-proof legislation that would punish top Chinese officials for detaining more than one million Muslims in internment camps. The effort comes amid growing congressional frustration with Mr. Trump’s unwillingness to challenge China over human rights abuses, despite vivid news reports this year outlining atrocities, or to confront such issues globally. To press Mr. Trump into action on China, lawmakers plan to move ahead with legislation that would punish Beijing for its repression of ethnic Uighur Muslims, with enough supporters to compel the president to sign or risk being overruled by Congress ahead of the 2020 election. A version of the legislation, known as the Uighur Human Rights Policy Act, passed both the House and Senate this year, but its path to the White House was stalled this month by a procedural process." America getting on it's high horse again. Is this all the doing of Boomers? Or are Gen X and the Millennials jumping on this bandwagon too? It's so easy.
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Post by jdredd on Mar 21, 2020 22:05:31 GMT -5
Perhaps America's arrogance is starting to show cracks now.
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