View attachment 82944 The full reason is that India had the bomb. As far as Pakistan was concerned it was prepared to literally starve itself in its quest to also get the bomb. And that was the consensus of the population too. No nation was going to stop it.
It's a bit sly. A military base is just a dot on a huge landscape. We in Australia have a military base or presense in Darwin. They are there at our invitation because we fear the encroachment of China in our northern waters. Like the Philippines we can ask them to leave at any time - but if we Australians want security; don't want to go nuclear; don't want to increase defense spending to 4, 5 or 6% of GDP then having a base is acceptable. And given the dangers in the world we want to show we are pulling our own weight. We are grateful for the "Roman peace" the US has provided to Europe, Asia and the Pacific. Despite this "having military bases and troops" I have never met one single America soldier based here. Saying that America should globally go home is irresponsible. It's presence acts as a moderator - enhancing security, stopping the whole world going nuclear, enhancing trade and causing nations (ie Japan and Korea) who have traditionally been enemies, to start seeing them selves are part of the global world. American presence in fact isn't "America", it's the power, presence and security of the Western World - of which the USA is the leader.
And since Trump announced the removal of troops from Syria I see the MSM is starting to report ISIS is making a comeback. MSM is so contrived.
Can you provide a link to your post? Everything I have been reading is Pakistan shot down two Indian jets. India flies the MIGS. As of yet no one knows which aircraft was used by Pakistan to shoot down the MIGs.
My country India is claiming the f16 kill by mig 21 seriously . The Indian mig 21 had been extensively modernised by modern radar , modern missiles , modern avionics etc and so it was not as inadvanced as you think. Here's an Indian link--- https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.in...-mistaken-identity-reports-1469316-2019-03-03
Yes, agreed. Hence my reference to the Atlantic or Washington consensus to which both Australia and my own country are members. And there are benefits to being members of the Washington power structure - especially for corporations and political elites. Australia has a very right-wing power structure which serves the interests of empire very well. But make no mistake it is an empire and as much a military empire as well as an economic one. And it is ruthless and extremely violent in projecting it's power around the globe. Just ask the countless nations from Guatemala and Iran to Libya and Iraq who have had their democratic process interfered with through coups and covert operations to those who have been subject to crippling economic sanctions or outright military invasion in the name of freedom and democracy - or more accurately to secure land and resources through never-ending wars and aggression. The trouble with empire is, as so many nations of which Venezuela is just the latest, that it cannot live with any country that chooses another path than the Neo-Liberal, unfettered capitalist system which America holds to be the natural order of things since it's great enemy, the Soviet Union collapsed. Anyone who tries as Castro, Chavez and so many others found out, is subject to all the power and economic pressure the empire can bring to bear until it gets the regime change, for better or worse, that it wants. And it cannot live without a permanent war economy that benefits it's massive armament industry no matter how many innocents in all those shithole countries where the killing usually takes place die. Who benefits from these endless wars against weaker nations - the wretched of the Earth? Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, Boeing, General Dynamics, Northrop Grumman........ Why do you think top government officials are always cycling out of jobs in the military industrial sector into government and then back again? The nature of economic and military empire................
No question. China is trying to defend itself and create a economic power structure of it's own in direct competition with the US. It perceives the threat and is trying to create a multi-polar world with itself as a viable superpower. It seeks to compete both economically and militarily with the US knowing that whoever controls central Asia will likely control the trade routes of the future.
Is this "Australian right wing power structure" elected by the people? How are those Left wing power structures doing? Or the dictatorial power structures?
Economic power structures are not a problem when the people within them are free but a military power structure can be quite different. What 'threat' is China perceiving?
Yes, western powers have elections. Many countries do. Does this mean you can vote for candidates that serve your interest or the interest of the corporate power structure as it currently stands? Do you mean the dictatorial powers supported by your government both past and present such as Saudi Arabia, Egypt or former soviet republics or is it just the evil left-wing ones you are objecting to: "Many of the 45 present-day undemocratic U.S. base hosts qualify as fully “authoritarian regimes,” according to the Economist Democracy Index. In such cases, American installations and the troops stationed on them are effectively helping block the spread of democracy in countries like Cameroon, Chad, Ethiopia, Jordan, Kuwait, Niger, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates. This pattern of daily support for dictatorship and repression around the world should be a national scandal in a country supposedly committed to democracy. It should trouble Americans ranging from religious conservatives and libertarians to leftists ― anyone, in fact, who believes in the democratic principles enshrined in the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence. After all, one of the long-articulated justifications for maintaining military bases abroad has been that the U.S. military’s presence protects and spreads democracy. Far from bringing democracy to these lands, however, such bases tend to provide legitimacy for and prop up undemocratic regimes of all sorts, while often interfering with genuine efforts to encourage political and democratic reform. The silencing of the critics of human rights abuses in base hosts like Bahrain, which has violently cracked down on pro-democracy demonstrators since 2011, has left the United States complicit in these states’ crimes. During the Cold War, bases in undemocratic countries were often justified as the unfortunate but necessary consequence of confronting the “communist menace” of the Soviet Union. But here’s the curious thing: in the quarter century, since the Cold War ended with that empire’s implosion, few of those bases have closed. Today, while a White House visit from an autocrat may generate indignation, the presence of such installations in countries run by repressive or military rulers receives little notice at all. Befriending Dictators The 45 nations and territories with little or no democratic rule represent more than half of the roughly 80 countries now hosting U.S. bases (who often lack the power to ask their “guests” to leave). They are part of a historically unprecedented global network of military installations the United States has built or occupied since World War II. Today, while there are no foreign bases in the United States, there are around 800 U.S. bases in foreign countries. That number was recently even higher, but it still almost certainly represents a record for any nation or empire in history. More than 70 years after World War II and 64 years after the Korean War, there are, according to the Pentagon, 181 U.S. “base sites” in Germany, 122 in Japan, and 83 in South Korea. Hundreds more dot the planet from Aruba to Australia, Belgium to Bulgaria, Colombia to Qatar. Hundreds of thousands of U.S. troops, civilians, and family members occupy these installations. By my conservative estimate, to maintain such a level of bases and troops abroad, U.S. taxpayers spend at least $150 billion annually ― more than the budget of any government agency except the Pentagon itself. For decades, leaders in Washington have insisted that bases abroad spread our values and democracy ― and that may have been true to some extent in occupied Germany, Japan, and Italy after World War II. However, as base expert Catherine Lutz suggests, the subsequent historical record shows that “gaining and maintaining access for U.S. bases has often involved close collaboration with despotic governments.” https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entr...-military-regimes_us_591b229ae4b05dd15f0ba8e6
That is the trouble with empire as it currently stands. It simply refuses to see that any other country has interests other than it's own. If you are unable to see how the US is using it's economic and military power to undermine China's inevitable rise to superpower status in direct competition and stoking geo-political tensions in the world in the process then, like the shrinking and complacent middle class in Roman empire before, you are living the comfortable life in the heart of empire coddled by the belief that your government is in the right and acting in your interests while your growing list of countries you carry out military operations and sanctions in are all evil and deserving of the never-ending wars and regime changes your empire is engaged in to try and prop up the crumbling hegemony over the world and it's people which you think is your right.
Let me present the Counter-Argument. Aust and USA don't have empire - Russia, China, even Vietnam do. Aust has a "right wing power structure" but it also has a "left wing power structure" USA has political elites - these also include Sanders and Clinton. The "members of the Washington power structure" include ordinary people voted into office. They include people who's ancestors have come from all over Europe, Asia and Sth America because the USA offered them freedom. Such people take offense at the Venezuelas, Nicaraguas, Cubas because many of them fled from these very "power structures." The worse "power structures" are Cultural Marxists who penetrate our churches, businesses, parliament, NGO's etc.. We have just had this "social license" rejected by our Aust Stock Exchange. This creepy legislation would enable lefties to take control of companies - first through innocent things like Global Warming policies and work its way through gender equality, trans toilets, wages, working conditions, marketing policies, language rules, investments etc.. A bonanza for your Marxists - something to make Antonio Gramski and Saul Alinksy proud. And then, extend this "social license" into churches. Happening already with a Tasmanian Catholic Bishop charged with "hate speech" over the bible's attitude towards homosexuality.
A rising China superpower after Deng wasn't a big issue to America. Even creating fake islands and bullying SE Asia didn't perturb USA that much. But once Xi came to power and the nation began reverting to Communist ideology the West and its allies began paying more attention to China and its tactics. It's not so much there another empire in the making. India doesn't bother the West. It's the nature of that empire. And besides, isn't the Left opposed to Empire? Not really, it's just opposed to America because this nation symbolizes the West.
All the strawmen arguments aside (how does Vietnam have an empire?) no one said Australia was an empire. Like Canada, it is a sort of vassal state of empire. The Washington power structure does not include ordinary people voted into office with the possible exception of some of the younger democrats coming up in the system. We shall see how far that goes. The Washington power structure is ruled by corporate elites who for the most part, could not run political campaigns without huge funding from special interests and doners. I understand that you probably don't know who these doners are or what their agenda is but you may want to google people like the Mercers or the Kochs or Sheldon Adleson and how these people influence American politics. Or don't. It's okay by me. As for "cultural marxism" that was a term sputtered by Anders Breivek as he murdered innocent Swedish children camping on an island. Is this really the standard you want to use in demonizing all us evil lefties?
Please don't bother with cut'n'paste. I asked you the questions, not the Huffington Post. But your source explains your opinions.
No it is not. It is an understanding that other countries have interests other than your own. I have no more fondness for the government of China than I do for any other. The Chinese ruling party is communist in name only. It has embraced a form of state capitalism that has raised 800 million people out of abject poverty. You are attempting to distract from the observations I am making with the strawman argument that I am supporting them, the same sort of argument that says if you critisize Israel's policies in the land they occupy then you support Hamas.
So you are dismissing out of hand the facts on US bases the author is citing? I posted in support of my opinions. Please don't try to tell me what to post. If you reject the facts cited please provide evidence that those facts are in error.
China is not reverting to communist ideology. It remains a state capitalist economy. The US is and has been concerned to protect it's dominance and global hegemony in the world. It is projecting power and aggression on Russia's borders and throughout the Pacific region. This is the only reason I am interested in studying and documenting how global tension in the world is rising. Studying geo-politics with the aim of trying to be as objective as possible does not make one for China or against America. That is in your head. Wether you see it or not, America is aggressively projecting power all over the world and supporting other nations who are actively killing millions and creating humanitarian crises's in poorest regions of the world. Pointing this out is not anti-American. I would hate to see the American people stumble into the kind of war that it's leaders seem to desperately want.
Quote "war... it's leaders seem to desperately want" This is not even wrong. It's a complete lie. Can you tell me WHO in the current US Administration or Congress or electorate or even US forces is desperate for a war?
You posted other opinions in support of your opinions? I'm only explaining what I'll respond to. If you want Huffington Post to debate for you then that's fine, but I'm not interested.
