Archive for the ‘Uncomfortable Truths’ Category

China’s continued maritime march and the coming hard reckoning

Posted: December 5, 2020 by ng36b in Uncomfortable Truths, war
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Despite the Coronavirus, despite the Hague Rulings, despite the Philippines now cozying back up to the United States, China continues its maritime march to dominate its neighbors and eventually the world.

Sounds crazy? Let’s look at the facts:

In 2012, China and the Phillipines agreed to move away from Scarborough Shoals, a shoaling area frequented by Phillipine fishermen and inside Phillipines EEZ. Phillipine forces left, Chinese ones did not. Now, in 2020, we’re worrying about China reclaiming land around these shoals. Reclamation and militarization of other fake islands continued, with Fiery Cross now able to support H-6K bombers.

In 2014, China deliberately moved an oil drilling platform, the Hai Yang Shi You 981, into Vietnamese waters and drilled for oil, all while protecting the platform with a ring of maritime militia vessels. Was it a one-time incident? Nope. China continues to harass fishermen in the area.

In 2020, a Chinese investor purchased a Keswick Island near Australia and is essentially pushing out the Australian residents. At the same time, the Chinese government is working its economic and social media muscle on Australia.

When people discovered China’s 251 dash line, China was quick to dismiss it as a joke. China would never lay claim to Hawaii, they said. They would never work against the United States to separate Hawaii. In case you thought that was old, try tracking the large Chinese fishing fleet that finds itself off the Galapagos, North Korea, and Chile. It won’t be long till they discover the Atlantic Ocean.

The hard reckoning with China is coming. Just like Nazi Germany, they will continue to do as much grabbing as they can without getting a response from the international community. Just like the invasion of Poland, something is going to trigger a conflict. Maybe it’ll be Taiwan, or the Senkakus, or North Korea, or a remote mountain outpost on the Indian border, or even something in Tajikistan or Kazakhstan. Something is going to push another country to a redline, and kinetic weapons are going to fly. Maybe even nuclear ones too. At that point, we’re going to have to pick a side, because its not something we can sit out.

We can’t sit it out because we’re the last “stop” for China. Nothing else is going to stop them except US resolve. We can’t outspend China like we did Russia. China is smart enough to pay people well to steal US secrets, a mistake the Russians made during the Cold War. Relying on patriotism or social justice to insulate the US from China doesn’t work when even Google, supposidly a hot-bed of social justice warriors, looks the other way on issues like Xinjiang and even actively works on a filtered search engine for the Chinese government. The Chinese movements in the maritime are just the precursor for a bigger movement to usurp the world order.

It’s coming, whether its in 2021, 2025 or 2030, that hard reckoning is coming.

This post represents the views of the author and not those of the Department of Defense, Department of the Navy, or any other government agency.

Analyzing Mattis’ comments on China

Posted: November 28, 2020 by ng36b in Uncomfortable Truths
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It’s not secret that Jim Mattis and Donald Trump had issues working together. I was surprised to read that Mattis wanted to scrap Trump’s “America First” policy, and while I couldn’t get the full article from Foreign Affairs, the snippets I read said his main criticisms were:

  • Characterizing Afghanistan and Iraq as “forever wars”
  • Undermining our allies
  • Bad views on China

Let’s give the man his due and ask the question: is he right?

We’ve been in Afghanistan (officially) since 2001, and Iraq since 2003, although we withdrew all forces in 2011 per our Status of Forces agreement, and were invited back again in 2014. The Iraqi parliament has been working since early 2020 to get US troops to leave. In sum total, we’ve been in Afghanistan for 19 years (and counting), and Iraq for 8 plus 6 years, total of 14 years, assuming we leave this year.

In comparison, World War Two was from 1939-1945 (6 years), Vietnam was 1964-1975 (if you pick Gulf of Tonkin as the start, 11 years), Korea was 1950-1953 (3 years). The longest of these, Vietnam, has been characterized as a “forever war” before, so its no surprise that to the average American, Iraq and Afghanistan look like forever wars.

But are they investments in peace and stability? I’ve heard them compared to our time in Germany and Japan shortly after World War 2. We’re still technically stationing military in both countries. In Germany, our occupation started in 1945, but by 1949 we had already formed West Germany, and by 1955, West Germany was a member of NATO, and our forces were no longer “occupying” Germany. Japan was similar, with our occupation ending in the Treaty of San Francisco in 1952. While we are still in those countries today, we aren’t there to occupy or provide security. In fact, we expected significant insurgency issues (such as Germany’s Werwolf program), yet they never materialized.

Contrast that to Afghanistan and Iraq, where our troops are providing significant combat support and basic policing. That’s a massive difference between the two, and not dissimilar to Vietnam, where we still had to provide basic protection against an insurgency because of the host government’s inability to perform it themselves.

So to recap, if you militarily stay in country and have to fight an insurgency inside the borders, it feels like a forever war. If you stay and the country does its own policing, it doesn’t feel like a forever war. Or, from a military perspective, if you can’t bring your family to your new duty station, it might feel like a war zone.

What about undermining our allies? President Trump has been on record saying a lot of mean things. The Foreign Policy article argues that he is “undermining the foundations of an international order manifestly advantageous to U.S. interests, reflecting a basic ignorance of the extent to which both robust alliances and international institutions provide vital strategic depth.”

So the question is, has Trump undermined our alliances? Is the international order we have now worse off than before? The United States has mutual defense pacts with NATO, Australia, New Zealand, The Phillipines, Japan, Republic of Korea and the Rio Treaty with a smattering of South American nations. It also supports Taiwan, but the treaty is a bit vague as to whether we would respond to a PRC invasion.

Here we’re probably batting 500 at best. President Trump has worked to expand relationships with India and Japan, and has maintained a normal course with Australia and New Zealand. Trump’s push to pull out of Korea isn’t new, we’ve asked the Koreans to own their defense before. His attempts at directly negotiating with North Korea put us on a much better path to peace…I never thought I’d see a sitting President shake the North Korean dictator’s hands ever. Our relationship with South America hasn’t expanded much militarily or economically, and I’d call that a negative. The economic treaties throughout the world are mixed. In some cases, it got better (USMCA), in other cases, it stagnated (TPP).

NATO is a mixed bag. On one hand, he pushed for and got much needed investment by NATO nations in their own defense, something that nearly every previous Secretary of Defense and President has been asking for years. On the other hand, Europe wanted an Iranian deal so they could get back to buying oil, while Trump wanted to stop Iranian aggression in the Middle East. There’s no resolution to that short of Iran dropping its nuclear weapons program (it didn’t) or Europe or the US dropping their arguments (neither side has). Trump’s response of neutralizing the Israeli issue, first with the UAE and Bahrain and (maybe) with Saudi Arabia is some out of the box thinking. I would argue that NATO is stronger now than before, but some of the individual countries like Germany aren’t happy with the US.

Overall, point to Mattis on this one. Negotiating hard makes sense, but it could have been done with some more finesse, and creating hard feelings isn’t worth it in many cases.

Mattis’ comments on China are odd, given his time as Secretary of Defense and his shift towards Great Power Competition. From the Foreign Affairs article:

“Crucially, the United States should not press countries to choose outright between the two powers,” they said. “A ‘with us or against us’ approach plays to China’s advantage because the economic prosperity of U.S. allies and partners hinges on strong trade and investment relationships with Beijing.”

So, we should work with China? I’d be all about it, and so was William Cohen, opening up US military relations with the PLA in 1999. How did that work for us? China continued to steal technology, threaten its neighbors, build fake islands in the South China Sea, bury US industry with practices illegal to the WTO, and in general act in ways completely at odds of the US. The only difference between Russia and China is that China is happy to pay for this influence. When they needed a port in Sri Lanka, the Chinese invested their own money and worked with Sri Lanka, right up to the point the Sri Lankans couldn’t pay back a loan. China is happy to flex its muscles on every deal it makes, from the one-sided Vatican recognition to its territorial dispute with India. Unlike most other countries, there is no good faith in any of the past deals China made.

The Cohen Group has been happy to look the other way. Yes, there is a ton of money in China. Plenty of Americans are making money in China. Our hope in 1999 was that as China grew, it would naturally democratize. That wasn’t a bad call back then. It’s a terrible call now. The Cohen Group continues to look past this however. It’s founder, William Cohen, not only sided against Trump in 2016, he also has personal connections with the late John McCain and was his best man after he dumped his first wife.

Jim Mattis joining a group of academics that are already naturally anti-Trump and pro-China, and then coming out with a pro-China statement, isn’t that surprising. If we continue to view China like we did in 1999, then yes, everything Trump is doing is a terrible idea. But the last 20 years have shown that Afghanistan is not Germany, NATO wasn’t ready for high-end conflict, and China’s One Party system is happy to crush the United States if we let it do so. If the Cohen Group is happy to make money from this world view, good for them, but don’t be surprised when it doesn’t jive with the average American.

This post represents the views of the author and not those of the Department of Defense, Department of the Navy, or any other government agency.

A Twitter Tale of Two Timestamps

Posted: November 15, 2020 by datechguy in elections, politics, Uncomfortable Truths
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As I noted yesterday twitter has once again upheld my appeal of their 3rd lockdown of me over the Benford’s law post that they’ve been auto locking people over for a week but I noticed something interesting about my latest appeal and reversal.

Take a look at the time stamps on getting my appeal and it being approved.

Here is the stamp of my appeal being reieved

and here is the time stamp of their apology

I submit and suggest that this is now the process at twitter concerning this link

  1. Falsely flag the Benford law’s post to repress it and lock out those who send it out & accuse them falsely of distributing “intimate images without consent” Not only does it discourage the tweet or retweet of the material but it allows them to mark said material unavailable during this time.
  2. When the lock down period is over offer to let them back in if they delete the tweet (thus acknowledging “guilt” and making their account for violating rules giving them a cause to later ban such a person)
  3. if they refuse and appeal set up an auto system to say they made an “error” Sort of like an auto correct.
  4. Return to #1 if you tweet it again

This process involves a series of falsehoods & dishonorable actions by the crew at twitter.

  1. Falsely flagging said link as some type of intimate image without consent
  2. Falsely (and automatically) accusing users in writing of spreading intimate images without consent.
  3. Falsely flagging people who delete said tweets as having broken said rules
  4. Falsely claiming to review appeals
  5. Falsely claiming (in writing) that they have reviewed said appeal and that all of this has been an “error”.
  6. And Falsely apologizing for said “error” with the full intention of repeating it if you dare send out that tweet again.

Now if I expected better from these folks I might be disappointed, after all there is a reason why so many have left this platform or have gone elsewhere, and some have asked why I don’t to the same. Why do I bother to keep fighting this fight here?

My answer is for the same reason I haven’t moved out of Massachusetts. Someone has to make the fight and while with all of this on automatic it doesn’t even amount to the pinprick in the Elephant’s hide I am able to illustrate to the avg person their perfidy and point out that there is no reason to suppose that they will not turn this on them if they so choose.

It’s a small flag I grant you but I’ll carry it.

Update: Welcome Whatfinger readers, take a look around at both my stuff and the stuff from my magnificent seven writers and don’t miss today’s piece: “Mr. Ness, everybody knows where the booze is. The problem isn’t finding it, the problem is who wants to cross Capone.”

Twitter / Left Censorship A Sure Sign You’re Hitting the Target

Posted: November 9, 2020 by datechguy in elections, media, politics, Uncomfortable Truths
Tags: , , , , , ,

If you were one of those folks on twitter who followed me you would have noticed that I had a habit of not blocking trolls, or idiots, or people who swore at me, practically the only way to get blocked by me was to be an obvious bot (identical tweets to many people usually with either no icon or a picture of a pretty girl often named something like joe3882472100) or to tweet images of pornography. Even those who insulted the church instead of being blocked would go on my Perpetual Twitter Novena list so I could pray for them.

The reason for this is simple. If the left was making a stupid or weak argument in my opinion the best thing is for people to see it and then to laugh at them. For example. A few hours before I was locked out I had the following exchange with such a person:

the response to this was a rather foolish one on our leftist friends part

You see once someone states you have put out “demonstrable lies” the logical thing is to say: OK Demonstrate them. He didn’t take it very well.

Now if I had just blocked such a fellow I would not have been able to illustrate to those who follow me and him that said statement about “demonstrable lies” was blowing smoke. Instead I was able to illustrate to my followers and his that he was full of it.

And that brings us once again to twitter locking me out.

You see if people are saying something stupid, or outrageous it’s simple enough to counter such folk because such arguments are generally over the top and given the number of people on twitter there is no shortage of bright people on the other side who could do so.

BUT if people are saying things or making observations that are factual and or credible, something that the average person can understand or even something that might make you think, like the link I sent out that got me locked, then you risk a discussion that can be lost.

Now if you are a person who wants facts and truth that’s not necessarily a bad thing. After all if my opinion is wrong or “demonstratively false” I’d like to know it because I believe in truth and fact.

BUT if you are a person trying to advance a false or a weak proposition such as:

Donald Trump had a historic performance among non-white voters and outperformed his previous vote share even in blue cities EXCEPT in four cities in four swing state where Joe Biden not only outperformed Trump but out preformed Barack Obama enough to swing said states.”

Then the last thing you want is anyone advancing factual or credible arguments against it, particularly arguments that are easy for people to understand.

Or to put it simply, if our leftist friends on Twitter and Facebook thought that Joe Biden’s #election2020 #magicballots in #detroit #philadelphia #atlanta & #milwaukee were legitimate as sure as the sun rises in the east they would point at such posts and simply laugh or provide evidence that could easily or credibly counter assertions to the contrary.

But

If our leftist friends on Twitter and Facebook think that Joe Biden’s #election2020 #magicballots in #detroit #philadelphia #atlanta & #milwaukee were legitimate as sure as Jeffery Epstein killed himself then they will go all out to prevent evidence or arguments which support that fact.

The question isn’t if President Trump’s team has evidence of vote fraud. He does and plenty. The question is can he provide the courts with enough such evidence that will cause the courts to prescribe remedies to counter Joe Biden’s #Magicballots . You don’t know and neither do I. This is likely going to go to the Supreme Court.

But the Hollywood / media / academic / big tech left are fighting a different fight. The standard of evidence convince the avg person is MUCH lower than the standard to convince a court and right now the circumstantial evidence is more that sufficient to convince any citizen whose religion is not politics that the fix is in.

That’s the dirty little (Not So) secret here. They’re not censoring stuff because we’re making incredible arguments or points, they’re censoring us because we’re making credible arguments and points that the average person can understand.

In other words they’re still scared because they know it’s not legit.

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