US Vulnerability Growing, Allies and Foes Note: Chinese General Warns Space "to be Weaponized"

In a timely and well researched commentary yesterday , UPI Editor at Large Arnaud De Borchgrave concisely portrayed China’s growing international economic, political, and technological capabilities while also warning that even our perceived allies are convinced the US cannot win in Iraq largely due to partisan discord in America. Truly China’s reputation is shining more brightly than America’s, and in that light America’s vulnerabilities are illuminated for allies and foes alike to examine closely.

The commentary echoes concerns about intelligence estimates on China expressed in a recent post here at Spy the News! The description of China’s powerful cyberwarfare capabilities lends further credence to concerns that the US intelligence community has underestimated China, to the detriment of our military preparations to combat a foe with equal or perhaps superior technological capabilities, as China’s recent successful test of an anti-satellite missile demonstrated. De Borchgrave delves deeper into the financial strength of China, which is increasing at the expense of America’s former dominance in world markets. While America fights global terrorism, China, unfettered by such drains on its economy, is investing in raw materials and international trade alliances that will ensure sustained growth far into the future.

The entire UPI article is valuable reading, but I wanted to highlight certain portions that will be of interest to Spy the News! readers:


1. US allies, such as Pakistani President Musharraf, are intently watching “the defection of some of President Bush’s Congressional supporters” and see eventual defeat in Iraq because of America’s internal politics.

2. World leaders will perceive premature US withdrawal from Iraq as a defeat for the US.

3. De Borchgrave quoted the following from the Financial Times: "As authority drains from Mr. Bush, so Washington is losing its capacity to determine outcomes elsewhere. Iran is the principal beneficiary."

4. Musharraf and other allies in the War on Terror are “reappraising” their commitments to the US and NATO because US debate on troop withdrawal from Iraq is also convincing them that neither the US nor NATO will complete the mission in Afghanistan, in which Musharraf has invested his political capital and personal safety.

5. America’s dependence on satellites for civilian and military communications and navigation is a largely undefended vulnerability that could fall prey to the so-called E-bomb or Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP), which would cripple US communications except for small handheld self transmitting/receiving radio units. [Consider that in 2004, a panel appointed by Congress tasked with evaluating the threat of EMP attack on the US concluded, “While the US military has grown increasingly dependent on computers, electronics and information systems, it has relaxed requirements for EMP-hardened systems since the end of the Cold War and its overall record of adherence to its guidelines for such robust equipment ‘has been spotty’ . . . . This trend continues ‘in the wrong direction’.”]

The US should take at face value the statement of one-star general Yao Yunzhu, director of China's Asia-Pacific Office at the Academy of Military Science in Beijing: “Outer space is going to be weaponized in our lifetime.” As De Borchgrave advises, Yao is 52 years old. Clearly China recognized long ago the need to develop space weaponry, offensive and defensive, and, with enormous economic reserves to invest, has developed them much faster than intelligence analysts predicted.

China’s growing global influence, combined with its cozy import/export oil for weapons trade alliances in the Middle East, particularly Iran, provide ample reason for the US to reevaluate favored nation trade status for China and other economic leverage until that nation ceases funding and equipping the state sponsors of terrorism that the US is spending heavily to defeat.

While John “Pariah” Kerry was in Davos, Switzerland bashing America and the Bush Administration at the World Economic Forum, General Yao Yunzhu attended the same forum and proudly declared China’s primacy in the rush to weaponize space. Democrats and a growing number of Republicans criticize President Bush for concentrating on Iraq and allegedly taking our focus off of the War on Terror. Such critics are guilty of waging war so intensely on President Bush that they are incapable or unwilling to recognize how that internal conflict is affecting world perception of American vulnerability. Our allies and enemies have noticed and are making plans to abandon or attack us accordingly.

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Hillary's "Tough" Leadership: "Please, Please, Please Don't Leave Iraq to Me!"

Hillary Clinton’s first campaign visit to Iowa this weekend provided an opportunity for potential voters to test and witness the Senator’s self-proclaimed mettle. Although Clinton sought to demonstrate her forcefulness and caste herself as presidential timbre, she exhibited much more cowardice than conviction when it comes to Iraq.

Pressed repeatedly to explain her vote for war in Iraq, the Senator could have defended her vote with the truth, which was that all available intelligence agreed Iraq possessed WMD and was funding terrorists. Clinton instead trotted out the tired, “If I had known then what I know now . . .” Monday morning quarterback excuse. When truth was on her side, she eschewed it for a partisan attack on the President instead, choosing to ride her Congressional colleagues’ coattails by claiming that President Bush “misled Congress.” Hillary showed her disregard for truth by blaming President Bush, when she and Senator Kerry and nearly all others in Congress accepted as fact the National Intelligence Estimates on Iraq that they, Prime Minister Blair, and the President acted upon in good faith.

While trying to convince potential voters that she had the courage, strength, and background to stand up to “evil and bad men,” Hillary instead communicated a cowardly lament that she, if elected president, may be forced to face difficulties in the Middle East. Hillary is so entrenched in anti-Bush rhetoric that she now refuses to take credit for actually standing up to an “evil man” through her vote to invade Iraq and remove Saddam Hussein. When asked to clarify to whom she referred with the phrase “evil and bad men, “ Clinton mentioned Bin Laden but not Hussein, a man who gassed Kurds, waged war on Iran, and tortured and killed thousands of Iraqis. She laudably stood up to him but is now so ashamed of it she blames Bush for tricking her into supporting the war. That Hillary, whom many insist is the shrewdest woman in politics, could be duped by a President endlessly ridiculed by Democrats for being ignorant, stupid, and anti-intellectual, is laughably ironic.

In her Iowa remarks, Clinton disingenuously stated that President Bush intended to leave the Iraq War for his successor to resolve: "I am going to level with you, the president has said this is going to be left to his successor," Clinton said. "I think it is the height of irresponsibility and I really resent it." Compare that with what the President actually stated to USA Today: "The War on Terror will be a problem for the next president. Presidents after me will be confronting ... an enemy that would like to strike the United States again.”

The War on Terror and terrorist attacks clearly will continue through many future presidencies, but the President did NOT state that he intended to leave the Iraq War for his successor to conclude. Perhaps she would prefer that President Bush solved the Iranian, Palestinian, and Syrian situations as well prior to leaving office so she can focus exclusively on issues more dear to her than national security, such as socialized medicine. That Clinton would resent being forced to deal with difficult international and national security issues speaks volumes about her alleged competence and toughness.

Was Truman out on the stump while FDR was on this deathbed telling reporters, “FDR told me this war is going to be mine to solve as his successor, and I think that is irresponsible and deeply resent it! He better end this war before he passes away!”? No, Truman took the reins when handed them, and demonstrated a determination to end the war through overwhelming victory. When that succeeded (yes, victory is the best exit strategy), he presided over an amazingly compassionate rebuilding and protection of the former enemy nations, in essence what we are trying to achieve in Iraq on a smaller scale.

Truman was praised for implementing the Marshall Plan after the elimination of Hitler, which protected a new government in Germany from being overrun by the Soviet Union and others looking for postwar spoils until it could stand on its own. President Bush seeks to do the same in Iraq after the removal of a dictator, and the obvious reality is the Iraqi government is not yet ready to sustain and defend itself. Should a time limit be imposed, a drop dead date by which if they are still not capable we should abandon them to whatever fate may bring (it will bring an Iranian invasion)? Fortunately Truman and succeeding administrations were not as shortsighted as the current stable of Democratic presidential aspirants. A viable democracy in the Middle East is no less worthy a goal than rebuilding Germany or Japan, and our commitment to help Iraq until it is self-sustaining or officially rejects American intervention should not depend on any politically motivated timetable.

If Senator Clinton wants to be viewed as legitimately qualified on national security and military matters, she should demonstrate a willingness to take on difficult challenges, not run from them. She should not beg and plead publicly for President Bush to hurry and resolve the Iraq War so she will not be required to resolve it if elected. A true executive would relish the opportunity to step in where others have (in her view) failed, and if necessary, lead in a new direction or finish the work of the preceding executive. In many respects, this is why former governors are generally better prepared and suited for the presidency than Senators or Congressmen. For Senator Clinton to openly shun the responsibilities of executive leadership and plead for issues to be resolved before she might face them personally signals an appalling lack of courage, optimism, charisma, and leadership.

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"Pariah Kerry" Woos Swiss with New Hit: "America is a Pariah"

The dictionary defines a pariah as “somebody who is despised and avoided by other people.” Synonyms for pariah include exile and outsider. Considering John Kerry’s tearful decision to not run for president again in 2008 after realizing that he is a pariah within his own Democratic Party, it should not surprise anyone that Kerry is out on the anti-American lecture circuit speaking about pariahs. So “avoided by other people” was Kerry last fall prior to the mid-term elections, that his swipe at the intellect of US soldiers (charitably and inaccurately labeled a “botched joke” by the media) resulted in his disgraced withdrawal from scheduled campaign speaking engagements on behalf of Democratic candidates. By order of the DNC, Kerry was muzzled until after the 2006 mid-terms were concluded.

After coming within 118,000 votes of winning the presidency in 2004, Kerry is now an outsider within his party, despised and avoided by the US military, and exiled to speaking in front of the only friendly crowds available to him, i.e. America-bashing international groups such as the World Economic Forum, which he addressed on Saturday in Davos, Switzerland. Responding to a question regarding whether the Bush Administration had failed diplomatically with Iran prior to the “election” of the radical Ahmadinejad, Kerry could not restrain himself from declaring that America had failed in nearly every aspect of foreign policy under Bush. He expanded that sentiment by stating that America is now an “international pariah.”

According to Kerry, American’s have an “unfortunate habit” of looking at America through the American lens, and not engaging in the Anti-American self deprecation that has become a staple of liberal ideology. A twin doctrine, of which liberals are equally enamored and which was touted by Kerry in Davos, is that national security is best achieved through international diplomacy. When the issue of America’s national security is being considered, Americans want their elected officials to do so through the American lens. No other nation will or can protect America, and thus our defense and security policies should be promulgated based on what is America’s best interest for national survival and cultural preservation.

It seems diplomatically schizophrenic to belittle your own nation as a pariah that is “sending a terrible message of duplicity and hypocrisy” to the world, while simultaneously claiming to seek national security through diplomacy. Kerry’s idea that Americans should view America not as an ideal for the world to aspire to, but rather a pariah as seen through the lens of “other cultures and histories,” is sadly embraced by the current leadership of the Democratic Party. Kerry compares America with the rest of the world and sees only its faults and blemishes. Yet, as author Mark Steyn argues effectively in his book America Alone, what nation would Americans like Kerry prefer? Why are Democrats so insistent that America become more like other nations, particularly Europe? Is it the appeal of the utopian socialist dream of mandatory national healthcare and economy crushing national pensions? Is it the absence of an armed citizenry? Is it the high unemployment rate endemic to EU countries?

Kerry and those who share his views should remember, as Steyn reminds with unmatched clarity, that those countries poured unlimited funds into guaranteed healthcare and retirement pensions because they left their national security expenses to the only nation capable of protecting them: America. Even without bearing the expense of their own defense, the EU nations have proven incapable of financially sustaining these programs into the near future due to demographic decline and increasingly indolent populations too dependent on the state to be entrepreneurs or productive workers.

Kerry and the Democrats claim they want to improve America. Why not start that quest for improvement by ceasing to join the anti-American choruses of Europe and radical terrorist sponsors like Iran? There is nothing wrong with seeking improvement in something you love, and Democrats are quick to defend their patriotism and love of country. However, one does not achieve improvement through constant America-bashing on the international stage.

Just as one could never hope for marital bliss while repeatedly belittling and exposing the faults of one’s spouse, anti-American remarks from its own elected officials will never result in a strong and admired nation. Contrarily, if one constantly praises one’s spouse and offers loyal encouragement to a spouse’s efforts to improve, marital bliss is entirely likely. Like the self-improving spouse, Americans are an optimistic people who thrive when given the freedom and encouragement to find new solutions to old problems. Unfortunately Kerry and many others in his party offer only criticism to please America-haters instead of investing their collective intellect and energy into creating identifiable solutions.

Such remarks further illustrate why politically savvy Democrats have shunned Kerry and declined to give him a second chance for the presidency in 2008, not out of disagreement with his “America is to blame” ideology, but as a practical matter of political survival. By calling America a pariah at every opportunity, Kerry has personally become the embodiment of the word.

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