Letting the US Bleed?

Chinese Actions and Chinese Regret

by Kim Petersen / March 22nd, 2011

In 2003 United States president George W. Bush violated international law and defied the United Nations by launching an invasion of Iraq that has killed over 1 million Iraqi civilians.

Despite the US committing the ultimately evil crime, as defined by Nuremberg law, of aggression, and despite previously bypassing the UN and declaring it irrelevant, in 2011, the UN Security Council granted the US and its allies “all necessary measures” to impose a no-fly zone over Iraq.

The US and other western nations claim to be protecting civilian lives, but they are killing civilians toward this claimed end. And why should a nation which has been slaughtering Iraqis and Afghans, a nation which supported the Israeli massacre of Gazans, a nation whose government reacted with insouciance to the plight of its own citizens in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina hold any credibility when it comes to caring for civilian lives?

UN Security Council permanent members China and Russia abstained from the resolution giving carte blanche to warrior nations vis-à-vis Libya.

Nonetheless, China expressed regret over the military attack on Libya. ((Xinhua, “Regret over Military Action,” China Daily, 21 March 2011: 1.))

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu said China is against the use of force and that a nation’s territorial integrity should be respected.

If this is indeed the Chinese position, then why did China abstain from the UN Security Council vote? Its vote would have been a veto, preventing use of force and preserving Libya’s territorial integrity.

Likewise many people wonder why Russia abstained.

Bleeding Imperialism

China finds itself militarily encircled by the US. ((See Kim Petersen, “Chine et dragons sinophones,” in Atlas Alternatif, (Le Temps des Cerises: 2006), 303-313.)) China considers its own territorial integrity disrespected by US military maneuvers in the Yellow Sea and US meddling with, what China considers a renegade province, Taiwan.

Many experts attributed excessive military spending and the boondoggle occupation of Afghanistan as precipitating the dissolution of the USSR. Now the US is spending massively on invading lands. It has over 700 overseas military bases.

Of course, China (and Russia, likewise encircled by US military bases) knew the US would lead an attack on Libya.

The US has gained some measure of control over Iraq; it has its man, Hamid Karzai, in control in Kabul; and the US-allied military kept control in Egypt. It looks like the despised throne in Bahrain, another US ally, might weather the popular risings against it with the assistance of Saudi Arabia, so why would the US Empire not think it could chew up more of the Arab world. This is the plan of US extremists. ((See Kim Petersen, “A Bloody Border Project,” Dissident Voice, 5 July 2007. ))

Are China and Russia letting US Empire bleed itself?

Kim Petersen is an independent writer. He can be emailed at: kimohp at gmail.com. Read other articles by Kim.

This article was posted on Tuesday, March 22nd, 2011 at 8:02am and is filed under China, Empire, Militarism, Russia.

9 comments on this article so far ...

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  1. MichaelKenny said on March 22nd, 2011 at 9:23am #

    The thought in the last sentence had crossed my mind as well. Wouldn’t that be wonderful? Just sit back and wait until the clumsy Americans “put their foot in it”, so to speak! The various other partners all have their agendas and once they’ve got what they want, they’ll just leave the US in the lurch (or use Libya as an excuse to get out of Afghanistan). In the latter regard, I’m thinking in particular of Cameron. Sarko will have no further interest in Libya after 1800 GMT next Sunday when the polls close in the (for Sarko, ever more disastrous by the day!) departmental elections. From then on, any further fighting is a no-win situation for him. The Arab League is essentially sacrificing Kadaffi to save the rest of the Arab autocrats. If the opposite seems to be happening, they will take to the boats in double quick time! It will be fun to watch them all squirming!

  2. Deadbeat said on March 22nd, 2011 at 10:23am #

    I think there is more to it that that. The question is what would it have cost China and Russia to USE their respective veto? If they think the U.S. is overstretched then even had China and Russia uses their veto the U.S. would have easily found another pretext, like Bush did, and bombed Libya anyway. The U.S. is still going to disrespect China and Russia anyway so at for appearance why make it easier for the U.S.

    Clearly China and Russia are looking out for their own interest but I really have doubts that this is a ploy to bleed the U.S.

  3. hayate said on March 22nd, 2011 at 11:43am #

    I noticed some commenters at ics speculating that China and Russia abstained so the usa/nato would attack and further discredit themselves in the Muslim world. Walt also hinted in a brief mention that of China stood to gain from the attacks in this piece:

    What intervention in Libya tells us about the neocon-liberal alliance

    Posted By Stephen M. Walt Monday, March 21, 2011 – 11:16 AM

    (Which ends with)

    “And who’s the big winner here? Back in Beijing, China’s leaders must be smiling as they watch Washington walk open-eyed into another potential quagmire.”

    [http://walt.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2011/03/21/what_intervention_in_libya_tells_us_about_the_neocon_liberal_alliance]

    That China/Russia suckered usa/nato into attacking is an interesting theory, one which didn’t occur to me earlier. I had figured they got concessions/bribes to back off. The same with India and Brazil. Germany is in deep trouble already at home from their warmongering, so I figured they abstained to avoid “rebellion” at home. It’s something to think about today….

  4. 3bancan said on March 23rd, 2011 at 2:23am #

    “Are China and Russia letting US Empire bleed itself?”

    This question seems to imply – at least in my reading – that Russia and China are some kind of adversaries or even enemies of the US empire. I see them as friends of the US empire. Russia is practically a NATO member and resembles – in political and economical terms – more and more the US (cf. the Forbes list of billionaires). Russian politicians will of course at times voice some “critique” or “regret” over US policies but at the end they will comply with them, as their interest is the alliance with the EU/NATO and the US. The situation in China is similar – the difference is that while Russia exports oil, gas and weapons, China exports low-priced products, exploiting its workers and its natural resources for the benefit of the West. Its politicians – as their Russian counterparts – tend to become obedient members of “the international community”.
    A good indicator of these countries’ humanistic standpoint can be seen in their relations with the Jewish nazi state of Israel – cf. the chart “Views of Israel’s Influence” [http://www.gilad.co.uk/writings/gilad-atzmon-the-shekel-has-dropped.html] or the reports from/about Israel on the tv channels RT, CCTV4, CCTV9…

  5. Don Hawkins said on March 23rd, 2011 at 4:21am #

    Good luck everybody and what will I do with my time look at a few charts from time to time and grow food.

  6. mary said on March 23rd, 2011 at 10:17am #

    Good luck to you too Don. You have got the balance just right and could give the warmonger leaders some good lessons.

  7. shabnam said on March 23rd, 2011 at 9:12pm #

    The vote by India did not come as a great surprise. Indian foreign policy is based on close cooperation with the United States and Israel against Muslims in the region and beyond.
    Brazil and India have long records of skepticism about military intervention, at the same time they don’t want to antagonize the United States. Thus, both decided to get out of the way.

    The most surprising development was the decision of both Russia and China to abstain.
    Both countries, have close cooperation with the US and Israel against Iran. China has voted positively for all the UN SANCTIONS AGAINST IRAN to obtain concessions.
    China’s main foreign policy priority is promotion of Beijing’s plan to speed up China’s economic development. In addition, due to the power structure in the world following the end of the Cold War, there has been rarely a firm ground for the establishment of strategic relations between the two states.

    That is, unlike the Cold War era when international environment was more transparent and many countries were aligned with either of two superpowers, now, the international power structure and politics have taken a new and different course since the demise of the Soviet Union especially after 9/11 where sovereignty becomes weak and countries are less able forming strategic alliances.

    China’s approach to Iran’s nuclear case is a good example. China has voted for all sanction resolutions against Iran and has worked with other powers to put more pressure on Iran.
    Therefore, it is most likely that Washington paid something to get both China and Russia to abstain rather than cast a veto.
    There are number of areas that both, China & the United States can reach an agreement to cooperate and keep each other SATISFIED while Muslims are gun down.
    For example, China has always wanted US to decrease and eventually eliminate its arms sales to Taiwan. Will the Obama administration be less receptive to Taipei’s future arms purchase requests? China is increasingly unhappy about U.S. criticism of its policy in Tibet and human rights policy. US uses these issues to influence China’s voting pattern to keep china on her side.

    This policy of cooperation with the United States regarding Iran and other Muslim countries has been proven successful, therefore, China is happy with the status quo. It is up to Muslims to recognize the reality and form a unity to deal with the threat.

    No one listens to China and Russia when they are trying to deceive public claiming that they are against military action in Libya. Then why didn’t you use your veto power? This is 21st century and this kind of double talk is not going to improve China’s image that profit is more important than humanity. This is true with Russia, even more.

    Therefore, this has nothing to do with “China and Russia letting US Empire bleed itself”, and everything to do with getting more concessions to strengthen one’s position.

  8. hayate said on March 23rd, 2011 at 9:42pm #

    For the “u.s. to bleed”, the Libyan war crime must become a “quagmire”. If they can run these war crimes like they did in the former Yugoslavia, there wont be a drain on the u.s. economy, or the sort of negative public relations the Afghan and Iraq war crimes brought. The war crimes in Yugoslavia actually set the stage for the later war crimes in Afghanistan and Iraq. The war crimes against Yugoslavia honed the propaganda machine to the point where the “Vietnam syndrome”, the resistance of american people to get involved in another colonial war, with american troops, rather than terrorist proxies, was broken. It also greatly softened the European resistance to warmongering that had been dogging ziofascist/fascist planning for decades. After Yugoslavia, all the ziofascists/fascists needed was a suitable pretext and unified propaganda approach, and the public would acquiesce to any war crime ziofascism, inc. instructed them to. So as long as the u.s runs these war crimes against Libya like they did against Yugoslavia and avoids large scale troop deployments (they already have a massive special forces/covert ops presence, but the public are not informed of that), it’s unlikely Libya will become like Afghanistan or Iraq.

    The fact that BRIC all abstained does lead one to think the hope of these guys was it would hurt the rival economic block (ziofascism, inc.) economically if the usa/nato attacked.

    We’ll have to wait and see what the zionists have their usa/nato colonies do. What direction they will take. Yugoslavia, or Iraq? Note that today I observed a large rail shipment of military vehicles headed towards the u.s. west coast (IE: port chicago, in the san francisco bay area, probably, the main transhipment site for ship loaded u.s. military hardware destined for overseas deployment). Besides the usual tanks and apc vehicles, this shipment included a lot of amphibious vehicles, something I’ve not observed before and I’ve seen perhaps half a dozen of these shipments pass through town over the last few years.

    What about luring in the usa/nato in order to discredit them further among Muslim peoples? Attacking Libya certainly has done that, even the Arab league stooges had to retreat on their support for the no fly zone. But from what I’ve read, Russia and China are equally in the doghouse for not vetoing that war crime facilitation act. People are not stupid, if one fails to stop a crime when they very easily could, they’ll lump one in with criminals, and this is the view of people of Russia and China now. If these guys intended to discredit nato/usa by abstaining, and luring the ziofascists into attacking, they succeeded, but at the cost of discrediting themselves to an equal extent, for allowing it when they could have prevented it. Not very bright on that account, given the obvious alternative.

  9. hayate said on March 24th, 2011 at 9:02pm #

    Looks like that rail shipment including amphibious vehicles I noted in the post above could be connected to a planned invasion of Libya afterall:

    24.03.2011 10:51

    Over 4,000 U.S. sailors, marines set sail for Mediterranean

    “The United States has started the deployment of more than 4,000 marines and sailors to the Mediterranean Sea to support the ongoing military operation in Libya, the U.S. Navy news service said, according to RIA Novosti.

    The decision to deploy servicemen from the Bataan Amphibious Ready Group (BATARG) and 22nd Marine Expeditionary Unit was made “based on continuing urgent needs in Libya and the region,” said the report, which was distributed on the DVIDS website.

    “Amphibious ships are optimally suited for executing a wide range of missions, from humanitarian assistance to theater and maritime security operations,” BATARG commander Capt. Steven J. Yoder was quoted as saying.”

    [http://www.unian.net/eng/news/news-427492.html]