Posted on 07/29/2005 10:51:52 AM PDT by hedgetrimmer
Yup, looks real good, don't it.
For someone who has been on FR for all of 6 days, you sure sound like a troll.
Welcome to FR! Well said!
With the intent of contributing to informed and engaging debate, the following is offered for your consideration.
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Cal Thomas at townhall.com:
As anyone who has bought anything can attest, the United States is fulfilling one of Lenin's doctrines by purchasing the rope with which the communists plan to hang us. Too many things sold in America are made in China and too many corporations have moved their plants and operations to China, undermining the U.S. domestic economy and helping a nation that seeks to destroy us.
Still reverberating eight weeks later, Donald Rumsfeld's question from the Singapore conference in early June (in reference to China's military modernization program): "Since no nation threatens China, one wonders why this growing investment?"
And how is China using its immense trade surplus? Although China spends only a fraction as much as the U.S. on defense, it is enough to make China the world's third-biggest weapons buyer, after Russia, and the biggest in Asia.
In answer to Rumsfeld's question re China, "why this growing (military) investment?" Cal Thomas at townhall.com says "rather than feeling threatened, China intends to threaten others, especially the United States."
Thomas refers to a new book by Constantine Menges, former special assistant for national security affairs to President Reagan (also a CIA national intelligence officer). Menges outlines the threat posed by China, and according to Thomas "persuasively argues how America can use its economic and moral weapons to stop the world's biggest nation without a shot being fired.
"One of many countermeasures recommended by Menges is the expulsion of all companies that function as fronts for the Chinese People's Liberation Army or other military or intelligence-related entities in China, Russia or any other nonallied state. Investigative reporter Kenneth R. Timmerman estimates there are hundreds of such front companies in Southern California alone." http://www.townhall.com/columnists/calthomas/ct20050606.shtml
In a 20 July, 2005 latimes.com op-ed, Max Boot refers to a Pentagon study released earlier this week, detailing Chinese military capabilities, in context with Donald Rumsfeld's statement at the Singapore conference on defense in early June that China's arms buildup was an "area of concern." Boot says:
It should be. But we shouldn't get overly fixated on such traditional indices of military power as ships and bombs — not even atomic bombs. Chinese strategists, in the best tradition of Sun Tzu, are working on craftier schemes to topple the American hegemon.
In 1998, an official People's Liberation Army publishing house brought out a treatise called "Unrestricted Warfare," written by two senior army colonels, Qiao Liang and Wang Xiangsui. This book, which is available in English translation, is well known to the U.S. national security establishment but remains practically unheard of among the general public.
"Unrestricted Warfare" recognizes that it is practically impossible to challenge the U.S. on its own terms. No one else can afford to build mega-expensive weapons systems like the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, which will cost more than $200 billion to develop. "The way to extricate oneself from this predicament," the authors write, "is to develop a different approach."
Their different approaches include financial warfare (subverting banking systems and stock markets), drug warfare (attacking the fabric of society by flooding it with illicit drugs), psychological and media warfare (manipulating perceptions to break down enemy will), international law warfare (blocking enemy actions using multinational organizations), resource warfare (seizing control of vital natural resources), even ecological warfare (creating man-made earthquakes or other natural disasters).
Cols. Qiao and Wang write approvingly of Al Qaeda, Colombian drug lords and computer hackers who operate outside the "bandwidths understood by the American military." They envision a scenario in which a "network attack against the enemy" — clearly a red, white and blue enemy — would be carried out "so that the civilian electricity network, traffic dispatching network, financial transaction network, telephone communications network and mass media network are completely paralyzed," leading to "social panic, street riots and a political crisis." Only then would conventional military force be deployed "until the enemy is forced to sign a dishonorable peace treaty."
This isn't just loose talk. There are signs of this strategy being implemented. The anti-Japanese riots that swept China in April? That would be psychological warfare against a major Asian rival. The stage-managed protests in 1999, after the U.S. accidentally bombed the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade, fall into the same category.
The bid by the state-owned China National Offshore Oil Co., to acquire Unocal? Resource warfare. Attempts by China's spy apparatus to infiltrate U.S. high-tech firms and defense contractors? Technological warfare. China siding against the U.S. in the U.N. Security Council over the invasion of Iraq? International law warfare. Gen. Zhu's threat to nuke the U.S.? Media warfare.
And so on. Once you know what to look for, the pieces fall into place with disturbing ease. Of course, most of these events have alternative, more benign explanations: Maybe Gen. Zhu is an eccentric old coot who's seen "Dr. Strangelove" a few too many times.
The deliberate ambiguity makes it hard to craft a response to "unrestricted warfare." If Beijing sticks to building nuclear weapons, we know how to deal with that — use the deterrence doctrine that worked against the Soviets. But how do we respond to what may or may not be indirect aggression by a major trading partner? Battling terrorist groups like Al Qaeda seems like a cinch by comparison. http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/opinion/la-oe-boot20jul20,1,5721483.column?track=mostemaile&ctrack=1&cset=true
How does the Washington Times frame CAFTA?
"CAFTA proponents have tried to square the circle by arguing it is part of an anti-China strategy. The agreement will supposedly create a trade bloc that will protect infant industries of Central America from Chinese competition so democratic governments can put down roots. This harkens back to the Caribbean Basin Initiative during the Reagan administration. CBI used trade preferences to strengthen anti-communist regimes against Soviet-fomented revolutions. http://www.washtimes.com/commentary/20050719-093627-2855r.htm
In May 2005 Deputy Secretary of State Robert Zoellick had these words for the Heritage Foundation:
Collectively, the United States, Central America and the Dominican Republic face a common challenge: the rise of China as a major economic power. Through CAFTA, we can unite within our hemisphere to better face that challenge. In businesses such as textiles and apparel, and increasingly in other industries as well, companies in the United States are closely linked with producers in the region. A t-shirt that says, "Made in Honduras" is likely to contain more than sixty percent U.S. content, while a t-shirt that says, "Made in China" is likely to contain virtually none. This is why both the National Council of Textile Organizations and the National Cotton Council support CAFTA. The agreement will strengthen links with important economic partners in the face of rising competition from China.
Ironically, if economic isolationists torpedo CAFTA over issues such as labor rights, apparel production and other similar industries will move to China. This highlights the inherent contradiction in the position of CAFTA's opponents. They claim to be concerned about worker rights, yet seem to ignore the devastation for workers that would result from defeating the agreement. The competitive challenge from China has changed the strategic equation: without CAFTA, tens of thousands of Central Americans and Dominicans will be thrown out of work and back into poverty and hopelessness. And many of them will end up on our borders. The opponents of CAFTA are not offering something better for the people of Central America. They are turning their backs on them.
[...]
If CAFTA is defeated, labor rights in Central America will not be strengthened; instead, workers in the region will lose thousands more jobs to China, competition for work will be more desperate, and in that environment, democratic trade unions and workers' rights will be weaker. http://hongkong.usconsulate.gov/uscn/state/2005/051601.htm
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Sounds like Zoellick is convinced that CAFTA bears directly on the Mexico/U.S. border situation.
It looks like the CODEX provisions attached to the CAFTA legislation was a very effective strategy to defeat it.
Maybe a good idea to have another look at the treaty that ceded the Panama Canal to China...how many years ago?
-tms
However, much of the steel industry, and other sectors (Boeing as an example) has either lost or is in jeapardy from unfair competition:....dumping, stolen technology, secret government support, etc.
No reasonable person wants zero technogical development or protectionism....just a fair fight.
The Russians and Chinese...and particularly the French... are masters of competeting on a tilted playing field.
I do not have a horse in this race. However, it would seem that all the arguments in the world are not going to reverse this trend.
He's only a troll in some alter universe where 'conservative' means supporting limits on people's freedom to buy and sell as they wish.
Gee whiz, Dennis Hastert recently promised that there would be "increased GOP attention to the challenges China poses to the domestic textile industry."
Rep. Robin Hayes R-N.C., was colorfully adamant in his opposition to the Central American Free Trade Agreement.
... Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., told Hayes he could promise increased GOP attention to the challenges China poses to the domestic textile industry.
Hayes switched his vote...
Yes Syds Dad, tell us some of the facts. Tell us about CAFTA and Codex found in Article 6 while you're at it. Tell us what the possible implications of that will be and how exactly that's a limited government position.
" However, it would seem that all the arguments in the world are not going to reverse this trend."
Regrettably I think you're correct. I think that it's sad that people think that people are easily "retrained" for skills that that may not have the ability. We need to save jobs. The list that was posted earlier does point out where there is potential job creation however not everone can be a nurse or an sysop or the IT manager. Should we simply discard these displaced people or relegate then to picture coded cash registers at MD's. Are we going to be swamped by millions of people that have graduated from Hamburger U? Intelligence levels and skill levels vary greatly in the USA. Can we really expect the 60 year old, 40 year veteran of the textile industry to ready accept and integrate into new career fields? The Republicans and Bush certainly have lost their "compassion" on this issue.
wasn't there a NC republican congresswoman going to vote NO only to be tied up in traffic coming home from the BSA Jamboree and missing the vote?
I didn't hear that, its terribly sad if true.
And yet terribly funny. And terribly inconsequential.
Yep. You know what, I've never seen such a bunch of losers, as those who favor handing over our self-determination to the WTO and NGOs that will administer CAFTA-DR. Not content with their perverted policy victory, they continue to beat down others as if they were dirt under their fingernails.
These trade pacts are not as much about trade as hobbling the United States long term.
I consider anyone willing to give up even a little self-determination to be anti-home rule.
How do you think NC and SC got those textiles jobs....neither state origianlly had a textile industry....Free trade relocated textiles from NE to the Southeast...without free trade within the US, teh south today would be poor and would not have made the economic gains that it has in the past 100 years
so you think every computer and accoutant job will be outsourced to India?
obviously youve not been paying attention.
outsourcing has not been the boon it was suppose to be. Companies are not realising the expected savings, waging in India are rising.
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