Obama Won't Back Down After Chinese Threat, Sends U.S. Warships [Trunc]

Zero Hedge ^ | 12 Oct 2015 | Tyler Durden

[amorphous]

On Friday, we reported the latest provocation in what has truly become a very dangerous, if largely pointless, staring contest between Beijing and Washington over China’s reclamation of land in The South China Sea.

Responding to suggestions that the US was set to sail warships around the islands Beijing has constructed atop reefs in the Spratlys, China served noticed that it would “never allow any country to violate China's territorial waters and airspace in the Spratly Islands, in the name of protecting freedom of navigation and overflight.” This was simply a formalized version of the more concise phrasing the PLA navy used when they instructed the pilots flying a US spy plane to “Go now!” when it ventured too close to Fiery Cross earlier this year.

It’s not immediately clear what China intends to do with the islands and further, it’s not entirely clear why anyone should necessarily care if Beijing wants to build “sand castles” in the middle of the ocean, but then again, for America’s regional allies the land reclamation efforts look a lot an attempt to build a series of military outposts by creating sovereign territory where there was none thereby effectively redrawing maritime boundaries and so, big brother in Washington is set to step in in order to protect vital shipping lanes.

Of course having already said that the navy plans to sail ships into the waters around the islands, the US can ill-afford to allow China’s “we won’t tolerate that” pronouncement to deter the Pentagon because the optics around that would be terrible at a time when the world is already questioning the strength and resolve of the US military. So the ships will indeed sail.

[Fedora]

Here's a link to the original YouTube video of the transcript you mention where Obama pledged global nuclear disarmament during the 2008 campaign:

Obama-Caucus4Priorities

He was also talking like this back in the 1980s when he supported SANE-FREEZE--have an old link on that somewhere I'm trying to track down.

[Fedora]

Here we go:

Obama’s Youth Shaped His Nuclear-Free Vision

Obama's 1983 College Magazine Article

The organizations Obama praises in the article are Arms Race Alternatives (ARA) and Students Against Militarism (SAM). The latter worked with CISPES, targeted by the FBI during that time.

[Fedora]

Old FR thread on this here:

Breaking the War Mentality (Barack Obama, circa 1983 at Columbia)

[ETL]

Thanks. I’ve had on my FR Home page all of the things that you referred to (except the NY Times article: ‘Obama’s Youth Shaped His Nuclear-Free Vision’) for 7 or 8 years.

http://www.freerepublic.com/~etl/

Scroll down to the table of contents and look for the section on Obama’s thesis.

The article he supposed wrote is there, where he goes on about the Marxist group CISPES.

And there is a link embedded in the transcript on his 2008 campaign speech.

PS- This is the first I believe I’ve seen you post since I’ve been here. I must say that you were the one that brought my attention to this site nearly 10 years ago when I stumbled upon one of your excellent posts while searching for something. The post was in regards to John Kerry’s book, The New Soldier. It was right around Veteran’s Day.

Great to see you’re still here and active! Thanks for the inspiration to do what I’ve been trying to do here ever since! :)

[Fedora]

Thanks for linking to the excellent collection on your homepage and for taking the time to put this together! And I’m glad to hear that I helped bring your attention to the site with my old Kerry articles :-) Yes, I’m still here, just have a busier schedule than I did then; but I do keep up with things and post periodically.

[piasa]

thanks