The Insanity of Neocons

The Insanity of Neocons

 Eric Zuesse

Stephen Bryen, who’s now retired from a stellar career at the very highest levels both in the U.S. Military-Industrial Complex and in the Executive and also the Legislative branches of the U.S. Government, and whose predictions about the war in Ukraine war thus far have consistently turned out to be true, is, for whatever reason, nonetheless a neocon (advocate for increasing yet further the U.S. empire) in the case of China; and, so, while he’s realistic about the need for the U.S. Government to withdraw from Ukraine, he is nonetheless a normal neocon in regards to China.

On November 29th, he headlined “China Alarmed As US Marine Prepare HIMARS and ATACMS for Yonaguni”, and argued that it’s a good move by Biden now, that he’ll be placing in Japan U.S. missiles that can hit Taiwan for the purpose of “stopping a Taiwan invasion,” by which stupid phrase he intends to mean that we’ll be stopping “an invasion of Taiwan,” by — you guess whom, which is, of course, according to the neocons’ plan, to be done by — China, as soon as Taiwan will announce that it is NOT a part of China, and for which purpose the U.S. Government has been arming Taiwan so that Taiwan can then (with American weapons and maybe direct Military involvement) resist the invasion by China that will be China’s inevitable response to this U.S.-planned breakaway from China by Taiwan. And THAT will then give the U.S. Government the ‘right’ to invade and conquer China — which is the real objective of all of this scheming and war-planning by Breyen and ogther neocons.

So, I posted a reader-comment to that article:

Here is why your article is shocking:

You have cited the Taiwan Relations Act as a ‘justification’ for your position regarding China.

The Taiwan Relations Act was merely concerning the U.S. Government and NOT America’s relations with China and with its province of Taiwan. It is logically SUBORDINATE TO the Shanghai Communique, which is an agreement BETWEEN China and U.S. Anything in the Taiwan Relations Act that contradicts the Shanghai Communique of 1972 is null and void automatically.

The Shanghai Communique, in 1972, committed the U.S. Government to — and agreed with China’s Government that — “Taiwan is a part of China.” Consistently since the 1972 Shanghai Communique, the official policy of the U.S. Government is and has been “Taiwan is a part of China.”

Your article logically implied, instead of overtly said, that Taiwan can declare independence from China — DESPITE BEING “a part of China.” Here is the (il)logic of your position:

Your article alleges that Taiwan should be able to declare independence from China despite America’s Government having formally committed itself that Taiwan is a part of China, and that U.S. taxpayers should fund this U.S. aggression against China.

Furthermore, you are assuming (likewise falsely) that Taiwan is of such vital national-security interest to the safety of America (protecting the safety of the residents in the USA), so that America, which is legally committed to Taiwan’s being a Chinese province, ought to arm Taiwan so that Taiwan can declare itself to be NOT a part of China, so that China can then be defeated by LOSING that “part of China.” That’s what you want. You want U.S. taxpayers to fund this U.S. aggression against China. It is crazy. It is loaded with false assumptions. And the very IDEA that U.S. taxpayers should fund U.S. aggression isn’t merely crazy, it is evil; and I, as a U.S. taxpayer, recognize this.

Bryen’s false assumptions here have been advocated in the greatest detail by an article from A. Wess Mitchell, who had been the successor to Victoria Nuland as the Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs during 2017-2019 in the Trump Administration; and Mitchell, like his predecessor, Nuland, was/is a total neocon; but, unlike her, he didn’t believe that America should be trying simultaneously to conquer BOTH Russia and China; he believed that we should instead aim for a temporary negotiated-with-Russia stalemate and abeyance of the war in Ukraine, so that we can then (temporarily) devote all of our resources to conquering China first (in order to attack Russia afterwards).

Mitchell headlined in the so-called National Interest magazine, on 21 August, 2021, his influential article, “A Strategy for Avoiding Two-Front War”, and he opened:

The greatest risk facing the twenty-first-century United States, short of an outright nuclear attack, is a two-front war involving its strongest military rivals, China and Russia. Such a conflict would entail a scale of national effort and risk unseen in generations, effectively pitting America against the resources of nearly half of the Eurasian landmass.

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