Forum Post: Daniel Ellsberg: United States Nearly Used Nukes During Vietnam War
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Daniel Ellsberg: United States Nearly Used Nukes During Vietnam War
Monday, 09 June 2014 14:21
By Marjorie Cohn, Truthout | News Analysis
We came dangerously close to nuclear war when the United States was fighting in Vietnam, Pentagon Papers whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg told a reunion of the Stanford anti-Vietnam War movement in May 2014. He said that in 1965, the Joint Chiefs of Staff assured President Lyndon B. Johnson that the war could be won, but it would take at least 500,000 to one million troops. The Joint Chiefs recommended hitting targets up to the Chinese border. Ellsberg suspects their real aim was to provoke China into responding. If the Chinese came in, the Joint Chiefs took for granted that we would cross into China and use nuclear weapons to demolish the communists.
Former President Dwight D. Eisenhower also recommended to Johnson that we use nuclear weapons in both North and South Vietnam. Indeed, during the 1964 presidential campaign, Republican nominee Barry Goldwater argued for nuclear attacks as well. Johnson feared that the Joint Chiefs would resign and go public if Johnson didn't follow at least some of their recommendations, and he needed some Republican support for the "Great Society" and the "War on Poverty." Fortunately, Johnson resisted their most extreme proposals, even though the Joint Chiefs regarded them as essential to success. Ellsberg cannot conclude that the antiwar movement shortened the war, but he says the movement put a lid on the war. If the president had done what the Joint Chiefs recommended, the movement would have grown even larger, but so would the war, much larger than it ever became.
"The Most Dangerous Man in America"
Ellsberg, a former US military analyst and Marine in Vietnam, worked at the RAND Corporation and the Pentagon. He risked decades in prison to release 7,000 top-secret documents to The New York Times and other newspapers in 1971. The Pentagon Papers showed how five presidents consistently lied to the American people about the Vietnam War that was killing thousands of Americans and millions of Indochinese. Ellsberg's courageous act lead directly to the Watergate scandal, Nixon's resignation, and helped to end the Vietnam War. Henry Kissinger, Nixon's national security advisor, called Ellsberg "the most dangerous man in America," who "had to be stopped at all costs." But Ellsberg wasn't stopped. Facing 115 years in prison on espionage and conspiracy charges, he fought back. The case against him was dismissed due to egregious misconduct by the Nixon administration. Ellsberg's story was portrayed in the Oscar-nominated film, "The Most Dangerous Man in America." Edward Snowden told Ellsberg that film strengthened his intention to release the NSA documents.
The April Third Movement
On April 3, 1969, 700 Stanford students voted to occupy the Applied Electronics Laboratory (AEL), where classified (secret) research on electronic warfare (radar-jamming) was being conducted at Stanford. That spawned the April Third Movement (A3M), which holds reunions every five to 10 years. The sit-in at AEL, supported by a majority of Stanford students, lasted nine days, replete with a printing press in the basement to produce materials linking Stanford trustees to defense contractors. Stanford moved the objectionable research off campus, but the A3M continued with sit-ins, teach-ins and confrontations with police in the Stanford Industrial Park. Many activists from that era continue to do progressive work, drawing on their experiences during the A3M. This year, we discussed the political economy of climate change, and the relationship between the counterculture of the 1960s and the development of Silicon Valley. Highlights of the weekend included three keynote addresses - Ellsberg's, one delivered by Stanford political science Professor Terry Karl, and a talk by Rutgers professor of English and American Studies, H. Bruce Franklin.
"Accountability for War Crimes: From Vietnam to Latin America"
Terry Karl is a Stanford professor who has published widely on political economy of development, oil politics, Latin America and Africa, and human rights. She also testifies as an expert witness in trials against Latin American dictators and military officers who tortured, disappeared and killed civilians in the 1970s and 1980s, when their governments were supported by the United States. Karl's testimonies have helped to establish guilt and accountability for the murders of El Salvador's Archbishop Romero, the rape and murders of four American churchwomen and other prominent cases.
Karl quoted President George H.W. Bush, who announced proudly after the first Gulf War in 1991, "The specter of Vietnam has been buried forever in the desert sands of the Arabian peninsula." Nevertheless, Karl observed, we have been involved in "permanent war" since Vietnam, in part because there had been no accountability, abroad or at home, for each of our past wars. The US global military presence around the world, according to Karl, is not there for defense, but rather to maintain the United States "at the top." No defense can be based on having soldiers in 150 countries.
Beginning with Vietnam, we stopped paying taxes for the wars we fight, Karl said. The Korean War was financed with taxes, but the Vietnam War was paid for through inflation. This helped to produce the recession that was the basis for the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980. Wars in Central America, Iraq and Afghanistan have been "paid for" through debt. In this respect, permanent war not only threatens our democracy, Karl pointed out, but also our economic future. In one example, Karl noted that the United States fights wars to secure oil and gas, yet the largest consumer of oil in the world is the Department of Defense because of those very wars.
Karl also observed that we have not "won" all of those unpaid wars - if measured against their original objectives. The United States fought in Vietnam to prevent communist reunification of the country, yet that is exactly what happened. The Reagan administration decided to "draw the line" in El Salvador to prevent FLMN rebels from coming to power, yet the FMLN is the government today. And the Reagan administration supported the contras in Nicaragua to prevent the Sandinistas from governing that country; the Sandinistas are now in control. She predicted we would see similar "victories" in Iraq and Afghanistan.
"The Cultural Memory of the Vietnam War in the Epoch of Forever War"
H. Bruce Franklin was the first tenured professor to be fired by Stanford University, and the first to be fired by a major university since the 1950s. Franklin, who was a Marxist and an active member of the A3M, was terminated because of things he said at an antiwar rally, statements that, according to the ACLU, amounted to protected First Amendment speech. A renowned expert on Herman Melville, history and culture, Franklin has taught at Rutgers University since 1975. He has written or edited 19 books and hundreds of articles, including books about the Vietnam War. Before becoming an activist, Franklin spent three years in the US Air Force, "flying," he said, "in operations of espionage and provocation against the Soviet Union and participating in launches for full-scale thermonuclear war."
Franklin told the reunion about myths the US government has promulgated since the Vietnam War. "One widespread cultural fantasy about the Vietnam War blames the antiwar movement for losing the war, forcing the military to 'fight with one arm tied behind its back,'" Franklin said. "But this stands reality on its head," he maintains. Franklin cited the American people's considerable opposition to the war. "Like the rest of the movement at home," he noted, "the A3M was inspired and empowered by our outrage against both the war and all those necessary lies about the war coming from our government and the media, as well as the deceitful participation of institutions that were part of our daily life, such as Stanford University." The war finally ended, Franklin thought, because of the antiwar movement, particularly opposition to the war within the military.
The other two myths Franklin debunked are first, that the real heroes are the American prisoners of war (POWs) still imprisoned in Vietnam, and second, that many veterans of the Vietnam War were spat upon by antiwar protestors when they returned home. The black and white POW/MIA (missing in action) flag has flown over the White House, US post offices and government buildings, the New York Stock Exchange, and appears on the right sleeve of the official robe of the Ku Klux Klan, according to Franklin. "The flag now came to symbolize our culture's dominant view of America as the heroic warrior victimized by 'Vietnam,' but then reemerging as Rambo unbound," he said. But after talking to people he met in Japan, Franklin came to believe that rather than symbolizing heroism, the POWs surrendered. Franklin also pointed out that there is absolutely no evidence that any Vietnam vet was spat upon by an antiwar protestor. "These two myths turned 'Vietnam' into the cultural basis of the forever war," Franklin said. He also quoted George H.W. Bush who proclaimed in 1991, "By God, we've kicked the Vietnam Syndrome once and for all."
The Legacy of the Vietnam War
But, as Karl and Franklin observed, we are now engaged in a "permanent war" or "forever war." Indeed, the US government has waged two major wars and several other military interventions in the years since Vietnam. And in his recent statement on US foreign policy, President Barack Obama said: "The United States will use military force, unilaterally if necessary, when our core interests demand it - when our people are threatened; when our livelihoods are at stake; when the security of our allies is in danger." Obama never mentioned the United Nations Charter, which forbids "unilateral" intervention - the use or threat of military force not conducted in self-defense or with the consent of the Security Council.
The US military, Karl noted, teaches that the Vietnam War was a success. And, indeed, during the next 11 years, leading up to the 50th anniversary of that war, the US government will continue to mount a false narrative of that war. Fortunately, Veterans for Peace has launched a counter-commemoration movement to explain the true legacy of Vietnam. It is only through an accurate understanding of our history that we can struggle against our government's use of military force as the first, instead of the last, line of defense.
Copyright, Truthout.
Don't Walk Away From War: It's Not the American Way
Tuesday, 10 June 2014 12:52
By Tom Engelhardt, TomDispatch | Op-Ed
http://www.truth-out.org/opinion/item/24270-dont-walk-away-from-war-its-not-the-american-way
The United States has been at war -- major boots-on-the-ground conflicts and minor interventions, firefights, air strikes, drone assassination campaigns, occupations, special ops raids, proxy conflicts, and covert actions -- nearly nonstop since the Vietnam War began. That’s more than half a century of experience with war, American-style, and yet few in our world bother to draw the obvious conclusions.
Given the historical record, those conclusions should be staring us in the face. They are, however, the words that can’t be said in a country committed to a military-first approach to the world, a continual build-up of its forces, an emphasis on pioneering work in the development and deployment of the latest destructive technology, and a repetitious cycling through styles of war from full-scale invasions and occupations to counterinsurgency, proxy wars, and back again.
So here are five straightforward lessons -- none acceptable in what passes for discussion and debate in this country -- that could be drawn from that last half century of every kind of American warfare:
No matter how you define American-style war or its goals, it doesn’t work. Ever.
No matter how you pose the problems of our world, it doesn’t solve them. Never.
No matter how often you cite the use of military force to “stabilize” or “protect” or “liberate” countries or regions, it is a destabilizing force.
No matter how regularly you praise the American way of war and its “warriors,” the U.S. military is incapable of winning its wars.
No matter how often American presidents claim that the U.S. military is “the finest fighting force in history,” the evidence is in: it isn’t.
And here’s a bonus lesson: if as a polity we were to take these five no-brainers to heart and stop fighting endless wars, which drain us of national treasure, we would also have a long-term solution to the Veterans Administration health-care crisis. It’s not the sort of thing said in our world, but the VA is in a crisis of financing and caregiving that, in the present context, cannot be solved, no matter whom you hire or fire. The only long-term solution would be to stop fighting losing wars that the American people will pay for decades into the future, as the cost in broken bodies and broken lives is translated into medical care and dumped on the VA.
Heroes and Turncoats
One caveat. Think whatever you want about war and American war-making, but keep in mind that we are inside an enormous propaganda machine of militarism, even if we barely acknowledge the space in our lives that it fills. Inside it, only certain opinions, certain thoughts, are acceptable, or even in some sense possible.
Take for an example the recent freeing of Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl from five years as a captive of the Haqqani network. Much controversy has surrounded it, in part because he was traded for five former Taliban officials long kept uncharged and untried on the American Devil’s Island at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. It has been suggested that Sgt. Bergdahl deserted his post and his unit in rural Afghanistan, simply walked away -- which for opponents of the deal and of President Obama makes the “trade for terrorists” all the more shameful. Our options when it comes to what we know of Bergdahl’s actions are essentially to decry him as a “turncoat” or near-voluntary “terrorist prisoner” or ignore them, go into a “support the troops” mode, and hail him as a “hero” of the war. And yet there is a third option.
According to his father, in the period before he was captured, his emails home reflected growing disillusionment with the military. ("The U.S. army is the biggest joke the world has to laugh at. It is the army of liars, backstabbers, fools, and bullies. The few good SGTs [sergeants] are getting out as soon as they can, and they are telling us privates to do the same.") He had also evidently grown increasingly uncomfortable as well with the American war in that country. ("I am sorry for everything here. These people need help, yet what they get is the most conceited country in the world telling them that they are nothing and that they are stupid, that they have no idea how to live.") When he departed his base, he may even have left a note behind expressing such sentiments. He had reportedly told someone in his unit earlier, "If this deployment is lame... I’m just going to walk off into the mountains of Pakistan."
That’s what we know. There is much that we don’t know. However, what if, having concluded that the war was no favor to Afghans or Americans and he shouldn’t participate in it, he had, however naively, walked away from it without his weapon and, as it turned out, not into freedom but directly into captivity? That Sgt. Bergdahl might have been neither a military-style hero, nor a turncoat, but someone who voted with his feet on the merits of war, American-style, in Afghanistan is not an option that can be discussed calmly here. Similarly, anyone who took such a position here, not just in terms of our disastrous almost 13-year Afghan War, but of American war-making generally, would be seen as another kind of turncoat. However Americans may feel about specific wars, walking away from war, American-style, and the U.S. military as it is presently configured is not a fit subject for conversation, nor an option to be considered.
It’s been a commonplace of official opinion and polling data for some time that the American public is “exhausted” with our recent wars, but far too much can be read into that. Responding to such a mood, the president, his administration, and the Pentagon have been in a years-long process of “pivoting” from major wars and counterinsurgency campaigns to drone wars, special operations raids, and proxy wars across huge swaths of the planet (even while planning for future wars of a very different kind continues). But war itself and the U.S. military remain high on the American agenda. Military or militarized solutions continue to be the go-to response to global problems, the only question being: How much or how little? (In what passes for debate in this country, the president’s opponents regularly label him and his administration “weak” for not doubling down on war, from the Ukraine and Syria to Afghanistan).
Meanwhile, investment in the military's future and its capacity to make war on a global scale remains staggeringly beyond that of any other power or combination of powers. No other country comes faintly close, not the Russians, nor the Chinese, nor the Europeans just now being encouraged to up their military game by President Obama who recently pledged a billion dollars to strengthen the U.S. military presence in Eastern Europe.
In such a context, to suggest the sweeping failure of the American military over these last decades without sapping support for the Pentagon and the military-industrial complex would involve making the most breathtaking stab-in-the-back argument in the historical record. This was tried after the Vietnam War, which engendered a vast antiwar movement at home. It was at least conceivable at the time to blame defeat on that movement, a “liberal” media, and lily-livered, micromanaging politicians. Even then, however, the stab-in-the-back version of the war never quite stuck and in all subsequent wars, support for the military among the political class and everywhere else has been so high, the obligatory need to “support the troops” -- left, right, and center -- so great that such an explanation would have been ludicrous.
A Record of Failure to Stagger the Imagination
The only option left was to ignore what should have been obvious to all. The result has been a record of failure that should stagger the imagination and remarkable silence on the subject. So let’s run through these points one at a time.
On September 12, 2001, al-Qaeda was a relatively small organization with a few camps in arguably the most feudal and backward country on the planet, and tiny numbers of adherents scattered elsewhere around the world. Today, al-Qaeda-style outfits and jihadist groups control significant parts of Syria, Iraq, Pakistan, and even Yemen, and are thriving and spreading in parts of Africa as well.
Or try questions like these: Is Iraq a peaceful, liberated state allied with and under Washington’s aegis, with “enduring camps” filled with U.S. troops on its territory? Or is it a riven, embattled, dilapidated country whose government is close to Iran and some of whose Sunni-dominated areas are under the control of a group that is more extreme than al-Qaeda? Is Afghanistan a peaceful, thriving, liberated land under the American aegis, or are Americans still fighting there almost 13 years later against the Taliban, an impossible-to-defeat minority movement it once destroyed and then, because it couldn’t stop fighting the “war on terror,” helped revive? Is Washington now supporting a weak, corrupt central government in a country that once again is planting record opium crops?
But let’s not belabor the point. Who, except a few neocons still plunking for the glories of “the surge” in Iraq, would claim military victory for this country, even of a limited sort, anywhere at any time in this century?
Similarly, the NSA’s surveillance regime, another form of global intervention by Washington, has -- experts are convinced -- done little or nothing to protect Americans from terror attacks. It has, however, done a great deal to damage the interests of America’s tech corporations and to increase suspicion and anger over Washington’s policies even among allies. And by the way, congratulations are due on one of the latest military moves of the Obama administration, the sending of U.S. military teams and drones into Nigeria and neighboring countries to help rescue those girls kidnapped by the extremist group Boko Haram. The rescue was a remarkable success... oops, didn’t happen (and we don’t even know yet what the blowback will be).
Meanwhile, the U.S. war in Afghanistan and the CIA’s drone assassination campaign in the tribal borderlands of neighboring Pakistan have destabilized that country, which now has its own fierce Taliban movement. The 2011 U.S. intervention in Libya initially seemed like a triumph, as had the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan before it. Libyan autocrat Muammar Gaddafi was overthrown and the rebels swept into power. Like Afghanistan and Iraq, however, Libya is now a basket case, riven by competing militias and ambitious generals, largely ungovernable, and an open wound for the region. Arms from Gaddafi’s looted arsenals have made their way into the hands of Islamist rebels and jihadist extremists from the Sinai Peninsula to Mali, from Northern Africa to northern Nigeria, where Boko Haram is entrenched. It is even possible, as Nick Turse has done, to trace the growing U.S. military presence in Africa to the destabilization of parts of that continent.
It would be folly to imagine that this record represents the historical norm. It doesn't. It might be more relevant to suggest that the sorts of imperial wars and wars of pacification the U.S. has fought in recent times, often against poorly armed, minimally trained, minority insurgencies (or terror outfits), are simply unwinnable. They seem to generate their own resistance. Their brutalities and even their “victories” simply act as recruitment posters for the enemy.
As for Peace, Not a Penny
Is there a record like it? More than half a century of American-style war by the most powerful and potentially destructive military on the planet adds up to worse than nothing. If any other institution in American life had a comparable scorecard, it would be shunned like the plague. In reality, the VA has a far better record of success when it comes to the treatment of those broken by our wars than the military does of winning them, and yet its head administrator was forced to resign recently amid scandal and a media firestorm.
As in Iraq, Washington has a way of sending in the Marines, setting the demons loose, leaving town, and then wondering how in the world things got so bad -- as if it had no responsibility for what happened. Don’t think, by the way, that no one ever warned us either. Who, for instance, remembers Arab League head Amr Moussa saying in 2004 that the U.S. had opened the “gates of hell” in its invasion and occupation of Iraq? Who remembers the vast antiwar movement in the U.S. and around the world that tried to stop the launching of that invasion, the hundreds of thousands of people who took to the streets to warn of the dangers before it was too late? In fact, being in that antiwar movement more or less guaranteed that ever after you couldn’t appear on the op-ed pages of America’s major papers to discuss the disaster you had predicted. The only people asked to comment were those who had carried it out, beaten the drums for it, or offered the mildest tsk-tsk about it.
By the way, don’t think for a moment that war never solved a problem, or achieved a goal for an imperial or other regime, or that countries didn’t regularly find victory in arms. History is filled with such examples. So what if, in some still-to-be-understood way, something has changed on planet Earth? What if something in the nature of imperial war now precludes victory, the achieving of goals, the “solving” of problems in our present world? Given the American record, it’s at least a thought worth considering.
As for peace? Not even a penny for your thoughts on that one. If you suggested pouring, say, $50 billion into planning for peace, no less the $500 billion that goes to the Pentagon annually for its base budget, just about anyone would laugh in your face. (And keep in mind that that figure doesn’t include most of the budget for the increasingly militarized U.S. Intelligence Community, or extra war costs for Afghanistan, or the budget of the increasingly militarized Department of Homeland Security, or other costs hidden elsewhere, including, for example, for the U.S. nuclear arsenal, which is buried in the Energy Department’s budget.)
That possible solutions to global problems, possible winning strategies, might come from elsewhere than the U.S. military or other parts of the national security state, based on 50 years of imperial failure, 50 years of problems unsolved and wars not won and goals not reached, of increasing instability and destruction, of lives (American and otherwise) snuffed out or broken? Not on your life.
Don’t walk away from war. It’s not the American way.
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"Daniel Ellsberg, Pentagon Papers whistleblower, dies aged 92"
"Analyst who leaked studies showing US government knew the Vietnam war was un-winnable became activist and writer."
Also: History-making whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg has died at 92":
From which .. "Daniel Ellsberg, who leaked the Pentagon Papers that detailed U.S. actions during the Vietnam war, died Friday at this home in Kensington, Calif. He was 92. The cause, his family said in a statement, was pancreatic cancer.
Further "Ellsberg was born in Chicago in 1931. His parents were European Jews who came to America & converted to Christian Science. He attended public schools in Chicago & Detroit & won a scholarship to Harvard - where he graduated summa cum laude in 1952 & won a Marshall Scholarship to attend the University of Cambridge in England. In 1954 he enlisted in the Marines ... and was commissioned as an officer, mustering out in 1957 and returning to Harvard to work on his doctoral degree in economics.
Finally .. "While still a graduate student in 1958 he began working for Rand. There, he studied nuclear defense policy, worked on an elaborate plan by which the U.S. could preserve its nuclear forces in the event of a first strike by the Soviet Union and saw war plans drawn up in that era for striking the USSR and China. In 2017 he published a book about this phase of his career called "The Doomsday Machine". In 2021, Ellsberg released documents he had from that period because he said he was concerned about mounting tensions between the U.S. and China."
requiescat in pace ...
"RIP Daniel Ellsberg, Who Told the World the Truth About the Vietnam War" by Eric Boehm
"The Pentagon Papers leaker risked prison to reveal that American military officials were lying to Congress and the public about Vietnam."
respice et adspice!
"Daniel Ellsberg Warned Crisis Over Ukraine and Taiwan Could Lead to Nuclear War"! (Video)
NB "Ellsberg revealed the U.S. drew up plans to attack China with nuclear weapons during the 1958 Taiwan Strait Crisis."
fiat lux et fiat pax!
The World has gone to the brink of nuclear war many times. It's nothing new to learn that the U. S. A. had planned for it.
The Cold War was a nuclear war. It left the multiple-century high-radiation zone at Chernobyl (in Russian, or Chornobyl in Ukrainian) now marked by the world's greatest semi-cylindrical aluminum sarcophagus.
Sadly defending the status quo (that won't disrupt itself) both local and global, is still your wont it seems, despite your long absence here grapes and if you'd listened to the video or read the transcript, you may not have just reacted from just what little you'd seen immediately above! Ergo, from what Ellsberg [RiP] said, perhaps try to consider:
"When Biden is urged to send direct planes, that Ukrainians can't yet operate - like the F-16, tanks that they can't yet operate, the tendency to send Americans to operate those tanks and get them right away into business will be very strong along with that. I can only hope that Biden will be pressed by a large part of the public, pressed not to involve the U.S. directly in that war, and to be pursuing negotiations, which it is currently absolutely eschewing, is rejecting the idea of negotiations.
"There's now increasing information that one year ago in early April 2022 Zelensky and Putin essentially had an agreement, were within very close to an agreement, on prewar status quo, returning to a prewar status quo in Crimea and the Donbas, in relation to NATO and everything else, but that the U.S. and the British, Boris Johnson, went over and said, “We are not ready for that. We want the war to continue. We will not accept a negotiation.” I would say that was a crime against humanity. And I would say - that with all seriousness to the idea that we needed to see people killed on both sides in order, quote “to weaken the Russians,” not for the benefit of the Ukrainians, but for an overall geopolitical strategy .. was wicked.
"And however the war started, and, I think, with both incredibly bad judgement by Putin, and aggression and atrocity, and, on the other hand, provocation by the United States, in the sense of policies that were consciously foreseen to increase the probability of a Russian crime of this sort, tells me that I think there were a lot of Americans who wanted this war.And they've got exactly what they wanted, even better than they could have imagined — huge arms sales to our allies, the U.S.A. - again having an essential role in Europe with an indispensable enemy, an enemy that we could not run the world without, Russia"! + Now further try to consider:
fiat lux; fiat justitia; fiat pax!
The Rise of Red China which so many countries want to follow by catering to support it in its stance of so-called "neutrality" in the Russo-Ukrainian war, was achieved by the neoliberals.
Income inequality inevitably comes from a group of the people getting rich first. Would it please you more if no one gets an increase in income at all ? That'll certainly preserve the currently existing income inequality.
Deng Xiaoping understood this basic fact and opted for letting some people get rich first.
I don't think that borrowing money is inherently bad. What's far more important is what one borrows that money for.
Hong Kong went into vast amount of deficit spending after emerging from the 1967 riots. Red China and the U. K. agreed that China would leave Hong Kong alone until the lease expiration in 1997. I would say that the political stability provided the foundation for the rise of Hong Kong under the neoliberal order.
A few years ago before Xi dictatorial policies kicked in earnestly, Hong Kong controlled about the same amount of wealth as the Russian Federation and Hong Kong was the number three financial center in the whole world, after New York and London. Is it a remarkable coincidence that all three use English extensively, two of which being former colonial possessions ?
As far as the population density of billionaires (as measured by net worth in U. S. A. dollars) was concerned, Hong Kong had the highest density second only to Macau/Macao, which hosts the world's largest casino. I believe that Hong Kong was far more livable and attractive to billionaires than Macau/Macao which my Mom had told me a bit about. Hong Kong banned and I think that it still bans gambling, primarily as a British (Opium Wars with Qing dynasty) legacy. Hong Kong policemen, who were mostly Chinese, respected Chinese tradition, exercised "discretion", dispensed Grace, or was just plainly corrupt: https://youtu.be/haI8HMjlE9s.
Gambling was a dominant traditional Chinese hobby. I, as a young kid being started with filling in to complete the Quad for the game (三缺一, 我喺『小搭子』。 我喺識打麻雀嘅, 冇辦法啦, 細蚊仔, 要頂檔, 頂硬上呀 !）became quite a formidable mah-jongg(麻雀） player: https://youtu.be/7hx4gdlfamo.
The lack of fellow mah-jongg players in the U. S. A. suburbia motivated some originally Hong-Konger retirees to move back to Hong Kong where they could have wee-hour wonton noodles (雲吞麵）, shrimp 🍤 toasts, barbecued pork buns, etc. (i.e. the socializing tradition of 燒夜 or post-midnight barbecue mini-feast） after finishing the game and starting to socialize around foods.
In my Grandma's little patch of green bamboo forest by Phoenix Creek(鳳凰溪）, I saw the forest floor covered with a bed of yellow chrysanthemums under a blue autumn sky: https://youtu.be/n3FTIfcQlNM with sunbeams filtering in through the green long leaves of the bamboos.
Ionic radius is a key concept on the paths to room-temperature superconductors: https://www.iflscience.com/first-room-temperature-ambient-pressure-superconductor-achieved-claim-scientists-70001
Lead being neurotoxic isn't good for widespread usage so a more environmentally/anthropically friendlier option is desirable. Iron can be a better metal to be used. Is iron apatite room-temperature superconducting ?
Apparently "Alaska amongst the 50 states of the U.S.A. has the highest rate of chlamydia"
And meanwhile 90% of Chinese people own their own home & 25'% own a second home!
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-39512599 - from 7.5 years ago & now:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_home_ownership_rate
https://investguiding-com.ngontinh24.com/article/home-ownership-by-country-2023
further note -- https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/home-ownership-by-countryhttps://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/home-ownership-by-country & finally:
https://www.yicaiglobal.com/news/china-is-likely-first-country-to-reach-96-urban-home-ownership-pboc-says
Your deep seated and psychologically conflicted hatred for your own urheimat and culture, is at the root of your psychobabble gripes & huge dollops of 'Christianized Propaganda' have not helped you either!
nosce te ipsum!
This is a bigly Trumpanzian dead-bird Twitter power message's effect on the Fed's "way behind" the curve of suppressing inflation: https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/bonds/treasury-bond-yields-market-selloff-market-crashes-dot-com-bubble-2023-10
It looks like the global glut of savings is being dealt with extremely effectively now. Collapse!
Young Chinese couples will buy a new home because without it the woman wouldn't even engage with the man. Almost every marriage needs a new home to be bought so they will inherit homes from their parents and their parents' inherited homes from their own parents. It's been going on like that for decades upon decades in Red China and the whole real estate sure-bet capital-preserving scheme is collapsing. Red China funds local governments by their leasing land to developers. "Housing starts" aren't "housing finished" in order to maximize corruption and local government revenue for decades already. Ghost Cities have been around for decades. Destruction of capital is being played out now.
Do you know Red China better than I do ? Hmm?
Xi Jinping got the deadbeat debt monkeys on his back.
North Korea is going around the smoke circle previously traversed by North Vietnam.
To "know Red China better" than you - only requires a perspective outside of your very time limited, deeply partisan point of view tbh!
Consider that from one point of view: All History Is Chinese; as they have been writing about it for the longest continuous length of time!!
Chinese history is replete with Empires, Emperors & Entire Dynasties that come n' go but Contiguous Chinese Civilisation rolls on and on!!!
Han Chinese cultural core 'genius' is: Organisation and the contiguous reality, history and culture of a meritocratic Mandarin 'civil service', in effect means that the Communist Party is the latest iteration of that phenomenon of history and culture!!!!
The 'People's Bank of China' [the clue is in the name] is the single most powerful financial institution that has Ever Existed on Earth!!!
Because the PBC is not just a closed, conspiratorial, cabal of oligarchic & sometimes dynastic private bankers - as it is in 'The West'!!
Ergo, the PBC is actually part of the Chinese State and thus NOT a separate entity from The Chinese State & this is Very Important!
Note China can not become bankrupt, as its currency is issued by The State & NOT a cabal of private bankers and the PBC can name the currency what it wants to &, in relation to its value even move the decimal point where it wants to in relation to its value and Interest Rates, as it isn't simply run with the cold tyranny of double entry book-keeping in the interests of Private Bankers; answerable to no one!!!
The Chinese People, Society, Culture and History ... have realised that the illusory strictures of private fiat money are NOT the only limiting factor of human society and action; the 'Collective Will To Do' is & Chinese Currency is as ever, based on the history, culture, resources, ingenuity & wealth of its people; NOT just on its ability to repay "bonds" & any other debts to "private investors" ie"fiat money lenders"!!
You, yourself would see and understand the very fundamental truths of these things, if you were not so Very Deeply prejudiced and programmed by Capitalism and Christianity's self regarding propagandists, as THE fundamental way to really understand China is NOT just Capitalism, Communism, or your own Confusionism but its Continuous Culture of Confucianism which is NOT "collapsing" any time soon!
Stop and carefully ponder now grapes - as there are no links being provided to you as any evidence & as your reactionary self; with Confirmation Bias and Cognitive Dissonance, clouds your own thoughts!
et ergo - nosce te ipsum!
你識唔識睇聖經呀 ?
『神愛世人 一一 叫一切信祂的， 不至滅亡，反得永生。』
It's a process, never an ending: https://youtu.be/oo7VlD66ISM?si=rqmb3r3ErucVDXAV
We've come a long way, Baby, from our "no-brake" bicycle being whistled to a halt by that traffic cop/policeman standing in his street-crossing station: https://youtu.be/haI8HMjlE9s?si=8nq2LK2J6Q2Ldbgx
https://youtu.be/VGugzvOQNGs?si=hb6KDTvwM-uN542G
As per 'Nukes for Nakba' & re the OP, try to closely consider
the info in these 2 videos from 11 months ago, is still relevant:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f6sQTqzfu48 [11m]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s5CTbGAdjnk [9m]
&, try to consider this site: https://ifamericansknew.org/
Further note this https://www.breakingthesilence.org.il/
Also it's noted how you have nothing to say re. my prior^reply!
And 'What role do US tech giants play in powering Israel?'
ESPECIALLY in the dark light of recent pager & phone attacks!!
Further try to note: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nakba_Day and
https://www.afcfp.org/2024-joint-nakba-remembrance-ceremony
Finally per the OP, Daniel Ellesberg RiP & Julian Assange, note:
https://www.the-berliner.com/politics/daniel-ellsberg-wikileaks/
fiat et ad iudicium?
I certainly have something to say regarding your prior reply.
My ancestral wealth consisting of vast land holding mostly went to Red China's Communist Party and its officials. It's primarily because of the Second Sino-Japanese War with Imperial Japan wreaking havoc in China. The Communists were the ones staying behind to fight the Japs even after the Nationalist Central Government had withdrawn up the Yangtze River. My Grandpa probably took a leading part (he was probably a pirate scuttling ships owned by his business partners) in the rearguard action blocking the Japanese cruiser 'Izumo' from going through to chase up the river after the retreating industries and government. He was caught and tortured to death.
Even after the fall of Shanghai, the Communist guerilla stayed behind to fight so it's obvious why my ancestors being Nationalist Chinese supported the guerilla in smuggling materiel and financing the resistance. After the Japanese invaders had slaughtered most of my uncles and aunts who had survived the previous scourges, we weren't picky about donating land-sale proceeds to help whoever stayed there to fight the Japanese. Red China's being able to conquer much of Chinese mainland was because of its righteousness.