While Chinese President XI Jinping may couch his words politely, he is not likely to be “inscrutable” in warning the President of the possibility of a two-front war, if the situations in Ukraine and/or Taiwan continue to escalate.
Whether such a warning can get through Biden’s elderly skull or the equally thick skulls of his adolescent advisers is, alas, a different matter. Those amateur advisers would have to give up their benighted view that they can drive a wedge between China and Russia.
One respondent to my article yesterday wrote: “Ok, some simple facts:
– 12 Russian intelligence agents were indicted for hacking into the DNC and the DCCC.”
Those 12 indictments may linger in the minds of others, as well, so I am grateful for the opportunity to clarify.
What I remember is the following: (Btw, Friday the 13th is just a coincidence):
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Friday, July 13, 2018
The Department of Justice today announced that a grand jury in the District of Columbia returned an indictment presented by the Special Counsel’s Office. The indictment charges twelve Russian nationals for committing federal crimes that were intended to interfere with the 2016 U.S. presidential election. All twelve defendants are members of the GRU … They also were able to hack into the computer networks of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) and the Democratic National Committee (DNC) … to steal emails and documents.
(I have been told that, later that day, the same grand jury indicted a ham sandwich, but I have not been able to confirm that.)
Continue reading “What About ‘Those 12 Russian Intel Agents Indicted for Hacking’?”
Have the Germans learned anything since 1933? We are about to find out, now that they face a choice they have bent over backwards to avoid.
Will the Germans dutifully obey U.S. diktat on sanctions (and suffer economic-collapse-mit-frostbite this winter)? Or will they rise out of several post-World War II decades of vassalage; deal independently with Russia; and open the spigot for Nord Stream 2?
It is now clear that the saboteurs, who on Sept. 26 attacked the Baltic pipelines from Russia to Germany, thought they had denied Germany the more sensible (spigot) option. But (surprise, surprise), they screwed up.
My best job at CIA was conducting the one-on-one early morning briefings of The President’s Daily Brief and updating it with Vice President George H. W. Bush, Secretary of State George Shultz, and Secretary of Defense Casper Weinberger during President Ronald Reagan’s first term – 1981-85. (The president preferred to sleep in, and would usually be briefed later in the morning by the above, plus his national security adviser.)
This was the time when Mikhail Gorbachev was coming into prominence – eventually becoming head of the Communist Party and President of the Soviet Union. Gorbachev had been virtually unknown, so it was easy for Weinberger, CIA Director William Casey and his protégé Robert Gates to paint Gorbachev as simply another Commie – just a more polished, clever one – and assure Reagan that the Soviet Communist Party would NEVER change: nor would it EVER EVER give up power peacefully.
I found myself in a unique position to critique that benighted attitude by providing my own views (citing concrete evidence), though only, of course, when asked to by the people I was briefing.
Teflon-coated Robert Gates, whom some folks still look up to, has not changed. In his book, Duty, he responded dismissively to those warning that Russia would be alarmed by the emplacement of offensive missiles in places like Romania, Poland, and the Black Sea: “Making the Russians happy wasn’t exactly on my to-do list.” So here we are today with “unprovoked” war in Ukraine.
During my interview with RT International last evening, I could not resist the temptation to record my brief meeting with Gorbachev when Gates’s name came up. Our until-then cordial conversation ended abruptly as Gorbachev’s face turned cold. “привет ему” (give him a greeting), Gorbachev said. He had been on record, long since, as deeming Gates a major impediment to decent relations between Washington and Moscow. For all we know, Gates may still have the ear of neophytes like Jake Sullivan and Antony Blinken.
This originally appeared at RayMcGovern.com.
Ray McGovern works with Tell the Word, a publishing arm of the ecumenical Church of the Saviour in inner-city Washington. His 27-year career as a CIA analyst includes serving as Chief of the Soviet Foreign Policy Branch and preparer/briefer of the President’s Daily Brief. He is co-founder of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS).
It was worth it. “Biden didn’t want to look ‘soft’ cancelling Pelosi’s Taiwan visit.”
Continue reading “Ray McGovern’s Likely Last (as in ‘Final’) Appearance on SKYNEWS/Australia”
Let’s begin with a syllogism:
Major Premise: Biden Does Not Want War With China
Minor Premise: He is Commander-in-Chief
Conclusion: Biden can order a Navy carrier battlegroup to change direction
In other words, a solution to the still up-in-the-air (so to speak) visit of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to Taiwan, amid Chinese threats of military action, should be a no-brainer for President Joe Biden. The more so since he did seek and find a similar solution with respect to Ukraine in April 2021.
Granted, for the conclusion to hold, one would have to assume the validity of both premises: that Biden wants to avoid war; and that he is up to acting like a commander in chief and can face down his own neocons, and MacArthur-esque 4-stars (as President Harry Truman did). Those who cannot buy into those two premises might wish to read further, anyway, as a kind of exercise in logic.
