Time for Sanctions against Russia and China. The former dipoles of the Communist world conspiracy, Moscow and Beijing, have become obstinate advocates of barbarism, this time in vetoing UN action on Syria. It's time they paid the price for their inexcusably monstrous behavior. We should move to strip them of their vetoes, as the first shot over their bows. Once that motion is itself vetoed, we must move to the really powerful guns to blast them out of the water: trade embargoes.
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China is wholly dependent upon exports to keep its people from starving, then rising in revolution against the regime. Ditto Russia.
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Russia's main exports of importance are oil and gas, and Europe has become hooked on Russian suppliers. But there's plenty of oil and gas in the world, and Europe can free itself from its dangerous dependency on a country that is teetering on the edge of dictatorship or revolt.
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The U.S. and EU can cripple China any time they want, simply by imposing restrictions on imports from Communist China, starting with the goods sent thru the most abusively unfair trading practices. We can also demand that China let its currency rise or fall on the world market, and stop artificially keeping its value low to give unfair advantage to Chinese manufacturers. So we'd be fiting two abuses at the same time.
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The U.S. acting alone can cause China huge problems. Already, the U.S. recession has produced considerable suffering among Chinese manufacturers, without any willful intent on our part. If we can harm China indeliberately, think of what we can do deliberately.
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Russia and China are committing hostile acts in the realm of cyber warfare against the U.S. and other countries, and we should warn them in unmistakable terms that we will not consent to have them ramp up their misdeeds in preparation for any kind of war, be it cyber, economic, or military, but regard the behavior of their regimes as provocative, and worthy of countermeasures from the U.S. We should remind Russia of what happened to the Soviet Union when it went up against us and our system of alliances, and caution them that we may be able to break up the Russian Federation as much as we did the Soviet empire. We need not merely promote democracy. We can promote regional separatism.
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We should publicly and covertly work to strengthen Russian democracy and oust Vladimir Putin from all positions of influence in Russian society.
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We should publicly and covertly work to promote democracy in China, and force elections not just at the local level but also at the national level — real elections, for real change from a real opposition that we will support not just thru rhetoric but also thru monetary contributions, and educational and technical assistance in organizing a popular democracy. China has separatist movements we can support too. And its leaders know full well what happened to the Soviet Union.
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Russia and China are the mainstays of barbarism in our time. Their support for the worst dictators on Earth must be broken — indeed smashed. If the people now in power in Moscow and Beijing will not stop their monstrous behavior, then we should do everything in our substantial power to oust their leaderships.
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We have nothing to fear from doing so. China's military is already preparing for military war against us, and the civilian leadership has not stopped the military from pursuing those plans. If we are to have war against Communist China, it is better for us if it comes sooner rather than later, inasmuch as China's trade surpluses — from us! — are turned over to the military to prepare for war against us. We cannot be naive about this. We must strengthen the forces of democracy in China, which are as well the forces for peace and for stripping the military of its excessive power.
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People who fear China will dump its U.S. treasury bonds and such needn't worry. There will be other buyers, friendlier buyers. And if there are not buyers for existing bonds, China cannot unload them and thus cannot cause us harm. Concern about Communists in China dictating policy to the United States because of the mess the Republicans have put us into in refusing to raise taxes on the rich, can be used to crack the whip over the Republican Right and FORCE them to raise taxes on the rich, as the only way to re-establish our economic independence from Communist China. Breaking the back of Russian and Chinese barbarism could be a win-win: for the United States, and for the people of those miserable countries.
- posted by L. Craig Schoonmaker @ 7:05 PM