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We’ve seen this before. The U.S. creates a situation, digs in its heels and makes ultimatums — and tens of thousands die.
We’ve seen it in Afghanistan and Iraq, and now it may be over Ukraine or Taiwan.
U.S. politicians, think-tank pundits and government war makers have created a war atmosphere on many fronts.
From the U.S. military policy makers in Washington, to the boots on the ground in Europe and the Middle East, to those in ships and aircraft in the Pacific, the U.S. military is under great stress from multiple crises that did not have to happen.
Instead of slowing down and backing off, the Biden administration is led by a very aggressive Secretary of State Antony Blinken and a go-along Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin. President Joe Biden seems to have given a dangerous green light to escalation on all fronts at the same time.
In response to U.S. war-mongering on steroids, both Russia and China are calling the diplomatic and military hands of the United States at the same time.
Russian President Vladimir Putin deployed about 125,000 troops to the border of Ukraine, bringing to a head the Russian Federation’s demand that the U.S. and NATO formally declare that Ukraine would not be recruited into NATO military forces. This, after 30 years of the U.S. poaching former Warsaw Pact countries into NATO despite President George H.W. Bush’s promise that the U.S. would not do so.
On the other side of the world, in the Asia-Pacific region, President Xi Jinping of China is responding to the U.S. “pivot to Asia” that has withered the 50-year U.S. policy of diplomatic recognition of the People’s Republic of China — while continuing economic and military support of Taiwan. The “One China” policy was begun decades ago in the 1970s under the Nixon administration.
The innocuous sounding “Freedom of Navigation” naval missions to stake out U.S. domination of the South China Sea have morphed into a NATO naval mission with ships from the United Kingdom and France joining the U.S. armada in China’s seaside front yard.
Today, two U.S. Navy carrier groups, each with an aircraft carrier and five to eight accompanying ships, are in the South China Sea.
U.S. diplomatic missions to Taiwan that had not happened in 50 years began under the Trump administration and now have the highest-ranking U.S. government officials in five decades making highly publicized trips to Taiwan as a stick to poke in the eye of the Chinese government.
The Chinese government has responded to the U.S. actions in the South China Sea by constructing a series of military installations on small atolls as a line of defense and sending naval vessels into its own coastal waters.
And countering increased U.S. military equipment sales to Taiwan and U.S. deployment of military training personnel there, China sent fleets of military aircraft across the Straits of Taiwan from mainland China to the edge of Taiwan’s air defense zone, forcing the Taiwanese Air Force to activate its air defense system.
The U.S. military is stretched to the point that the possibility, if not probability, of an incident or accident occurring that can set off a chain of events that will be disastrous for the world, is explosively high.
To save the lives of innocent civilians around the world, we U.S. citizens must demand from our government true discussion, dialogue and diplomacy, instead of war-mongering.
Honolulu resident Ann Wright served 29 years in the U.S. Army/Army Reserves and retired as a colonel; she is a member of Veterans For Peace and Hawai’i Peace and Justice.
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