Are We At War?

http://www.businessinsider.com.au/jack-ma-if-trade-stops-war-starts-2017-2

not a lot of content but more of a statement from jack ma

As time goes on I'm feeling increasingly optimistic that reason will prevail and the US won't launch some appallingly indiscriminate attack on the MIddle East. I hope I'm not wrong.
― Nick, Sunday, September 16, 2001 8:00 PM (fifteen years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

oof

it'd be nice to live in that timeline

http://www.forbes.com/sites/ralphjennings/2017/02/14/japan-and-trump-are-teaming-up-to-contain-china

The long-time American ally has the military might -- world No. 7 per rankings by the database GlobalFirePower.com -- to be a persuasive player in Asia. China ranks third and has militarized disputed islets off its coats.

Japan has the economic clout, too. It gives development aid and investment to poor countries in Asia in part to maintain a pro-American, anti-China alliance. Other allies include Vietnam and the Philippines. The United States, however, has other things to do -- back to that America-first element of Trump’s nearly month-old presidency. It might lean on Japan to do some of its China checks.

“For what’s going on in Asia, the U.S. is not going to be as large of a presence,” says Christian de Guzman, vice president and senior credit officer with Moody’s in Singapore. “There may be a desire for Japan to fill that void.” Otherwise China might fill it, he adds. “China has promised a large pool of investment for the Philippines. Then the Chinese government turned around and promised a similar package for Malaysia. They are trying to gain influence through investment.”

After Chinese ally North Korea test fired a ballistic missile into the sea on Sunday, both Japan and the United States protested. Trump gave Tokyo another boost by reassuring Japan that the uninhabited but strategic Japanese-held Senkaku Islands disputed by Beijing fall under a U.S.-Japan security treaty. Defense collaboration will “intensify,” says John Vail, chief global strategist with Japan-based Nikko Asset Management. The two sides “share several geopolitical concerns,” he adds.

japan having the military might is debatable at the very least

everything else seems par for the war course imo

Japanese militarism, yes, let's encourage that.

abe/ldp is working on amending the constitution so japan can beef up its military and attack instead of only 'defend' itself

Abe also seems more forthcoming on why he thinks Article 9 needs to be amended. The LDP draft says the “Japanese people forever renounce war as a sovereign right of the nation” and will not resort to the threat or use of force as means of settling international disputes — but adds that this will not prevent the nation from exercising its right to defend itself. The LDP has explained that this right to self-defense includes collective self-defense, which allows a country to take military action to defend an ally under attack even when the nation itself is not being attacked.

http://www.japantimes.co.jp/opinion/2016/03/15/editorials/abes-drive-amend-constitution/#.WKSrxtIrLs0

apologies for the japantimes link

caveat is that he needs the support of the people, and there are still mixed feelings about it

but my interpretation is that a lot of japanese people believe some type of re-arming is needed and if abe tweaks his rhetoric (he was already re-elected, but this may be a case of other presidential candidates being worse), he can make it happen

related is the pacific pivot -- US helping to militarize the asia pacific region

http://fpif.org/u-s-militarizing-pacific-not-taking-questions/

oh china responded

"No matter what anyone says or does, it cannot change the fact that the Diaoyu Islands belong to China, and cannot shake China's resolve and determination to protect national sovereignty and territory," Geng told a daily news briefing in Beijing.

The United States and Japan should watch what they say and do and stop making the wrong comments to avoid complicating the issue and affecting regional peace and stability, he added.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-japan-china-idUSKBN15S0UA

some reading between the lines needed but i tried to quote the decent parts

http://japan-forward.com/the-hate-farm-china-is-planting-a-bitter-harvest/

China is leading a deadly information war. The first target is Japan. The ultimate target is the United States. For more than two years, our research team and I have been warning that a Chinese radicalization program will lead to terrorism against Japanese. These predictions are proving true, so far with minor attacks. In November 2015, a Korean extremist detonated an explosive device inside the grounds of Yasukuni Shrine. He fled to South Korea but was arrested when he returned to Japan the following month.

[…]

War crimes occurred at Nanjing from various sides. Japanese are partly responsible but not to the extent of customary Chinese exaggerations. Japan has demonstrated remorse while China never admits wrongdoing. China now claims that 300,000 were murdered and many raped. American anti-Japanese reports at the time put the number at 20,000 to 30,000. Many deaths were caused by the Chinese Civil War—which the Chinese never mention.
 
Bottom line: Japanese committed war crimes at Nanjing, the number was far fewer than advertised, Chinese forces committed many of the atrocities, and China uses it today as hate fertilizer.

[…]

Comparing Yasukuni with Arlington invites protest from some Americans, who gerrymander definitions to fit favorable visions, or say that war criminals are enshrined at Yasukuni. An argument can be made that war criminals are buried at Arlington. Confederates from the U.S. Civil War are buried there. They fought in part to continue slavery. American soldiers who committed war crimes in the Philippine insurrection, against Native Americans, and in almost every war, are certainly buried there.

One example is General Samuel W. Koster, who was compared to General Tomoyuki Yamashita during the My Lai war crimes trials in the Vietnam War. He is buried with honors in West Point Cemetery Sec. 18, Row G, Grave 084B. Would Americans take seriously any complaint from Vietnam of a president or other government official paying respects at Arlington or West Point Cemetery?

One of our revered leaders, Curtis LeMay, famously said, “If we’d lost the war, we’d all have been prosecuted as war criminals.”

Japanese view death differently than do many others. In the Shinto way, when people die, all are equal. Suddenly there are no generals, no privates, no criminals, no saints. Everyone is neutral. There is a memorial in Los Angeles for the 442nd Regimental Combat Team, which was formed during World War II and consisted mostly of Japanese-Americans. The 442nd became the most decorated unit for its size in U.S. history. The 442nd has a legitimate memorial. A place of authentic honor. At the 442nd memorial is a large wall of names of fallen heroes, with no ranks. Their souls are equal, in keeping with the Japanese way.

[…]

China kills two birds by diverting attention from their own crimes while creating friction in U.S. relations with Japan by playing up that Japanese pray at Yasukuni to conjure evil spirits. This is like a movie plot.

[...]

The Chinese are radicalizing people for conflict. This is more than a mind game. People are being weaponized. It is only a matter of time before Japanese are being killed from the products of Chinese hate farming, and the myth of Japanese militarization will become a self-fulfilling prophecy. Gullible reporters will need to account for their role in this outcome.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/07/world/asia/thaad-missile-defense-us-south-korea-china.html

The New York Times reported Sunday that President Trump’s national security deputies have discussed both the possibility of pre-emptive strikes that would almost certainly provoke an attack on South Korea and a reintroduction of nuclear weapons to the South. Intelligence officials say North Korea is already able to hit much of South Korea and Japan with a nuclear-tipped missile.

[...]

For days, the official Chinese news media has warned that deployment of Thaad could lead to a “de facto” break in relations with South Korea and urged consumers to boycott South Korean products. The Chinese authorities recently forced the closing of 23 stores owned by Lotte, a South Korean conglomerate that agreed to turn over land that it owned for use in the Thaad deployment, and hundreds of Chinese protested at Lotte stores over the weekend, some holding banners that read, “Get out of China.”

Xinhua, the official Chinese news agency, warned that Thaad “will bring an arms race in the region,” likening the defensive system to a shield that would prompt the development of new spears. “More missile shields of one side inevitably bring more nuclear missiles of the opposing side that can break through the missile shield,” it said.

[...]

Takashi Kawakami, a professor of international politics and security at Takushoku University in Tokyo, said the deployment of Thaad could put the United States in a stronger position to consider a pre-emptive strike on North Korea. If the United States took such action, he said, “North Korea is going to make a counterattack on the U.S. or Japan or another place, so in this case they will use Thaad” to defend against the North’s missiles.

The Japanese prime minister, Shinzo Abe, said he spoke for 25 minutes on Tuesday with Mr. Trump, who reiterated his pledge to stand by Japan “100 percent,” according to the public broadcaster NHK. “I appreciate that the United States is showing that all the options are on the table,” Mr. Abe said, adding that Japan was “ready to fulfill larger roles and responsibilities” to deter North Korea.

adding that Japan was “ready to fulfill larger roles and responsibilities” to deter North Korea

...and to wrest some portion of the fate of Japan out of the hands of an incompetent, erratic, and unstable president.

Great, add "wake up and find out Seoul is a crater" to the list of occasional sweat-provoking dread ideas

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-39301842

Military action "an option" against North Korea if it elevates weapons programme threat, US secretary of state says

a few steps closer

“The full range of the United States military capability is dedicated to the protection of Japan. Japan, you are our friend — you are our ally — and on that foundation, we will face the future together,” Pence told the thousands of American and Japanese sailors who packed the deck of the USS Ronald Reagan, which is based in the port city.

...

“Under President Trump, the U.S. commitment to Article 5 of our security treaty is unwavering, and the treaty covers all of the territories administered by Japan, including the Senkaku Islands,” Pence said.

Claiming sovereign power over the uninhabited islets, Beijing regularly dispatches government ships to the area — moves that have unnerved Tokyo.

Article 5 obliges the U.S. to jointly defend areas administered by Japan, and U.S. top officials have repeatedly affirmed this obligation to ease public concerns among Japanese over the potential for military clashes between Japan and China.

http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2017/04/19/asia-pacific/politics-diplomacy-asia-pacific/u-s-vice-president-pence-says-north-korea-sword-stands-ready/

full response trump made wrt dprk yesterday (floating around the web)

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/C94uuuPUQAAxjjV.jpg

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/C94uuuPUQAAxjjV.jpg

yeah we're all gonna die

and i still haven't played the new zelda

if youre wondering about coal

china stopped importing coal from north korea at the end of feb

itll now import it from usa and russia

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-northkorea-coal-exclusive-idUSKBN17D0D8

china also threatening to cut oil supplies

http://oilprice.com/Energy/Crude-Oil/China-Ready-To-Cut-Oil-Supplies-To-North-Korea.html

as part of a piece criticizing the NYT's coverage of our global no-name war:, here's a short list of selected ongoing conflicts that the US is involved in:

Over 6,000 days after it began, America’s war in Afghanistan continues, with Times correspondents providing regular and regularly repetitive updates;

In the seven-year-long civil war that has engulfed Syria, the ever-shifting cast of belligerents now includes at least 2,000 (some sources say 4,000) U.S. special operators, the rationale for their presence changing from week to week, even as plans to keep U.S. troops in Syria indefinitely take shape;

In Iraq, now liberated from ISIS, itself a byproduct of U.S. invasion and occupation, U.S. troops are now poised to stay on, more or less as they did in West Germany in 1945 and in South Korea after 1953;

On the Arabian Peninsula, U.S. forces have partnered with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad Bin Salman Al Saud in brutalizing Yemen, thereby creating a vast humanitarian disaster despite the absence of discernible U.S. interests at stake;

In the military equivalent of whacking self-sown weeds, American drones routinely attack Libyan militant groups that owe their existence to the chaos created in 2011 when the United States impulsively participated in the overthrow of Muammar Gaddafi;

More than a quarter-century after American troops entered Somalia to feed the starving, the U.S. military mission continues, presently in the form of recurring airstrikes;

Elsewhere in Africa, the latest theater to offer opportunities for road-testing the most recent counterterrorism techniques, the U.S. military footprint is rapidly expanding, all but devoid of congressional (or possibly any other kind of) oversight;

From the Levant to South Asia, a flood of American-manufactured weaponry continues to flow unabated, to the delight of the military-industrial complex, but with little evidence that the arms we sell or give away are contributing to regional peace and stability;

Amid this endless spiral of undeclared American wars and conflicts, Congress stands by passively, only rousing itself as needed to appropriate money that ensures the unimpeded continuation of all of the above;

Meanwhile, President Trump, though assessing all of this military hyperactivity as misbegotten — “Seven trillion dollars. What a mistake.” — is effectively perpetuating and even ramping up the policies pioneered by his predecessors.

Are We At War? if we are, it's a war with no name, which might just be the point.

http://lobelog.com/six-questions-for-the-new-york-times-on-americas-wars/