The US is up in arms over Chinese construction of islands in the South China Sea. US spy planes buzzing the islands are asked to keep away. Meanwhile, the US continues to construct more military bases in the region.
The US is up in arms over Chinese construction of islands in the South China Sea. US spy planes buzzing the islands are asked to keep away. Meanwhile, the US continues to construct more military bases in the region.
The US is up in arms over Chinese construction of islands in the South China Sea. US spy planes buzzing the islands are asked to keep away. Meanwhile, the US continues to construct more military bases in the region.
Hello, everybody, and thank you for tuning in to the Liberty Report.
With me today is Daniel McIdems.
Daniel, welcome.
Thank you, sir.
Well, good.
You know, I've heard there's a pivot.
I don't know, do they pivot in basketball?
I'm talking about a military pivot.
You know, we have had a lot of military activity in the Middle East.
People are getting tired of it.
The taxpayers in this country ought to get tired of it.
But in spite of all the failures and all the money and all the waste over there, and in spite of all the chaos, it is a strategy now with this administration to pivot to Asia, pivot to confront and make sure China knows that we're boss.
And of course, we're sending over surveillance planes, spy on them.
The Spratly Islands are important.
And China just recently, this last weekend, they warned us because our spy planes were getting a little bit close.
And one thing I thought was interesting, I don't know what this says about the Chinese.
And they said, go away, go away.
Please go away.
And said it any time.
But anyway, I guess you saw that in the news.
Well, you know, the Chinese are constructing on top of reefs.
It's a massive engineering project.
They're constructing several islands that are being apparently made into airstrips and military facilities in the South China Sea.
And the U.S., of course, is very upset, although there are many other countries in the region that are a little closer.
Yeah, there's a lot of islands there.
Not too many people know exactly where it is, but it is close to China and it's close to Taiwan.
And there's actually six countries involved, five other countries other than China.
And they all claim some jurisdiction.
But I was looking for some island that we own there.
I can't find anything.
Of course, we used to own the Philippines, and we still are very much in the Philippines.
So that may enter into this equation because the Philippines, you know, aren't necessarily going to oppose anything that we do because we end up giving them money on occasion.
Sure.
You know, the U.S. has had an increased military presence in the South China Sea and in the region over the past couple of years.
And it makes you wonder if this Chinese move is not a response to the increased military presence.
They say, okay, well, we're going to expand our military presence too.
And I found it interesting in the reports of these recent occurrences that the U.S. is furious that the Chinese are expanding their military presence in the region.
Then I looked around and I saw last year it was announced that five new military, U.S. military bases in the Philippines.
The U.S. is building a new base in Okinawa.
We have other bases, Diego Garcia and other places.
So it seems it's okay for us to build these bases.
Yeah, I'm glad.
I'm pretty certain it is not our policy right now to design a new war.
But they design confrontations for whatever reasons and try to make people back off.
But sometimes this thing gets out of hand.
I mean, we have warships over there.
I think there's an aircraft carrier over there right now.
And we're not talking about a fishing boat incident.
We're talking about a major thing breaking out.
And that, of course, is the reason.
But I just don't like this throwing our weight around.
That's not to win friends and influence people by just becoming the dictator of the world.
And that's the way, that's the way they see us.
Now, they're involved in reefs.
Reefs, I understand, would be some sandbars under the water, and sometimes they become president on low tide.
And like you said, it's a great engineering feat.
And in a way, it seems small because they've recovered 2,000 acres.
I mean, is this something that we should go to war over?
You know, this is, but it seems like we think it's pretty important.
We sent Kerry over there to talk to them, but I'm not sure that did any good.
Well, the U.S. would argue that this threatens commercial shipping in the region.
But is there any evidence that that's well, we haven't read in the newspapers, and we look at the internet pretty carefully, and you follow this very closely, but we haven't seen it.
The last I heard, there was some pirates doing things down there in Malaysia and Indonesia and straits there.
But up in this region on the Spratly Islands, we haven't heard that.
And I think, I don't think that China right now wants to stop international shipments through this.
They're probably sending out ships and receiving ships.
So, no, I think it could be a little bit more than that.
We call this a military pivot, but could it be connected to finances?
You know, I think about the finances and think about our recent history.
Some countries that were a little bit more bold and had announced, we're not going to use your dollar to sell our oil.
You know, Libya was involved with that.
Iraq, Saddam Hussein was threatening to do that.
Iranians have threatened to do that.
And it seems like all our policies, like we wonder about it, is it stupidity or is there, I think it has to be because I don't think the neocons deliberately would want to enhance the power of Russia, of Iraqis, the Shia, the Iranians, and push them all to the east.
And yet, here we seem to do whatever possible to enhance the power of China.
You know, it's amazing.
Last week, the Russians celebrated the 70th Victory Day over Nazism in World War II.
And, you know, the U.S. is complaining now that they're pushing China.
But if you watch that parade, it was really an historic moment because you saw the president of China or the president of Russia sitting next to the premier of China, watching a military parade go by.
Cnn's Role in Propaganda00:02:52
And you ask, how did this happen?
The U.S. has been imposing sanctions on Russia for the past couple of years, increasing sanctions.
They're driving each other into each other's arms, and then they're saying, look what happened.
They're in each other's arms.
Terrible people because they act rationally.
But you know, if you're looking for a source of information, I have a tremendous source to reassure you that you'll get the full truth on one of the TV stations because they have inside information.
It happens to be your favorite station, CNN.
But let me read something here, which even I find astounding after I become pretty cynical of all this.
But this is a report that came out, has to do with an announcement about what CNN is doing.
It says, a CNN team was given exclusive access to join in the surveillance flights over the contested waters.
Of course, this is Sprackley Islands, which the Pentagon allowed for the first time in order to raise awareness about the challenge posed by the islands and the growing U.S. response.
They learned that the Chinese are themselves displeased by the U.S. pushback.
Is that surprising you at all?
If there's any example of the military using the so-called private media to propagandize people toward war, is there a better example than this?
And then every station has their military expert.
Well, they have generals and they have a lot of other people, but it's pure propaganda.
Of course, they from their side are arguing, no, we're arguing the patriotic greatness of America, our responsibilities in the world, but it's propaganda for warmonger, as far as I'm concerned.
You know, what struck me as I watched the CNN video with this CNN anchor on this secret military intelligence airplane showing us all these wonderful goodies they have to spy on the Chinese.
I thought back to the shootdown of MH17 over Ukraine, where the U.S. also had all of those capabilities there, and somehow they won't show us any of their information that they might have of who shot this down.
So reveal a lot of intelligence over here when it boosts U.S. policy, and all of a sudden there's nothing over here.
You know, some secrets are more important than others.
Think about the 26 pages in the Congressional Report on the Commission report on 9-11.
They're totally secret.
So, yes, they cherry-pick their information a bit, and I think that's tragic.
I have trouble understanding why the American people put up with it and how they get sucked into this and believe this stuff.