Επιθυμητή Neocons αντιμετώπιση με την Κίνα όπως και το Ιράκ
Τα ίδια κορυφαία neoconservatives διοίκησης των Μπους που ξεπέρασαν την καθιέρωση εξωτερικής πολιτικής της Ουάσιγκτον για να ανατρέξουν το Σαντάμ Χουσεΐν τράβηξαν σχεδόν από ένα παρόμοιο χτύπημα στις ΗΠΑ - η Κίνα σχέση-που δημιουργεί τη δυνατότητα ενός πυρηνικού πολέμου πέρα από την Ταϊβάν, ένας κορυφαίος βοηθός στον προηγούμενο γραμματέα του κράτους Colin Powell λέει.
Lawrence Β. Wilkerson, οι ΗΠΑ. Ο συνταγματάρχης στρατού που ήταν προ!ιστάμενος Powell του προσωπικού μέσω δύο υπηρεσιών, που ειπώθηκε στις λίγος-σημειωμένες παρατηρήσεις νωρίς τον περασμένο μήνα που «neocons» στις κορυφαίες βαθμίδες της διοίκησης ενθάρρυνε ήσυχα τους ταϊβανικούς πολιτικούς στην κίνηση προς μια δήλωση της ανεξαρτησίας από την ηπειρωτική χώρα Κίνα - μια πράξη που το κομμουνιστικό καθεστώς έχει προειδοποιήσει επανειλημμένα θα προκαλούσε μια στρατιωτική απεργία.
Οι κορυφαίες ΗΠΑ. ο διπλωμάτης στην Ταϊβάν τότε, Ντάγκλας Paal, υποστηρίζει τον απολογισμό Wilkerson, ο οποίος hotly συζητείται από τους βασικούς προηγούμενους αμυντικούς ανώτερους υπαλλήλους.
Κάτω από το σκόπιμα συγκεχυμένο διπλωματικό τύπο που επιλύθηκε μεταξύ του προηγούμενου Προέδρου Richard Nixon και του προέδρου Mao Zedong το 1971, οι Ηνωμένες Πολιτείες συμφώνησαν ότι υπάρχει μόνο «μια Κίνα» - με κεφάλαιό του στο Πεκίνο.
Αλλά οι δεξιοί Δημοκρατικοί συνέχισαν in particular να αγκαλιάζουν την Ταϊβάν ως αντικομμουνιστή προμαχώνα 125 μίλια από την κινεζική ακτή, μακριά μετά από τους αρχηγούς κομμάτων τους και τις ΗΠΑ. η μεγάλη επιχείρηση αγκαλίασε το κομμουνιστικό καθεστώς.
Με την εκλογή George W. Ο Μπους το 2000, μερικοί από τους πιό ένθερμους συμμάχους της Ταϊβάν σκουπίστηκε πίσω στη δύναμη στην Ουάσιγκτον, ιδιαίτερα στο Πεντάγωνο, αρχίζοντας από το γραμματέα της υπεράσπισης Donald H. Rumsfeld.
Περιέλαβαν τέτοιους βασικούς αρχιτέκτονες του πολέμου του Ιράκ όπως Paul Wolfowitz, ο γραμματέας αναπληρωτή υπεράσπισης, Ντάγκλας Feith, τον υφυπουργό για την πολιτική, και το Steven Cambone, νέος προ!ιστάμενος νοημοσύνης Rumsfeld, Wilkerson εν λόγω. Ο αμφισβητούμενος απεσταλμένος Προέδρου Bush's στα Ηνωμένα Έθνη, John Μπόλτον, ήταν άλλος.
Ενώ ο Μπους συνέχισε δημόσια την πολιτική ένας-Κίνα πέντε προκατόχων λευκών οίκων του, Wilkerson εν λόγω, το Πεντάγωνο «neocons» πήρε ένα διαφορετικό καρφί, ήσυχα ενθαρρυντικός τον Πρόεδρο υπέρ-ανεξαρτησίας της Ταϊβάν, Chen shui-Bian.
«Το αμυντικό τμήμα, με Feith, Cambone, Wolfowitz [και] Rumsfeld, απέστελλε ένα πρόσωπο στην Ταϊβάν κάθε εβδομάδα, για να πει ουσιαστικά στον Ταϊβανό ότι η συμμαχία πίσω επάνω,» Wilkerson εν λόγω, ανάφερε στην προ-δεκαετία του '70 τις στρατιωτικές και διπλωματικές σχέσεις, «ουσιαστικά για να πει Chen shui-Bian, η του οποίου ολόκληρη δύναμη στην Ταϊβάν στηρίχτηκε στο κίνημα ανεξαρτησίας, ότι η ανεξαρτησία ήταν ένα καλό πράγμα.»
Wilkerson said Powell would then dispatch his own envoy “right behind that guy, every time they sent somebody, to disabuse the entire Taiwanese national security apparatus of what they’d been told by the Defense Department.”
“This went on,” he said of the pro-independence efforts, “until George Bush weighed in and told Rumsfeld to cease and desist [and] told him multiple times to re-establish military-to-military relations with China.”
Routine military ties had been suspended in early 2001 after China forced a U.S. reconnaissance plane down on Hainan Island off Vietnam.
Strong Denials
Feith, now teaching and working on a book at Georgetown University, responded that Wilkerson’s “remarks are not even close to being accurate. They are phrased so vaguely and sweepingly that it is impossible to deny them with precision, but they are not right.”
Rumsfeld’s former spokesman Lawrence DiRita called Wilkerson’s allegations “completely ridiculous—clear and simple . . . absurd.”
“The idea that there was some kind of DoD attempt to favor some faction in Taiwan, as described by Wilkerson … is just crazy,” DiRita said in a brief telephone interview.
Wilkerson told a similar story in a recent critical biography of Rumsfeld by Washington-based British journalist Andrew Cockburn.
He elaborated on the episode during a May 7 panel, organized to discuss the controversy over Iraq intelligence at the University of the District of Colombia, as well as in subsequent conversations last week.
“It was a constant refrain of they said one thing, we said another thing for months on end,” Wilkerson said by e-mail. “They said, ‘Don’t worry, you are our allies and we will defend you—regardless.’ We said, ‘Do worry—if you declare independence, we may not be there; so be quiet and let sleeping dogs lie. . . .’ ”
Rewriting Bush
Another key character in the minidrama was Therese Shaheen, the outspoken chief of the U.S. office of the American Institute in Taiwan, which took on the functions of the American embassy after the formal 1979 diplomatic switch.
Shaheen, who happens to be DiRita’s wife, openly championed Chen and the independence movement, at one point even publicly reinterpreting Bush’s reiteration of the “one China” policy, saying that the administration “had never said it ‘opposed’ Taiwan independence,” according to a 2004 account in the authoritative Far Eastern Economic Review.
“Therese Shaheen . . . said don’t sweat it, the president didn’t really mean what he said,” Wilkerson said.
Coming from the wife of Rumsfeld’s spokesman, Shaheen’s remarks sent off angry alarms in Beijing.
Powell asked for her resignation.
Douglas Paal was then head of the American Institute in Taiwan, effectively making him the U.S. ambassador there. He backed up Wilkerson’s account.
“In the early years of the Bush administration,” Paal said by e-mail last week, “there was a problem with mixed signals to Taiwan from Washington. This was most notably captured in the statements and actions of Ms. Therese Shaheen, the former AIT chair, which ultimately led to her departure.”
Now retired, Paal said he, too, “received many first- and second-hand reports of messages conveyed to Taiwan by DoD civilians and perhaps a uniformed officer or two during that time that were out of sync with President Bush’s position.”
DiRita defended his wife, saying “she understood U.S. policy and executed it to the very best of her abilities and wasn’t trying to play games with” Taiwanese independence forces.
“That was always kind of a mythology of what happened over there,” he said.
Mushroom Clouds
“They are dangerous men who will lie about almost anyone or anything,” Wilkerson angrily responded by e-mail, singling out Feith, DiRita, Cheney and Rumsfeld for scorn.
He called back-stage encouragement of the Taiwanese “even more serious” than the alleged manipulation of Iraq intelligence, because it could provoke China to attack the island, triggering a U.S. response and the world’s first nuclear shooting war.
The independence issue, agrees China experts Richard Bush and Michael O’Hanlon, is Beijing’s third rail—touch it and you die.
“Even if the odds are fairly low of miscalculation leading to war, and war then bringing in the United States, this scenario is scary,” they recently wrote in The Washington Times.
A Taiwanese declaration of independence, they said, “could result in the first major war between nuclear weapons states in history, with no guarantee it would be successfully concluded prior to a major escalation.”
Jeff Stein can be reached at jstein@cq.com.
See More:IraqHave Your Say: Neocons Wanted Confrontation With China As Well As Iraq
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This entry was posted on Monday, June 4th, 2007 at 12:44 am and is filed under War & Terrorism News . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
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