Pentagon Report on China’s Military Expansion: ‘Hypocrisy,’ Says Col. Lawrence Wilkerson (Text & Video)

Another important dispatch from The Greanville Post. Be sure to share it widely.

A Dispatch from the Real News Network (TRNN)

[dropcap]T[/dropcap]wo U.S. Navy warships sailed near disputed islands claimed by China in the South China Sea on Monday. The Navy called this a “freedom of navigation” operation, used to reinforce that the area in question is still governed by international law.

This comes at a time of tense relations between China and the United States: On Monday, the Trump administration announced they would impose additional trade tariffs on Chinese goods, and late last week, the Pentagon released a report that said China is using espionage to try to become a leading global military power.

Col. Larry Wilkerson spoke with The Real News Network’s Sharmini Peries and described the current focus on China as another strategy for maintaining the military-industrial complex left over from the Cold War. “We found terrorism, and terrorism we milked, and milked, and milked, and we're still milking it to a certain extent, but terrorism doesn't last. And besides that, terrorism is a tool. It's not an animate enemy. China is an animate enemy. And so everything China does, is gonna be perceived by the Pentagon as threatening.”

“This is all about money,” said WIlkerson, referring to the recently released Pentagon report describing China’s use of industrial espionage, and renewed shows of force in the South China Sea. “This is a budget ploy just like the missile gap, just like the Soviets are 10 feet tall, just like the Soviets are well ahead of us in this or that category of armaments.”

Wilkerson said the Trump administration’s combative attitude toward China increases the potential for conflict. “We're talking about a serious situation. So we're doing everything we possibly can—Trump, largely for his domestic base and his political objectives to get re-elected, and the military, largely to gain money. And what we're doing is we're fulfilling all the prophecies that people have said … that China and the United States will inevitably fight. It is becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy.”

“I actually heard someone say the other day, an otherwise sane and sober person, it's better to fight them now than to wait later because later they'll be better,” said Wilkerson. “Well, my question was, why fight them at all?”

Below: The podcast version

Transcript

SHARMINI PERIES It’s The Real News Network. I’m Sharmini Peries, coming to you from Baltimore. On Sunday morning, the Pentagon announced that it is sending two guided missile destroyers near the disputed islands claimed by China in the South China Sea. This move comes shortly after the Pentagon released a report in which it warns about China’s new military capabilities and its militarization of the South China Sea. The Pentagon report, which was released to Congress last week, is titled Chinese Military Development and it discusses how China is engaged in industrial espionage, cyber hacking, and also through its One Belt, One Road initiative, which is a trade initiative, that China is planning to accumulate military technologies and to position military bases in countries that participate in the trade and infrastructure initiative—that is, the One Belt, One Road initiative.

The report also predicts that China’s first domestically-built aircraft carrier will be deployed this year. China has already got one carrier and is planning a third it says. If all of this is not enough to intensify relations with China at this time, President Trump also announced that trade talks with China has failed. Trump said that the US will double the tariffs on Chinese goods, which amounts to about 25 percent on $200 billion worth of goods imported annually from China. That will, of course, be starting this week. It’s a very serious blow to China-US trade. It caused the stock market to fluctuate radically this morning. So joining me now to discuss the Pentagon’s report and the latest US incursion into the South China Sea as well as the implications these failed talks has, is Colonel Larry Wilkerson. He is a former Chief of staff to Secretary of State Colin Powell, and he is now a Distinguished Adjunct Professor of Government and Public Policy at the College of William and Mary. And, of course, he is a regular guest here, so welcome Larry.

LARRY WILKERSON Good to hear your voice, Sharmini.

SHARMINI PERIES Thank you, Larry. Larry, let’s start with the South China Sea. What do you think of this renewed show of US force in the region? Is it justified?

LARRY WILKERSON I think first and foremost—and I know this from my experience, personal experience in the Pentagon, but also my contacts now and my experience with what’s happening in the last year, year and a half, with regard to the Pentagon. First of all, this is a budget ploy just like the missile gap, just like the Soviets are 10 feet tall, just like the Soviets are well ahead of us in this or that category of armaments. Now it’s China; to a certain extent, its Russia too. We could talk about that too, but mostly it’s China now. And it’s kind of awkward for the military to make these claims; for example, like those you cited, bases. China perhaps has eleven, twelve bases. We have eight hundred bases. They have a long way to go to catch up with us. And you talked about overseas deployments and the Navy moving out with aircraft carriers, and so forth. We’ve got a dozen. They’ve got one at sea, one in the ways about to come out, and another one perhaps, and ours are so far ahead of theirs. That it’s 10, 15, 20 years before they even achieve the kind of capacity we have.

And on top of all of that, you know, I’ve said it before, I think aircraft carriers are anything but an instrument of national power except against countries like Panama or someone who really can’t shoot back very well because aircraft carriers are extraordinarily vulnerable and we’re going to find that out when one of them with 5,000 hands and $14 billion worth of taxpayer money is sunk in less than 30 minutes, whenever we get engaged in something real. So all of this right now, first and foremost, is a budget ploy. They want more money. And that’s largely because their personnel costs are just eating their lunch.

And second, it’s an attempt to develop, and this has something to do with money too of course, another threat, another Cold War, another feeding system. The military just hooks up, like it’s hooking up to an intravenous I.V. system and the money just pours out— slush fund money, appropriated money, and everything else. This is all about money and it’s all about keeping the complex alive, which the military was scared to death would disappear as we begin to pay the American people back. George H.W. Bush called it a peace dividend after the Cold War’s end. We found terrorism and terrorism we milked, and milked, and milked, and we’re still milking it to a certain extent, but terrorism doesn’t last. And besides that, terrorism is a tool. It’s not an animate enemy. China is an animate enemy. And so everything China does, is gonna be perceived by the Pentagon as threatening.

SHARMINI PERIES Larry, the budget justification argument you’re providing here— how does that play here? Because the military got the biggest increase and a very large portion of the budget is already allocated to the military. Are you saying that they want more?

LARRY WILKERSON Absolutely. Let’s face it, Sharmini. We’re looking at an all-volunteer force, the personnel cost of which are better than 50 percent of a $700+ billion budget. And just heading up, we’re looking at people costing now the Army last year almost half a billion dollars just to recruit 9,000, three brigades of noncommissioned officers now are out trying to recruit. We’re paying these people. We’re paying them bribes to serve. They’re coming from the third and fourth quintiles in America. They’re coming from West Virginia. They’re coming from Mississippi. They’re coming from Louisiana. You know, most Americans, 99 percent of America has no skin in the game. And so, they don’t realize even these wars are going on, nor do they realize that we’re contemplating more of them, nor do they realize that we’re doing things in the South China Sea, for example, or in the Strait of Hormuz with Iran that might lead to even more conflict.

And this is all part and parcel of the extraordinary cost of people to the military. It’s just astounding what we’re paying for people right now. You have the Chief of staff for the Army, Mark Milley, the other day, prospectively the new chairman of the Joint Chiefs I’m hearing—you had him arguing that the Chinese budget was not a comparable budget to the US budget because we pay so hellaciously much for the people in our military. Well to a certain extent, that’s true. To a larger extent it’s not true and Milley ought to be bullwhipped for having made the comparison. But it is an indication that Milley, at least indirectly, understands how much people are costing him. The army could not expand, it could not take on a real enemy today without massive conscription and full mobilization. And I wonder if the nation could even stand that today. And so, you’re looking at a situation where the only thing they can ask for in terms of fixing any of this is money— more and more money.

SHARMINI PERIES Larry, at the beginning, I said that Trump has announced that the trade talks with China has failed and that he’s going to be doubling the tariffs on Chinese goods, so what are the implications of the trade dispute along with these military tensions that are arising in the South China Sea?

LARRY WILKERSON Sharmini, if this were scripted by a Hollywood screenwriter and we were looking at say, Graham Allison and his book, The Thucydides Trap, which of course pretends to say— at least I don’t think Thucydides said this, but Graham Allison said this about Thucydides— that rising powers and status quo powers inevitably are going to fight. Well, we’re doing everything we possibly can to write that script right now, whether it’s Trump and the trade wars, whether it’s the military saying China is the number one threat and doing Freedom of Navigation exercises all the time in the South China Sea, or whether it’s Trump more or less treating the interest section in Taipei as if it were an embassy and making all manner of comments beneath the table, if you will, about that. This is a real red line for China— Taiwan. We’re talking about a serious situation.

So we’re doing everything we possibly can. Trump, largely for his domestic base and his political objectives to get re-elected, and the military, largely to gain money. And what we’re doing is we’re fulfilling all the prophecies that people have said, including Graham, that China and the United States will inevitably fight. It is becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy. And when you do this, you have to remember too that there’s another side. This is a terrible, terrible deficiency in Washington. Washington does not have any empathy. And by that, I simply mean they don’t do Sun Tzu. They don’t do Clausewitz. They don’t look at the enemy as it were and say, what is the enemy thinking? What is his strategy? What is his objective, and so forth? If they looked at that, they would understand that much of what they’re doing is indeed a self-fulfilling prophecy.

They are marking out, they are demarcating the highway to war with China. Now some of them probably want that; I don’t think too many of them do. I don’t think President Trump does, but I don’t give him a lot of credit for smarts. And so, and frankly, I don’t give the leadership in the Pentagon a lot of credit for smarts these days either—not the chairman, not the Joint Chiefs, not the service chiefs as service chiefs. They’re just not very smart people; no imagination at all. And what we’re doing here is just fulfilling history’s mandate, if you will. We will fight, therefore, let’s go ahead and fight. I actually heard someone say the other day, an otherwise sane and sober person, it’s better to fight them now than to wait later because later they’ll be better. Well my question was, why fight them at all?

SHARMINI PERIES Exactly. All right, Larry. We’ll leave it there for now. I’m sure we’ll get a chance to revisit this issue with you. Next, we’re going to take up a conversation about US- Iran relations, and please join me again for our conversation with Larry Wilkerson.

Closing words

About the Author

Lawrence B. "Larry" Wilkerson is a retired United States Army Colonel and former chief of staff to United States Secretary of State Colin Powell.

(VIDEO) WORLD NEWS: Pope on Circuses, Animal Rights in Pakistan, and More!

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Animal People Forum debuts biweekly news series current events that impact animals worldwide

WORLD NEWS: Pope on Circuses, Animal Rights in Pakistan, and More! (1/17/18)

In this episode of Animal People World News, find out…

Why the U.K.’s foxhunting ban is here to stay
How the U.S. Interior Department is pushing its pro-hunting agenda
How China is implementing its new ban on ivory sales
How the last dancing bears in Nepal were rescued
Why Pope Francis promoted a circus convicted of animal cruelty
What a new Swiss law means for companion animals, lab animals, and crustaceans
How three Indian states are improving life for dairy cows
What Sindh’s new bill means for animal rights in Pakistan

TRANSCRIPT:

Greetings! I’m Wolf, like the animal, reporting for Animal People World News.

U.K. HUNTING BAN TO STAY, SAYS PRIME MINISTER

The United Kingdom’s 2004 ban on hunting with dogs will remain the law of the land, says Prime Minister Theresa May. May has in the past been a vocal supporter of foxhunting, and declared as a campaign promise prior to her June 2017 reelection that she would hold a vote to relegalize hunting with dogs. Although many Conservative party politicians are foxhunting enthusiasts, most U.K. citizens oppose the bloodsport, including nearly three quarters of Conservative voters. In abandoning her promise to try and repeal the ban, May suggested that her party’s past support for foxhunting might have been a factor in its recent electoral losses.

Although illegal, hunting foxes, hares, and other wild mammals with dogs remains common in the U.K. Trail hunting, a legal alternative in which hounds follow an artificially laid scent, is often used as cover for the hunting of actual animals. There were over four hundred and thirty prosecuted cases of illegal hunting between 2005 and 2017. Hunting birds with dogs remains legal, but increasingly controversial.

U.S. INTERIOR DEPT. PUSHES PRO-HUNTING AGENDA

Ryan Zinke, the United States Secretary of the Interior, announced on January ninth the creation of a new Hunting and Shooting Sports Conservation Council. The Council will advise the government on creating policies to expand hunting access, increase public support for hunting, and encourage more Americans to take up the practice.

Promoting hunting has been a major agenda item for Secretary Zinke ever since his appointment to the position by President Trump. His first day in office, Zinke signed an order to allow hunting with lead ammunition and fishing with lead tackle on public land, despite data showing that lead in the environment poisons millions of animals every year. He has declared October to be “National Hunting and Fishing Month.” In November 2017 he created the International Wildlife Conservation Council, whose duties include quote-unquote “educating” the public on the benefits of hunting, weakening legal protections for threatened species, and promoting trophy hunting overseas.

Zinke claims that “hunters and anglers are at the backbone of American conservation,” arguing that killing wild animals fosters appreciation for nature and provides essential funding for species and habitat protection. Yet his own department’s statistics show that while hunting has dwindled in popularity, non-violent wildlife watching and photography have become more popular than ever. With more than seven times more people watching wild animals than hunting them, Americans spent a total of one hundred and fifty-six billion dollars on wildlife activities in 2016, more than any other time in the previous twenty-five years.

IVORY BAN TAKES EFFECT IN CHINA

China’s ban on ivory sales, first announced December 2016, is now in full effect. After gradually shutting down factories and traders over the course of 2017, the Chinese government declared on New Year’s Eve that all sales of elephant ivory, including online, and imports from abroad would be illegal.

International commercial trading of ivory has been illegal under CITES, the Convention on the International Trade of Endangered Species, since 1989. However, the allowance of domestic sales within China has continued to fuel demand for ivory products, and to provide cover for the illegal killing of African elephants for the Chinese market.

The Chinese public seems generally to support the ban, with hashtags translating to “no sales, no killings” and “make ivory products commercial no more” trending on Chinese social media. However, the impact of the ban is unfortunately undercut by the persistence of legal markets in neighboring regions, which conservationists fear will continue to sustain ivory smuggling into China.

Hong Kong, which is governed autonomously from mainland China, isn’t scheduled to ban ivory until 2021. Japan, meanwhile, has now become the world’s new largest legal ivory market, and shows no sign of banning the trade. At the most recent CITES meeting, Japan defeated a proposal to ban all domestic ivory sales, joining forces with Zimbabwe, South Africa, and the European Union, which all profit from trophy hunting of elephants.

NEPAL RESCUE CLOSES CURTAIN ON BEAR DANCING

The cruel practice of bear dancing has now been eradicated in Nepal. The last known dancing bears in the country were rescued on December nineteenth, by Nepali police and activists from Jane Goodall Institute Nepal and World Animal Protection. The bears, a male named Rangila and female named Sridevi, are now under the care of Parsa National Park.

Dancing bears are taken from their mothers as cubs, often captured in the wild. They are controlled using ropes threaded through a piercing in their nose, taught to stand on their hind legs and shuffle by being placed on hot metal or coals, and have their claws and teeth broken off to ensure obedience.

Fortunately, the practice is now in steep decline. The last known dancing bears in India were surrendered to the organization Wildlife SOS in 2009, after a lengthy campaign to rescue and rehabilitate the animals and train their former owners for alternative professions.

Bear dancing still exists in Pakistan, where at least two hundred and twenty bears remain in captivity. Yet Pakistani officials are cracking down, and plan to eradicate the practice within the next five years. The last dancing bear in Karachi, Pakistan’s largest city, was rescued last September.

MARTIN LUTHER KING DAY REMARKS

I would like to take a moment now to acknowledge the legacy of Martin Luther King, Junior, whose life is celebrated throughout the United States on January fifteenth. The movement to recognize the moral rights of animals builds on the precedents of historic struggles to establish and defend human rights, including the movement for racial justice of which Martin Luther King was a major leader, and which continues today with campaigns such as Black Lives Matter.

A compassionate world for animals of every species cannot be achieved without also securing freedom and justice for human beings, of every race, religion, gender, and orientation. At the same time, there cannot be true, lasting peace between humans so long as the cruel exploitation of other sentient beings is tolerated, simply because they are different from us. Human rights and animal rights do not conflict; they are mutually interdependent.

Thank you. We now return to our main program.

POPE PROMOTES CIRCUS WITH ANIMAL CRUELTY RECORD

On Thursday, January eleventh, Pope Francis paid for more than two thousand guests to attend the Medrano Circus in Rome. The Medrano Circus uses a wide variety of captive wild animals in its performances, including elephants, giraffes, camels, big cats, kangaroos, ostriches, parrots, reptiles, spiders, and scorpions. In July 2016, an Italian court found the circus’s director at the time guilty of animal cruelty, after investigations revealed animals kept confined in small, barren enclosures, exposed to extreme heat and cold, and exhibiting stress behaviors such as pacing and scratching.

The Vatican distributed free tickets to refugees, prisoners, homeless, and poor people, with the declared intent of showing the Church’s solidarity with the downtrodden. Yet the decision to support circus use of animals contradicts Pope Francis’ own teachings on compassion for all creatures. In his encyclical Laudato Si: On Care For Our Common Home, he declares:

“The ultimate purpose of other creatures is not to be found in us. Rather, all creatures are moving forward with us and through us towards a common point of arrival, which is God… Every act of cruelty towards any creature is ‘contrary to human dignity.’”

The Pope’s circus patronage also goes against the shifting tide of public opinion. Just this month so far, the governments of Scotland and the U.S. state of New Jersey have both banned the use of wild animals in circuses, recognizing the inherent cruelty involved in forcing wild animals to perform for human amusement.

WELFARE STANDARDS IMPROVED FOR DAIRY COWS IN INDIA

Living conditions may soon improve for dairy cows in three Indian states. The governments of Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, and Telangana have issued new guidelines to ensure higher welfare for dairy cows. These include providing soft bedding, access to the outdoors, and thorough vaccination against disease; banning or limiting the use of artificial hormones; preventing excessive milking; and recommending that calves stay with their mothers for at least three months, rather than being separated shortly after birth.

The new guidelines come in reaction to the Federation of Indian Animal Protection Organizations’, or FIAPO’s, #EndExploitativeDairies campaign. FIAPO investigations have revealed cruelty and neglect in hundreds of dairy farms across India. Among the most gruesome practices is the use of khalbacchas, dead calves stuffed with hay, to keep mother cows lactating after their own young have died or been taken away. FIAPO hopes that the new protections for cows at the state level will pave the way for national legislation regulating dairy farms throughout India.

SINDH, PAKISTAN INTRODUCES ANIMAL RIGHTS BILL

Finally, animals in the province of Sindh, Pakistan may soon be granted basic legal rights. On December thirtieth, the governor’s cabinet introduced a new bill for consideration by Sindh’s house of representatives. If passed, the Sindh Welfare and Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act would prohibit beating, neglecting, torturing, or frightening animals, as well as specific practices such as overloading draft animals or forcing animals to fight for entertainment. Violators would face sentences between three months and three years in prison.

In addition to improving animal welfare, the Act would also acknowledge animal rights, reading:

“[Animals] will be granted inalienable rights to adequate nourishment, appropriate shelter, and life in an environment free of abuse.”

Although laws regulating human treatment of animals are common worldwide, only a few recognize animals as having legal rights of their own. If the Sindh Welfare and Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act is passed, the Pakistani province will join Switzerland, Germany, Spain, India, New Zealand, Argentina, and Colombia, becoming one of a small but growing number of jurisdictions to acknowledge that animals are sentient persons rather than mere objects to be used.

These are just a few of the countless issues affecting animals worldwide. Visit the Animal People Forum to find out more, and share your own perspectives on animal rights, welfare, and conservation.

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About the Author

WOLF GORDON CLIFTON

Born and raised within the animal rights movement, Wolf Gordon Clifton has always felt strongly connected to other creatures and concerned for their well-being. Beginning in childhood he contributed drawings of animals for publication in Animal People News, and traveled with his parents to attend conferences and visit animal projects all over the world. During high school he began writing for the newspaper and contributing in various additional ways around the Animal People office. His first solo trip overseas, to film a promotional video for the Bali Street Dog Foundation in Indonesia, led him to create the animated film Yudisthira's Dog, retelling the story of an ancient Hindu king famed for his loyalty to a street dog. It also inspired lifelong interests in animation and world religion, which he went on to study for college at Vanderbilt University. Wolf graduated in 2013 with a Bachelor of Arts in Religious Studies and minors in Film Studies and Astronomy. In 2015, he received a Master of Arts in Museology and Graduate Certificate in Astrobiology from the University of Washington. His thesis project, the online exhibit Beyond Human: Animals, Aliens, and Artificial Intelligence, brings together animal rights, astrobiology, and AI research to explore the ethics of humans' relationships with other sentient beings, and can be viewed on the Animal People Forum. His diverse training and life experiences enable him to research and write about a wide variety of animal-related issues, in a global context and across the humanities, arts, and sciences. In his spare time, he does paleontological work for the Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture, and writes for the community blog Neon Observatory.

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