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FTR #1145 This program was recorded in one, 60-minute segment.
Introduction: This program continues discussion of the Uyghurs/“Uighurs” and the destabilization of China. This ongoing effort is one of an array of covert and overt operations against China, which, in turn, set the political and historical context for the outbreak of Covid-19.
Discussed in numerous programs, the Uighurs (also spelled Uyghurs) are heavily overlapped with various fascist elements. All of these are present in the history of the World Uyghur Congress.
- The narco-fascist regime of Chiang Kai-shek.
- The Grey Wolves, youth wing of the National Action Party. The group was a key element of the Turkish “Stay Behind” movement.
- Various Islamic terrorist offshoots of the Muslim Brotherhood, including Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State.
- The Anti-Bolshevik Bloc of Nations milieu, directly evolved from the Third Reich and the Gehlen organization.
- The Dalai Lama and his SS/Third Reich heritage.
Of great significance, once again, is the decisive presence of the National Endowment for Democracy, a U.S. intelligence cut-out founded by William Casey.
American and Western media draw on an American regime-change operation for much of their coverage–that organization is the World Uyghur [“Uighur”] Congress and numerous subsidiary elements.
Exemplifying the WUC milieu is Rushan Abas: ” . . . . Another influential organization spun out of the WUC network is the Campaign for Uyghurs. This group is headed by Rushan Abbas, the former Vice President of the UAA. Promoted simply as a Uyghur ‘human rights activist’ by Western media outlets including the supposedly adversarial Democracy Now!, Abbas is, in fact, a longtime US government and military operative. Abbas boasts in her bio of her ‘extensive experience working with US government agencies, including Homeland Security, Department of Defense, Department of State, and various US intelligence agencies.’ While working for the military contractor L3 Technologies, Abbas served the US government and the Bush administration’s so-called war on terror as a ‘consultant at Guantanamo Bay supporting Operation Enduring Freedom.’ Abbas ‘also worked as a linguist and translator for several federal agencies including work for the US State Department in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba and for President George W. Bush and former First Lady Laura Bush’. Like so many of her colleagues, Abbas enjoyed a stint at Radio Free Asia. While Abbas once shared her history of collaboration with the US government in the open, she has attempted to scrub biographic information from her online presence following a disastrous publicity appearance in December 2019. During a Reddit’s ‘Ask Me Anything’ question and answer forum, participants blasted Abbas as a ‘CIA asset’ and frequent US government collaborator, prompting her attempt to disappear her bio from the internet. . . .”
The ostensibly “peaceful’ intent of the WUC can be evaluated against the background of the comments of former WUC Vice-President Seyit Tumturk: ” . . . . In 2018, Tümturk declared that Chinese Uyghurs view Turkish ‘state requests as orders.’ He then proclaimed that hundreds of thousands of Chinese Uyghurs were ready to enlist in the Turkish army and join Turkey’s illegal and brutal invasion of Northern Syria ‘to fight for God’ – if ordered to do so by Erdogan. . . . Shortly after Tumturk’s comments, Uyghur militants dressed in Turkish military fatigues and on the Turkish side of the Syrian border released a video in which they threatened to wage war against China: ‘Listen you dog bastards, do you see this? We will triumph!’ one fighter exclaimed. ‘We will kill you all. Listen up Chinese civilians, get out of our East Turkestan. I am warning you. We shall return and we will be victorious.’ . . .”
The program concludes with a look at the political history of William Casey, on whose watch as CIA director many of the U.S. intelligence fronts involved with the Uyghur destabilization effort were developed.
Key Aspects of Analysis of Casey Include: Casey’s Wall Street legal background and the manner in which it dovetailed with William Donovan and the OSS (America’s World War II intelligence service); Casey’s networking with Landsdale and others involved with the recovery of Golden Lily loot, in the Philippines, in particular; Casey’s possible role as a key implementer of the Black Eagle Fund; Casey’s role in setting up Capital Cities, a company that eventually bought ABC in 1985; Casey’s position as Capital Cities’ largest stockholder, including in 1985, when he was CIA director; the probability that Capital Cities was an intelligence front; Casey’s key positions in the Nixon Administration–Chairman of the SEC, Under Secretary of State for Economic Affairs and head of the Export-Import Bank; the probability that Casey was with CIA throughout his post-World War II career; Casey’s friendship with both Allen and John Foster Dulles; Casey’s knowledge of how to “privatize” the CIA; Casey’s role as the handler of Ferdinand Marcos and his Golden Lily bullion; Reagan’s signing of Executive Order 12333, authorizing the CIA to enter into private relationships with PMF’s (private military foundations) for intelligence purposes, while permitting those relationships to be kept secret.
1. Discussed in numerous programs, the Uighurs (also spelled Uyghurs) are heavily overlapped with various fascist elements. All of these are present in the history of the World Uyghur Congress.
- The narco-fascist regime of Chiang Kai-shek.
- The Grey Wolves, youth wing of the National Action Party. The group was a key element of the Turkish “Stay Behind” movement.
- Various Islamic terrorist offshoots of the Muslim Brotherhood, including Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State.
- As seen above, the Anti-Bolshevik Bloc of Nations milieu, directly evolved from the Third Reich and the Gehlen organization.
- The Dalai Lama and his SS/Third Reich heritage.
Of great significance, once again, is the decisive presence of the National Endowment for Democracy, a U.S. intelligence cut-out founded by William Casey.
American and Western media draw on an American regime-change operation for much of their coverage–that organization is the World Uyghur [“Uighur”] Congress and numerous subsidiary elements.
Exemplifying the WUC milieu is Rushan Abas: ” . . . . Another influential organization spun out of the WUC network is the Campaign for Uyghurs. This group is headed by Rushan Abbas, the former Vice President of the UAA. Promoted simply as a Uyghur ‘human rights activist’ by Western media outlets including the supposedly adversarial Democracy Now!, Abbas is, in fact, a longtime US government and military operative. Abbas boasts in her bio of her ‘extensive experience working with US government agencies, including Homeland Security, Department of Defense, Department of State, and various US intelligence agencies.’ While working for the military contractor L3 Technologies, Abbas served the US government and the Bush administration’s so-called war on terror as a ‘consultant at Guantanamo Bay supporting Operation Enduring Freedom.’ Abbas ‘also worked as a linguist and translator for several federal agencies including work for the US State Department in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba and for President George W. Bush and former First Lady Laura Bush’. Like so many of her colleagues, Abbas enjoyed a stint at Radio Free Asia. While Abbas once shared her history of collaboration with the US government in the open, she has attempted to scrub biographic information from her online presence following a disastrous publicity appearance in December 2019. During a Reddit’s ‘Ask Me Anything’ question and answer forum, participants blasted Abbas as a ‘CIA asset’ and frequent US government collaborator, prompting her attempt to disappear her bio from the internet. . . .”
The ostensibly “peaceful’ intent of the WUC can be evaluated against the background of the comments of former WUC Vice-President Seyit Tumturk: ” . . . . In 2018, Tümturk declared that Chinese Uyghurs view Turkish ‘state requests as orders.’ He then proclaimed that hundreds of thousands of Chinese Uyghurs were ready to enlist in the Turkish army and join Turkey’s illegal and brutal invasion of Northern Syria ‘to fight for God’ – if ordered to do so by Erdogan. . . . Shortly after Tumturk’s comments, Uyghur militants dressed in Turkish military fatigues and on the Turkish side of the Syrian border released a video in which they threatened to wage war against China: ‘Listen you dog bastards, do you see this? We will triumph!’ one fighter exclaimed. ‘We will kill you all. Listen up Chinese civilians, get out of our East Turkestan. I am warning you. We shall return and we will be victorious.’ . . .”
While posing as a grassroots human rights organization, the World Uyghur Congress is a US-funded and directed separatist network that has forged alliances with far-right ethno-nationalist groups. The goal spelled out by its founders is clear: the destabilization of China and regime change in Beijing.
In recent years, few stories have generated as much outrage in the West as the condition of Uyghur Muslims in China. Reporting on the issue is typically represented through seemingly spontaneous leaks of information and expressions of resistance by Uyghur human rights activists struggling to be heard against a tyrannical Chinese government.
True or not, nearly everything that appears in Western media accounts of China’s Uyghur Muslims is the product of a carefully conceived media campaign generated by an apparatus of right-wing, anti-communist Uyghur separatists funded and trained by the US government.
A central gear in Washington’s new Cold War against China, this network has a long history of relationships with the US national security state and far-right ultra-nationalists.
At the heart of this movement is the World Uyghur Congress (WUC), an international Uyghur organization that claims to be engaged in a “peaceful, nonviolent, and democratic” struggle for “human rights.” The WUC considers China’s northwestern Xinjiang region to be East Turkestan, and sees its Uyghur Muslim inhabitants not as Chinese citizens but instead as members of a pan-Turkic nation stretching from Central Asia to Turkey.
As this investigation establishes, the WUC is not a grassroots movement, but a US government-backed umbrella for several Washington-based outfits that also rely heavily on US funding and direction. Today, it is the main face and voice of a separatist operation dedicated to destabilizing the Xinjiang region of China and ultimately toppling the Chinese government.
While seeking to orchestrate a color revolution with the aim of regime change in Beijing, the WUC and its offshoots have forged ties with the Grey Wolves, a far-right Turkish organization that has been actively engaged in sectarian violence from Syria to East Asia.
None of these links seem to have troubled the WUC’s sponsors in Washington. If anything, they have added to the network’s appeal, consolidating it as one of the most potent political weapons the US wields in its new Cold War against China.
The World Uyghur Congress, brought to you by the US government’s regime change arm
The WUC promotes itself as an “opposition movement against Chinese occupation of East Turkistan [sic]” that “represent[s] the collective interests” and is “the sole legitimate organization of the Uyghur people both in East Turkistan and abroad.”
Headquartered in Munich, Germany, the WUC is an international umbrella organization with a network of 33 affiliates in 18 countries around the world. The WUC and its affiliates — particularly the Uyghur American Association, Uyghur Human Rights Project, and Campaign for Uyghurs — are cited in nearly every Western media report on China’s Uyghur Muslims.
From its inception, the WUC has been backed by the National Endowment for Democracy (NED). With millions in US taxpayer money, the NED and its subsidiaries have backed opposition parties, “civil society” groups, and media organizations in countries targeted by the US for regime change.
Philip Agee, the late CIA whistleblower, described the work of the NED as a more sophisticated version of the old-fashioned covert operations that Langley used to engineer. “Nowadays,” Agee explained, “instead of having the CIA going around behind the scenes and trying to manipulate the process by inserting money here and giving instructions secretly and so forth, they have now a sidekick, which is this National Endowment for Democracy, NED.”
Agee’s assessment was confirmed by Allen Weinstein, a former Trotskyist and founding member of the NED. Weinstein told the Washington Post in 1991, “A lot of what we do today was done covertly 25 years ago by the CIA.”
When the WUC was founded in 2004, the NED’s then-senior Asia program officer, Louisa Coan Greve, praised the move as a “great accomplishment.”
The NED has provided the WUC with millions of dollars in funding, including $1,284,000 since 2016 alone, and millions of dollars in additional funding to WUC-affiliate organizations. The grants are earmarked for training Uyghur activists and youth in media advocacy and lobbying “to raise awareness of and support for Uyghur human rights,” with a particular focus on US Congress, European Parliament, and the United Nations.
In 2018, the NED provided the WUC and its offshoots with close to $665,000, according to the former organization’s website.Anim3w@rriors2020
The NED has played a direct role in molding the direction and politics of the WUC. Besides honeycombing WUC-affiliated organizations with NED operatives like Coan Greve, the NED has sponsored and organized annual “Leadership Training Seminars” for the WUC since 2007.
Many leading members of the WUC have also worked in senior positions for Radio Free Asia (RFA) and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL). These US government-run news agencies were created by the CIA during the Cold War to project propaganda into China and the Soviet Union, and to stir up opposition to communism on these countries’ frontiers.
Unsurprisingly, the WUC is tightly aligned with Washington’s foreign policy agenda and hostile new Cold War strategy which seeks to contain and impede the rise of China. The WUC regularly meets with and lobbies US and Western politicians, urging them to isolate and “increase the pressure on China”; ratchet up economic sanctions; curb ties with China, and withdraw Western companies from the region.
The WUC celebrated the passage of The Uighur Act of 2019 by the US House of Representatives, in December 2019. The bill, which called on the Trump administration to enact sanctions against the Chinese government, was the latest in a string of anti-China achievements.
This regime change apparatus has made its strongest impact through the media, providing a constant source of self-styled Uyghur dissidents and human rights horror stories to eager Western reporters. The exposure the WUC and its affiliates receive extends well beyond corporate media outlets known for echoing Washington’s foreign policy talking points; even ostensibly adversarial, progressive, and left-wing media such as The Intercept, Democracy Now! and Jacobin Magazine have provided them with an uncritical platform.
While adopting the WUC’s narrative, these self-styled alternative outlets never seem to mention the close bonds the organization and its offshoots have forged with the US national security state and right-wing ethno-nationalist movements abroad. But the relationships are no secret. In fact, they appear to be a source of pride for WUC leadership.
The Far-Right Roots of the Uyghur “Human Rights” Movement
Behind its carefully constructed human rights brand, the Uyghur separatist movement emerged from elements in Xinjiang which view socialism as “the enemy of Islam,” and which sought Washington’s support from the outset, presenting themselves as eager foot-soldiers for US hegemony.
The founding father of this separatist movement was Isa Yusuf Alptekin. His son, Erkin Alptekin, founded the WUC and served as the organization’s inaugural president. The senior Alptekin is referred to as “our late leader” by the WUC and current President Dolkun Isa.
Born at the turn of the 20th century, Alptekin was the son of a local government Xinjiang official. He received a largely Islamic education as a youth, as his family intended for him to be a religious scholar.
During the Chinese Civil War that raged between the nationalists and communists from 1945 to ’49, Alptekin served under the nationalist Kuomintang (KMT) administration in Xinjiang. Throughout this period, the KMT received massive military and economic backing from the United States — including billions of dollars in cash and military hardware, along with the deployment of tens of thousands of US marines — in an effort to quash the Chinese revolution.
At the same time, according to historian Linda Benson, Alptekin “became more active in both the Guomindang [sic] and national level politics … and met several times with [KMT leader] Chiang Kai-shek personally.” For Alptekin and fellow travelers advancing Turkic nationalism and the region’s eventual independence, “equally important was the necessity of protecting the land they called East Turkestan from Soviet and Chinese communism, both of which were viewed as real and present dangers to Islamic peoples.”
For the KMT, Uyghur activists like Alptekin made prime candidates for Xinjiang’s provincial administration. As Benson explained, “[t]he essential qualification for such appointees… was that they be anti-Communist and anti-Soviet.” In his memoirs, Alptekin revealed that he “sought to eliminate all Russians and leftists in the government,” and said that “schools were also encouraged to include religious instruction in their curriculum.”
A fervent opponent of miscegenation, Alptekin worked to prevent intermarriage between Han Chinese and Uyghur Muslims. During his time in government, religious fundamentalists “attacked the houses of Han Chinese who were married to Moslem [sic] women […] The mob abducted the Moslem wives, and in some cases the unfortunate women were forced to marry old Moslem men.” Though the violence killed numerous Han Chinese, it proceeded without any government response during Alptekin’s tenure.
As the civil war wore on, Alptekin grew frustrated with the declining power of the nationalists and met with US and British Consuls in Xinjiang, beseeching the twin powers to deepen their intervention in China and the region. With the coming victory of the Chinese Revolution, Alptekin went into exile in 1949.
Alptekin eventually settled in Turkey, emerging as the pre-eminent leader of the Uyghur separatist movement throughout the latter half of the 20th century. He set out to enlist international support for the cause of East Turkestan independence, courting leading US officials and far-right, neo-Ottomanist ideologues in Turkey.
The Uyghur separatist leader wrote to then-US President Richard Nixon on several occasions, pleading for him to support East Turkestan separatism. In a 1969 missive to the president, Alptekin declared full-throated support for the US war on Vietnam: “We are hopeful and pleased that the US, as a fortress of liberty, is protecting captive nations,” he stated. Altepkin then pleaded for his “Excellency” Nixon and the US, “the most imminent protector of captive nations”, to support East Turkestan independence.
Alptekin wrote Nixon the following year to warn of the evils of “Red China.” He branded the country “a great menace which the whole world as led by the United States of America is confronting. This menace is now in the process of evolution to engulf the earth. If time is allowed it can upset the balance of the world to disadvantage the free nations.”
“The whole world has reason to be apprehensive of Red China,” Alptekin insisted to Nixon, “for it is likely to be an irresistible [sic] threat on earth… China today is one of the biggest nations in the world where the Marxist teach has been implemented… China may prove to be a greater menace to all the world, and this menace is likely to cause a total destruction to the free nations if they are not prudent and fore-sighted.”
Alptekin advised Nixon to combat the “Chinese war of world conquest” by supporting separatist movements, namely that of East Turkestan nationalists, and by “speeding up the process of the dismemberment of the Chinese empire.”
Mapping out a detailed regime change strategy for Washington, Alptekin urged the US to generate support for his cause among the “free world,” set up an academic institute to study “every aspect” of minority nationalities living within China, develop media propaganda targeting minority nationalities by operating “a radio network beaming at these peoples in their respective languages”; “devise a plan to secure [the] collaboration” of minority nationalities and “train the children of the non-Chinese exiles abroad.”
In 1970, Alptekin travelled to Washington to meet with members of US Congress and address the House of Representatives.
Forging bonds with fascistic, ethno-supremacist Turkish nationalists
While appealing for Washington’s support, Alptekin developed strong ties with the Turkish far-right. Their bonds rested on a solid foundation of anti-communist zeal and pan-Turkic, neo-Ottomanist nationalism.
On numerous occasions, Alptekin met with Alparslan Türkes a fascistic, ultra-nationalist who believed ardently in Turkish ethnic superiority over minorities like Kurds and Armenians, and for whom the eradication of communism among the Turkic populations of Soviet Central Asia and Xinjiang was “the dream he had most cherished”.
Türkes was long-time leader of the far-right Nationalist Action Party (MHP) and its paramilitary arm, the Grey Wolves. According to the Washington Post, he headed a murderous group of “right-wing terrorists” who are “blindly nationalist, fascist or nearly so, and bent on the extermination of the Communists.” The fascistic militant group killed numerous left-wing activists, students, Kurds, and notoriously attempted to assassinate Pope John Paul II.
With military training from the US, Türkes co-founded the Turkish cell of Operation Gladio, the US and NATO-backed network of “stay behind” anti-communist paramilitary groups that carried out numerous acts of terror and sabotage across Europe.
Alptekin appears to have shared the hateful politics of Türkes and the Turkish far-right, often expressing anti-Armenian views including denial of the Armenian genocide and claims that Armenians were murderers of innocent Turks.
The Turkish right-wing has embraced the East Turkestan separatist movement with open arms, appealing to them as a key base of political support. “The martyrs of East Turkestan are our martyrs,” stated Recep Tayyip Erdogan, then mayor of Istanbul, as he inaugurated a park named in honor of Alptekin, following the death of the Uyghur nationalist in 1995.
In recent decades, the Uyghur separatist movement has deepened its connections with Washington and the US national security state. The WUC and its affiliate organizations — including the Uyghur American Association, Uyghur Human Rights Project, and Campaign for Uyghurs — are made up of individuals with direct ties to the US government, military, and regime change establishment.
Inspired by pro-free market color revolutions spawned by the US government in the former Soviet republics of Central Asia, the WUC’s regime change network has set out a clear goal of destabilizing China and toppling its government.
With vow to destroy China, WUC leaders earn Western adulation and support
In 2004, Erkin Alptekin was named the inaugural president of the WUC. He is the son of the far-right, ultra-nationalist father figure of the Uyghur separatist movement, Isa Yusuf Alptekin, whose background is explored later in this article. From 1971 to 1995, Erkin Alptekin worked for the US government-funded RFE/RL media network.
Speaking at the funeral of his father, in 1995, the junior Alptekin outlined his anti-communist, separatist views and articulated his desire to destroy China: “Ten years ago no one believed that the USSR would fall apart now you can see that. Many Turkic countries have their freedom now. Today the same situation applies to China. We believed in the not too distant future we will see the fall of China and the independence of East Turkestan.”
The WUC describes Alptekin as “close friend” of the Dalai Lama, the U.S‑backed, CIA-funded figurehead for Tibetan separatism. “We are working very closely with the Dalai Lama,” Alptekin told The Washington Post in 1999. “He is a very good example for us.”
In 2006, Erkin Alptekin was succeeded as WUC President by Rebiya Kadeer, a self-described multi-millionaire real estate and trading entrepreneur who profited off of China’s economic reforms of the 1980s and claims to have once been the seventh wealthiest individual in the country. According to The New York Times, Kadeer’s “[d]issidence brought the end of her Audi, her three villas and her far-flung business empire”. Kadeer’s husband, SIdik Rouzi, worked for US government media outlets Voice of America and Radio Free Asia.
During her tenure as WUC President, Kadeer met with then-US President George W. Bush on several occasions. As Bush waged his illegal war on Iraq and persecuted Muslim American leadership under the auspices of his so-called “war on terror,” Kadeer appealed to the US head of state to take up the cause of Uyghur Muslims. “I was deeply honored to meet with the President,” Kadeer stated.. She “expressed gratitude for President Bush’s demonstrated commitment to promoting freedom and democratic reform in the PRC.”
At the 2007 Democracy & Security International Conference in Prague, Bush praised Kadeer as a human rights defender in his address before the gathering. The conference was organized by the Prague Security Studies Institute, a think tank that aims to advance free-market societies in post-communist states, and the Adelson Institute for Strategic Studies, an Israeli outfit named for ultra-Zionist Republican casino baron Sheldon Adelson. Conference partners included the US government and NATO.
Kadeer kept close relationships with the Dalai Lama and Vaclav Havel, the leader of the ‘Velvet Revolution’ which brought down Czechoslovakia’s communist government. Havel was a “major proponent of NATO” and instrumental to the Western military alliance’s eastward expansion. Kadeer described Havel as “an uncompromising advocate for truth, justice and peace” and pointed to his political accomplishments as an example to be emulated for China. “Mr. Havel’s vision for the Czech people […] speaks to Chinese democrats today”, wrote Kadeer, following Havel’s death, and “contains […] the seeds of a new era for political reform in China.”
The current President of WUC is Dolkun Isa, winner of the 2019 Democracy Award from the NED. In 2016, Isa received a human rights award from the far-right Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation, which was established by the US government in 1993. In his acceptance speech, Isa emphasized “the Uyghurs’ resistance to communism” and that “we will not stop our work until we consign this destructive ideology, in the words of Ronald Reagan, to ‘the ash heap of history.’”
Isa regularly lobbies US and Western politicians to intensify their new Cold War agenda by enacting economic sanctions and curbing ties with China.. Among those he has met with in recent years are Trump administration White House officials, right-wing Republican Senator Ted Cruz, and the fervently anti-China acting Director of National Intelligence, Richard Grenell.
The @UyghurCongress president @Dolkun_Isa met with the American Ambassador to Germany @RichardGrenell in Berlin to brief him on current crisis in East Turkistan & discussed ways that the WUC could work with him in the future. pic.twitter.com/yottOysIj6
— WorldUyghurCongress (@UyghurCongress) July 5, 2019
In November 2019, Isa attended the Halifax International Security Forum, a gathering convened by NATO and the Canadian Department of National Defence. There, he met with leading Western political and military figures.
In January 2020, Isa was hosted at an event organized by the Board of Deputies of British Jews, a right-wing British Israeli lobby group. At the event, Isa met with with the ultra-Zionist organization Bnei Akiva, whose leader called for the Israeli Army “to take the foreskins of 300 Palestinians” amid Israel’s punishing 2014 assault on the besieged Gaza Strip.
Omer Kanat serves as the WUC’s Chairman of the Executive Committee. Kanat helped found the WUC and has been a permanent fixture in its executive leadership. The veteran operative has a lengthy history of work with the US government, from serving as senior editor of Radio Free Asia’s Uyghur Service from 1999 to 2009 to covering the US wars on Iraq and Afghanistan and interviewing the Dalai Lama for the network.
In an interview with The Grayzone editor Max Blumenthal at a 2018 NED awards ceremony in the US Capitol building, Kanat took credit for furnishing many of the claims about internment camps in Xinjiang to Western media. He conceded, however, that the WUC did not know how the oft-repeated “millions detained” claim was arrived at aside from “Western media estimates.”
Preparing for a color revolution, WUC offshoots staff up with national security state operatives
Established in 1998, the Uyghur American Association (UAA) is a Washington D.C.-based affiliate of the WUC. A long time grantee of the NED, the UAA has received millions of dollars in funding. According to its publicly available tax filings, the group works closely with the US government, particularly the US State Department, Congressional-Executive Commission on China (CECC), and US Congress’s Human Rights Commission.
“The National Endowment for Democracy has been exceptionally supportive of UAA,” stated Nury Turkel, former UAA President, “providing us with invaluable guidance and assistance” along with “essential funding.”
Turkel credited the NED with enabling the UAA increase its credibility and expand its influence. Among the top achievements he cited was a meeting with the new Krygyzstan government “within weeks of [the former government’s] fall from power” following the US-engineered Tulip “color revolution” which brought a pro-Western regime to power.
Speaking at the 5th Congress of the UAA, in 2006, Turkel confirmed the regime change agenda of the UAA, UHRP and broader Uyghur separatist movement, stating that “as we witnessed the ‘Tulip Revolution’ and the toppling the former government of Kyrgyzstan, our hopes were again reinforced.”
The UAA’s leadership consists of US national security state operators including employees of the US government, Radio Free Asia, and military-industrial complex.
Kuzzat Altay, the nephew of Reibya Kadeer, is the current president of the UAA. Altay is also the founder of the Uyghur Entrepreneurs Network, which claims to offer Uyghur Americans with guidance to “start their own business”.
In 2019, his business network has organized an event in collaboration with the FBI, the federal law enforcement agency notorious for its surveillance of Muslim Americans and ensnaring countless mentally troubled young Muslim American men in manufactured terror plots.
Past presidents of UAA include Kadeer; Alim Seytoff, a former Radio Free Asia correspondent and current Director of RFA’s Uyghur Service; and Ilshat Hassan Kokbore, who has worked at Booz Allen Hamilton since 2008.
...
The main project spun out of the UAA and the NED is the Uyghur Human Rights Project (UHRP). The UHRP was founded by the UAA in 2004 with the NED as the principal source of funding. The NED granted the UHRP a whopping $1,244,698 between 2016 and ’19.
The UHRP is staffed by WUC leaders like Omer Kanat and Nury Turkel, along with former US government officials and senior members of the NED.
Dr. Elise Anderson serves as UHRP’s Senior Program Office for Research and Advocacy. In 2019, Anderson served as the Liu Xiaobo Fellow, occupying a position at the Congressional-Executive Commission on China named for the far-right Chinese dissident who supported colonialism, US militarism and the “Westernisation” of China.
Anderson states that from 2012 to 2016, she was “based out of Ürümchi, the regional capital of Xinjiang,” conducting research for her doctorate. The extent of her activities in the region are unclear, as Anderson’s CV indicates that during this time she was also working for the US government as “Ürümchi Warden for the US Embassy in Beijing, China, 2014–16.”
Louisa Coan Greve, the former vice president of NED, today serves as UHRP’s Director of Global Advocacy. Greve formerly worked as Vice President of the NED.
Rushan Abbas, the US national security state’s favorite “human rights activist”
Another influential organization spun out of the WUC network is the Campaign for Uyghurs. This group is headed by Rushan Abbas, the former Vice President of the UAA. Promoted simply as a Uyghur “human rights activist” by Western media outlets including the supposedly adversarial Democracy Now!, Abbas is, in fact, a longtime US government and military operative.
Abbas boasts in her bio of her “extensive experience working with US government agencies, including Homeland Security, Department of Defense, Department of State, and various US intelligence agencies.”
While working for the military contractor L3 Technologies, Abbas served the US government and the Bush administration’s so-called war on terror as a “consultant at Guantanamo Bay supporting Operation Enduring Freedom.” Abbas “also worked as a linguist and translator for several federal agencies including work for the US State Department in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba and for President George W. Bush and former First Lady Laura Bush”. Like so many of her colleagues, Abbas enjoyed a stint at Radio Free Asia.
While Abbas once shared her history of collaboration with the US government in the open, she has attempted to scrub biographic information from her online presence following a disastrous publicity appearance in December 2019. During a Reddit’s “Ask Me Anything” question and answer forum, participants blasted Abbas as a “CIA asset” and frequent US government collaborator, prompting her attempt to disappear her bio from the internet.
Besides collaborating with the US government, Abbas’ professional experience consists of aiding the expansion of US capitalism in the global south. She boasts work with consulting firms such as ISI Consultants which “assists US companies to grow their business in Middle East and African markets.” Abbas claims to have “over 15 years of experience in global business development, strategic business analysis, business consultancy and government affairs throughout the Middle East, Africa, CIS regions, Europe, Asia, Australia, North America and Latin America.”
Celebrating the Gray Wolves, proposing US and Turkish military intervention
Along with their extensive ties to Washington, the WUC and Uyghur separatist movement has maintained close connections with the Turkish far-right.
In 2015, members of the MHP-affiliated Grey Wolves formerly led by Alparslan Türkes attacked South Korean tourists in Turkey, mistaking them for Chinese citizens, in protest of the situation in Xinjiang.
Turkish MHP party leader Devlet Bahçeli defended the attacks. “How are you going to differentiate between Korean and Chinese?” the rightist politician questioned. “They both have slanted eyes. Does it really matter?” Bahceli’s racist remarks coincided with the display of a Grey Wolves banner at party’s Istanbul headquarters reading, “We crave Chinese blood.”
The Grey Wolves and Uyghur militants were blamed by Thailand’s national police and an IHS-Jane’s analyst of carrying out a 2015 bombing of a religious shrine in Thailand that killed 20 people. The attack was intended as revenge against the Thai government’s decision to repatriate a group of Uyghur Muslims to China. Beijing had claimed the Uyghurs were en route to Turkey, Syria or Iraq to join extremist groups fighting in the region such as the al-Qaeda-affiliated East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM), or Turkestan Islamic Party (TIP).
Months before the bombing, a group of 200 protesters waving East Turkestan flags attacked the Thai consulate in Istanbul in response to the Uyghur repatriation. The group was reportedly led by the Grey Wolves and East Turkestan Culture and Solidarity Association.. The latter organization was headed by Seyit Tümturk, who served as WUC Vice President from 2008 to 2016 and belonged to the organization’s founding pantheon.
The WUC continues to publish articles on its website that praise and celebrate Alparslan Türkes, the far-right, ultra-nationalist founder of the Grey Wolves and long-time MHP party leader. Its website also promotes endorsements of East Turkestan separatism by current leaders of the MHP and Grey Wolves.
While building links with the Turkish far-right, leading WUC representatives have appealed to Turkish President Erdogan to take an interventionist role in China akin to Turkey’s actions in Libya and Syria, where it supported the regime change efforts of the US, West and an array of extremist proxy groups.
Writing in the Wall Street Journal in 2012, Nury Turkel argued that Turkey can play a leading role in “rallying democracies” to pressure China on Xinjiang: “As a longstanding ally of the US and a neighbor of Europe, Turkey is uniquely well-situated to do this.”
As a first step in this strategy, Turkel proposed that Turkey “should organize a ‘friends of Uighurs’ conference with democratic allies – similar to the ones organized for Libya and Syria – discussing Ankara’s vision and policy objectives with respect to the Uighur people in China.”
A Turkish soldier of the occupying force in NW Syria town of Atareb flashes the ‘Grey Wolves’ hand sign to an AFP photographer. Grey Wolves are an openly fascist Turkish ultra nationalist movement in Turkey who hold deeply racist hatred towards the Kurds. #TwitterKurds pic.twitter.com/j2G61DQVYO
— @Hevallo (@Hevallo) February 19, 2020
Other leading representatives of WUC have vocally endorsed Turkish military interventionism. The political statements of Seyit Tümturk, who served as WUC Vice President, underscore the extremist and militant politics behind WUC’s carefully cultivated image as a “peaceful and nonviolent” human rights organization.
In 2018, Tümturk declared that Chinese Uyghurs view Turkish “state requests as orders.” He then proclaimed that hundreds of thousands of Chinese Uyghurs were ready to enlist in the Turkish army and join Turkey’s illegal and brutal invasion of Northern Syria “to fight for God” – if ordered to do so by Erdogan.
Hundreds of thousands Uyghurs from #China’s Xinjiang region are ready to enlist Turkish army and join #Syria’s Afrin battle to fight for God with an order from Commander #Erdogan, says Seyit Tümtürk, head of Association for East Turkishtan Culture and Solidarity in #Turkey. pic.twitter.com/ElgslclOLS
— Abdullah Bozkurt (@abdbozkurt) March 11, 2018
Seyit Tümtürk, Uyghur leader in #Turkey, talks to Turkish Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu directly on the phone when he wanted to lead a rally before #China embassy in Ankara. He says Uyghurs consider Turkish state requests as orders and moves rally nearby Kugulu Park after talk pic.twitter.com/jsZIhEjfrg
— Abdullah Bozkurt (@abdbozkurt) December 6, 2018
Shortly after Tumturk’s comments, Uyghur militants dressed in Turkish military fatigues and on the Turkish side of the Syrian border released a video in which they threatened to wage war against China:
“Listen you dog bastards, do you see this? We will triumph!” one fighter exclaimed. “We will kill you all. Listen up Chinese civilians, get out of our East Turkestan. I am warning you. We shall return and we will be victorious.”
2. The program concludes with a look at the history of former CIA director William Casey, on whose watch many of the intelligence fronts involved with the Uyghur destabilization effort were founded.
Key Aspects of Analysis of Casey Include: Casey’s Wall Street legal background and the manner in which it dovetailed with William Donovan and the OSS (America’s World War II intelligence service); Casey’s networking with Landsdale and others involved with the recovery of Golden Lily loot, in the Philippines, in particular; Casey’s possible role as a key implementer of the Black Eagle Fund; Casey’s role in setting up Capital Cities, a company that eventually bought ABC in 1985; Casey’s position as Capital Cities’ largest stockholder, including in 1985, when he was CIA director; the probability that Capital Cities was an intelligence front; Casey’s key positions in the Nixon Administration–Chairman of the SEC, Under Secretary of State for Economic Affairs and head of the Export-Import Bank; the probability that Casey was with CIA throughout his post-World War II career; Casey’s friendship with both Allen and John Foster Dulles; Casey’s knowledge of how to “privatize” the CIA; Casey’s role as the handler of Ferdinand Marcos and his Golden Lily bullion; Reagan’s signing of Executive Order 12333, authorizing the CIA to enter into private relationships with PMF’s (private military foundations) for intelligence purposes, while permitting those relationships to be kept secret.
Gold Warriors—America’s Secret Recovery of Yamashita’s Gold; by Sterling Seagrave and Peggy Seagrave; Verso [SC]; Copyright 2003, 2005 by Sterling and Peggy Seagrave; ISBN 1–84467-531–9; pp. 187–188.
. . . . Many CIA agents spent years or even decades under various covers, so it was hard to establish beyond any doubt whether they ever left the Agency, or merely went underground.
A perfect example is William Casey.
Casey was one of the original OSS crowd. After law school, he went to work for an accounting firm but kept in touch with fellow lawyer John ‘Pop’ Howley, who worked for Wild Bill Donovan’s law firm, Donovan Leisure Newton & Irvine. When Donovan became head of OSS, Casey and Howley joined him. Casey was John Singlaub’s case officer in the war, while Paul Helliwell was Singlaub’s direct superior. Casey also was a close friend of Allen Dulles and John Foster Dulles, worked with Ray Cline, and became involved with Lansdale as Santa Romana’s torture of Major Kojima was bearing fruit. This put Casey in a position to know a great deal about the Black Eagle Trust, and one source insists that Casey’s financial skills made him one of the key players, along with Paul Helliwell and Edwin Pauley, in implementing the Black Eagle Trust under the guidance of Robert B. Anderson and John J. McCloy.
Following the war, Casey and his old friend Howell founded their own Wall Street law firm. But what made Casey really wealthy was his involvement with other former intelligence officers in setting up the media holding company Capital Cities in 1954. According to many investigators, during this period the CIA poured millions into setting up front companies for covert operations in broadcasting and publishing, and it is alleged that Casey funneled some of these funds into Capitol Cities to acquire failing media companies and turn them around. It is likely that Casey never left the Agency, but only moulted into one of its financial butterflies. It would not be the first time a senior CIA agent has had a double career on Wall Street, Allen Dulles being but one of many others. From 1971–1973, Casey was Nixon’s appointee as chief of the Securities and Exchange Commission, where he worked closely with SEC attorney Stanley Sporkin (later appointed by Casey as CIA general counsel and involved in the Schlei case.) Casey also served as Nixon’s Under-Secretary of State for Economic Affairs, and chairman of the Export-Import Bank. In 1978, Casey founded a think tank called the Manhattan Institute that absorbed a number of former CIA officers, and funneled money from conservative foundations to conservative authors. When Casey left Capital Cities to head the Reagan presidential campaign and then to become Reagan’s director of the CIA, he is said to have been its biggest single stockholder with $7.5‑million in Capital Cities stock. He was still its biggest stockholder, and CIA director, in 1985 when Capital Cities bought ABC.
A man who was involved in covert financial operations throughout his entire career, Casey had links to all the key players in this book; his DNA is all over the place, from pre-Santy to post Marcos. He was one of the men who dreamed up the privatization of the CIA, and as CIA director, he showed Reagan how to implement it.
One of Reagan’s first acts was to sign Executive Order 12333, which authorized the CIA and other government agencies to enter into contracts with PMFs, “and need not reveal the sponsorship of such contracts or arrangements for authorized intelligence purposes.” This put Casey back in harness with Cline, Singlaub, Shackley, Lansdale and many others purged earlier, whole obscuring their activities, keeping them—theoretically at least—in the private domain. Simultaneously, Casey personally took over handling President Marcos pressing him to provide black gold for covert purposes, and finally masterminded the downfall ad removal of Marcos and his bullion.
Eventually, Iran-Contra revealed the intimate bonds between members of The Enterprise and unelected officials of the National Security Council, Pentagon and CIA. . . .
With the news that President Trump has tested positive for COVID-19 and is now suffering mild symptoms throwing the US presidential race into tumult, it might be a good time to take a moment and consider the elevated chances of some sort of extreme desperation play being executed in the near future. And not necessarily a desperation play by the Trump reelection campaign but also any groups that may have had very high hopes for what they could achieve under a Trump presidency seeing those hopes slip away. High hopes like war. War with Iran is an obvious high hope held by a number of actors in the Middle East. Or Venezeula. But perhaps war with China is the biggest potential prize, especially given the ongoing destabilization campaign on top of a global pandemic that’s being blamed on China. War with China is something the Military Industrial Complex has been salivating over for years. Lots of planes, ships, even the potential for space-based warfare. It really is a warmongers dream scenario and the best opportunity for that to happen (a Trump second term) may have just experienced a near fatal blow. If any interests — foreign, domestic, or a mix of both — had any plans sitting in a drawer somewhere for how to provoke a major international military conflict between the US a some target country now is the time to put those plans in action. It really is kind of a now or never moment for certain mega-conflicts.
So with that in mind, it’s worth taking a look back a fascinating piece from The Gray Zone put out back in March about the militaristic think-tanks behind a set of reports that were jumped on by the Western press as evidence of massive gulag-like forced labor camps in the Xinjiang region of China targeting the Uyghur Muslim ethnic minority. The reports described what amounts to a massive an grisly crime against humanity. A crime against humanity that companies across the world are benefiting from because its allegedly Western firms that are utilizing this slave labor. It’s the kind of narrative that can ostensibly unite the world against China and justify almost any sort of upcoming conflict as a fight for the liberation of a people undergoing what amount to genocide. So, of course, it turns out that these reports are based on complete garbage and outright fabrications and the entities behind them are a combination of cult apologist and NATO-funded think-tanks.
One of the think-tanks, the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI), put out a report on March 1 entitled, “Uyghurs for sale: ‘Re-education,’ forced labour and surveillance beyond Xinjiang.” The report is thin on sources and turns out to rely heavily on anonymous allegations found on a far right blog called Bitter Winter. The blog is a project of the Center for Studies on New Religions (CESNUR), an Italy-based group dedicated to fighting “anti-cult terrorism”. Yes, it’s a group dedicated to defending cults. Cults like Aum Shinrikyo and Falun Gong. CENSUR is founded by Vatican scholar Massimo Introvigne, an individual to deep connections to Italian fascists and the far right.
CENSUR isn’t the only religious extremism tie to this story. The ASPI report was preceded by two earlier studies put out by Adrian Zena, senior fellow in China studies at the far right Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation. As we’ll see, Zenz is a far-right fundamentalist Christian who opposes homosexuality and gender equality, supports “scriptural spanking” of children, and believes he is “led by God” on a “mission” against China and relies on extremely shoddy evidence and methodologies.
The second report recently put out by a militaristic think-tank that making allegations about slave labor camps that got a lot of attention by Western governments was put out by the DC-based Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). Like ASPI, CSIS is extensively funded by the US government and allied governments around the world, along with funding from weapons manufacturers, petroleum interests, and banks. In 2019, CSIS was exposed to have hosted a secret meeting where US and Latin American officials discussed a possible military invasion of Venezuela. These are the kinds of groups that have been heavily promoting the kind of narrative that could be used to justify a major conflict predicated on humanitarian grounds: militaristic think-tanks, religious zealots, and religious zealot apologists:
“The Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) and Washington, DC-based Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) are the main institutions responsible for the forced labor studies. The reports have also relied heavily on an evangelical religious fanatic billed as the “leading expert” on Xinjiang, Adrian Zenz, who has said he is “led by God” on a “mission” against China.”
A propaganda campaign that is ultimately based on the unhinged ramblings of a man who claims he is “led by God” on a “mission” against China. It’s not exactly a sound foundation for starting a major conflict...unless you happen to share Zenz’s religious fervor. But these are the interests that nonetheless were widely treated as credible. Credibility that’s, in part, derived from the fact that groups like ASPI are heavily funded by Western governments. In the case of the March 1, ASPI report, it was the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office that funded the report:
Then there’s the fact that the ASPI report relied heavily on anonymous claims that showed up on the Bitter Winter blog of Massimo Introvigne’s CESNUR:
But CENSUR isn’t the only source of religious zealotry involved in putting together these kinds of reports. The March ASPI report followed two earlier studies authored by Adrian Zenz making similar shoddy claims also based on far right sources:
Finally, there’s the report put out by the CSIS that makes the same basic set of allegations as the ASPI report: that a massive forced labor crime against humanity is taking place in Xinjiang supplying products to Western corporations. This is the same think-tank that hosted a secret meeting last year to discuss regime change operations in Venezuela:
So as we can see, over the last couple of years we’ve seen a multipronged push by Western government-funded militaristic think-tanks to pump out narrative of crimes against humanity in China. And not only are is this propaganda thinly sourced based largely on anonymous claims but those anonymous claims appear to have come from far right religious zealots. This is what it looks like when the MIC ‘finds God’.
As as, this kind of a propaganda campaign is alarming enough. But now that we find ourselves in the extremely tenuous situation of COVID-positive Trump a month before an election that is looking to be a disaster — a disaster for Trump and a disaster for the US’s standing in the world in general — these kinds of disturbing stories about government-connected militaristic think-tanks teaming up with religious zealots to foment WWIII are the kinds of stories should take on an extra level of relevance. Sure, it’s not entirely clear what exactly these groups could do to foment a major conflict in short order but when we’re talking about groups deeply connected to both the far right and multiple military industrial complexes you can be sure they have a disturbing number of options at their disposal. And if you’re intent on starting something as extreme as WWIII you’re probably willing to do a lot of extreme things to make that happen too.
China has found itself in a new diplomatic spat. With Lithuania. Yes, Lithuania, a country that mostly just trades with its EU neighbors, has decided to pick a fight with China. Specifically, by trolling China by doing the one thing that is absolutely guaranteed to trigger a response and allowing Taiwan to open its embassy using the title “Taiwanese Representative Office”, instead of “Taipei Representative Office”. In response, China is blocking exports to Lithuania, with the whole thing threatening to turn into a China-EU trade dispute.
On one level, the story has a lot of thematic echoes to the story of far right Ukrainian groups like the Azov Battalion traveling to Hong Kong to network with the anti-Chinese protestors back in 2019. There’s also historical resonance with the Anti-Bolshevik Bloc of Nations’s role in the UNPO and related China-destabilization efforts of the World Uyghur Congress.
But as we’re going to see, there’s another disturbing angle here. Because while getting the EU to back it up is certainly part of Lithuania’s plan here, the target audience may actually be in DC. It appears that Lithuania has adopted a ominously dangerous new strategy for ensuring DC maintains a keen focus on containing Russia without getting too distracted by the new focus on containing China: by openly helping DC in its China-bashing, Lithuania hopes to keep the US focused on Russia. And as we’re going to see, it’s a strategy that clearly has support in DC, with extensive bipartisan support for Lithuania’s spat with China having already been expressed by Congress. And that’s why this story about Lithuania’s deepening spat with China isn’t really about Lithuania and China. It’s a story about Lithuania playing ball with a pro-China-conflict international lobby in DC and the EU, in the hope that this international lobby will return the favor by ensuring the conflict with Russia remains adequately stoked:
“China downgraded its diplomatic ties with the Baltic state and suspended consular services there after the Taiwanese Representative Office in Lithuania opened on Nov. 18.”
It’s hard to be surprised. Lithuania crossed ‘the line’ with Taiwan, clearly as some sort of theatrical showdown. Why did Lithuania, a country which largely trades with its EU neighbors and remains hyper-focused on Russia, pick a fight with China? What’s going on here?
Well, to get a better idea of what’s going on, here’s an article from a month ago about the various congressional resolutions that were being proposed, in a highly bipartisan manner, in support of Lithuania’s stance on China. As we’ll see, this support for Lithuania came along with related measures like a $2 billion in annual military financing for Taiwan, changing export laws to “better facilitate arms transfers to Taiwan,” and ending the strategic ambiguity about how the US would respond to a Chinese invasion of Taiwan. It’s the kind of report that makes clear that Lithuania didn’t pick this fight on its own. Getting into a spat with China and having the US come to Lithuania’s defense is a big part of the goal:
“In July, Lithuania – which, like the US, does not have formal diplomatic relations with Taiwan – announced it would open Taipei’s de facto Lithuanian embassy under the name of the “Taiwanese Representative Office”. Such informal embassies usually use the name “Taipei” instead of “Taiwan”.”
It started back in July, when Lithuania announced it would Taiwan to open its de facto Lithuanian embassy under the name of the “Taiwanese Representative Office”. So this whole thing has been openly building since at least July. Four months later we find unusually bipartisan moves by the US members of congress to pass resolutions expressing support for Lithuania’s fight at the same time they’re pushing for a much deeper military entanglement with Taiwan and an end to strategic ambiguity. What Lithuania is doing is being done in the conjunction with this US military buildup with Taiwan:
But, again, why is Lithuania — a country obsessed with the perceived threat of Russia — playing a kind of proxy role for the US by picking a fight with China? Well, that brings us to the following fascinating piece by Lithuanian journalist Denis Kishinevsky about the game Lithuania is playing here. A game that appears to center around the idea that by helping DC in its fight against China, Lithuania can curry favor with the US and maintain a US focus on a conflict with Russia. Yep. It’s that cynical.:
“Various explanations have been put forward for this drastic turn against China in Lithuanian foreign policy, from a mission to uphold democratic values around the world to the desire to keep up with the latest trends in Washington. Indeed, both of these motivations play a role in the Lithuanian leadership’s actions. Yet just as important is Lithuania’s traditional fear of Russia. Paradoxically, Vilnius now considers criticism of Beijing to be one of the most effective forms of defense against Moscow.”
Welcome to our new shortcut to WWIII: the countries that have been trying to drag the US into a war with Russia have decided helping the US get into a fight with China is their best bet for securing that goal:
It all raises the grim question: so is the end goal for a simultaneous war against both Russia and China? Is that the reasoning taking place within Vilnius? Because, on the one hand, pleasing DC by engaging in geostrategic theatrics in order to curry DC’s favor does make sense. But when your method for currying that favor involves trying to help the US go deeper into committing to a conflict with China, doesn’t that work counter to Lithuania’s interests in seeing the US go to war with Russia? Because a deepening of the US commitment to a conflict with China is exactly what one should expect to come from all of this. So we have to ask: has it been determined by those governments that view Russia as an existential threat that war with Russia is more likely after war with China has already broken out?
Threats of a forced US debt default are nothing new in US politics in recent decades. And yet it’s hard to argue that this time doesn’t feel different. Different and a lot more dangerous in the wake of Friday’s report on the upcoming chaos that could emerge from the GOP intra-party negotiations over the House Speakership. Because as Josh Marshall describes in the following piece, the plan appears to be for an embrace of the “prioritization” scheme for partially shutting down only some government functions while still paying off interest on the government debt. So a government shutdown without a formal debt default. Which is basically an attempt to repeat the Tea Party’s 2011 ‘partial government shutdown’ ploy, but take it further this time.
Beyond that, as Marshall also notes, the plan doesn’t appear to be to create a crisis that will force the Democrats into agreeing to massive spending cuts. No, instead the plan appears to be to create a genuine massive economic crisis by eventually having this game end in a federal debt default and somehow blaming it on the Democrats. At least that appears to be what the House GOP is preparing to unleash, seemingly at the behest of the House Freedom Caucus radicals who forced these concessions on McCarthy in exchange for their support of his speakership.
Of course, as we also saw, that whole intra-GOP showdown over McCarthy’s speakership wasn’t just a gambit executed by a small group of House GOP holdouts. It was orchestrated by the Council and National Policy (CNP), which more or less runs the House Freedom Caucus via the CNP’s Conservative Partnership Institute (CPI). So when we’re now hearing about how the House Freedom Caucus is using its newfound leverage with McCarthy to set up a debt default later this year, it’s important to keep in mind that any such ploy wouldn’t happen without the backing of the all powerful CNP network. That’s the big story here: the GOP establishment is planning on blowing up the economy. All of the “Freedom Caucus vs the rest of them” stuff is just theatrics. This is an establishment ploy.
There’s quite a few massive questions raised by the reports of the GOP mega-donor establishment seemingly getting ready to blow up the US economy, but as we’re going to see in the second article excerpt below, perhaps the most ominous question raised by it all is the question of how is the US establishment planning on paying for WWIII and the upcoming war with China. Because that war is very much part of the plan too. That was the message in an interview given to the Financial Times by Lieutenant General James Bierman, commanding general of the Third Marine Expeditionary Force (III MEF) and of Marine Forces Japan, where he made the usually frank comparison of what the US was currently doing in the Pacific to what the US had already done in Ukraine starting in 2014. A process of “setting the theater” and preparing for war. As Bierman puts it, the US set the theater in Ukraine starting in 2014 to great effect today. That process is now being replicated in places like Japan and the Philippines.
A pair of unusually frank preparations: the GOP’s preparations to blow up the US economy later this year pair with the US military’s accelerating preparations for war with China sooner rather than later. It’s quite the conflagration of crises in the works.
So we have to ask: what will blowing up the US economy in the manner the GOP is planning on doing going to do to the US’s trade relations with China? Don’t forget that trade with China is probably the biggest factor preventing a conflict at this point. Is war with China less likely or more likely if that trade is disrupted due to the US refusing to pay its debts? Let’s hope we never have to find out.
Ok, first, here’s Josh Marshall’s piece that makes clear that the big worry hear isn’t that the GOP is going to succeed in their plot. The plot can’t succeed, which is why the big concern should be over what the GOP is planning on hoping to gain out of finally blowing up the US’s financial credibility:
“This gets us to the real gist of the matter. The Post calls this an “emergency plan for breaching the debt limit.” But it’s not. It can’t work. It couldn’t pass into law even if it could work. This isn’t actually a plan to avoid default. It’s a messaging plan aimed at being able to blame the White House for the federal debt default and the ensuing financial crisis after it happens. House Republicans want to be able to say, we offered this prioritization plan and you rejected it so obviously this is on you.”
It’s hard to avoid agreeing with these suspicions. All signs are pointing towards the House Freedom Caucus having been granted the power to determine the GOP’s bargaining position in the upcoming debt ceiling negotiations, and that position is going to be a repeat of the stunt the Tea Party tried to pull in 2011: an attempt to induce a selective default as part of a broader demand for massive spending cuts. Demands that remain just as impossible today as they were in 2011. A selective default isn’t a real possibility.
But a real default as a consequence of some sort of partial default ploy is very much a possibility if things get out of hand. That’s the big difference between now and 2011: And Tea Party didn’t have the kinds of negotiating powers in 2011 that the Freedom Caucus has today. If they want to blow it up, they can.
Of course, as we also saw, there’s no way to really separate the House Freedom Caucus from the Council for National Policy (CNP) and its Conservative Partnership Institute (CPI) umbrella organization that has become a kind of CNP-MAGA political fusion center. And House Freedom Caucus is, for all practical purposes, the CNP-MAGA hard core loyalist faction in the House and the Freedom Caucus’s showdown with McCarthy that ended up extracting all of these powers in the upcoming debt ceiling negotiations was heavily backed by the CNP members. It’s one of the major elements of the permanent crisis situation unfolding in DC: the upcoming emergencies that emerge from Kevin McCarthy’s deal with the Freedom Caucus are endorsed by the ultra-powerful CNP.
It’s the kind of story with implications the are difficult to wrap our heads around. The GOP is once again threatening to blow up the US — and global — economy and this time they mean business. The CNP’s business.
So when we see powerful elements of the US political establishment setting up what could be a major economic crisis later this year — the kind of crisis that may not resolve itself any time soon and could spiral out of control — it’s worth keeping in mind the other major global crisis being planned in DC these days: WWIII. Or at last war with China, which is effectively WWIII at this point.
That was more or less how Lieutenant General James Bierman, commanding general of the Third Marine Expeditionary Force (III MEF) and of Marine Forces Japan, described what the US was currently planning in the Pacific: a repeat of what the US started in Ukraine in 2014. “Setting the theater”, as Bierman put it in comments described as “unusually frank”.
That’s all part of the context of these reports about the House Freedom caucus getting ready to blow up the US economy: it’s happening at the same time the US is accelerating its plans of war with China. Which is effectively plans for WWIII.
So with the US military currently “setting the theater” for war in the Pacific, as the conflict in Ukraine shows no sign of abating, at the same time the CNP is organizing an economy-busting debt default, we have to ask: just how are the US oligarchs planning on paying for their wars? On the hand hand, WWIII isn’t going to be cheap. But on the other hand, one of the biggest factors preventing war with China is the economic fallout that was result. How will a US debt default change that calculus? Especially if that default somehow ends up dramatically reducing the US’s trade with China?
There’s no shortage of major questions raised by the reports of the upcoming planned US debt default. Including the question of how the CNP and the rest of the oligarchs who are undoubtedly supportive of the US’s showdowns with Russia and China plan on paying for WWIII:
“Bierman’s unusually frank comparison between the Ukraine war and a potential conflict with China comes as Beijing has dramatically increased the scale and sophistication of its military manoeuvres near Taiwan in recent years. Japan and the Philippines are also intensifying defence co-operation with the US in the face of mounting Chinese assertiveness.”
Yeah, “unusually frank” is a good way to describe the comments by Lieutenant General James Bierman, the commanding general of the Third Marine Expeditionary Force (III MEF) and of Marine Forces Japan. As Bierman put it, the US is “setting the theater” in the Pacific, just as the US had started doing in Ukraine starting back in 2014. And war planning has transitioned from theoretical to active. It’s happening now:
And with General Bierman leading the marine forces in Japan, recall that report from back in 2020 about how the US was in the middle of turning the Marines into a new kind of ship killer force in the Pacific. So when we read about how the Marines are creating small units that specialize in operating quickly and clandestinely in the islands and straits of east Asia and the western Pacific, it’s presumably referring to that same initiative:
And theater is indeed being set. Preparations for war are accelerating. At this point all we need is the wrong kind of spark. Or the wrong kind of major self-inflicted economic explosion, as the case may be.
The Chinese spy Balloon’s reign of terror across the skies of North America has come to a merciful end following Sunday’s shootdown by the US military. So with the US and China still locked into a game of mutual finger-pointing over the balloon’s fiery end, here’s a Moon of Alabama post with a rather salient data point to keep in mind as this story plays out: the whole thing was likely caused by the Polar Vortex.
Yep, it turns out the balloon’s surprising sudden turn south that sent it on its quixotic adventure across the North American skies coincided with a sudden and unexpected emergence of a new polar vortex generating strong southward winds. In other words, this wasn’t part of some sort Chinese attempt at sky-trolling. It was a product the kind of natural phenomena. A natural weather phenomena that’s becoming unnaturally common in the era of climate change.
That natural weather phenomena is one part of the story. But, of course, there’s the other side of the story: the ‘everybody playing dumb about the balloon’ part of the story. A collective act of playing dumb that managed to blow up the balloon incident into the kind of diplomatic fiasco that ultimately derailed the planned talks between the US and China:
“That it was only last week’s freak weather event that pushed the balloon across the U.S. makes it unlikely that it was intended to spy on U.S. proper.”
China was deploying the ‘ol Polar Vortex ‘lost balloon’ cover story to excuse its diabolical spy balloon. At least that’s the kind of scenario one would have to accept if we’re to look at the available facts and conclude that China intentionally sent its balloon on a journey across North America. Because there’s no denying that the balloon’s surprise move south across Canada coincided with a surprise polar vortex delivery a powerful southward winds. It’s not a mystery. Or a plot. It’s weather and physics, with some climate change thrown into the mix:
We’ll see what, if any, longer-term damage this story has on US-Chinese relations. On the one hand, it doesn’t sound like the prospects of any meaningful breakthroughs from those talks were likely anyway. But there’s still no denying that this is become an excuse to ramp up tensions. And for those with an eye on sparking a war between the US and China, keeping those tensions ramped up for as long as possible is all part of that plan. The geopolitical pressure cooker isn’t just still pressurized, but even more pressure than before. And yet, this obviously wasn’t part of a plan. You can’t plan on a polar vortex.
But you can plan on creating and sustaining geopolitical pressure cooker scenarios. The kind of long-term plan that includes taking strategic opportunities to keep that pressure up when those opportunities present themselves. Especially when it’s an opportunity for everyone to collectively play dumb together. Because there’s nothing quite like the power of everyone playing dumb together. Easy to organize with a high chance of success. It’s a no-brainer.
LOL! We got an update on the Chinese ‘spy balloon’. It’s more or less the kind of ‘update’ we should expect at this point: The Pentagon is finally acknowledging that the balloon was likely blown wildly off its intended course due to the polar vortex.
And yet, as we’re going to see, Pentagon sources remain adamant that the balloon was indeed a ‘spy balloon’ built for the purpose of buttressing China’s surveillance capabilities. Beyond that, these source also insist that the balloon was indeed launched for the purpose of spying on US military installations, likely in the Pacific.
Oh, and it turns out these sources continue to suggest that the balloon was still being remotely piloted by the PLA to direct it over sensitive US military installations in the US. Yep. The sources point to the solar-powered propellers and a rudder to suggest that the PLA was opportunistically taking advantage of the situation to direct the balloon over sensitive nuclear facilities in Montana.
That’s the update: yes, it was the polar vortex that blew the balloon off course in the first place, but it was still definitely a spy balloon targeting US military installations! The narrative we’re hearing about the balloon is somehow simultaneously getting more grounded and yet even more full of hot air:
“Two cold fronts, one over north China and one over west Canada determined the course of the big balloon.”
And there was have it. The admission that should have been forthcoming all along. Basic weather and physics — in the form of two cold fronts — steered the balloon. That’s now admitted. And yet, that hasn’t stopped the charges that the Chinese were directing the balloon. Yep. The balloon was blown out of control by the strong winds. But also still controlled with propellers and a rudder:
And that brings us to the larger set of ongoing allegations coming from the Pentagon. Like the continued insistence that, yes, this was a spy balloon launched with the intention of spying on US military facilities. But those intended targeted facilities were likely over the Pacific, like installations in Guam or Hawaii.
Also, regarding the rudder and the limited ability steer, the Pentagon still asserts that it was no coincidence the ‘spy balloon’ ended up over sensitive nuclear facilities in Montana. The Chinese were still opportunistically steering the balloon over those facilities, even if they couldn’t entirely control its path. And, in general, we’re still hearing from analysts who have concluded that this balloon was definitely intended as a kind of low-tech supplement to China’s spy satellites.
And that’s the full update we got on the Pentagon’s evolving narrative about the balloon. Yes, the Pentagon is now acknowledging that the balloon likely drifted wildly off course due to the powerful polar vortex winds, but it was still a ‘spy balloon’ launched for the purpose of spying on US military installations and it was still being remotely controlled by the PLA:
“U.S. monitors watched as the balloon settled into a flight path that would appear to have taken it over the U.S. territory of Guam. But somewhere along that easterly route, the craft took an unexpected northern turn, according to several U.S. officials, who said that analysts are now examining the possibility that China didn’t intend to penetrate the American heartland with its airborne surveillance device.”
US analysts are “now examining the possibility” that China didn’t intend to “penetrate the American heartland with its airborne surveillance device.” It’s not a particularly huge change in the narrative. Instead, we’re told that officials are open to the possibility that it was “at least partly the result of a mistake”. So, like, China did intend on spying on the US using this “spy balloon” — possibly US military installations in the Pacific — but somehow it all got out of control. That’s the new narrative:
And then we get to this rather remarkable point of speculation: while the balloon was flying wildly off course due to the strong winds, it was still also being opportunistically directed by the Chinese to maneuver it over sensitive nuclear sites on the US mainland because the balloon was definitely “part of a larger set of programs that are about gaining greater clarity about military facilities in the United States and in a variety of other countries”:
Sure, the balloon was flying out of control due to the polar vortex. But it was definitely a spy balloon targeting US military installations under the remote direction of the PLA! Of that we can remain confident. An increasingly faith-based confidence. Bad faith, as the case may be.
Of all the disturbing aspects of the US’s involvement in the conflict in current, among the most troubling is the manner in which the response to that conflict is being seemingly used to accelerate what appears to be a military build up in anticipation for a war with China. And that brings us to the following pair of articles about what looks to be the new phase in the preparations for war with China: the hypersonic missile race and a new industrial defense policy designed to dramatically expand the US’s missile-manufacturing capabilities for years to come.
As the following Vox article describes, the hypersonic missile race is already well underway, with countries around the world already developing their own hypersonic missile programs. China even tested a nuclear-capable hypersonic missile back in 2021, leading to some US officials arguing that the US is already behind China in this arena. An arena for which there are no existing international treaties regulating the development and use of hypersonic missile technologies. That’s a big part of the context here: hypersonic missiles represent a potential game-changing battlefield technology and there are no limits in place on its development. It’s a very serious race.
But as the Vox article also notes, there’s one major caveat to this arms race: hypersonic missiles are incredibly expensive. In other words, there’s a limit to the role they can play in any major conflict compared to traditional munitions. And that brings us to the second article excerpt below of a report in the New York Times describing a dramatic shift in US defense spending policies. A shift that represents an effective reversal of much of the post-Cold War ‘peace dividend’ that brought about a ‘just-in-time’ supply-chain model along with a dramatic defense industry consolidation of the manufacturers of missiles and vital missile parts. As part of the new policy, the Department of Defense as been empowered by Congress to issue large multi-year contracts with suppliers with promises of future profits large enough to encourage those suppliers to expand their manufacturing capacities. That’s the plan: shower the missile manufacturing industry with so much money that the industry will have to grow to maximize those future profits. A plan that appears to envision a much larger missile supply for the US in a matter of a few years. It’s an aggressive plan.
Ok, first, here’s the Vox piece describing the unfolding hypersonic arms race. A hypersonic race that could obviously play a decisive role in the upcoming plans for waging WWIII with China, hence the rush:
“Hypersonic weapons, or vehicles and missiles that travel faster than Mach 5, or five times the speed of sound, aren’t new; the US has been developing and testing these weapons since the 1950s. But there’s been relatively little US investment in these systems in recent decades, while China and Russia have developed their hypersonics programs. Russia even used six of its hypersonic Kinzhal missiles in Ukraine earlier this month, the largest number the country has deployed in one strike during the war. Other countries including Australia, Iran, both North and South Korea, Brazil, Germany, Israel, India, and Japan are developing hypersonic programs. However, the increase in funding and tempo of the US program comes as relations between the US and China are the worst they’ve been in decades.”
It’s a global hypersonic race. A research bonanza. A bonanza not coincidentally Taking place during a multi-decade low in the relations between the US, Russian, and China. And it’s a bonanza with no treaty available to reign it in. A new era of war military powers are racing to make a reality. The kind of reality that could end up making a number of existing defensive systems largely moot, which is obviously a highly destabilizing situation. That’s part of the ominousness of the hypersonic missile race: It’s a race to be the first nation to utterly destabilize modern warfare:
But in the midst of all these warnings about the impending hypersonic future of war, we get the following caveat: hypersonic weapons are incredibly expensive, costing millions of dollars per missile:
So is the high cost of hypersonic weapons really going to be as big an obstacle as some predict? Not if the US Congress has anything to say about it. At least that’s the message delivered in the following NY Times article describing a whole new industrial policy coming out of DC that appears to be designed specifically to ensure the US has robust supplies of missiles, including hypersonic missiles, well into the future. An industrial policy centered around giving missile manufacturers large multi-year contracts that will promise higher profits in the future and encourage them to invest in even great manufacturing capacities. In other words, the US is planning on buying so many missiles over the medium term and showering missile manufacturers in so much profit that they won’t be able to resist investing in new factories. Which sure sounds like a plan for as many hypersonic missiles that money can buy as soon as possible:
“Procurement budgets are growing. The military is offering suppliers multiyear contracts to encourage companies to invest more in their manufacturing capacity and is dispatching teams to help solve supply bottlenecks. More generally, the Pentagon is abandoning some of the cost-cutting changes embraced after the end of the Cold War, including corporate-style just-in-time delivery systems and a drive to shrink the industry.”
Yes, you read that correctly: the Pentagon is abandoning its post-Cold War cost-cutting just-in-time supply chain models in favor of new model. A model designed to encourage the medium-term expansion of the US’s missile-production capabilities by encouraging an overall growth in the missile-manufacturing industry. And that industrial growth strategy is apparently going to largely be handled via the awarding of large multi-year highly lucrative contracts. It’s a new paradigm that was introduced to resupply arms sent to Ukraine but has been subsequently adopted as a permanent new policy:
Also note that when you read that Lockheed expects its revenues to “remain flat this year”, that’s flat at record levels of orders.
Also note the other part of the official strategy for expanding the US’s missile manufacturing capacity: actually addressing the antitrust issues creating by the post-Cold War policy of industry consolidation. So at the same time the US is issuing contracts intended to encourage manufacturers to expand their manufacturing capacity, regulators are increasingly willing to block further consolidation. At least in theory. It’s going to be very interesting to how real this anti-trust zeal ends up being in the end:
Finally, just note the incredible number of Stringer missiles that are being sent to both Ukraine and Taiwan: over 10,000 Stingers have already been sent to Ukraine, with many more to follow:
That’s quite a few Stingers getting sent to a battlefield filled with Nazis and, increasingly, jihadists too. How many thousands of Stinger missiles can you send into a battlefield like that before one of them falls into the wrong hands? 10,000? 20,000? Building insane numbers of missiles has consequences. ‘Winning WWIII’ is merely the official hoped-for consequence technically guiding this defense policy. There are other consequences. The kind of expensive consequences we appear intent on discovering sooner rather than later, no matter the cost.