Obama's Ungraceful Exit from Air Force One, America's Ungraceful Exit from Asia

September 13, 2016 (Joseph Thomas - NEO) - When US President Barack Obama attempted to leave Air Force One upon arriving at Hangzhou, China, just southwest of Shanghai, he found that no staircase or red carpet awaited him. Instead, he and his staff were forced to use an alternative exit from the aircraft, only to find additional restrictions placed upon them on the tarmac.

The New York Times in its article, "Bumpy Beginning for Obama in China, Starting on the Tarmac," would note:

There was no staircase for Obama to exit the plane and descend on the red carpet. Obama used an alternative exit.

On the tarmac, a quarrel broke out between a presidential aide and a Chinese official who demanded the journalists traveling with Obama be prohibited from getting anywhere near him. It was a breach of the tradition observed whenever the American president arrives in a foreign place. 

When the White House official insisted the U.S. would set the rules for its own leader, her Chinese counterpart shot back. 

"This is our country! This is our airport!" the Chinese official yelled.

Rather than accept and adapt to the conditions set forth by their Chinese hosts, the President's staff quarrelled with them, marking yet another ungraceful bout of American exceptionalism where even in another's country, America's will is expected to be fulfilled.

Reflecting on the event, President Obama made cryptic comments seemingly both attempting to downplay the event as a mere oversight, but alluding to the fact that it was more than a mere oversight by their Chinese hosts.

And in fact, it was no oversight. It was a clear message to America that the age of American exceptionalism, particularly in Asia, is over.

Syria "Transition Plan" Lacks Legitimacy, Turkish Invasion Faces Quagmire

September 10, 2016 (Tony Cartalucci - NEO) - The Western media has now repeatedly reported on a so-called "transition plan" unveiled in London by what it calls the "High Negotiations Committee" (HNC) - a group Western media outlets refuse to identify, enumerate, or discuss behind their superficial headlines.

The BBC in its article, "Syria conflict: Opposition unveils transition plan," would claim:

The umbrella group representing Syria's political and armed opposition factions has set out a plan for a political transition to end five years of war. 

The High Negotiations Committee (HNC) proposed holding six months of negotiations with President Bashar al-Assad, accompanied by a full ceasefire. 

Mr Assad would then hand over power to a unity government that would run Syria for 18 months and organise elections.

This lack of information regarding who the HNC actually is comprised of is not due to the fact that Western media outlets do not know, but precisely because they do know - and including this information in articles about their "transition plan" would undermine its legitimacy.

The majority of the committee do not even reside in Syria and have little to no ties with actual militant groups fighting on the ground there. Those armed groups that do continue to fight, are now openly operating under the umbrella of US State Department designated foreign terrorist organization Jabhat Al-Nusra - Al Qaeda in Syria - and have done so since a failed offensive attempting to break the Syrian government's encirclement of Aleppo last month.

In essence, this is a "transition plan" proposed by a fictional opposition committee that has no power in Syria, and should Syria and its allies be irresponsible enough to accept such a plan, they would be negotiating with irrelevant players hiding abroad while failing to address the very realities on the ground in Syria itself.

It is a recipe for compounding the conflict, not ending it.

Irresponsible to Negotiate With HNC

The HNC is a creation and perpetuation of US and European interests, not that of the Syrian people, or even that of armed groups fighting in Syria.

US-Philippines Row Widens: Philippines Reminds US it is a Sovereign Nation

September 6, 2016 (The New Atlas) - Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte was prompted to remind the United States that the Philippines is a sovereign nation after the US announced its intentions to lecture him regarding his handling of crime in an upcoming meeting that has since been cancelled by the US. 

CNN's article, "After cursing Obama, Duterte expresses regret," would report that:

White House officials previously said Obama would confront Duterte about his country's handling of drug dealers, including extrajudicial killings, which are government executions without the benefit of judicial proceedings. 

"Who does he think he is? I am no American puppet. I am the president of a sovereign country and I am not answerable to anyone except the Filipino people," Duterte scoffed in a speech Monday. "Son of a bitch, I will swear at you."

It is the latest in a series of recent incidents that have marked a widening row between Washington and its former colonial territory of the Philippines, afforded "independence" only as recently as 1946 and having seen an ebb and flow of coercive US influence and military presence on the island nation in the decades since.

Since President Duterte came to power, US plans to use the Philippines as a proxy in a growing conflict with China have been derailed.

Behind RAND's US-China War Plans

September 5, 2016 (Joseph Thomas - NEO) - The RAND Corporation was commissioned to publish a report titled, "War with China: Thinking Through the Unthinkable," in which it describes its assessment of possible war between the US and China in the Pacific in both 2015 and in 2025.
The report's introduction summarised its findings, stating:

Premeditated war between the United States and China is very unlikely, but the danger that a mishandled crisis could trigger hostilities cannot be ignored. Thus, while neither state wants war, both states' militaries have plans to fight one. As Chinese anti-access and area-denial (A2AD) capabilities improve, the United States can no longer be so certain that war would follow its plan and lead to decisive victory. This analysis illuminates various paths a war with China could take and their possible consequences.

The report makes an attractive concession to possible Chinese politicians and business leaders (and their counterparts throughout the rest of Asia) who may read the report and be tempted to take it at face value, claiming that war with China, even today, would be costly for the US, and that the window of opportunity for a decisive victory over China will likely be closed come 2025.

However, the report also claims that:

Both sides would suffer large military losses in a severe conflict. In 2015, U.S. losses could be a relatively small fraction of forces committed, but still significant; Chinese losses could be much heavier than U.S. losses and a substantial fraction of forces committed.

The publicly available paper appears to be an attempt to accomplish two things. First, it attempts to play down the possibility of a premeditated US first-strike on Chinese forces, simply because for a first-strike to be most effective, it would  be best done when completely unexpected.

Second, it is an attempt to temper Chinese ambitions in the region driven by increasing Chinese military strength, and may represent an effort to convince some among China's leadership to take a more conciliatory approach, accommodating a continued US presence and role in the region, rather than fully displacing it. In other words, it is a veiled threat, attempting to coerce Chinese decision makers to forego what is otherwise the inevitable expulsion of US influence from the region.

The report goes on to make recommendations, which include measures intended to prepare for this potential war and to ensure an American edge in it.

Upcoming US Presidential Visit to Laos is About Confronting China

September 2, 2016 (Tony Cartalucci - NEO) - The United States is attempting highlight the historical nature of an upcoming visit to the Southeast Asian state of Laos by US President Barrack Obama. By doing so, the US hopes perhaps the rhetorical narrative of the visit can compensate for a lack of real political substance.

Image: President Obama's visit to Laos is a follow-up of US Secretary of State John Kerry's visit in early 2016.

In an official White House statement titled, "Statement by the Press Secretary on the President’s Trip to China and Laos," US spokespeople claimed:

President Obama will travel to China and Laos September 2-9, 2016. This trip will highlight the President’s ongoing commitment to the G-20 as the premier forum for international economic cooperation as well as the U.S. Rebalance to Asia and the Pacific.

The statement would also claim:

President Obama will be the first U.S. president to visit Laos, where he will participate in the U.S.-ASEAN Summit and the East Asia Summit. Additionally, he will have bilateral meetings with President Bounnhang Vorachith and other key officials to advance U.S.-Lao cooperation on economic, development, and people-to-people ties, among other areas.

The White House statement would also mention President Obama's intentions to participate in the Young Southeast Asian Leaders Initiative  (YSEALI) Summit, an indoctrination program with strong parallels to both British and Roman imperial strategies used to "culturally colonize" targeted nations, regions, and peoples.

Finally and most revealing, the statement claims (emphasis added):

This visit also will support the President’s efforts to expand opportunities for American businesses and workers to sell their products in some of the world’s fastest-growing markets. Central to this effort is the Trans-Pacific Partnership [TPP], the high-standards trade agreement that will unlock key markets to American exports and cement America’s economic leadership in the Asia-Pacific.

In other words, the US president's visit to Asia, particularly Laos, is to expand - or perhaps attempt to reassert - US influence and more specifically control over the region.

Image: Part of the YSEALI indoctrination process is US President Obama's participation in the summit, giving participants a genuine feeling of being part of America's "club," rather than that of the nations they were born and raised in - a weapon of "soft-power" coercion in America's arsenal.  

From presiding over the YSEALI summit - indoctrinating and training youth from across Southeast Asia to serve amongst America's vast network of faux-nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) - to pushing the unsolicited and very unpopular TPP trade agreement, the president's visit represents a continuation of America's coercive and disruptive brand of geopolitics standing in stark contrast to China, whom the US finds itself increasingly being pushed out of the region by.

Battlefield Laos 

Though rarely in the headlines, what is playing out in Laos is a powerful microcosm of a much larger geopolitical struggle unfolding across Asia.

Even if all other metrics were even - the US would have an uphill battle before itself in challenging Chinese influence in the small but pivotal landlocked nation. Laos suffered immensely from America's war with Vietnam in the 1960s-70s. According to the UN-funded Washington-based "Legacies of War" organization:

...from 1964 to 1973, the U.S. dropped more than two million tons of ordnance on Laos during 580,000 bombing missions—equal to a planeload of bombs every 8 minutes, 24-hours a day, for 9 years – making Laos the most heavily bombed country per capita in history.

To this day, even as President Obama prepares to visit Laos, nearly 100 Laotians a year are killed or maimed by US ordnance still littering the nation's landscape.

In addition to this enduring and unenviable legacy, the US' activities in Laos since the war have been less than constructive to say the least. While China builds railways and roads quite literally from one end of the nation to the other, and while China and its Southeast Asian neighbors help it construct dams to utilize its many rivers and mountainous terrain, the US has constructed instead an army of faux-NGOs dedicated to obstructing these infrastructure projects based on "human rights" and "environmental" concerns.  

When President Obama and his entourage arrive in Laos, they will see joint Lao-Thai-Sino infrastructure and construction projects punctuating the increasingly modern and well-developed capital city of Vientiane. Chinese and Thai brands also are represented, as is a clear socioeconomic influence from neighboring Vietnam.