Asia pivot comes back to bite the US

[unhappycamper]

http://atimes.com/atimes/China/CHIN-01-250214.html



Asia pivot comes back to bite the US
By Peter Lee
Feb 25, '14

It's time for the United States to engage in a full-throated celebration of the pivot to Asia with what I think is going to be President Barack Obama's "America F*ck Yeah" tour of Asian democracies in April. The trip requires more than a little spadework, given the rather fraught situation in Asia.

It is not just that the People's Republic of China (PRC) and Japan are at each other's throats. Nor is the sole problem that the Philippines has declared that the South China Sea is the new Sudetenland and the PRC must be met with confrontation, not negotiation. The issue is that the United States is less than completely happy with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's sharp elbows and the fractures they create in the pivot's united front.

There has been a fascinating flurry of op-eds in US prestige media (Bloomberg, NY Times, Washington Post, and Business Week) highly critical of Abe and his provocative visit to the Yasukuni Shrine - a visit that took place in December 2013. Concerned chin-stroking at the end of February 2014 is a little late, it would seem.

As for the highly insulting detail that Prime Minister Abe listened to US Vice President Joe Biden's importunities for an hour before blowing him off and visiting the shrine for the war dead - that was leaked at the end of January.

[geckosfeet]

1. The Phillipines want to confront the PRC?

Good luck with that.

[bemildred]

2. "Asian Pivot". More ignorant happy talk from our foreign policy elites.

Having just lost twice in the Middle East, to suggest we are "pivoting" to our next opponent or problem, having disposed of the previous one, is, uh, contra-factual. We are in retreat. We are in retreat because, despite trillions of dollars and hundreds of thousands of lives, we have done nothing but damage in the Middle East, and the money spigot is now being turned down, thanks to the sequester.

Isn't it time we stopped giving these incompetent weasels money? Isn't there something better we could be doing with it?

When did catapulting the bullshit become the primary concern of our State Dept. anyway? All this militarized and conflict laden jargon they have picked up from the war lovers, for domestic consumption, and they wonder why nobody wants to be our friends like before.

If you talk to people like enemies, they will assume that is what you are.