Neocons Tried to Reverse China Policy, Says Powell Aide-Risked Nuclear War

[RamboLiberal]

http://public.cq.com/docs/hs/hsnews110-000002523531.html

The same top Bush administration neoconservatives who leap-frogged Washington’s foreign policy establishment to topple Saddam Hussein nearly pulled off a similar coup in U.S.-China relations—creating the potential of a nuclear war over Taiwan, a top aide to former Secretary of State Colin Powell says.

Lawrence B. Wilkerson, the U.S. Army colonel who was Powell’s chief of staff through two administrations, said in little-noted remarks early last month that “neocons” in the top rungs of the administration quietly encouraged Taiwanese politicians to move toward a declaration of independence from mainland China — an act that the communist regime has repeatedly warned would provoke a military strike.

The top U.S. diplomat in Taiwan at the time, Douglas Paal, backs up Wilkerson’s account, which is being hotly disputed by key former defense officials.

Under the deliberately fuzzy diplomatic formula hammered out between former President Richard Nixon and Chairman Mao Zedong in 1971, the United States agreed that there is only “one China” —with its capital in Beijing.

[Klukie]

1. I can believe this

I seem to remember Bush himself stoking the fires with China over Taiwan shortly after he took office. I remember because I recall telling my rightwing coworkers that idiot Bush was going to drag us into another world war.

[Me.]

2. Really

These people need to be lined up as war criminals and put out of our harm's way