Are We Heading Toward The Great Depression II And World War III?

  By Timothy D. Naegele[1]

Is a maelstrom headed our way, the likes of which most Americans have never experienced in their lifetimes—or even close to it—unless they are or have been homeless?[2]  Are the United States and other countries heading toward far worse than the “Great Recession” of 2007-2009[3], and something approaching the Great Depression of the 1930s, coupled with World War III?[4]

Are these the “gifts” that Joe Biden, Russia’s Vladimir Putin and China’s Xi Jinping are bequeathing to the world?  Like Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin and Mao Tse-tung, will this be their legacy[5], especially after China launched the deadly Coronavirus pandemic that has hurt so many, physically, economically and psychologically, and weakened the West?  Again, Americans may not have any earthly idea what is heading their way, much less how to cope with it.

The Middle East, much of Africa and other parts of the world have lived with wars, abject poverty and hopelessness far more than most Americans have, even recent immigrants to our great nation.  But nothing can prepare anyone for a convergence of the Great Depression II and World War III.  It is unfathomable, as it should be.  Where is God in the midst of so much suffering and chaos, which is a fair and reasonable question to ask?[6]

_____

© 2022, Timothy D. Naegele

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[1]  Timothy D. Naegele was counsel to the United States Senate’s Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs, and chief of staff to Presidential Medal of Freedom and Congressional Gold Medal recipient and former U.S. Senator Edward W. Brooke (R-Mass).  See, e.g., Timothy D. Naegele Resume-21-8-6  and https://naegeleknol.wordpress.com/accomplishments/   He has an undergraduate degree in economics from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), as well as two law degrees from the School of Law (Boalt Hall), University of California, Berkeley, and from Georgetown University.  He served as a Captain in the U.S. Army during the Vietnam War, assigned to the Defense Intelligence Agency at the Pentagon, where he received the Joint Service Commendation Medal (see, e.g., https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commendation_Medal#Joint_Service).  Mr. Naegele is an Independent politically; and he is listed in Who’s Who in America, Who’s Who in American Law, and Who’s Who in Finance and Business. He has written extensively over the years (see, e.g., https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/articles/ and https://naegeleknol.wordpress.com/articles/), and studied photography with Ansel Adams.  He can be contacted directly at tdnaegele.associates@gmail.com

[2]  See https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/2020/07/09/homelessness-in-america/ (“Homelessness In America”)

[3]  See https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Recession (“Great Recession”)

[4]  See https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/2022/06/12/world-war-iii/ (“World War III”)

[5]  See, e.g., https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/2010/02/06/the-silent-voices-of-stalin%e2%80%99s-soviet-holocaust-and-mao%e2%80%99s-chinese-holocaust/ (“The Silent Voices Of Stalin’s Soviet Holocaust And Mao’s Chinese Holocaust”)

[6]  See https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/2010/05/12/what-and-where-is-god/ (“What And Where Is God?”)

Censorship At DIA, No Wonder We Lost Afghanistan

  By Timothy D. Naegele[1]

I spent two years working in the Pentagon, where I served as an Army officer assigned to the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA).  When I finished my service there—as a Captain—I received the distinguished Joint Service Commendation Medal, before going to work in the U.S. Senate.[2]

Like many organizations, DIA has an alumni group, which ostensibly posts comments about timely issues.  None is more important today than the collapse of our great nation’s presence in Afghanistan, and the loss of American, allied and Afghan lives.  It is front and center globally.  Yet, a former DIA employee, James Beirne—who presumably was a civilian when he worked there—has decided to ban my comments, which constitutes gross and unconscionable censorship.  Americans have fought and died for our freedoms; and they are dying in Afghanistan today, to preserve them.[3]

No wonder Afghanistan constitutes a colossal defeat for the United States, which may surpass the fall of Saigon and Vietnam, and the Bay of Pigs fiasco, in terms of its national gravity.  Presumably Beirne is part of the reckless “cancel culture,” which has no place in America today.  He is a stain on the DIA where I worked before him, with outstanding co-workers who contributed greatly to our national security.

Beirne should resign in disgrace.  Our nation is not well served by the likes of him.  Indeed, the association’s motto is “Still Serving in Defense of the Nation.”  Clearly, Beirne is not doing this, especially in crucial times like this when China’s Xi Jinping and Russia’s Vladimir Putin—and our other adversaries globally—are watching every move that we make, and gauging their responses accordingly.[4] 

America does not need traitors at this critical juncture in our history. 

 

© 2021, Timothy D. Naegele

_____

 

[1]  Timothy D. Naegele was counsel to the United States Senate’s Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs, and chief of staff to Presidential Medal of Freedom and Congressional Gold Medal recipient and former U.S. Senator Edward W. Brooke (R-Mass).  See, e.g., Timothy D. Naegele Resume-21-8-6, https://naegeleblog.files.wordpress.com/2021/08/timothy-d.-naegele-resume-21-8-6.pdf

He has an undergraduate degree in economics from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), as well as two law degrees from the School of Law (Boalt Hall), University of California, Berkeley, and from Georgetown University.  He served as a Captain in the U.S. Army during the Vietnam War, assigned to the Defense Intelligence Agency at the Pentagon, where he received the Joint Service Commendation Medal (see, e.g., https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commendation_Medal#Joint_Service).

Mr. Naegele is an Independent politically; and he is listed in Who’s Who in America, Who’s Who in American Law, and Who’s Who in Finance and Business. He has written extensively over the years (see, e.g., https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/articles/), and studied photography with Ansel Adams; and he can be contacted directly at tdnaegele.associates@gmail.com   

[2] See, e.g., Timothy D. Naegele Resume-21-8-6, https://naegeleblog.files.wordpress.com/2021/08/timothy-d.-naegele-resume-21-8-6.pdf

[3] See, e.g., https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9931085/Joe-Biden-tense-forth-interesting-guy-Steve-Doocy-Fox-News.html (“Nowhere to hide, Joe: President adopts fetal position pose as he crumbles under questioning from Fox News reporter Peter Doocy and tries to blame Trump for the catastrophe in Afghanistan”)

On August 26, 2021, Beirne posted the following notice:

“You can’t post or comment in this group.
“The admin has temporarily turned off your ability to post or comment in the group until September 23, 2021, 2:07 PM.”

Needless to say, by late September, the world will know in meticulous detail what an unmitigated disaster Afghanistan has become for the United States, our friends in Afghanistan, and our allies globally.

See also https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/2021/08/26/the-biden-harris-presidency-has-ended/ (“The Biden-Harris Presidency Has Ended”)

[4]  See, e.g., https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9905015/China-vows-crush-troops-Taiwan-force-Biden-abandoned-Afghanistan.html (“China vows to ‘crush’ any US troops on Taiwan ‘by force’ and conducts live fire naval exercises in South China Sea after Biden abandoned Afghanistan”)

The Biden-Harris Presidency Has Ended

  By Timothy D. Naegele[1]

Yes, it hasn’t come to an end officially, yet.  But for all intents and purposes, it is done.  Lyndon Johnson’s presidency was finished after the fall of Saigon and Vietnam.  He was hated, and could not run for reelection.[2]

The tragedy of epic proportions that is emerging in Afghanistan and the fall of its capital Kabul, and America’s humiliation at the hands of the Taliban, has trumpeted the end of the Biden-Harris presidency to the world—to friends and foes alike.[3]

Is Joe Biden “Brain Dead”?  All indications are that this is true.[4]  But in a sense, it is irrelevant.  The world has watched the only true superpower disgraced like perhaps never before.[5]  And the ripple effects will spread far and wide.[6]

The rise of Coronavirus hospitalizations in the United States adds an exclamation point to this.[7]  Needless to say, China’s Xi Jinping and Russia’s Vladimir Putin are watching these developments closely.  As “chess masters,” they will be calibrating their moves accordingly; and they are observing America mired down, like Gulliver and the Lilliputians.[8]

 

 

© 2021, Timothy D. Naegele

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[1]  Timothy D. Naegele was counsel to the United States Senate’s Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs, and chief of staff to Presidential Medal of Freedom and Congressional Gold Medal recipient and former U.S. Senator Edward W. Brooke (R-Mass).  See, e.g., Timothy D. Naegele Resume-21-8-6  He has an undergraduate degree in economics from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), as well as two law degrees from the School of Law (Boalt Hall), University of California, Berkeley, and from Georgetown University.  He served as a Captain in the U.S. Army during the Vietnam War, assigned to the Defense Intelligence Agency at the Pentagon, where he received the Joint Service Commendation Medal (see, e.g., https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commendation_Medal#Joint_Service). Mr. Naegele is an Independent politically; and he is listed in Who’s Who in America, Who’s Who in American Law, and Who’s Who in Finance and Business. He has written extensively over the years (see, e.g., https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/articles/), and studied photography with Ansel Adams; and he can be contacted directly at tdnaegele.associates@gmail.com   

[2] See, e.g., https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lyndon_B._Johnson#1968_presidential_election

[3] See, e.g., https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/08/25/world/asia/afghanistan-evacuations-estimates.html (“At Least 250,000 Afghans Who Worked With U.S. Haven’t Been Evacuated, Estimates Say”)

[4] See, e.g., https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/2020/08/08/biden-is-brain-dead/ (“Biden Is Brain Dead”) 

[5]  See, e.g., https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9905015/China-vows-crush-troops-Taiwan-force-Biden-abandoned-Afghanistan.html (“China vows to ‘crush’ any US troops on Taiwan ‘by force’ and conducts live fire naval exercises in South China Sea after Biden abandoned Afghanistan”) 

[6]  See, e.g., https://www.economist.com/leaders/2021/08/28/after-afghanistan-where-next-for-global-jihad (“After Afghanistan, where next for global jihad?”)

[7]  See, e.g., https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-9929493/More-100-000-Americans-hospitalized-COVID-19-time-January.html (“More than 100,000 Americans are hospitalized with COVID-19 for the first time since January: Doctors say they’ve had to turn away patients as virus cases rise 138% over the last month”)

[8] See, e.g., https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulliver%27s_Travels

Will The Coronavirus’ Mutations Cripple America When It Is Becoming Clear To The World That Joe Biden Is Not Fit To Serve As President?

  By Timothy D. Naegele[1]

There is little question—at least on the part of our enemies—that Joe Biden is not fit to serve as our President. As one female wag from Los Angeles has noted:

Watching the Dems twist themselves into knots pretending Joe isn’t practically brain dead would be entertaining if it wasn’t so dangerous for the country.[2]

China unleashed the deadly Coronavirus on the world—either inadvertently or as a bioweapon—and it has been reaping enormous benefits ever since. The United States is fractured politically; and China’s communist rulers expect to be the dominant force in the world by the end of this decade.[3]

Indeed, former White House physician to Presidents Obama and Trump, Ronny Jackson, has tweeted:

Something is SERIOUSLY wrong with Biden – and it’s only going to get WORSE! [4]

All of this is occurring as the Coronavirus’ “Delta variant” mutation is producing havoc in the United States; and more Americans are refusing to be vaccinated.[5] And Willie Brown’s ho Kamala stands in the wings, waiting to take over.

China’s economy was languishing/faltering before it unleashed the Coronavirus. Its effects, and the election of Creepy Joe and Heel’s-up Harris, has given Xi Jinping “check,” as he and China’s other leaders move to “check-mate.”

If Biden is forced out, and Harris takes over, may Heaven help us.

The Democrats are in the process of subjugating their opponents, with the help of our media—as George Orwell predicted in his prescient “Animal Farm.”[6] At some point, China may make significant strategic moves . . . or its leaders may decide to sit back and let the West really fall apart first.

Under Ronald Reagan, the United States won the Cold War, as the Soviet Union collapsed without a shot being fired. China may be hoping for a similar result.

© 2021, Timothy D. Naegele

_____

[1]  Timothy D. Naegele was counsel to the United States Senate’s Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs, and chief of staff to Presidential Medal of Freedom and Congressional Gold Medal recipient and former U.S. Senator Edward W. Brooke (R-Mass).  See, e.g., Timothy D. Naegele Resume-20-6-30.  He has an undergraduate degree in economics from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), as well as two law degrees from the School of Law (Boalt Hall), University of California, Berkeley, and from Georgetown University.  He served as a Captain in the U.S. Army, assigned to the Defense Intelligence Agency at the Pentagon, where he received the Joint Service Commendation Medal (see, e.g., https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commendation_Medal#Joint_Service). Mr. Naegele is an Independent politically; and he is listed in Who’s Who in America, Who’s Who in American Law, and Who’s Who in Finance and Business. He has written extensively over the years (see, e.g., https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/articles/), and can be contacted directly at tdnaegele.associates@gmail.com

[2] See https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9821135/Former-White-House-physician-said-believes-Biden-forced-resign-fitness.html (“‘Something’s seriously wrong with Joe’: Ex-White House physician Ronny Jackson says he believes the president, 78, will be forced to resign or will face the 25th Amendment because he is NOT fit for office”) (“Best rated” comments)

[3] See, e.g., https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/2021/03/12/war-with-china/ (“War With China?”)

[4] See supra n.2

[5] See, e.g., https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9821491/Indian-Delta-variant-surge-projected-peak-mid-October-240K-infections-daily.html (“Indian Delta variant surge is projected to peak in mid-October and cause up to 240K infections and 4K DEATHS per day IF current vaccination rates stay the same: Experts plead with public to get their shots as US COVID cases rise 166% in two weeks”) and https://www.msn.com/en-us/health/medical/la-county-exceeds-3000-daily-coronavirus-cases-as-surge-worsens/ar-AAMuZLh (“L.A. County exceeds 3,000 daily coronavirus cases as surge worsens”); see also https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2021/07/22/1019293200/the-lambda-variant-coronavirus-what-you-should-know (“The Lambda Variant Of The Coronavirus: What You Should Know”)

[6] See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal_Farm (“Animal Farm”)

The Coronavirus And Similar Global Issues: How To Address Them

  By Timothy D. Naegele[1]

This is the title of my newest law review article that discusses the Coronavirus, also known as COVID-19, and by other names.[2]

Seemingly out of the blue, emanating from China, came the Coronavirus. The world will never be the same. Like earlier pandemics in recorded history such as the Spanish flu—which killed as many as 100 million globally right after World War I—the effects of the Coronavirus may change humankind forever.

Countless numbers may die; the mass suffering may be indescribable; businesses will disappear; lawlessness may reign; and the social, economic and military order of the planet may be altered decisively and irretrievably.  Banks and other financial institutions, and the very fabric of America, may be affected in ways not seen since the Great Depression.

Governmental controls are being imposed and will be implemented in the United States, not experienced since the dark days of World War II.  China launched the Coronavirus, intentionally (as a bioweapon) or inadvertently; and many would argue that it must pay reparations or restitution to the world for having done so, which would likely run into trillions of dollars.

Also, a global boycott of anything and everything from China may ensue, as Americans and their counterparts abroad “vote” with their pocketbooks against the suffering that China unleashed.

 

© 2020, Timothy D. Naegele

 

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[1]  Timothy D. Naegele was counsel to the United States Senate’s Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs, and chief of staff to Presidential Medal of Freedom and Congressional Gold Medal recipient and former U.S. Senator Edward W. Brooke (R-Mass). He and his firm, Timothy D. Naegele & Associates, specialize in Banking and Financial Institutions Law, Internet Law, Litigation and other matters (see www.naegele.com and Timothy D. Naegele Resume-20-5-11). He has an undergraduate degree in economics from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), as well as two law degrees from the School of Law (Boalt Hall), University of California, Berkeley, and from Georgetown University. He served as a Captain in the U.S. Army, assigned to the Defense Intelligence Agency at the Pentagon, where he received the Joint Service Commendation Medal (see, e.g., https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commendation_Medal#Joint_Service). Mr. Naegele is an Independent politically; and he is listed in Who’s Who in America, Who’s Who in American Law, and Who’s Who in Finance and Business. He has written extensively over the years (see, e.g., www.naegele.com/whats_new.html#articles), and can be contacted directly at tdnaegele.associates@gmail.com

[2]  See Timothy D. Naegele, The Coronavirus and Similar Global Issues: How to Address Them, 137 BANKING L. J. 285 (June 2020) (Naegele June 2020) (Timothy D. Naegele) [NOTE: To download The Banking Law Journal article, please click on the link to the left of this note]  

Coexistence With China Or War?

  By Timothy D. Naegele[1]

Pat Buchanan—an adviser to Presidents Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan and Gerald Ford, and a former GOP presidential aspirant himself—has written:

Under fire for his handling of the coronavirus pandemic, President Donald Trump, his campaign and his party are moving to lay blame for the 80,000 U.S. dead at the feet of the Communist Party of China and, by extension, its longtime General Secretary, President Xi Jinping. 

“There is a significant amount of evidence” that the virus originated in a Wuhan lab, said Secretary of State Mike Pompeo last week.

Trump himself seemed to subscribe to the charge:

“This is worse than Pearl Harbor. This is worse than the World Trade Center. There’s never been an attack like this. . . .  It could have been stopped in China. It should have been stopped right at the source.”

There is talk on Capitol Hill of suspending sovereign immunity so China may be sued for the damages done by the virus that produced a U.S. shutdown and a second Great Depression where unemployment is projected to reach near the 25% of 1933.

The Trump campaign has begun to target the Democratic nominee as “Beijing Biden” for his past collusion with China and his attack on Trump for “hysterical xenophobia” when Trump ended flights from China.

What is the historical truth?

On China, Trump is the first realist we have had in the Oval Office in decades. But both parties colluded in the buildup of China as she vaulted over Italy, France, Britain, Germany and Japan to become the world’s second power in the 21st century.

Both parties also dismissed Chinese trade surpluses with the U.S., which began at a few billion dollars a year in the early 1990s and have grown to almost $500 billion a year. Neither party took notice until lately of our growing dependency on Beijing for products critical to our defense and for drugs and medicines crucial to the health and survival of Americans.

The mighty malevolent China we face today was made in the USA.

But what do we do now? Can we coexist with this rising and expansionist power? Or must we conduct a new decades-long Cold War like the one we waged to defeat the Soviet Empire and Soviet Union?

The U.S. prevailed in that Cold War because of advantages we do not possess with the China of 2020.

From 1949-1989, a NATO alliance backed by 300,000 U.S. troops in Europe “contained” the Soviet Union. No Soviet ruler attempted to cross the dividing line laid down at Yalta in 1945. Nor did we cross it.

East of the Elbe, the Soviet bloc visibly failed to offer the freedoms and prosperity the U.S., Western Europe and Japan had on offer after World War II. America won the battle for hearts and minds.

Moreover, ethnic nationalism, the idea that separate and unique peoples have a right to determine their own political and cultural identity and destiny, never died in the captive nations of Europe and the USSR.

China today does not suffer from these deficiencies to the same degree. Unlike the USSR, China has four times our population. Where the USSR could not compete economically and technologically, China is a capable and dynamic rival of the U.S.

Moreover, if we begin a Cold War II with China, we would not be starting with the advantages Truman’s America, undamaged at home in World War II, had over Stalin’s pillaged and plundered land in 1945.

Where ethnic nationalism tore the USSR apart into 15 nations, today’s China is more of an ethno-nationalist state with Han Chinese constituting 1 billion of China’s 1.4 billion people.

There are millions of Tibetans, Uighurs, Kazakhs in southwest and west China, and tens of millions of Buddhists, Christians, Muslims, Falun Gong and other religious minorities. But China is unlike the multiracial, multiethnic, multicultural, multilingual Moscow-centered and Russian-controlled Soviet Empire and USSR that shattered after 1989.

China’s weaknesses?

She is feared and distrusted by her neighbors. She sits on India’s lands from the war of the early 1960s. She claims the whole South China Sea, whose waters and resources are also claimed by Vietnam, Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, the Philippines and Taiwan.

The peoples of Hong Kong and Taiwan fear that Beijing intends to overrun and rule them.

Even Vladimir Putin has reason to be suspicious as Beijing looks at the barren but resource-rich lands of Siberia and the Russian Far East, some of which once belonged to China.

China is thus a greater rival than the USSR of Stalin and Khrushchev and Brezhnev, but the U.S. is not today the nation of Ronald Reagan, with its surging economy and ideological conviction we would one day see the ideology of Marx and Lenin buried.

Three decades of post-Cold War foolish and failed democracy-crusading have left this generation not with the conviction and certitude of Cold War America, but with ashes in their mouths and no stomach to spend blood and treasure converting China to our way of life.[2]

Pat Buchanan speaks in terms of a new “Cold War,” but one cannot rule out the possibility of an actual shooting war.[3]  

In launching the deadly Coronavirus—intentionally as a bioweapon, or inadvertently—China must be held responsible.  As I have written:

Reparations must be paid by China to Americans; U.S. businesses and other organizations, both large and small; our federal, state and local governments; and to the world for the Coronavirus—which will likely run into many trillions of dollars. Nothing less will suffice.  Or a global boycott of China must be instituted and implemented.

. . .

China must be brought to its knees, crushed economically, and punished for the next twenty years at least.  And China’s rulers must be destroyed, just as the evil regimes of China’s Mao Tse-tung, the Soviet Union’s Joseph Stalin, and Germany’s Adolf Hitler vanished from the Earth.[4]

Pat Buchanan neglects to mention China’s “Achilles’ heel”[5]; namely, it can be brought to its knees with a global economic boycott, as Americans and those of other countries target anything and everything from China, and refuse to buy.  Its economy was “shaky” before the Coronavirus hit, and it would be crippled by such an economic boycott—which would constitute the combined actions (or inactions) of individuals speaking with their “pocketbooks,” not of governments.

 

• 

 

© 2020, Timothy D. Naegele

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[1]  Timothy D. Naegele was counsel to the United States Senate’s Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs, and chief of staff to Presidential Medal of Freedom and Congressional Gold Medal recipient and former U.S. Senator Edward W. Brooke (R-Mass). He and his firm, Timothy D. Naegele & Associates, specialize in Banking and Financial Institutions Law, Internet Law, Litigation and other matters (see www.naegele.com and Timothy D. Naegele Resume-20-3-10). He has an undergraduate degree in economics from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), as well as two law degrees from the School of Law (Boalt Hall), University of California, Berkeley, and from Georgetown University. He served as a Captain in the U.S. Army, assigned to the Defense Intelligence Agency at the Pentagon, where he received the Joint Service Commendation Medal (see, e.g., https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commendation_Medal#Joint_Service). Mr. Naegele is an Independent politically; and he is listed in Who’s Who in America, Who’s Who in American Law, and Who’s Who in Finance and Business. He has written extensively over the years (see, e.g., www.naegele.com/whats_new.html#articles), and can be contacted directly at tdnaegele.associates@gmail.com

[2]  See https://buchanan.org/blog/coexistence-with-china-or-cold-war-ii-138549 (“Coexistence with China or Cold War II?”)

[3]  See, e.g., https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/2010/01/19/emp-attack-only-30-million-americans-survive/ (“EMP Attack: Only 30 Million Americans Survive”)

[4]  See https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/2020/04/14/what-price-victory-in-the-coronavirus-war/ (“What Price Victory In The Coronavirus War?”); see also https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/2020/04/16/the-coronavirus-must-become-chinas-chernobyl-hastening-the-collapse-of-its-evil-regime/ (“The Coronavirus Must Become China’s Chernobyl, Hastening The Collapse Of Its Evil Regime”) and https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/2020/04/07/why-should-the-world-trust-china-ever-again/ (“Why Should The World Trust China Ever Again?”) and https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/2010/02/06/the-silent-voices-of-stalin%E2%80%99s-soviet-holocaust-and-mao%E2%80%99s-chinese-holocaust/ (“The Silent Voices Of Stalin’s Soviet Holocaust And Mao’s Chinese Holocaust”)

[5]  See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Achilles’_heel#Origin (“Achilles’ heel”) 

The Coronavirus Must Become China’s Chernobyl, Hastening The Collapse Of Its Evil Regime

  By Timothy D. Naegele[1]

As I have written:

China’s authoritarian leader, Xi Jinping, is the face of America’s enemy today, and the enemy of  free people around the world.  No mercy should be shown to him, or to his despotic thoroughly-evil regime.

Reparations must be paid by China to Americans; U.S. businesses and other organizations, both large and small; our federal, state and local governments; and to the world for the Coronavirus—which will likely run into many trillions of dollars. Nothing less will suffice.  Or a global boycott of China must be instituted and implemented.[2]

Just as the Kremlin’s lies over a nuclear accident at Chernobyl hastened the collapse of the Soviet Union[3], so too China’s authoritarian leader Xi and his regime must be destroyed.[4]

The UK’s Economist has noted in an article entitled “Is China winning?”:

This year started horribly for China. When a respiratory virus spread in Wuhan, Communist Party officials’ instinct was to hush it up. Some predicted that this might be China’s “Chernobyl”—a reference to how the Kremlin’s lies over a nuclear accident hastened the collapse of the Soviet Union. They were wrong. After its initial bungling, China’s ruling party swiftly imposed a quarantine of breathtaking scope and severity. The lockdown seems to have worked. The number of newly reported cases of covid-19 has slowed to a trickle. Factories in China are reopening. Researchers there are rushing candidate vaccines into trials. Meanwhile, the official death toll has been far exceeded by Britain, France, Spain, Italy and America.

China hails this as a triumph. A vast propaganda campaign explains that China brought its epidemic under control thanks to strong one-party rule. The country is now showing its benevolence, it says, by supplying the world with medical kit, including nearly 4bn masks between March 1st and April 4th. Its sacrifices bought time for the rest of the world to prepare. If some Western democracies squandered it, that shows how their system of government is inferior to China’s own.

Some, including nervous foreign-policy watchers in the West, have concluded that China will be the winner from the covid catastrophe. They warn that the pandemic will be remembered not only as a human disaster, but also as a geopolitical turning-point away from America.

That view has taken root partly by default. President Donald Trump seems to have no interest in leading the global response to the virus. Previous American presidents led campaigns against hiv/aids and Ebola. Mr Trump has vowed to defund the World Health Organisation (who) for its alleged pro-China bias. With the man in the White House claiming “absolute power” but saying “I don’t take responsibility at all”, China has a chance to enhance its sway.

Even so, it may not succeed. For one thing, there is no way to know whether China’s record in dealing with covid-19 is as impressive as it claims—let alone as good as the records of competent democracies such as South Korea or Taiwan. Outsiders cannot check if China’s secretive officials have been candid about the number of coronavirus cases and deaths. An authoritarian regime can tell factories to start up, but it cannot force consumers to buy their products. For as long as the pandemic rages, it is too soon to know whether people will end up crediting China for suppressing the disease or blaming it for suppressing the doctors in Wuhan who first raised the alarm.

Another obstacle is that China’s propaganda is often crass and unpleasant. China’s mouthpieces do not merely praise their own leaders; some also gloat over America’s dysfunction or promote wild conspiracy theories about the virus being an American bioweapon. For some days Africans in Guangzhou were being evicted en masse from their homes, barred from hotels and then harassed for sleeping in the streets, apparently because local officials feared they might be infected. Their plight has generated angry headlines and diplomatic rebukes all over Africa.

And rich countries are suspicious of China’s motives. Margrethe Vestager, the eu’s competition chief, urges governments to buy stakes in strategic firms to stop China from taking advantage of market turmoil to snap them up cheaply. More broadly, the pandemic has fed arguments that countries should not rely on China for crucial goods and services, from ventilators to 5g networks. The World Trade Organisation expects global merchandise trade to shrink by 13-32% in the short run. If this turns into a long-term retreat from globalisation—which was already a worry before covid-19—it will harm China as much as anywhere.

More fundamental than whether other countries are willing to see China supplant America is whether it intends to. Certainly, China is not about to attempt to reproduce America’s strengths: a vast web of alliances and legions of private actors with global soft power, from Google and Netflix to Harvard and the Gates Foundation. It shows no sign of wanting to take on the sort of leadership that means it will be sucked into crises all across the planet, as America has been since the second world war.

A test of China’s ambitions will be how it acts in the race for a vaccine. Should it get there first, success could be used as a national triumph and a platform for global co-operation. Another test is debt relief for poor countries. On April 15th the g20, including China, agreed to let indebted nations suspend debt payments to its members for eight months. In the past China has haggled over debt behind closed doors and bilaterally, dragon to mouse, to extract political concessions. If the g20’s decision means the government in Beijing is now willing to co-ordinate with other creditors and be more generous, that would be a sign it is ready to spend money to acquire a new role.

Perhaps, though, China is less interested in running the world than in ensuring that other powers cannot or dare not attempt to thwart it. It aims to chip away at the dollar’s status as a reserve currency. And it is working hard to place its diplomats in influential jobs in multilateral bodies, so that they will be in a position to shape the global rules, over human rights, say, or internet governance. One reason Mr Trump’s broadside against the who is bad for America is that it makes China appear more worthy of such positions.

China’s rulers combine vast ambitions with a caution born from the huge task they have in governing a country of 1.4bn people. They do not need to create a new rules-based international order from scratch. They might prefer to keep pushing on the wobbly pillars of the order built by America after the second world war, so that a rising China is not constrained.

That is not a comforting prospect. The best way to deal with the pandemic and its economic consequences is globally. So, too, problems like organised crime and climate change. The 1920s showed what happens when great powers turn selfish and rush to take advantage of the troubles of others. The covid-19 outbreak has so far sparked as much jostling for advantage as far-sighted magnanimity. Mr Trump bears a lot of blame for that. For China to reinforce such bleak visions of superpower behaviour would be not a triumph but a tragedy.[5]

What this pro-China, anti-Trump article fails to point out, much less emphasize, is that China unleashed its  Coronavirus-infected travelers on the world; and its killing spree has not ended yet.  Far from it.  Also, China is moving militarily to exploit the virus that it launched.[6]  President Donald Trump is acting for and to protect the United States and all Americans, which presumably will be hailed with his reelection later this year.

And yes, the world is uniting against China, as more die from its deadly virus.  China must be brought to its knees, crushed economically, and punished for the next twenty years at least.  And China’s rulers must be destroyed, just as the evil regimes of China’s Mao Tse-tung, the Soviet Union’s Joseph Stalin, and Germany’s Adolf Hitler vanished from the Earth.[7] 

 

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© 2020, Timothy D. Naegele

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[1]  Timothy D. Naegele was counsel to the United States Senate’s Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs, and chief of staff to Presidential Medal of Freedom and Congressional Gold Medal recipient and former U.S. Senator Edward W. Brooke (R-Mass). He and his firm, Timothy D. Naegele & Associates, specialize in Banking and Financial Institutions Law, Internet Law, Litigation and other matters (see www.naegele.com and Timothy D. Naegele Resume-20-3-10). He has an undergraduate degree in economics from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), as well as two law degrees from the School of Law (Boalt Hall), University of California, Berkeley, and from Georgetown University. He served as a Captain in the U.S. Army, assigned to the Defense Intelligence Agency at the Pentagon, where he received the Joint Service Commendation Medal (see, e.g., https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commendation_Medal#Joint_Service). Mr. Naegele is an Independent politically; and he is listed in Who’s Who in America, Who’s Who in American Law, and Who’s Who in Finance and Business. He has written extensively over the years (see, e.g., www.naegele.com/whats_new.html#articles), and can be contacted directly at tdnaegele.associates@gmail.com

[2]  See https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/2020/04/14/what-price-victory-in-the-coronavirus-war/ (“What Price Victory In The Coronavirus War?”); see also https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/2020/04/07/why-should-the-world-trust-china-ever-again/ (“Why Should The World Trust China Ever Again?”)

[3]  See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl_disaster (“Chernobyl disaster”)

[4]  See https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/2020/04/14/what-price-victory-in-the-coronavirus-war/ (“What Price Victory In The Coronavirus War?”)

[5]  See https://www.economist.com/leaders/2020/04/16/is-china-winning (“Is China winning?”) (article citations omitted)

[6]  See, e.g., https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8215511/China-takes-advantage-USS-Roosevelt-crippled-coronavirus-send-jets-close-Taiwan.html (“China takes advantage of USS Roosevelt being crippled by coronavirus to send jets close to Taiwan”)

[7]  See https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/2010/02/06/the-silent-voices-of-stalin%E2%80%99s-soviet-holocaust-and-mao%E2%80%99s-chinese-holocaust/ (“The Silent Voices Of Stalin’s Soviet Holocaust And Mao’s Chinese Holocaust”)