"I have a lot of respect for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. But if she does go ahead with a visit to Taiwan this week, against President Biden’s wishes, she will be doing something that is utterly reckless, dangerous and irresponsible.

Nothing good will come of it. Taiwan will not be more secure or more prosperous as a result of this purely symbolic visit, and a lot of bad things could happen. These include a Chinese military response that could result in the U.S. being plunged into
indirect conflicts with a nuclear-armed Russia and a nuclear-armed China at the same time.
...
There are moments in international relations when you need to keep your eyes on the prize. Today that prize is crystal clear: We must ensure that Ukraine is able, at a minimum, to blunt — and, at a maximum, reverse — Vladimir Putin’s unprovoked
invasion, which if it succeeds will pose a direct threat to the stability of the whole European Union.

To help create the greatest possibility of Ukraine reversing Putin’s invasion, Biden and his national security adviser Jake Sullivan held a series of very tough meetings with China’s leadership, imploring Beijing not to enter the Ukraine conflict by
providing military assistance to Russia — and particularly now, when Putin’s arsenal has been diminished by five months of grinding war.
...

The timing could not be worse. Dear reader: The Ukraine war is not over. And privately, U.S. officials are a lot more concerned about Ukraine’s leadership than they are letting on. There is deep mistrust between the White House and President Volodymyr
Zelensky of Ukraine — considerably more than has been reported.

And there is funny business going on in Kyiv. On July 17, Zelensky fired his country’s prosecutor general and the leader of its domestic intelligence agency — the most significant shake-up in his government since the Russian invasion in February. It
would be the equivalent of Biden firing Merrick Garland and Bill Burns on the same day. But I have still not seen any reporting that convincingly explains what that was all about. It is as if we don’t want to look too closely under the hood in Kyiv for
fear of what corruption or antics we might see, when we have invested so much there. (More on the dangers of that another day.)

Meanwhile, senior U.S. officials still believe that Putin is quite prepared to consider using a small nuclear weapon against Ukraine if he sees his army facing certain defeat."

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/01/opinion/nancy-pelosi-taiwan-china.html

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On Tuesday, August 2, 2022 at 10:23:55 AM UTC-7, ltlee1 wrote:

"I have a lot of respect for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. But if she does go ahead with a visit to Taiwan this week, against President Biden’s wishes, she will be doing something that is utterly reckless, dangerous and irresponsible.

Nothing good will come of it. Taiwan will not be more secure or more prosperous as a result of this purely symbolic visit, and a lot of bad things could happen. These include a Chinese military response that could result in the U.S. being plunged into

indirect conflicts with a nuclear-armed Russia and a nuclear-armed China at the same time.

...
There are moments in international relations when you need to keep your eyes on the prize. Today that prize is crystal clear: We must ensure that Ukraine is able, at a minimum, to blunt — and, at a maximum, reverse — Vladimir Putin’s unprovoked

invasion, which if it succeeds will pose a direct threat to the stability of the whole European Union.

To help create the greatest possibility of Ukraine reversing Putin’s invasion, Biden and his national security adviser Jake Sullivan held a series of very tough meetings with China’s leadership, imploring Beijing not to enter the Ukraine conflict

by providing military assistance to Russia — and particularly now, when Putin’s arsenal has been diminished by five months of grinding war.

...

The timing could not be worse. Dear reader: The Ukraine war is not over. And privately, U.S. officials are a lot more concerned about Ukraine’s leadership than they are letting on. There is deep mistrust between the White House and President

Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine — considerably more than has been reported.

And there is funny business going on in Kyiv. On July 17, Zelensky fired his country’s prosecutor general and the leader of its domestic intelligence agency — the most significant shake-up in his government since the Russian invasion in February.

It would be the equivalent of Biden firing Merrick Garland and Bill Burns on the same day. But I have still not seen any reporting that convincingly explains what that was all about. It is as if we don’t want to look too closely under the hood in Kyiv
for fear of what corruption or antics we might see, when we have invested so much there. (More on the dangers of that another day.)

Meanwhile, senior U.S. officials still believe that Putin is quite prepared to consider using a small nuclear weapon against Ukraine if he sees his army facing certain defeat."

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/01/opinion/nancy-pelosi-taiwan-china.html

"By visiting, Pelosi will actually give Xi an opportunity to divert attention from his own failures — a whack-a-mole strategy of trying to shut down the spread of Covid-19 by using lockdowns of China’s major cities, a huge real estate bubble that is
now deflating and threatening a banking crisis and an immense mountain of government debt resulting from Xi’s unrestrained support for state-owned industries."

Yup. Xi is like that. An unprincipled jerk.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On Wednesday, August 3, 2022 at 5:36:53 AM UTC+8, bmoore wrote:

On Tuesday, August 2, 2022 at 10:23:55 AM UTC-7, ltlee1 wrote:

"I have a lot of respect for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. But if she does go ahead with a visit to Taiwan this week, against President Biden’s wishes, she will be doing something that is utterly reckless, dangerous and irresponsible.

Nothing good will come of it. Taiwan will not be more secure or more prosperous as a result of this purely symbolic visit, and a lot of bad things could happen. These include a Chinese military response that could result in the U.S. being plunged

into indirect conflicts with a nuclear-armed Russia and a nuclear-armed China at the same time.

...
There are moments in international relations when you need to keep your eyes on the prize. Today that prize is crystal clear: We must ensure that Ukraine is able, at a minimum, to blunt — and, at a maximum, reverse — Vladimir Putin’s unprovoked

invasion, which if it succeeds will pose a direct threat to the stability of the whole European Union.

To help create the greatest possibility of Ukraine reversing Putin’s invasion, Biden and his national security adviser Jake Sullivan held a series of very tough meetings with China’s leadership, imploring Beijing not to enter the Ukraine conflict

by providing military assistance to Russia — and particularly now, when Putin’s arsenal has been diminished by five months of grinding war.

...

The timing could not be worse. Dear reader: The Ukraine war is not over. And privately, U.S. officials are a lot more concerned about Ukraine’s leadership than they are letting on. There is deep mistrust between the White House and President

Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine — considerably more than has been reported.

And there is funny business going on in Kyiv. On July 17, Zelensky fired his country’s prosecutor general and the leader of its domestic intelligence agency — the most significant shake-up in his government since the Russian invasion in February.

It would be the equivalent of Biden firing Merrick Garland and Bill Burns on the same day. But I have still not seen any reporting that convincingly explains what that was all about. It is as if we don’t want to look too closely under the hood in Kyiv
for fear of what corruption or antics we might see, when we have invested so much there. (More on the dangers of that another day.)

Meanwhile, senior U.S. officials still believe that Putin is quite prepared to consider using a small nuclear weapon against Ukraine if he sees his army facing certain defeat."

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/01/opinion/nancy-pelosi-taiwan-china.html

"By visiting, Pelosi will actually give Xi an opportunity to divert attention from his own failures — a whack-a-mole strategy of trying to shut down the spread of Covid-19 by using lockdowns of China’s major cities, a huge real estate bubble that

is now deflating and threatening a banking crisis and an immense mountain of government debt resulting from Xi’s unrestrained support for state-owned industries."

Yup. Xi is like that. An unprincipled jerk.

Nah.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On Tuesday, August 2, 2022 at 5:23:55 PM UTC, ltlee1 wrote:

"I have a lot of respect for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. But if she does go ahead with a visit to Taiwan this week, against President Biden’s wishes, she will be doing something that is utterly reckless, dangerous and irresponsible.

Nothing good will come of it. Taiwan will not be more secure or more prosperous as a result of this purely symbolic visit, and a lot of bad things could happen. These include a Chinese military response that could result in the U.S. being plunged into

indirect conflicts with a nuclear-armed Russia and a nuclear-armed China at the same time.

...
There are moments in international relations when you need to keep your eyes on the prize. Today that prize is crystal clear: We must ensure that Ukraine is able, at a minimum, to blunt — and, at a maximum, reverse — Vladimir Putin’s unprovoked

invasion, which if it succeeds will pose a direct threat to the stability of the whole European Union.

To help create the greatest possibility of Ukraine reversing Putin’s invasion, Biden and his national security adviser Jake Sullivan held a series of very tough meetings with China’s leadership, imploring Beijing not to enter the Ukraine conflict

by providing military assistance to Russia — and particularly now, when Putin’s arsenal has been diminished by five months of grinding war.

...

The timing could not be worse. Dear reader: The Ukraine war is not over. And privately, U.S. officials are a lot more concerned about Ukraine’s leadership than they are letting on. There is deep mistrust between the White House and President

Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine — considerably more than has been reported.

And there is funny business going on in Kyiv. On July 17, Zelensky fired his country’s prosecutor general and the leader of its domestic intelligence agency — the most significant shake-up in his government since the Russian invasion in February.

It would be the equivalent of Biden firing Merrick Garland and Bill Burns on the same day. But I have still not seen any reporting that convincingly explains what that was all about. It is as if we don’t want to look too closely under the hood in Kyiv
for fear of what corruption or antics we might see, when we have invested so much there. (More on the dangers of that another day.)

Meanwhile, senior U.S. officials still believe that Putin is quite prepared to consider using a small nuclear weapon against Ukraine if he sees his army facing certain defeat."

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/01/opinion/nancy-pelosi-taiwan-china.html

Pelosi is a withered old woman. It's silly for any leaders in Asia-Pacific to pay her any attention. She has inferiority complex about her age. She wears high heel shoes but has to walk in small steps lest she falls like her President. They did a lot of
cosmetic work to remove the appearance of creases on her face. But they cannot hide her senility.

It would be damned stupid of nations in the Asia-Pacific to create chaos in the region because of her.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)