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Spies, Lies and Atomic Bombs Charles R. Smith China Strikes Again The boys at the People's Liberation Army (PLA) headquarters do have a weird sense of humor. For example, Chinese government spokesman, Liu Jianchao is now making a sincere effort to take away the "liar of the century" award from Baghdad Bob. Bob, aka former Iraqi Information Minister Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf, made headlines during the 2003 invasion of Iraq by declaring victory against U.S. forces even as Army M-1 tanks were rolling into Baghdad behind him on live TV. In a clear bid to topple al-Sahaf from his title, the Chinese government official spokesman recently declared that China has no spies inside the United States. "The so-called allegations that China is conducting intelligence collection on military or science and technology in the United States are purely fictitious," said Liu Jianchao during a scheduled news conference. "Chinese military trading enterprises will never buy any military products from clients who cannot provide legal and effective documents," stated Liu. I'm not quite sure whether to laugh at Liu or cry. The poor man is clearly delusional and should be on medication. The fact that he made such a statement is only overshadowed by the fact the mainstream media elected to cover his bald faced lie as news.
China has so many spies in the United States that they could populate an entire city. The FBI and CIA estimated that there are at least 3,000 Chinese Army front companies operating in the United States. Their prime motivation for commercial operations is not to make money but to steal technology.
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Chinese spies have been caught in the lasts 12 months stealing military equipment and plans from a vast array of advanced weapons including cruise missiles, F-16 Falcon jet fighters, B-2 bombers, Navy destroyers, submarines and nuclear weapons.
Here's a recent example: A Taiwanese man pleaded guilty on Wednesday to plotting to ship to China advanced U.S. weapons, including an F-16 fighter engine and nuclear-capable cruise missiles. Ko-Suen Moo, 58, an employee of Lockheed pleaded guilty in federal court in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida to being a covert agent for China. Another example from 2005, Ning Wen, his wife, Hailin Lin, 55, and two Chinese nationals were charged and convicted of conspiracy to export restricted electronics and money laundering. The two Chinese citizens, Jian Guo Qu and Ruo Ling Wang, were arrested as they got off a Greyhound bus in Milwaukee to meet with Wen. According to the Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS), Wen and his associates conducted "the unlicensed export of national security controlled items to the People's Republic of China." According to the information obtained by the FBI, Wen stated that he knew the restricted electronic equipment was headed for the Chinese army.
To smuggle the items out of the country, Lin filed shipping documents that listed different electronics or certified that no export license was required. Qu and Wang then passed the restricted electronics on to the 54th Research Institute of the Ministry of Electronics Industry. The 54th Institute has been identified by the U.S. Commerce Department as posing "an unacceptable risk in the development of missiles." Worse still, a Chinese general was recently involved in a plot to smuggle surface-to-air missiles into the United States. The Chinese Army may view such activities as capitalism gone wild but Beijing needs to apologize and turn over the PLA general for prosecution. Clearly, the Chinese definition of "spy" is not the same the English version. Translation errors, aside, the comedy of espionage, sabotage and downright terrorism from Beijing is no laughing matter. Oil for Nukes Still another story getting the "hype" treatment is the Iranian atomic weapons program. The bomb has always gotten great ratings for the mass media and Tehran's effort is no exception. Iran may be working on building a nuclear weapon but don't worry . . . nothing big is going to happen. The crazy mullahs in Tehran have the capability to deliver such weaponry over long distances and will soon have the big bomb to put on top of their Chinese and North Korean missiles. The real problem is they aren't crazy enough. The threat from Tehran to vaporize Israel is all bluster. Israel has made it quite clear that an attack from Iran would result in an overwhelming and deadly response. Israel is well armed with both nuclear and hydrogen bombs. The Israeli nuclear forces are estimated to be in the low hundreds. Thus, an attack on Tel-Aviv would be followed by Israeli retaliation. Israel can vaporize every Iranian city with bombs left over. The leadership in Tehran may be crazy but they are not nuts enough to risk losing all that oil income and power. Iran is also likely to use its new nuclear muscles to flex power around the oil rich Gulf states. Israel may be a common enemy but there is no love lost between the Persian Empire in Tehran and the Arab world. However, the Arab states have tons of oil money to burn. Expect the Saudi's to open negotiations with China, Pakistan or India to obtain its own nuclear weaponry. This move will lead many of the Gulf states to bone up on the A-bomb. All this atomic activity will take away from local conventional forces as money is drained away from tanks, planes and troops to fund expensive nuclear projects. The old axiom - no bucks - no Buck Rogers applies here. The nuclear move will also force each of the nation states to find out, the hard way, that mutually assured destruction (MAD) works on a local scale. It didn't take long for Tehran to realize that an attack against a nuclear-armed Israel is not a smart move. Pakistan and India found out about MAD early on and have since tapered back their nuclear weapon programs. On Nuking Iran Yet another crackpot media story circulated through the cable networks and left wing print outlets that the United States was considering a nuclear first strike against Iran. This too turned out to be a load of baloney. The reality is that somewhere in the Pentagon there is a plan for just about anything, from fending off an invasion from Canada to fighting the Royal Navy in the Atlantic. None of these scenarios, Canada, U.K. or Iran are likely to unfold. The United States has the conventional forces to carry out any strikes necessary. The media and oil market hype-artists pushed this story out as if it were a real threat. The result was higher gas prices, to the benefit of the oil market speculators, and some points scored against the Bush administration by the left wing media. The fact is that the United States has not massed carrier and bomber assets in the Gulf, a sure sign of an impending attack. Instead, the Gulf has seen a decline in U.S. military assets that will continue as the Iraqi operation winds down. This leads me to another favorite media skewed story - Iraq. The losses in Iraq are not stretching the U.S. military to the breaking point. In fact, the armed forces are now faced with record numbers of volunteer recruits, especially in combat units. In the last seven months the U.S. Army has met or exceeded its goals. Over 160,000 troops have either re-enlisted or been recruited. This is news that the mainstream pundits don't want to talk about since it proves their previous - dire - predictions wrong. The war is not viewed inside other nations with the same negative muck published by The New York Times. Recent publications inside Chinese military journals have voiced the opinion that U.S. military forces are getting valuable training in Iraq by filling their ranks with combat experienced troops. This professional, battle hardened, force has the Beijing generals worried - as well they should be.
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