Tag: War Films

Carlton Meyer, “China Will Not Invade Taiwan” (Tales of the American Empire, 18 September 2020)

In this video essay, narrator / director Carlton Meyer examines how a supposed Chinese invasion of Taiwan would not benefit China at all and would ruin that nation, by comparing the logistics that would be involved in such an invasion with the D-Day landings in Normandy, France, in 1944. Meyer quotes some impressive statistics in those landings and adds that Taiwan itself is impressively armed and able to defend itself. He looks at current Chinese naval and other military capabilities and finds, among other things, that China would need at least 6 million fighting personnel to mount a successful invasion of Taiwan, with 2 million fighters in the latter’s armed forces. On the historical military front, Meyer waxes in great detail – he is clearly at home as a military historian as he pulls in facts and figures from battles fought during World War II and afterwards to demonstrate how difficult a Chinese invasion of Taiwan would be for both nations.

In fact as Meyer observes, China depends on Taiwan to supply semiconductors and other raw materials for its own high-tech industries, and tourists and business people from both countries visit one another’s territories. Chinese on both sides of the Taiwan Strait want peace and have no desire for conflict. While Beijing regards Taiwan as part of China, it seems happy to allow Taiwan to run its political, business and social affairs, and not to intervene in Taiwanese affairs.

The real issue, which Meyer deals with rather quickly and not in much depth, is why the US and the West continue to insist through MSM propaganda that China is keen on invading Taiwan and that Taiwan’s very existence is threatened by Chinese military build-up, despite the fact that for over 70 years at least Beijing has never lifted a finger to send fighter jets or warships to its small island neighbour. Given that the US surrounds China with military bases in countries as far-flung as Japan and South Korea on one side, and Afghanistan and some parts of Central Asia on the other, talking up the possibility of conflict in East Asia justifies continued US military presence in its client states – and continued US military presence in client states enables US intel agencies stationed in those bases to spy on China and Taiwan, and embed paid agents in organisations in those countries to act as regime-change agents (as has been done in Hong Kong over the past several years) to try to get rid of politicians and governments perceived to be hostile to US attempts to throw its weight around and treat them as its inferiors.

Meyer concludes that if on the other hand China and the US ended up fighting each other, the Taiwanese most likely would back China to defeat the US. On that note, the film ends as viewers face the uncomfortable truth that it is the US that wants war with China – and cynically might try to use Taiwan and its clients Japan and South Korea as the battleground.

Carlton Meyer, “The Strange Tale of the SS Mayaguez” (Tales of the American Empire, 4 September 2020)

As an example of US military arrogance and incompetence resulting in unnecessary tragedy that could have had more serious long-term consequences for the world, the May 1975 SS Mayaguez incident would have been hard to beat in the pre-9/11 world. Since the World Trade Center attacks in September 2001, this incident is increasingly becoming a minor footnote in the long and continuing history of US military, political, economic and social decline and decay.

In May 1975, the US cargo ship SS Mayaguez, travelling from Hong Kong to Thailand and having picked up classified US materials from Saigon on the way – the US having just recently evacuated all its diplomatic staff from that city in early 1975 after the Communists claimed victory in the Vietnam War – passed very close to Poulo Wai island in Cambodian territorial waters and was captured by Khmer Rouge forces. The then US President Gerald Ford was notified of the ship’s capture and the US National Security Council met to discuss the incident. The US government determined to free the SS Mayaguez by force and sent an aircraft carrier and two destroyers to Koh Tang Island where the SS Mayaguez crew were supposedly being held hostage. So began a series of actions in which US Marines invaded Koh Tang Island only to be met by tremendous Khmer Rouge gunfire. In the ensuing battle, many Americans were killed, three were captured and over 100 Cambodians were killed. The three US Marines who were captured were later executed by the Khmer Rouge.

As Carlton Meyer’s matter-of-fact voice-over narration informs viewers, the SS Mayaguez crew were actually being held away from Koh Tang Island and were released unharmed by the Khmer Rouge to one of the US destroyers sent to Cambodia. The release of the SS Mayaguez crew and the recovery of the ship were hailed by the Ford administration as a successful rescue in spite of the actual bungled rescue attempt, the senseless killing and the fact that the Khmer Rouge had been planning all along to release the crew back to the Americans after checking the cargo on the SS Mayaguez.

The mini-documentary is very detailed in its retelling of the incident though it barely has much time investigating why the US government decided to invade Koh Tang Island and blast its way through to the captured ship and crew rather than use diplomacy to negotiate the release of the SS Mayaguez. The film points to the general political and military context of the time: the US had just suffered a major military defeat and humiliation by a minnow nation, and Gerald Ford had been in power as US President for a few months and needed a victory that would enhance his reputation and tenure. The film also asks what might have been in the cargo that had been picked up in Saigon: did the cargo include sensitive military recordings indicating US surveillance of Khmer Rouge and other Cambodian communications? Another issue is why the SS Mayaguez sailed so close to Poulo Wai and why it was not flying the US flag at the time. Was the captain merely incompetent or was he under orders at the time?

I’d have liked to know whether the brilliant minds who thought up the reckless rescue plan and decided to send the Marines to Koh Tang Island were reprimanded in any way and promoted horizontally rather than vertically upwards but the film does not say. The long-term impacts and consequences of the SS Mayaguez incident are not covered in the film either. One significant result was that the US was later forced by Thailand to remove all its combat troops from Thai soil in 1976 after the Thai government learned that in spite of its refusal to allow US forces to use a military base in Thailand to launch the invasion of Koh Tang Island, the US went ahead and started the invasion from the base anyway. Relations between Cambodia and the US soured to the extent that any Westerners found in Cambodia were presumed to be US spies and ended up being tortured, forced to make false confessions and then executed.

The film provides a good general survey of the Mayaguez incident. Viewers wanting a more specific understanding are directed to the Wikipedia article about the incident.

Carlton Meyer, “The Incident at Benghazi” (31 July 2020)

As short reports go, this one on the lynching death of US ambassador to Libya Chris Stevens by terrorists in Benghazi, eastern Libya, in September 2012 is a real eye-opener which all but leaves viewers hanging off a cliff (figuratively of course but it sure feels real) as it concludes with Hillary Clinton as US State Secretary before a Congressional hearing in 2015 denying her involvement in the trafficking of weapons and jihadists to Libya from the Middle East (and beyond) to overthrow the Gadhafi government in late 2011 and then from Libya to Syria once Colonel Gadhafi was dead and gone. From the get-go, this film gets stuck into business: Chris Stevens is revealed as having volunteered to participate in overthrowing the Libyan government in 2011; he travels to Libya secretly on a Greek cargo ship with CIA help and starts directing operations in Benghazi to bring illegal supplies of weapons into Libya and to coordinate jihadist attacks on the Libyan army. After the Libyan government’s downfall, Stevens becomes US ambassador to Libya and moves to Tripoli to oversee the shipment of weapons to Syria to bring down that nation’s legitimate government. In September 2012, Stevens goes to the Benghazi consulate – revealed as not an actual consulate but more like two sets of buildings put together into one compound – where he and other Americans are surprised by terrorists who bomb the compound, capture Stevens and take him away. He is later found in a dreadful state by local Libyan people who take him to a hospital where he dies.

Contrary to the MSM view of Stevens as a hero, Stevens is revealed to be as much a criminal as others including Hillary Clinton in organising the overthrow of the Libyan government and then targeting the Syrian government for overthrow. When details of this elaborate plan, known as Operation Timber Sycamore and operated under CIA auspices, become known, arms contractor Marc Turi who had been selling arms to Qatar (which then supplied these arms to jihadis in Libya) is blamed and charged with illegally supplying weapons to Libya. The charges against him are later dropped in the dying days of US President Barack Obama’s second administration in 2016 when the case against points towards Hillary Clinton’s involvement and her use of an unsecured mail server to conduct government business.

The video does a good job of covering Chris Stevens’ criminal participation in the US government and CIA plot to overthrow Colonel Gadhafi and bring down Africa’s most prosperous country. Where it goes awry in trying to bite off more than it can chew in just under 11 minutes is when it gets bogged down in Clinton’s Congressional hearing where she is questioned by US Senator Rand Paul. After this little episode the video ends very abruptly leaving viewers wondering what actually came out of these hearings, other than that Clinton somehow escaped jail-time and was able to start campaigning for the US Presidency in 2016.

A much longer documentary is needed to cover Chris Stevens’ career as “US ambassador to Libya”, in particular how he used his post as a diplomat as a cover for helping to destroy Libya and then Syria, and how ultimately the US government in its own way abandoned him and others at the Benghazi compound by not properly securing it and thus enabling a terrorist attack to take place there. For the time being, this installment in Carlton Meyer’s Tales of the American Empire series will have to do, informative though it is as an introduction to the subject of US-coordinated regime change in Libya. If there is a moral to the story of Chris Stevens and his death, the moral is that people who agree to work for the US government and the CIA in dangerous work for money and career advancement, as Stevens did, are walking into a Faustian trap from which they will be lucky to escape with their lives. Stevens was not one of the lucky ones.

Carlton Meyer, “The American Annexation of Okinawa” (Tales of the American Empire, 24 July 2020)

In a little over ten minutes, this documentary presents a good overview of the history of Okinawa under US domination since the 1940s. Essentially the US saw the Ryukyu Islands, lying in an arc from the southwestern islands of the Japanese archipelago all the way to Taiwan, and with Okinawa the largest island smack-bang in the middle of these islands, as an ideal spot to park a massive military base so as to contain China and the Soviet Union, should those countries ever contemplated moving their militaries into Western Pacific maritime territories. To this end, the US not only occupied Okinawa and the Ryukyu islands, to the dismay of local Okinawans hoping for independence from Japan, but also in building its military base on Okinawa and some years later returning Okinawa and other Ryukyu Islands territory to Japan so as to maintain control over the base since Japan’s Constitution forbade that country to build up its armed forces beyond what is necessary for self-defence. The continuing occupation of Okinawa by US forces has had serious consequences for the island chain’s security: as the film notes, stalking, raping and murdering young local women and girls seem to be a common pastime of US soldiers stationed in Okinawa and other parts of eastern Asia where there are US military bases.

Using historical film archives, detailed maps, videos and photographic stills, this film lays out a case for withdrawing all US troops from Okinawa and returning them all to the United States where they might be of better use. The money required to keep military bases in far-flung parts of the planet surely must be a drain on US taxpayers’ money. As in other parts of the world, notably in Afghanistan and Iraq, the presence of US troops seems to increase the possibility of outright violence and lessen the likelihood that real freedom and democracy might one day thrive in Okinawa and the Ryukyu islands. The use of visual aids to illustrate narrator Meyer’s points is done well.

The local people’s reactions to US military occupation look quite feisty on film, no matter what the age of the video is. It is probably a pity that Meyer did not include any interviews with Okinawan local people who could have offered their opinion of the impact that US troops have on the Ryukyu Islands, and what should be done. Some of them surely would have proffered their opinions on the movements of jet fighters and other military equipment around the largest of the Ryukyu Islands, and the behaviour of US soldiers. At any rate, Meyer is firmly of the opinion that the Ryukyu Islands and Okinawa particularly belong to the local Ryukyu Island people, and not to the US or to Japan, implying that the islands should be independent. Given the value of the islands to the US as a launch-pad for future invasions of the eastern Asian mainland, the Ryukyuan people need all the support they can get to achieve independence or at the very least self-autonomy.

Carlton Meyer, “The False Tale of Killing Osama bin Laden” (Tales of the American Empire, 13 February 2020)

This short documentary makes a succinct case for the assassination of Saudi militant / founder and leader of global terrorist organisation Al Qa’eda Osama bin Laden in Abbottabad, Pakistan, in April 2011 as a staged stunt designed and timed to boost US President Barack Obama’s re-election prospects in the 2012 US Presidential election year. It notes that the official US government account of how a bunch of helicopters ferrying US Navy Seals members to the secret compound where bin Laden and his wives supposedly lived is full of holes. The video points out that two of the helicopters used in the raid would have been vulnerable to being shot down by people using MANPADs while the prospective assassins were rappelling down their ropes into the compound. The video notes that the compound would have been guarded by dogs that the American raiders would have had to kill to get inside. Neighbours waking up at the noise would have called police and the Pakistani police would have brought in the military. Indeed, since Pakistan was also after bin Laden, why was Pakistan completely left in the dark about the raid, and why was a joint US-Pakistani operation to arrest bin Laden and bring him to justice never organised?

The video also notes that bin Laden was most likely already dead some years before the 2011 Abbottabad raid. Former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto told a BBC interviewer of bin Laden’s death back in 2007; sometime after that interview, Bhutto herself died in a bomb attack on her car. (There is the possibility that after blurting out news of bin Laden’s demise publicly, Bhutto made herself a target for assassination.) Even as early as 2002, the then US President George W Bush appeared unconcerned about bin Laden still at large, so it is likely that the Saudi fugitive was already dead, given his frail health and need for regular renal dialysis in a country (Afghanistan) where such treatment may be expensive and inaccessible for the majority of people, let alone a Saudi foreigner.

The video concludes by noting that US foreign policy is based on lies, propaganda and where appropriate (to its interests) denial and projecting denial onto others. A clip of former CIA director / current US State Secretary Mike Pompeo admitting publicly that the CIA regularly lies is shown. When so many US government institutions and agencies are deeply corrupt to the extent of fabricating stories, twisting facts and trusting in the ignorance of their general public audiences to advance their agendas in the dissemination of false news and disinformation, is it any wonder that people have reason to distrust this particular tale about the death of Osama bin Laden, especially when the official government account can easily be taken apart and shown for the fairy story it is?

Carlton Meyer, “Protecting the American Opium Empire” (Tales of the American Empire, 9 July 2020)

For an 11-minute video, this is perhaps a little too far-ranging both in time and space, and viewers might need to watch it once or even twice again for everything to sink in. The video starts way back in the 1700s when the British are encroaching upon Imperial China and opium addiction is starting to become a major public health menace in that empire. The British find that selling opium to the Chinese is profitable business and nets them the silver they need to buy Chinese manufactures. The Qing empire attempts to outlaw the sale of opium in its territories and as a result Britain and China fight two major opium wars, both of which China loses and which weaken the empire to the extent that Chinese territories are ripe for takeover by Britain and other European powers.

France and the United States also become involved in opium production and selling in China and Southeast Asia. The Corsican underworld is heavily involved in opium production in Laos. Two American families – the Forbes and the Delanos (the latter being the ancestors of US President Franklin Delano Roosevelt) – become wealthy from producing and selling opium in China. For the first half of the 20th century while China is unstable and wracked by civil war, and then invasion by Japan, the opium business is doing well – but after the Communist victory in October 2019, China shuts down opium production and weans its people off opium. The opium production business moves south to Burma, Thailand and Laos, into an area spanning the northern parts of these countries that becomes known as the Golden Triangle.

The video links the Vietnam War, and the US involvement in it, to opium production in Southeast Asia and in particular the CIA’s reliance on opium production for profits to be used in undertaking clandestine operations around the world – operations that among other things include overthrowing governments not to the liking of US corporations and those US politicians the corporations fund during Presidential and Congressional election times. After 1975, when Communism spreads to the whole of Vietnam and Laos and Cambodia become Communist as well, the CIA focuses on Afghanistan as its major de facto opium factory. To that end, the agency helps to finance and supply the warlords (with the help of Saudi engineer Osama bin Laden) with guns, ammunition and soldiers to fight the Soviet-backed government and Soviet forces through the 1980s. After the Soviet withdrawal, instability in Afghanistan contributes to the rise of the Taliban to power in 1996. The Taliban gets rid of opium production and for its pains is overthrown by US invasion in late 2001, ostensibly because the Taliban was the culprit behind the World Trade Center Twin Towers attacks in September that year. Of course, the Taliban never was. The video brings viewers up to date in describing how continued US military occupation in Afghanistan serves not only to keep that country unstable and poor, but also protects the opium crop even though US soldiers see no point in staying in a country whose people resent the US presence.

As an introduction to the history of opium production and its usefulness to the CIA as a ready source of profits to fund its various activities around the globe, the video can be a real eye-opener, tying together different and parallel narratives in different parts of the world. The Oliver Stone interview which concludes the video, and in which the film director is asked about what he thinks of US President Barack Obama’s turnaround from promising to get US troops out of Afghanistan to keeping them there, and Stone replies that he believes Obama knows much more than the President and the White House are prepared to admit, seems rather out of place in a video that has concentrated on showing maps and pictures and delineating how opium has a McGuffin role in a network in which some players seek to dominate the world and steal its resources by forcing farmers to grow a drug that creates misery, crime and poverty, and through addiction enables governments to control people’s bodies and minds; and at the same time use the profits from producing, distributing and selling that drug to remake the world according to their own depraved vision.

When one considers that the West is in thrall to the fentanyl (synthetic heroin) pandemic, and Britain and the US in particular are badly affected by fentanyl addiction, the fact that much of that fentanyl is made in China might appear to be some sort of cosmic justice. But the reality is that poor people in the US and UK who have been denied a share in their nations’ wealth are the ones suffering from fentanyl and other addictions, and some of those who profit from the new addictions may well be the same people who in the past profited from past mass opium and heroin addictions around the world.