[Marxism] On that Chinese sub story [was: The Socialist Revolution in Venezuela]

[Joaquin Bustelo]

Louis writes: "I would urge comrades not to waste too much time trying to
straighten Paula out since that would probably require more of the abc's of
Marxism than is appropriate here."

And would be quite pointless. It's become clear that behind Paula's blah
blah blah about monopoly capital equals imperialism, and the thin veneer of
workerist rhetoric, she has a social-democratic "plague on both your houses"
position. And she does not even really engage with the arguments presented
here, but responds in a dogmatic way with fragments from Lenin detached from
their historical context and their place in the evolution of Lenin's views
to justify these positions.

And whatever the imperialist diversionary propaganda of the moment might be,
she presents it just as more evidence of China's or India's or Venezuela's
or Brazil's or Argentina's imperialist character -- which brings me to what
I really want to talk about.

Take the Chinese sub story she recommended to us, which, at first blush,
seems to have been spoon-fed to the Daily Mail by the Pentagon about a
Chinese sub popping up in the middle of a war game in which the U.S.
aircraft carrier Kitty Hawk was taking part. The original of the story
(Paula pointed to a blog reprint) is here:
<http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/worldnews.html?in_artic
le_id=492804&in_page_id=1811>

Just read the Daily Mail's attribution: "According to senior Nato
officials." Gee, who might that be? And it happened --supposedly-- next to
China, a fair bit outside NATO's area of operations. I wonder how "NATO
officials" found out and what prompted them to go to the Daily Mail to warn
the good people of Britain about the deadly threat they would face should
someone float their island on a raft and tow it halfway across the globe.

And then there is this bombastic and idiotic statement in the same article:

"One Nato figure said the effect was 'as big a shock as the Russians
launching Sputnik' - a reference to the Soviet Union's first orbiting
satellite in 1957 which marked the start of the space age."

Yeah, sure, whatever ... Even a billboard-size neon sign blaring "BULLSHIT
IMPERIALIST PROPAGANDA" like this one doesn't stop Paula from swallowing it
hook, line and sinker.

Paula adds, "Note also the Chinese capability to shoot down satellites."

Shooting down a satellite I'm sure is an impressive hack to some, but it is
a simple question of ballistics and orbital mechanics. If you can put people
in earth orbit, which the Chinese have done, and if you can put a satellite
in orbit around the moon, which the Chinese have done, getting next to a
satellite in a stable orbit and detonating a warhead that will take it out
is no big deal.

But Paula might actually have learned something if she had bothered to track
down the Chinese sub story instead of just accepting reports in the pig
press at face value. I went on the Internet and here's what I found from a
couple of Google News searches.

The Cleveland Leader has the story, posted by "Julie," all the same details,
the same sequence and much the same wording as the Daily Mail, only a touch
less formal and ending with "As a citizen of the United States, it may leave
you wondering if we are really as safe as we think we are." Basically, it is
plagiarized with only slight editing.

That's here: <http://www.clevelandleader.com/node/3540>.

The Hawaii Reporter had the story but almost a month before the Daily Mail.
This text in the October 17th edition of this online daily is the earliest
reference I could find in Google News to the event: "The surfacing of a
Chinese submarine miles within [sic!] the USS Kitty Hawk Aircraft Carrier."

Obviously, "within miles of" is what was meant, although the Hawaii Reporter
can't really be blamed for the garbled grammar. As they explain, "This
speech was presented by Sen. Kit Bond (R) of Missouri at the Heritage
Foundation on Oct. 16, 2007." There are no other details in the speech: it
is a cold-war style harangue about Bain Capital (founded by, among others,
Mitt Romney, the Republican presidential hopeful) for doing some sort of
deal that included 3Com, a U.S. military supplier, and a Chinese company
with ties to their military. As I understood it, the deal means basically
U.S. interests wind up controlling the Chinese company --and this, to the
Heritage Foundation and its benighted speaker, is a threat to the national
security ... not of China, but of the United States!

But the way the incident was referred to in this speech made me think that
perhaps the story was older than the Daily Mail had let on. And sure enough,
a Google web (not news) search for Chinese submarine and "kitty Hawk" led to
an embarrassment of riches. 

At
<http://bubbleheads.blogspot.com/2006/11/uss-kitty-hawk-and-chinese-sub.html
>, a blog named "The Stupid Shall Be Punished" has a November 12, 2006,
post, saying the Drudge report has an unattributed report under the headline
"PAPER: CHINA SUB STALKS USS KITTY HAWK," noting that there is no link to
the paper at Drudge, but that since there isn't any practical way to HIDE an
aircraft carrier, anyone who cares to can "stalk" it.

Under the anti (Chinese) imperialist headline, "CHINA: Red Tide Rising" a
1997 article at the U.S. Veterans Dispatch <http://www.usvetdsp.com/> refers
to an earlier story:

"The following U.S. Veteran Dispatch story reported in the January 1994
issue and headlined: 

"U.S Carrier, Chinese Sub, Squared Off --Beijing promises to shoot to kill
the next time underscores Red China's growing propensity for confrontation: 

"The American aircraft carrier Kitty Hawk and a Chinese nuclear submarine
squared off in international waters off China's coast Oct. 27-29, 1994, the
Los Angeles Times reported in December."

The current home page of this site features this, among other items: "New
book documents live POWs in Southeast Asia." 

Over on the defensetech.org site, I found an analysis that actually had
elements of sense under the headline "Behind the Kitty Hawk Incident."

It links to a Washington Times story which was here:
<http://www.washtimes.com/national/20061113-121539-3317r.htm> but has been
taken down without any explanation that I could find. Maybe because it is
more than a year old!