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Nancy Pelosi’s Taiwan Strike Force

Step right this way! Roll up, roll up for the Mystery Tour Roll up, roll up for the Mystery Tour — The Beatles, “Magical Mystery Tour,” 1967 Recently, the Wicked Witch of Ice Cream, octogenarian Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, took an officially unscheduled trip to Taiwan that caused quite a stir.  Beyond the […]

The post Nancy Pelosi’s Taiwan Strike Force first appeared on Dissident Voice.

Step right this way!
Roll up, roll up for the Mystery Tour
Roll up, roll up for the Mystery Tour

The Beatles, “Magical Mystery Tour,” 1967

Recently, the Wicked Witch of Ice Cream, octogenarian Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, took an officially unscheduled trip to Taiwan that caused quite a stir.  Beyond the official Chinese Government’s objections, Pelosi’s weird visitation also included the non-endorsements of both the U.S. State Department and the Biden administration.  So, what was The Nancy doing in Taipei, besides possibly checking in upon some “family” investments on the American taxpayer’s dime?  Several angles suggest themselves concerning this transparently symbolic, and officially unsanctioned, Pelosi excursion to Taiwan.

Firstly, one could say that Pelosi tip-toed through the Taipei-lips — except, of course, for that extravagant military escort that absolutely contradicted the notion that this was not an “official” state visit.  One wonders if these opposite optical effects of Pelosi’s Taiwan touchdown were more a case of strategic confusion than so-called “Strategic Ambiguity”?  In any case, the Chinese had bluffed (a bluff amplified by western corporate media, itching for an incident) that they might interdict the Speaker’s armada, yet wisely let it pass unmolested.  I am not a China expert, but suspect that the Chinese view Pelosi’s Taipei trip-sy as a case of “Grandma being off her rocker,” as much as anything else  Indeed, the video of Pelosi gingerly navigating the steep steps of the Air Force Jumbo Jet while clutching almost desperately the stair rails may have caused a chuckle or two in Beijing, or even — who knows? — concern that she would lose her grip; after all, hadn’t the elderly Biden just famously fallen off his bike (or was that Biden’s stunt double, instead?)?  Whatever mysterious, or even intentionally incoherent, message the United States was “unofficially” sending to Beijing, “We the People” certainly did not send our most nimble actress in this case.  It really seems like elder abuse is becoming a standard feature of the American political scene these increasingly senescent days…

Now, to digress just a bit:  it seems that any parody sketch of The Nancy’s Taiwandering “mystery trip” should feature Pelosi formally inviting Taiwan into both the NATO alliance and the European Union.  During this astonishing World-hysterical announcement, Pelosi would start gyrating her arms in the bizarre fashion she displayed at the last State of the Union address (I believe Madame Speaker was acting as High Priestess of “burn pits” at this moment, or:  the weird drugs were just beginning to kick in…).  Unfortunately, this skit would not reach the status of high comedy unless we could also summon the image of comedian president Zelensky parachuting down to straddle Pelosi’s padded shoulders, firing wildly from his fingertips in all directions while imploringly scolding all and sundry for “More Money and More Weapons!”  Ukraine, of course, is a Western welfare/warfare basket case; that Zelensky:  “He’s a real live action figure hero, folks!”

Nevertheless, however Pelosi’s lost trip to Taiwan can be parodied, it could just be the case that it simply signifies a NATOOTANi shift away from Ukraine to Taiwan.  Naturally, this makes no geo-strategic sense whatsoever, but neither does the AmericaNATO proxy war against Russia in Ukraine.  While still compulsively spinning an ever-thinning (and always delusional) narrative of ultimate Ukrainian victory, the Blue-and-Yellow Press of the West appears to be catching on, by dribs and drabs, to the fact that Ukraine and the Zelensky regime are a lost cause.

Indeed, the recent NATO conference in Madrid re-shuffled the deck of the TransAtlantican organization’s priorities.  One would have assumed, in 2022, that Ukraine would have topped that list, but “No!”, or at least “nyet!”  Instead, apparently, Ukraine has fallen from high greasy grace, and it is the “rise of China” that rules the NATO-centric roost.  NATO’s playing the “China Card” these days, so they not-necessarily-so-ambiguously tip-toed out old grandma Pelosi to Taiwan to symbolize this shift of geopolitical grift.  How this grifty shift, which was originally trotted out under Barack O’Bushma’s regime as the “pivot to Asia” one decade ago like a Show Horse, will work out for Paul Pelosi Jr’s significant investment in newly designated Enemy #1, or China, remains to be seen.  Paul Jr’s probably not a particularly brave or inspiring figure; after all, where was the accompanying son when his Mom was clinging for dear life to an Air Force jet stairwell rail?  Perhaps this explains why Paul Jr was left off the “official” Pelosi entourage list?

Pelosi’s frivolous foray to Taipei also underscores the utter vanity and inefficacy of recent American diplomatic efforts. While Biden’s agenda flops like a fish out of water at Home, his foreign policy flounders and blunders Abroad.  Seriously: What’s wrong with these people?  Too much Paxlovid in the brain’s blood?  Well, maybe another booster of “Partial Immunity Shot” will cut through that “long haul brain fog?”

Officially, Pelosi’s tip-toe to Taipei did not accomplish much beyond irritating the Chinese Communist Party.  Benjamin Franklin, perhaps, had a roll-in-the-grave over this colossal waste of “Time and Money”; George Washington, whatever his many faults, who so presciently warned a nascent United States against “foreign entanglements,” likewise.

Foreign mis-entangling has been amply demonstrated by top U.S. officials traveling to “foreign” places this Summer (like the tone-deaf tourists most of them are), not least by Pelosi’s “mystery trip” to Taiwan (“Step right up!” — and she could only most gingerly, clingingly:  “Where’s Paul?”).  “Falling” Joe Biden’s recent travel to Jeddah (not Riyadh), Saudi Arabia, for example, revealed a domestically hamstrung President “fist-bumping” a figure that he had consistently labeled a “pariah”; which is to say, the Saudi Crown Prince, MbS, aka “More Bone Saw.”  Biden ostensibly went to “KSA” for more oil production from “The Kingdom.”  In the event, Biden the Ineffectual, secured no such assurance.  Biden was more mocked than anything else in Jeddah, or, put in another way:  Mr Biden never got remotely close to the mystery orb that Trump had touched.  It almost goes without saying that going to Saudi Arabia to beg for more oil totally contradicts the whole Biden — or is that the WEF? — “Green Agenda” thing, but, “Hey, who’s counting?”  Biden’s like the second coming of MAGA, or:  “Make America Gaffe Again,” Biden.

In brief, Saudi Arabia, recipient of untold billions in U$ military aid and other assistance over the decades, straight-up snubbed the President of the United States.  Even that awkward PR “fist-bump” merely served to uncomfortably recall the emphatic “elbow-bump” (and “pre-Covid”, no less!) between Russia’s Putin and Saudi’s Mohammed bin Salman at the G-20 summit in Buenos Aires in 2018, which also featured another noticeably snubbed American president, or J Biden’s immediate predecessor, Donald J Trump, wandering aimlessly around in the background…

A more telling contrast with Biden’s inconclusive — or even “failed” — Saudi trip can be easily seen in this Summer’s summit in Tehran, Iran, where Russia’s Putin and Turkey’s Erdogan met amiably with Iranian leaders, their hosts.  I’m not sure what deals were struck in Tehran, but one wonders if a rehabilitated neo-con hack like David Frum might be inspired to brand Russia-Turkey-Iran a new “Axis of Evil”?  Of course, Frum would have to include China, too, and, as if on cue, China’s Xi Jinping is slated to visit Riyadh any day now.  Clearly, the Chinese leader’s trip to Saudi Arabia, if it happens, will be diplomatic dynamite.  Can anyone say –Ka-blam! — “Thucydides Trap”?

Beyond mere appearances, or the decorativeness of World leaders, like “MAGA”-Joe Biden’s recent “mystery trip” to the KSA, the Big Issue at play is Saudi Arabia’s willingness to trade oil with China in yuan, and not USD.  This is an actual “game changer,” and potentially a World War maker.  This developing arrangement would have been unthinkable only a few years ago, as Saudi Arabia is the lynchpin of the Petro-Dollar system, which in turn anchors American global hegemony:  indeed, the entire TransAtlantican financial extractive wealth system of the last half century, built upon the exploitations of the previous 4 Centuries…

Given the obviously messy fore-or-back ground, like a melting down Ice Cream Cone:  What, oh what, is a slip-sliding Leviathan to do?  Just to speculate a bit, but something tells me, like a back-pocket thought, that an American invasion of Saudi Arabia is a better bet than China attacking Taiwan anytime soon.  Sounds outlandish, but when the USD is threatened, the Death Star (Pentagon) tends to swing into “Action!”  Just ask Iraq or Libya (or Smedley Butler).  “Falling” Joe Biden did manage to re-commit the United States to the Middle East, that fossil fuel rich part of Eurasia, while in Jeddah, whatever an American “re-commitment” might mean.  Given the recent American track record in the Middle East…well:  One imagines that anything is possible.

In any event, Xi’s trip to Riyadh (if it even happens…), and the American reaction to it, will be well worth watching. Certainly, his visit would have vastly greater significance than Pelosi’s silly sally to Taipei, which was far more farce than show of force.  Symbolically, clinging to an American Air Force jet stairwell rail, was “Mama Bear” Pelosi a white-knuckling image of the Collective West’s ever-losing grasp on the “Great Game” of global hegemony:  a pictorial video symbolic of an Occidental hegemon finally “losing its grip” after so many centuries at the helm?  Is Uncle Sam finally losing his World-dominating bona fides, his USD, just in time for the new paradigm?

The post Nancy Pelosi’s Taiwan Strike Force first appeared on Dissident Voice.


This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Todd Smith.


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