Piecing together the final months of the Trump Presidency while China prepared for World War III

Well, things are coming in in isolation; in drips and dabs. But we are slowly piecing together a picture of what transpired during 2020 when President Trump and his army of neocons threw everything (minus the kitchen sink) at China. And it all failed.

In October, leading up into the November elections, was a desperate time. And President Trump was increasingly frustrated with the turn of events that he set in motion.

We know now, that in February 2020, China went DEFCON ONE and blamed the United States for unleashing a bio-weapon on China during it’s most important holiday. We also know that they stayed at military readiness throughout the year, and successfully stopped hybrid-war efforts on all fronts. The NED sponsored “Color Revolutions” in Hong Kong, Tibet and Xinjiang all collapsed.

In October, the largest flotilla of aircraft carriers ever assembled in the history of the world sailed home without incident from the South China Sea, and immediately Donald Trump fired his military leadership. Right then, and there. No explanation was given, and the mainstream media were all perplexed, and quickly forgot about the incident.

What happened after this defeat without a shot being fired is unknown, but now a general is speaking out and what he reports is horrific.

This is what happened immediately after the Naval Flotilla returned home without incident, and the top military leadership was fired…

The “news” reports

Top general was so fearful Trump might spark war that he made secret calls to his Chinese counterpart, new book says

From the Washington Post.

Twice in the final months of the Trump administration, the country’s top military officer was so fearful that the president’s actions might spark a war with China that he moved urgently to avert armed conflict.

In a pair of secret phone calls, Gen. Mark A. Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, assured his Chinese counterpart, Gen. Li Zuocheng of the People’s Liberation Army, that the United States would not strike, according to a new book by Washington Post associate editor Bob Woodward and national political reporter Robert Costa.

One call took place on Oct. 30, 2020, four days before the election that unseated President Donald Trump, and the other on Jan. 8, 2021, two days after the Capitol siege carried out by his supporters in a quest to cancel the vote.

The first call was prompted by Milley’s review of intelligence suggesting the Chinese believed the United States was preparing to attack. That belief, the authors write, was based on tensions over military exercises in the South China Sea, and deepened by Trump’s belligerent rhetoric toward China.

“General Li, I want to assure you that the American government is stable and everything is going to be okay,” Milley told him. “We are not going to attack or conduct any kinetic operations against you.”

In the book’s account, Milley went so far as to pledge he would alert his counterpart in the event of a U.S. attack, stressing the rapport they’d established through a backchannel. “General Li, you and I have known each other for now five years. If we’re going to attack, I’m going to call you ahead of time. It’s not going to be a surprise.”

Li took the chairman at his word, the authors write in the book, “Peril,” which is set to be released next week.

In the second call, placed to address Chinese fears about the events of Jan. 6, Li wasn’t as easily assuaged, even after Milley promised him, “We are 100 percent steady. Everything’s fine. But democracy can be sloppy sometimes.”

Li remained rattled, and Milley, who did not relay the conversation to Trump, according to the book, understood why. The chairman, 62 at the time and chosen by Trump in 2018, believed the president had suffered a mental decline after the election, the authors write, a view he communicated to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) in a phone call on Jan. 8. He agreed with her evaluation that Trump was unstable, according to a call transcript obtained by the authors.

Believing that China could lash out if it felt at risk from an unpredictable and vengeful American president, Milley took action. The same day, he called the admiral overseeing the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, the military unit responsible for Asia and the Pacific region, and recommended postponing the military exercises, according to the book. The admiral complied.

Milley also summoned senior officers to review the procedures for launching nuclear weapons, saying the president alone could give the order — but, crucially, that he, Milley, also had to be involved. Looking each in the eye, Milley asked the officers to affirm that they had understood, the authors write, in what he considered an “oath.”

The chairman knew that he was “pulling a Schlesinger,” the authors write, resorting to measures resembling the ones taken in August 1974 by James R. Schlesinger, the defense secretary at the time. Schlesinger told military officials to check with him and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs before carrying out orders from President Richard M. Nixon, who was facing impeachment at the time.

Though Milley went furthest in seeking to stave off a national security crisis, his alarm was shared throughout the highest ranks of the administration, the authors reveal. CIA Director Gina Haspel, for instance, reportedly told Milley, “We are on the way to a right-wing coup.”

The book’s revelations quickly made Milley a target of GOP ire.

Trump, speaking Tuesday evening on the conservative television network Newsmax, labeled the chairman’s reported actions “treason” and said, “I did not ever think of attacking China.”

Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, the top Republican on the Senate Intelligence Committee, wrote a letter to President Biden. Urging him to dismiss the Joint Chiefs chairman, saying he had undermined the commander in chief and “contemplated a treasonous leak of classified information to the Chinese Communist Party in advance of a potential armed conflict …”

A White House spokeswoman earlier Tuesday declined to comment on the book. Milley’s office did not respond to a request for comment.

“Peril” also provides new reporting on Biden’s 2020 campaign — waged to unseat a man he told a top adviser “isn’t really an American president” — and his early struggle to govern. During a March 5 phone call to discuss Biden’s $1.9 trillion stimulus plan, his first major legislative undertaking, the president reportedly told Sen. Joe Manchin III (D-W.Va), “if you don’t come along, you’re really f—ing me.” The measure ultimately cleared the Senate through an elaborate sequencing of amendments designed to satisfy the centrist Democrat.

The president’s frustration with Manchin is matched only by his debt to House Majority Whip Rep. James E. Clyburn of South Carolina, whose endorsement before that state’s primary propelled Biden to the nomination and gave rise to promises about how he would govern.

When Clyburn offered his endorsement in February 2020, it came with conditions, according to the book. One was that Biden would commit to naming a Black woman to the Supreme Court, if given the opportunity. During a debate two days later, Clyburn went backstage during a break to urge Biden to reveal his intentions for the Supreme Court that night. Biden issued the pledge in his final answer, and the congressman endorsed him the next day.

“Peril,” the authors say, is based on interviews with more than 200 people, conducted on the condition they not be named as sources.

Exact quotations or conclusions are drawn from the participant in the described event, a colleague with direct knowledge or relevant documents, according to an author’s note. Trump and Biden declined to be interviewed.

On Afghanistan, the book examines how Biden’s experience as vice president shaped his approach to the withdrawal. Convinced that President Barack Obama had been manipulated by his own commanders, Biden vowed privately in 2009, “The military doesn’t f— around with me.”

“Peril” also documents how Biden’s top advisers spent the spring weighing, but ultimately rejecting, alternatives to a full withdrawal. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin returned from a NATO meeting in March envisioning ways to extend the mission, including through a “gated” withdrawal seeking diplomatic leverage. But they came to see that meaningful leverage would require a more expansive commitment, and instead came back around to a full exit.

Milley, for his part, took what the authors describe as a deferential approach to Biden on Afghanistan, in contrast to his earlier efforts to constrain Trump. The book reveals recent remarks the chairman delivered to the Joint Chiefs in which he said, “Here’s a couple of rules of the road here that we’re going to follow. One is you never, ever ever box in a president of the United States. You always give him decision space.” Referring to Biden, he said, “You’re dealing with a seasoned politician here who has been in Washington, D.C., 50 years, whatever it is.”

His decision just months earlier to place himself between Trump and potential war was triggered by several important events — a phone call, a photo op and a refusal to rule out war with another adversary, Iran.

The immediate motivation, according to the book, was the Jan. 8 call from Pelosi, who demanded to know, “What precautions are available to prevent an unstable president from initiating military hostilities or from accessing the launch codes and ordering a nuclear strike?” Milley assured her that there were “a lot of checks in the system.”

The call transcript obtained by the authors shows Pelosi telling Milley, referring to Trump, “He’s crazy. You know he’s crazy. … He’s crazy and what he did yesterday is further evidence of his craziness.” Milley replied, “I agree with you on everything.”

Milley’s resolve was deepened by the events of June 1, 2020, when he felt Trump had used him as part of a photo op in his walk across Lafayette Square during protests that began after the killing of George Floyd. The chairman came to see his role as ensuring that, “We’re not going to turn our guns on the American people and we’re not going to have a ‘Wag the Dog’ scenario overseas,” the authors quote him saying privately.

Trump’s posture, not just to China but also to Iran, tested that promise. In discussions about Iran’s nuclear program, Trump declined to rule out striking the country, at times even displaying curiosity about the prospect, according to the book. Haspel was so alarmed after a meeting in November that she called Milley to say, “This is a highly dangerous situation. We are going to lash out for his ego?”

Trump’s fragile ego drove many decisions by the nation’s leaders, from lawmakers to the vice president, according to the book. Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) was so worried that a call from President-elect Biden would send Trump into a fury that the then-Majority Leader used a backchannel to fend off Biden. He asked Sen. John Cornyn of Texas, formerly the No. 2 Senate Republican, to ask Sen. Christopher A. Coons, the Democrat of Delaware and close Biden ally, to tell Biden not to call him.

So intent was Pence on being Trump’s loyal second-in-command — and potential successor — that he asked confidants if there were ways he could accede to Trump’s demands and avoid certifying the results of the election on Jan. 6. In late December, the authors reveal, Pence called Dan Quayle, a former vice president and fellow Indiana Republican, for advice.

Quayle was adamant, according to the authors. “Mike, you have no flexibility on this. None. Zero. Forget it. Put it away,” he said.

But Pence pressed him, the authors write, asking if there were any grounds to pause the certification because of ongoing legal challenges. Quayle was unmoved, and Pence ultimately agreed, according to the book.

When Pence said he planned to certify the results, the president lashed out. In the Oval Office on Jan. 5, the authors write, Pence told Trump he could not thwart the process, that his role was simply to “open the envelopes.”

“I don’t want to be your friend anymore if you don’t do this,” Trump replied, according to the book, later telling his vice president, “You’ve betrayed us. I made you. You were nothing.”

Within days, Trump was out of office, his governing power reduced to nothing. But if stability had returned to Washington, Milley feared it would be short-lived, the authors write.

The general saw parallels between Jan. 6 and the 1905 Russian Revolution, which set off unrest throughout the Russian Empire and, though it failed, helped create the conditions for the October Revolution of 1917, in which the Bolsheviks executed a successful coup that set up the world’s first communist state. Vladimir Lenin, who led the revolution, called 1905 a “dress rehearsal.”

A similar logic could apply with Jan. 6, Milley thought as he wrestled with the meaning of that day, telling senior staff:

“What you might have seen was a precursor to something far worse down the road.”

MM Comments

Here on MM we have long documented all the events listed herein. I have a couple indexes on it all. We discussed the covert, overt, and “black sides” of a war with China. We discussed the 11 biological attacks, and the various military operations. We discussed everything from drones spraying bio-weapons to devastate livestock, to political bullshit. We also discussed the idea that the United States would conduct a first-use of nuclear weapons against China.

And people laughed at us.

And it turns out that we were correct.

President trump and his army of neocons were indeed planning first strike attacks upon China. And that, we now know, would have resulted in a retaliatory Chinese nuclear salvo against the top 40 American cities.

City Rank Pop. 2019 2010 Growth
New York, NY 1 8,419,316 8,078,471 4.2%
Los Angeles, CA 2 3,966,936 3,772,486 5.2%
Chicago, IL 3 2,709,534 2,703,466 0.2%
Houston, TX 4 2,310,432 2,068,026 11.7%
Phoenix, AZ 5 1,633,017 1,450,206 12.6%
Philadelphia, PA 6 1,579,075 1,504,950 4.9%
San Antonio, TX 7 1,508,083 1,290,196 16.9%
San Diego, CA 8 1,409,573 1,282,800 9.9%
Dallas, TX 9 1,330,612 1,187,285 12.1%
San Jose, CA 10 1,027,690 925,300 11.1%
Austin, TX 11 950,807 764,129 24.4%
Jacksonville, FL 12 890,467 811,833 9.7%
Columbus, OH 13 878,553 770,407 14.0%
San Francisco, CA 14 874,961 789,172 10.9%
Fort Worth, TX 15 874,401 705,349 24.0%
Indianapolis, IN 16 864,447 809,804 6.7%
Charlotte, NC 17 857,425 705,896 21.5%
Seattle, WA 18 724,305 595,240 21.7%
Denver, CO 19 705,576 578,087 22.1%
Boston, MA 20 684,379 602,609 13.6%
El Paso, TX 21 679,813 628,923 8.1%
Detroit, MI 22 674,841 759,340 -11.1%
Nashville, TN 23 663,750 587,790 12.9%
Memphis, TN 24 651,932 654,876 -0.4%
Portland, OR 25 645,291 566,686 13.9%
Oklahoma City, OK 26 643,692 563,571 14.2%
Las Vegas, NV 27 634,773 579,786 9.5%
Louisville, KY 28 617,790 586,994 5.2%
Baltimore, MD 29 609,032 620,538 -1.9%
Milwaukee, WI 30 594,548 589,697 0.8%
Albuquerque, NM 31 559,374 531,403 5.3%
Tucson, AZ 32 541,482 518,457 4.4%
Fresno, CA 33 525,010 484,008 8.5%
Sacramento, CA 34 500,930 459,511 9.0%
Mesa, AZ 35 499,720 439,639 13.7%
Atlanta, GA 36 488,800 413,462 18.2%
Kansas City, MO 37 486,404 454,876 6.9%
Omaha, NE 38 475,862 407,334 16.8%
Long Beach, CA 39 466,776 461,823 1.1%
Colorado Springs, CO 40 464,871 403,983 15.1%

Quick Recap

President trump and his cabal of neocons declared war on China in 2016. When he became president, he immediately put neocons in charge of all the strategy positions relative for war. Such as John Bolton in charge of the Bio-Weapons systems. He then waged a “hybrid-war” against China.

Aside from all the public efforts; tariffs, Huawei, 5G, QUAD, Australia, etc, he also engaged in aggressive “black operations” that included “color revolutions“, as well as trying to induce starvation through bio-weapons.

All efforts failed.

By 2019, and during the lead up towards elections, Donald Trump wanted to step up his anti-China campaign. His reelection to a second term depended on his ability to be a “war President”.  So starting in mid 2019 he launched an “inoculation strain” of COVID in the USA and all of it’s allies. And then in late 2019, he released the “lethal B” strain against China, Iran and North Korea.

All of 2020 was fought with biological weapons.

Simultaneously with the Chinese people collapsing due to seizures due to the lethal B strain, an enormous “fire hose” of anti-China disinformation was unleashed. And for a while it worked.

But not as planned.

The strains mutated, and the “inoculation strain” did not protect Americans.

Then, in March 2020 he decided to go Kinetic and launched two more very serious bio-weapons against China. (For a total of three lethal bio-weapons.)

And yet again, China survived, and thrived.

So, he got together the largest Naval flotilla in the history of the world and set sail for China. But no incidents occurred, and he fired his top military leadership as a result. We now know why.  Donald Trump fired Defense Secretary Mark Esper because he did not engage in a “hot” kinetic war with China.

And Donald Trump was COUNTING on that war to be initiated during elections. And always, historically, there are insanely positive polling results for a President during the initial weeks of a war.

So then President Trump went to his generals, and as we now know, Gen. Mark A. Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, was afraid that Donald Trump would order him to conduct a “hot” kinetic war with China.

Now, China, after four years of “hybird-war”, and full knowledge about the bio-weapons attacks and the “color revolutions”…

After all, China shares Intel with Russia, and has all of Hong Kong wired up in audio and video... as well as all those CIA / NED "assets" on the mainland, now filled with pro-china patriotic fervor turning themselves in and working with the PLA...

Knew full well what was going on.

After all, China was at DEFCON ONE all year. (And still is, by the way.) And appreciated the candor of the American military leadership, but do not trust any Americans any longer. Which is why they are refusing to talk with Biden, or having a US Ambassador inside of China. (As of right now at the time of this article.)

And now, the Chinese leadership is very “closed” to the United States.

As I have discussed HERE; the United States is a Military Empire with a puppet figurehead and has a “President” in title only.

And China realizes it.

What does this mean?

We know that President Biden has been inside of China and understands that a war with China would devastate the United States. And it would. Let’s not fool ourselves.

But, President Bidden is a figurehead only.

The United States is a Military Empire, and the military-industrial establishment and neocon K-street are “calling the shots”. They run things. They control budgets, and they control the Military. They control the State Department (as the entire world observed during the April 2021 Anchorage meeting), and they control the American people though advanced media manipulation.

This knowledge of what China is, and what it capable of is useless, as the people who control the reins of power think otherwise. All the war provocations seem to originate out for the bureaucracy and industrial self-interest rather than top-down directed orders.

No matter how harsh the United States might be against China today, it is nothing compared to what would happen were another neocon to become President in 2024.

  • Tom Cotton
  • Mike Pompeo
  • Marco Rubio

Heaven help us all.

Dangerous people.

In expectation of a bad situation going “tits up” both Russia and China have prepared first-strike (nuclear) scenarios to counter any possibility of the intentional American nightmare unleashed upon the world.

Make no mistake that they are in place and being studied for every contingency.

The Chinese plan for every contingency.

The Chinese and the Russians are not fools. And as I have said over and over and over.

China. Does. Not. Play.

Which means that they are a serious, serious, merit driven nation. And when they do decide to do something, they do it with precision and ruthlessness. You might not want to hear it, you might want to believe that democracy is on “God’s side”, or that Chinese are just “copy-cats” who cannot innovate. You can believe whatever you want.

Expect full-on Asian (China & Russia) readiness to be in place right now today.

They are ready to hurt others really, really bad. China is mass producing nuclear warheads like they used to make rubber ducky’s. The assembly lines and production lines are running hot. Much like the printing presses in America are turning red hot printing US “greenback” dollars.

Not only that, but on all levels they have mustered and created a unified Asia.

And a word to the wise. They do not believe in “surgical strikes”. They believe in pounding cities into oblivion. They have their own history as a template.

Maybe payback time for the rape of Nanjing…

Hopefully level heads will persist at the highest levels of government in Washington DC for the next decade or so. But do not count on it. We can hope, but must be realistic.

But if the world can tone down the insanity that the United States has become, then the rest of the world will be able to take a breather and the entire world can move forward in peace.

Do you want more?

You can find more articles related to this in my latest index; A New Beginning. And in it are elements of the old, some elements regarding the transition, and some elements that look towards the future.

New Beginnings

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Articles & Links

Master Index

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  • You can start reading the articles by going HERE.
  • You can visit the Index Page HERE to explore by article subject.
  • You can also ask the author some questions. You can go HERE to find out how to go about this.
  • You can find out more about the author HERE.
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KMan

MM, this is one of Bob Woodward’s many books that have unconfirmable details that just happen to trash Republican Presidents. These make a brief media splash, then are quickly forgotten. Comparable books about Democrat Presidents are noticeably absent. For nearly 50 years Woodward has been coasting on his reputation of bringing down Nixon using Watergate.

Trump wasn’t perfect, and his bluster did not play well with leaders overseas. But to claim he was ready to launch nuclear war against China beggars belief. You’ve been worried about Biden instigating World War III, right? Now conveniently comes claims that Trump was going to?

Consider what Trump actually accomplished:

1. He was the first President since the unfairly maligned Jimmy Carter not to send US troops into new shooting conflicts.

2. He defused potential foreign crises, notably in Syria, which the Russians regard as in their sphere of influence. He avoided intervention in such potential hot spots as Ukraine. Hillary Clinton wanted to send troops there had she won in 2016—to fight Russians potentially on their own territory. Guess what the result of that would have been. What was Milley afraid of again?

3. Trump brokered peace deals between Israel and previously hostile Arab neighbors. He was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 2020 for these efforts, but it was awarded to a hunger organization instead just before the election. Orange man bad, even when he helps with peace treaties, you see.

4. He began laying the groundwork to withdraw from Afghanistan—a withdrawal that Biden badly handled.

None of these sounds like the actions of someone seeking to nuke anybody. It’s one thing to make noise as Trump did about one-sided economic agreements that screwed American workers. It does not follow that he would launch WWIII over it.

Woodward’s source during Watergate was “Deep Throat”. These allegations clearly come from another source, Deep State, the same people who hounded, spied on, and concocted bogus allegations about Trump. This stuff about Gen. Milley looks like more of the same.

From day one the Deep State tried to paint Trump as crazy. Now we have a President with obvious signs of senility, and none of those people mentions the 25th Amendment to remove him as was discussed all the time with Trump. Yet here comes the “Trump is crazy” argument again in this book, probably to deflect attention from Biden.

The other clear agenda is to hinder Trump’s possible 2024 campaign. Funny, you’d think they’d just rig that election too…

Consider that Milley’s claimed actions and reasons mirror those that convicted Navy spy John Walker gave for passing all that classified info to the Soviets. Walker said in his self-serving memoirs that he was preventing WWIII too. He died in prison in 2014.

Then imagine if a US general during the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962 had secretly told the Soviet military, “Don’t worry about us. We’ll make sure Kennedy can’t launch nukes against you.”

But enough of that. I say these claims are hogwash anyway. And if there is even the slightest bit of truth to them, that confirms your fears about Biden not having control of the military by showing that Trump, and who knows about Obama and Presidents before, didn’t have control either. The military would appear to be doing its own thing in cahoots with the Deep State. That might be the scariest implication of all. If it’s true, that is. Woodward’s record leaves a lot of doubt.

K-Man

The bio-warfare you refer to was a Deep State operation, I’m convinced of it. The viruses would have been released in China no matter who was President at the time. Based on the evidence you’ve been discussing that the US military has gone rogue, I have doubts any President would have been kept in the loop, let alone make the decision to use these viruses.

Don’t forget how woke the military has become here. Wokeness and trashing Trump and Republicans go hand in hand. If stuff can be pinned on him or other conservatives whether or not there is actual evidence, then so much the better.

I’m really starting to wonder at this point, based on your questions about Biden and the incident with the Navy ship in Chinese waters, whether Trump really knew about the exercises in 2020. The US military made similar mock-invasion exercises off the Soviet coast in 1983, not long before Able Archer, and it has never been established that Reagan knew of or called for these.

We’re told Trump did know and he demanded resignations over the outcome, etc., but maybe the resignations were about the military going rogue in Chinese waters and getting caught. The media are so biased and unreliable here that we just don’t know for sure. (Most media here did not cover Trump’s Nobel nominations.)

And that has me concerned for Biden. Biden wasn’t my guy, but I don’t want the military pulling stunts while evading his attempts to control them.

K-Man

And this appeared over the weekend: Gen. Milley says the Pentagon will share classified information with the Taliban. Really. Of course, this had already been done accidentally after the Taliban found info on computers in our abandoned embassy identifying Afghans who had helped the US…

The question is, does Biden approve of this sharing? The stories have been silent about that.

On top of that, the French are angry about losing a $50 billion deal for submarine technology to Australia to the US and the UK. It’s as if the US is trying to piss off everybody who is even remotely an ally.

Daniel

I think K-Man is right. this was planned long time ago. Presidency is very much an illusion, much as democracy. the idea for itself is nice, we (as humans) need order, so we embrace it. It is comforting knowing someone is in charge. even if he is not, and most of the establishment is following other figures and interests.

Anyway, the president is Biden, and as the alternative is the vice, I think we all should cross fingers for him.

After reading the last posts from MM, seems other powers ( the Domain?) think this (US WMD capabilities?) is too much of a risk to leave in the hands of some characters of this prison population.

keff

Thanks for the update on Join-The-Dots, MM. I was wondering how Milley’s phone call fit into all of this.

I think 50 years from now, China and Russia will look back and think that Trump’s presidency was a fortunate thing. It exposed the true face of the Empire to the world and accelerated its decline.

I also have a hunch that in same time period, Americans will also think back and feel relieved that it is over a difficult period Shadow Empire. The same way Germans feel about the craziness of the Nazi era.

Ohio Guy

Scary stuff, Bo Chen.