WAYNE MADSEN: Is The White House Using Indonesia To Stir Up Tensions With China?

Despite his Indonesian experience Obama views the country as a pawn to be exploited on the world stage  

WAYNE MADSEN REPORT
By Wayne Madsen
06/21/2016

The third armed clash between Indonesian maritime patrol craft and a Chinese fishing vessel has been reported in the extreme southern part of the South China Sea. 

Although China has had maritime territorial disputes with other countries in the region, particularly the Philippines and Vietnam, Sino-Indonesian relations have been spared from the tensions elsewhere in the region, particularly around hotly-contested islands in the Paracel and Spratly groups. However, that has now changed with yet another clash between the Indonesian Navy and Chinese fishing boats in the Natuna Islands area. Although the Chinese "Nine-Dash Line" map does not include Indonesia's Natuna islands, the territory claimed by China does reach into what Indonesia claims as its Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ). 

China says the waters are in China's traditional fishing area. 

In March, a Chinese Coast Guard vessel tried to prevent the Indonesian Navy from towing away a Chinese fishing boat. In May, the Indonesian Navy opened fire on a Chinese fishing boat as it was fleeing the area. The boat was captured and its crew continues to be detained in Ranai, the capital of the Natuna islands. On June 17, the Indonesian Navy opened fire on another Chinese fishing boat, injuring one crewman.

The recent open warfare between Indonesia and China is music to the ears of those in the Obama White House and Pentagon who are itching for a dual military conflict between the United States on one side and China and Russia on the other.

In 2015, China officially recognized Indonesia's sovereignty over the Natuna islands. More significantly, China also recognized Indonesia's EEZ right, which also happen to extend into China's "Nine-Dash Line" boundary. 

However, there are now full-blown naval clashes between China and Indonesian vessels on the high seas. Who is responsible for this sudden breakdown in relations between Beijing and Jakarta?

The answer lies in an Oval Office occupied by a president with deep familial roots in Indonesia and someone whose past few trips to Asia have been designed to ratchet up tensions with China. Some outside influence has prompted Indonesian president Joko "Jokowi" Widodo to lay down the gauntlet to China. President Obama is the likely behind-the-scenes villain since he is someone who has shown through his military "pivot to Asia" that he will take advantage of any potential hot spot in Asia to rattle American sabers against China. Since announcing his pivot to Asia in 2011, Obama has undertaken a series of provocative moves against China. 

These have included:

- Visiting Vietnam and announcing that the U.S. would sell weapons to the country that continues to be plagued by un-exploded U.S. ordnance, including land mines, from the Vietnam War.

- Ordering the return of U.S. troops and bases to the Philippines, including the reactivation of the U.S. Navy presence in Subic Bay.

- Negotiating with Vietnam the return of the U.S. Navy to Cam Ranh Bay, a major U.S. base during the Vietnam War.

- Basing U.S. P-8 Poseidon maritime surveillance aircraft and four littoral combat ships in Singapore.

- Basing U.S. Marines and U.S. air assets in Darwin, Australia.

-Quietly pressuring Japan to eliminate the constitutional clause, inserted at the insistence of General Douglas MacArthur, prohibiting Japan from maintaining an offensive military structure.

- Increasing the number of joint naval exercises with South Korea.

- Inviting the Indian Navy, for the first time, to take part in naval exercises with the U.S. and Japanese navies in waters off of the Senkaku (Diaoyu) Islands, claimed by Japan and China, in the East China Sea. The annual U.S.-Indian Malabar exercise was moved from Indian waters to those close to China for the sole purpose of ratcheting up tensions with China.

- Assisting the Philippines in creating a National Coast Watch Center in Manila.

- Authorizing a $1,83 billion arms deal with Taiwan that includes missiles and naval frigates.

- Establising a U.S. Marine Corps presence in the Malaysian state of Sabah on Borneo.

- Deploying Global Hawk and Triton unmanned aerial vehicles to Andersen Air Force Base in Guam.

- Permanently linking the Brunei military with a U.S. state Army National Guard unit for joint training and operations.

- Increasing the number of Chinese-speaking agents at the CIA station co-located with the U.S. Consulate General in Hong Kong.

- Detailing a greater number of naval vessels from the U.S. Navy's Third Fleet in San Diego to East Asian waters. 

Throughout Obama's military build-up in Asia, Indonesia has remained relatively quiet. Without any Chinese claims to Indonesian islands, Jakarta was happy to just observe the increased tensions in the South China Sea without getting involved militarily. That all changed with the incidents between the Indonesian Navy and Chinese fishing and Coast Guard boats.

Hatta, Sukarno, Suharto

There has recently been a debate in Indonesia about opening up an investigation of the 1965 coup that toppled President Sukarno and resulted in a genocide against actual and perceived members of the Indonesian Communist Party (PKI) and ethnic Chinese Indonesian citizens. As many as one million may have been killed as a result of the Central Intelligence Agency-backed coup and the resulting massacre of leftists and Chinese. The General Suharto regime that took power had two willing accomplices. One was Lieutenant Colonel Lolo Soetoro of the Indonesian Army, the stepfather of Obama, who enrolled his young stepson in a state school after declaring him an Indonesian citizen. 

The other accomplice to genocide was Ann Dunham Soetoro, Obama's mother whose covert CIA work for the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) resulted in her identifying all the leftists in central Javanese villages and the turning over lists of Indonesian "Reds" to her husband who passed them to Suharto's execution teams.

Although many Indonesians favor an investigation of the 1965 coup, which could result in the roles of Obama's stepfather and mother being revealed, the secrets of the Obama family and the coup and the systematic genocide of the Communists and ethnic Chinese may remain as just that, secret. Protests against any investigation of the coup by Saudi-influenced Islamists in Indonesia have broken out in Indonesia. 

Just as right-wing Muslims assisted Suharto, Lolo Soetoro, Ann Dunham Soetoro, and the CIA in helping to stamp out the PKI and target the ethnic Chinese, they have come to the assistance of the CIA, now run by pro-Wahhabist John Brennan, in opposing an investigation of the events of 1965 and succeeding years.

Indonesian police have dealt harshly with Indonesian shopkeepers who have found themselves being arrested for selling items in violation of Indonesian laws against communist imagery. Any item bearing a hammer and sickle emblem is strictly forbidden. However, this ban has also been extended to bookstores selling books authored by leftists. Even films on issues like labor rights have been banned by the Indonesian authorities. All this, of course, is music to the ears of Obama, the CIA creation whose own parents avidly participated in the brutal repression of Communists during the post-1965 coup genocide.

Some of Obama's childhood friends in Jakarta, whose military fathers worked with Lolo Soetoro in suppressing the PKI and Chinese in the 1960s, are now active with the Islamists in protesting against an investigation of the coup and its aftermath. These sons and daughters of the coup plotters and enforcers, operating under the banner of the Communication Forum on Indonesian Veterans’ Children (FKPPI), have joined the Islamists in rejecting the investigation.

Soetoro with Stanley Ann Dunham, Obama

It is more than certain that Obama told Jokowi exactly what he thought about the Indonesian president's plans to investigate the events of 1965 at their meeting at the U.S.-ASEAN Summit in February of this year in Sunnylands, California.

WMR has been informed that U.S. special operations teams have deployed with Indonesian naval forces in patrolling the waters of the South China Sea and assisting in the interdiction of Chinese fishing vessels and Coast Guard patrol boats. This comes on the heels of first-ever joint U.S. and Indonesian submarine exercises in Indonesia waters. 

For years, CIA personnel have worked with Indonesian fishermen, some who supplement their incomes by also engaging in piracy, in interdicting and boarding vessels of interest transiting the seas around the Natuna islands. More than one North Korean-flagged, as well as "flag of convenience" merchant ships have been boarded by joint teams of Indonesian fishermen/pirates and U.S. special operations personnel. 

The U.S. teams locate and seize military items from North Korea, including missiles and their components, and nuclear components heading to North Korea, while the moonlighting Indonesian fishermen are welcome to take all the Chinese-made televisions, laptop computers, and other consumer goods they can haul away. 

When WMR's editor first came across this U.S.-Indonesian operation in the 1990s, during the Clinton administration, the CIA asked that the details not be published. This editor agreed at the time but now it is obvious that the U.S. dalliance with piracy on the open seas is no longer confined to interdicting North Korean materials for North Korea's nuclear program but is aimed at starting a war with China.

With the same type of teams now working together to target Chinese fishing boats, the Obama administration has crossed a dangerous line. The framers of the U.S. Constitution, who were emphatic about requiring a U.S. president to be "natural born," intended to bar from office foreign-born individuals whose biases and connections to foreign countries could result in a dual-loyalty problem. Obama's Indonesian connections have not only helped to bring Indonesia on to America's side in a looming conflict with China but have also disrupted Indonesia's desire to pursue the whole truth about the coup of 1965.

Wayne Madsen

Wayne Madsen

Investigative journalist, author and syndicated columnist, Madsen has over twenty years experience in security issues. 

As a U.S. Naval Officer, he managed one of the first computer security programs for the U.S. Navy. Madsen has been a frequent political and national security commentator on Fox News and has also appeared on ABC, NBC, CBS, PBS, CNN, BBC and MS-NBC. He has been invited to testify as a witness before the US House of Representatives, the UN Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, and an terrorism investigation panel of the French government. A member of the Society of Professional Journalists (SPJ) and the National Press Club, Madsen is based and reports from Washington, D.C.

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Brexit Bombshell Plunges UK Into Chaos As EU Leaders Battle Wider Fallout

EU dictators, ECB banksters, IMF Nazis now reap the whirlwind they have sewn through their unbridled greed and avarice  

STRATEGIC CULTURE FOUNDATION
06/25/2016

Britain's prime minister announced he was quitting, the head of the opposition faces a challenge to his leadership, and employers and financial institutions warned of an economic crisis after the British public voted to leave the European Union after 43 years of membership. 

David Cameron announced on Friday that he would stand down by October, hours after results showed 52 percent of the public had voted in defiance of his predictions of economic disaster and isolation.

Sterling plunged to a 31-year low and markets around the globe went into a tailspin as business reacted to a historic decision, which UK Independence Party leader Nigel Farage described as Britain's "independence day".

Standing outside 10 Downing Street, Cameron said: "The British people have voted to leave the European Union and their will must be respected. 

"I fought this campaign in the only way I know how which is to say directly and passionately what I think and feel – head, heart and soul.

"I held nothing back. I was absolutely clear about my belief that Britain was better and safer inside the EU."

After the result, however, Cameron said: "I do not think it would be right for me to try to be the captain who steers our country to our next destination."

On the way out: EU puppet Cameron

Cameron, whose voice choked as he concluded, said he would leave it the next prime minister to trigger Article 50 of the Lisbon treaty, which represents formal notification of the UK's decision to leave. 

He would leave his job before his Conservative Party holds its annual conference in October.

But pressure was already mounting for immediate action, as a stunned EU urged Britain to leave as "soon as possible" amid fears of a chain reaction of further referendums.

In a sign that the bloc wants to move on swiftly, EU chiefs told Britain in a strongly-worded joint statement to "give effect to this decision of the British people as soon as possible, however painful that process may be."

The statement was signed by Donald Tusk, the European Council president, Martin Schulz, the European Parliament's president, Mark Rutte, the president of the Council of the EU, and Jean-Claude Juncker, the president of the European Commission.

Juncker separately said he was "very sad" that Britain had voted to leave, but repeated that there would be "no renegotiation" of Britain's membership.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel said she would host Tusk, French president Francois Hollande and Matteo Renzi, the Italian prime minister, in Berlin on Monday to chart a reform plan.

Divided Kingdom

The referendum split the United Kingdom down the middle. Leave was strongly supported in Wales, the northeast of England and the Midlands, while London, Scotland and Northern Ireland voted overwhelmingly to remain.

It has also prompted a motion, put forward by Labour MPs Margaret Hodge and Ann Coffey, for a vote of no confidence in party leader, Jeremy Corbyn.

Under the motion, Corbyn's leadership will be discussed at the party's next meeting on Monday and could be followed by a secret ballot as soon as the following day.

Around the world, Investors scrambled to sell the pound, oil and stocks as Britain took a lurch into the unknown, becoming the first country to quit in the EU's 60-year history, a culmination of decades of suspicion over European aims of creating an ever-closer political union.

Mark Carney, the governor of the Bank of England, sought to reassure the world's traders in a statement shortly after Cameron's, saying that he would make £250bn extra available to steady banks as needed.

Farage heralded the results as a "victory for real people."

CNN, BBC frauds and pro-Remain corporate shills aghast at their failure to stampede UK citizens  into voting against their own best interests

"Let June 23 go down in our history as our independence day," he said, who had promised the British people the chance to retake power from Brussels and rein in high immigration.

"If the predictions now are right, this will be a victory for real people, a victory for ordinary people, a victory for decent people," he told supporters.

A joyous crowd chanted back to him: "Out! Out! Out!"

Going It Alone

The result means the world's fifth-largest economy must now go it alone in the global economy, launching lengthy exit negotiations with the EU and brokering new deals with all the countries it now trades with under the bloc's umbrella.

Power mad: Juncker hallucinates that UK citizens somehow fear his economic terrorist threats

European Commission chief Jean-Claude Juncker has warned the EU will "not be bending over backwards" to help Britain in those negotiations.

Analysts say it could take the island nation a decade to secure new trade accords worldwide.

IMF criminal Lagarde issues her own threats

In a worst-case scenario, the International Monetary Fund has warned that the British economy could sink into recession next year and overall economic output would be 5.6 percent lower than otherwise forecast by 2019, with unemployment rising back above six percent.

Thousands of jobs in the City could be transferred to Frankfurt or Paris, top companies have warned. 

The Brexit camp argued that the business world will adapt quickly, however, with Britain's flexible and dynamic economy buoyed by new economic partners and selective immigration.

The campaign has left Britain riven in two, marked by the brutal murder of pro-"Remain" MP Jo Cox, a mother of two who was stabbed, shot and left bleeding to death on the pavement a week ahead of the vote.

The vote also threatens the unity of the United Kingdom.

Two years after Scotland voted in a referendum to remain in the United Kingdom, its political leader First Minister Nicola Sturgeon has said a new independence vote is "definitely on the table" after Britain voted against the majority will expressed by Scots.

"Scotland sees its future as part of the EU," Sturgeon told Sky News after the vote.

Northern Ireland, which is part of the UK, is now faced with the prospect of customs barriers for trade with EU-member the Republic of Ireland. Irish republicans Sinn Fein called for a vote on Irish unity following the referendum.

Messages From The Middle East

What little reaction came from countries in the Middle East included taunts from Iran and Turkey over the UK's past and claims of an end to the EU.

Massoud Jazayeri, a senior commander in Iran's Revolutionary Guard, described Britain's decision as payback for "years of colonialism and crimes against humanity."

An official in President Hassan Rouhani's office, Hamid Aboutalebi, called the vote a "big earthquake" that would be part of the "domino" collapse of the EU. 

Turkey's deputy prime minister, Nurettin Canikli, also said it was the beginning of the end for the EU.

"The period of the disintegration of the European Union has begun. And the first vessel to have departed is Britain," he said.

Turkey has been trying to gain membership of the EU for decades.

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