MidnightWatcher – Prophecy in Motion

By Gordon G. Chang – “A retired Chinese general recently revealed that his country might be planning a surprise missile attack on the United States. The public comment of Xu Guangyu came in response to WikiLeaks revelations that last year Washington had warned its allies beforehand of China’s test of a missile interceptor.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, in a classified cable sent last January 9th, instructed American embassies in Australia, Britain, Canada, and New Zealand to notify those countries of upcoming Chinese launches two days later. The cable included details of the launch sites for the interceptor and the target, the models of the missiles, the purpose of the test, and the test date.

Yesterday, Hong Kong’s South China Morning Post carried comments from Xu, now at the China Arms Control and Disarmament Association, to the effect that American satellites would have detected activity at the launch sites but that some of the information in the cables—specifically the types of missiles and the day of the test—must have come from a source on the ground. WikiLeaks’s release of this cable, revealing one or more American spies in China’s strategic missile corps, is perhaps the website’s most significant compromise of US security to date.

The Hong Kong paper noted that Xu said that ‘if China could no longer keep secret its missile launches, it would not be able to launch a surprise attack on the US.’

Is China really in the process of planning to destroy the American homeland with a preemptive barrage of nuclear-tipped missiles? Xu’s comment, of course, is not proof, but it does reveal that Chinese flag officers are thinking about doing so.” Read more.

Flashback: Chinese Submarine was not the first on US coast – “The firing of a submarine-launched ballistic missile by a Chinese Jin-class submarine off the coast of southern California last Monday at the height of evening rush hour in Los Angeles was not the first time the U.S. Navy’s anti-submarine warfare sensors in the Pacific have failed… The Navy, clearly embarrassed over the undetected presence of a Chinese Jin-class SSBN submarine off the coast of Los Angeles, is, some 40 years after the Victor-III incident, continuing its age-old tradition of covering up when it screws up. Aiding and abetting the Pentagon are a group of recently-minted ‘experts’ from NASA, the Discovery Channel Rupert Murdoch’s array of claptrap publications, Pentagon-funded web sites and think tanks, and other ‘usual suspects’ in the conspiracy theory proffering business. The Pentagon, shown to have wasted billions of dollars on a useless ballistic missile defense system, is working overtime with the media and on the Internet to cover up the latest debacle. However, even some reporters who cover the Pentagon full-time are beginning to question the Pentagon’s version of events last Monday night over the skies west of Los Angeles.” Read more.

Flashback: Pentagon now says California ‘missile’ was an aircraft… a full 48 hours after the event – “It may have taken 48 hours, but the Defense Department is now saying that it was an airplane and, crucially, not a missile that left a mysterious vapor trail off the coast of Southern California. Pentagon spokesman Dave Lapan said: ‘There is no evidence to suggest that this is anything else other than a condensation trail from an aircraft.’ Colonel Lapan reiterated that there was no threat to America.” Read more.