by Eric Zuesse, The Duran:
I have encountered this so many times so that I’ll give today’s example in order to display how blatant it is:
I prefer generally not to read at X and other sites where posts tend to be user-hostile for skeptical readers (like I) who are constantly checking to find the original source for an allegation, but I just happened upon an X from Arnaud Bertrand, on August 18th, headlined from the World Bank “Military expenditure (% of GDP) – China,” and it showed China at a remarkably stable and low percentage of around 1.7% since 2010, during which time the U.S. empire have enormously increased their joint efforts to get Taiwan to declare independence from China so that the U.S. will have an excuse (though a false one) to invade and take control over China (like it has over EU/NATO countries, Japan, banana republics, etc. — the entire existing U.S. empire). As Bertrand’s post at X said, “So there’s a LOT of dishonesty in this discourse and even more so when these folks tell you how certain they are about China’s intent behind that ‘buildup’: it’s essentially guessing why there’s a ‘buildup’ that’s their own constructed narrative, that’s what passes for serious analysis these days.” And it showed that World Bank picture, but I needed to authenticate what that picture showed, to look at its source, and so I Googled its headline “Military expenditure (% of GDP) – China” hoping and expecting there’d be a find from the World Bank, but instead got: “Your search did not match any documents.”
TRUTH LIVES on at https://sgtreport.tv/
I then searched that headline at the other search-site I use, Yandex (go to yandex.com), which often finds things that Google hides; and, at the very top of the finds there, was the one from the World Bank, it’s at the top of
The World Bank’s article is at https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/MS.MIL.XPND.GD.ZS?locations=CN. It is very informative, and basically gives the lie to the U.S. empire’s allegations against China as being an aggressor-nation (such as the U.S. itself is: the unchallengeable #1 on that).
I have been told by some sites that post articles from me, that Google had threatened them with de-monification of advertising income unless they’d cease accepting (publishing) my submissions, and most of the sites that used to publish me don’t do so now, or else do it only very rarely, and, for whatever reasons, my articles are far less easy to find via Google searches than was formerly the case. For example, the site where I have been directly posting each one of my articles for many years, theduran.com, is among the many sites that Google blacklists from showing up in Google’s searches.
But, anyway: Bertrand is correct that propagandists for the U.S. Government (including its colonies) are basically lying to allege that China’s military spending (in response to the increasing danger of America invading China) is soaring ‘and so we need likewise to increase greatly OUR military spending so as to defend ourselves against the increasing threat from China’. All of this propaganda is just free advertising on behalf of U.S. firms such as Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, Boeing, and Generals Dynamics, to increase their sales. But it could end up producing WW3. So, it’s very dangerous.
Interestingly, the World Bank’s article “Military expenditure (% of GDP) – United States”, shows that America’s percentage bottomed-out at 3.1% in 2000 when Putin came into power in Russia, then reached 4.9% in 2010, and has been between 3.3% and 3.7% since 2018. The world average is around 2.1% to 2.3% since 2000. So: China’s is actually below the world’s average. America’s is above.
