Old subject, but I can’t resist sharing this batshit crazy language from U.S. Senator John Cornyn (R-Texas). Cornyn got into a little trouble a couple days ago for saying that the U.S. needed to continue funding a certain fighter jet for the coming conflict with . . . wait for it . . . India. Not surprisingly, this caused a bit of consternation in some circles.

Cornyn had to revise his remarks, but that didn’t go so well either. Talking Points Memo reports:

Sen. John Cornyn’s office has apologized for his statement last week that America needs the F-22 fighter plane in order to deal with the national security threat from India — which is an ally of the United States — saying he misspoke. “Senator Cornyn misspoke saying ‘India’ when he meant to say ‘China.’”

OK, well that explains it. I’m glad to know, however, that I’m not the only one who considers this stuff completely nucking futs. Spencer Ackerman had this choice commentary:

John Cornyn said that we need the F-22 to fight our ally India, which is, you know, fucking crackers. According to Eric Kleefeld, he’s now clarified that to mean we need the plane in the event that we’d fight China. It’s kind of amazing that such a clarification is considered less insane.

Apparently in D.C., or at least in weird-ass Southern Republican circles, this makes perfect sense. India good, China bad.

There’s some kind of odd impulse among some in Washington — really, not just conservatives — to consider China a potential enemy. China, with its economic might and nuclear weapons and inferior-for-the-next-several-decades military. The constellation of forces surrounding the rise of China favor two possibilities: cooperation within a series of overlapping architectures of power; or conflicts around the global periphery of U.S. and Chinese interests. (Like over oil. China’s launching an Arabic-language state TV channel, a reflection of China’s expanded Middle Eastern presence.) Now, what will contribute to a negative-sum bellicose outcome? Stuff like cavalier statements from prominent U.S. officials that we need to keep a jettisoned plane just to fight the Chinese. How would the U.S. react to a similarly bellicose remark from a Chinese official?

I don’t think we need to imagine what would happen. Every once in a while, some Chinese general or admiral or politician makes a comment about war games or the military budget or something, and overnight the Washington Times, Fox News, and U.S. talk radio is full of dire warnings about impending doom at the hands of Beijing, with the not-so-subtle tagline, “Remember, those guys are all Commies!”

Now, the Chinese are probably savvy enough to realize that Cornyn’s a buffoon, but the point still stands. U.S. policymakers are doing the world a disservice by blithely assuming that the Chinese are a looming enemy, rather than doing whatever they can to ensure that such a disastrous outcome never materializes.

I’ve said that enough times myself and therefore agree 100% with Ackerman on this. As John Connor and his mother have said many times, there is no fate but what we make of it. The future is not inevitable, or even likely. But if we assume it is and work very hard to ensure that a conflict occurs, then it will.