Some days I watch the news and conclude America has gone stark, raving bonkers.
This is one of those days.
For years, WND has chronicled the way Chinese goods imported into the U.S. are almost universally poisonous, unsafe, flawed, dangerous, malfunctioning junk. In fact, we shouldn't even use the term "goods" in talking about Chinese products – everything from contaminated food to toys that kill and maim to fake emergency lights that only look like lights.
Not to boast, but the exposés WND has done on Chinese imports have been so thorough, so comprehensive and so effective that the Chinese government actually issued a formal denouncement of WND – much to my heart's content.
Shortly after the official Xinhua News Agency attacked WND for its work in this area, an agent of the company actually offered to buy a controlling interest in WND – presumably in a bid to silence the only media voice in the U.S. willing to point out the obvious.
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Yet, after this litany of outright sabotage, criminal ripoffs and commercial warfare, we get confirmation that the U.S. government purchased microchips from China for critical weapons systems – microchips in which "backdoors" that would permit China to shut them down, effectively disabling missiles, warships and communications transponders.
Hello?
Am I surprised that the Chinese would do such a thing?
Of course not. It is as predictable as clockwork. What is astonishing is that the U.S. government, including the Defense Department, would be so gullible as to believe our national security could be preserved by buying critical systems microchips from China.
Think about this.
Is it multiculturalism gone wild?
Is it misguided trust in a totalitarian country slowly but surely building its own military with a plan to be second to none in the world?
Is it the religion of globalism at work?
Is it capitulation to international extortion from a country that could call its debt to the tune of trillions, crippling the American economy overnight?
What is going on here?
As today's startling story details, this microchip revelation is only the latest in a series of incidents that have sent off alarm bells among national-security experts in the U.S.
"China previously has been found to have been actively pursuing placing backdoors in computer equipment," the report says. "Several cases have been uncovered where Internet-capable devices have had Chinese chips in them which also provided a backdoor into the networks the devices were supposed to protect. These devices were attached not only to industrial and commercial networks, but also to networks that were defined as part of the nation's 'critical infrastructure.'"
It's not just the U.S. that has been targeted by this brand of international terrorism disguised as commerce and "free trade."
Previously, WND reported how Britain's MI5 accused cyber intelligence agents in China of attacking U.K. businesses with the goal of gaining commercial intelligence. A leaked MI5 document said undercover intelligence officers from the People's Liberation Army and the Ministry of Public Security approached U.K. businessmen at trade fairs and exhibitions with the offers of cameras and memory sticks.
But the "gifts" were found to contain backdoors that provide the Chinese with remote access to the business computers.
As far back as February 2005, the U.S. Department of Defense issued a report titled, "High Performance Microchip Supply." There, the Defense Science Board Task Force stated:
It is clear from recent trends in the microelectronics industry that a significant migration of critical microelectronics manufacturing from the United States to other foreign countries has and will continue to occur. The rate of this technology migration is alarming because of the strategic significance this technology has on the U.S. economy and the ability of the United States to maintain a technological advantage in the Department of Defense (DoD), government, commercial and industrial sectors. Our greatest concern lies in microelectronics supplies for defense, national infrastructure and intelligence applications.
The report went on to state that there is increasing pressure on microchip or "integrated circuit" (IC) suppliers to outsource their manufacturing operations offshore to lower cost. The report concludes that this move is "contrary to the best interests of the Department of Defense." The report stated that these foreign chips open the possibility for backdoors or "Trojan horses" to be embedded into the microchips used for military applications.
Yet, what did the Navy do?
It bought tens of thousands of microchips from China.
That's why today is one of those days when I'm wondering if America has gone stark, raving bonkers.