I’ve gotten some good-faith questions reL the video of ret. Cpl. Wilkerson’s speech at the Ron Paul Institute earlier this month, which some have taken as hard evidence that the Xinjiang crisis is one big CIA plot. I examine his claims in depth here. 1/ https://wokeglobaltimes.com/de211c4aa1de42d188092aec609a70b1

First, we should note that Wilkerson last worked in government, it seems, as a staffer for Colin Powell in 2005. He retired from the military in 1997. It is inaccurate to refer to him as having demonstrable insider knowledge on Xinjiang; this is, at best, an informed opinion.

Except... it's not really informed. Lots of basic factual errors and non-sequiturs. First, he claims the War in Afghanistan was not actually about the Taliban, which certainly an interesting perspective.

Instead, we're there to stop the Chinese "Central Base Road Initiative" [sic], which was announced a decade after the invasion. If that were true, why would we start withdrawing troops after BRI (the thing he's trying to refer to) was announced?

Wilkerson apparently thinks US presence in Afghanistan is key to potentially halting BRI. But why Afghanistan? If the US somehow foretold of BRI and thought it was that much of a threat, why not invade Iran or Pakistan?

The esteemed corporal also thinks that China might be gearing up to invade Syria, too. Since he’s ex-military, it must be true! (This is just one of several factual errors or ambiguities in his the last paragraph of his monologue)

Ultimately—if you’ll excuse my undiplomatic language—this guy is kind of a dumbass. You can choose to believe him, but let's not pretend he's some sort of whistleblower with insider knowledge. This is a guy who thinks China is about to invade Syria.

oops—got my abbreviations mixed up, my bad. https://twitter.com/zhongguoxin88/status/1355947096365543426?s=20

(This is the tweet that's been making rounds) https://twitter.com/sasponella/status/1355686873633579010?s=20

tfw u definitely understand that argument being made