I was in Phoenix visiting my brother when the US spy plane collided with a Chinese jet fighter. My brother works as an air traffic controller and so he became the resident expert on "rules of the road" in air travel. He said that internationally, it is a small plane's responsibility to stay out of the way of larger planes, and this rule alone places complete blame for the incident on the Chinese pilot.

But the Chinese demanded an apology from the US. Not simply asking for regret, but insisting that we take full responsibility. The Chinese response seemed ironic in its fervency, and it made the "rules of the road" explanation increasingly seem simple and thin. The story dominated the media through all of April and several weeks into May.

Towards the beginning of May accounts of a May Day "Cyber-War" with Chinese hackers spread from the technical press to the mainstream press. A "week-long all-out crack attack on American websites" was reported in nearly every major news source. I noticed the story first in a CNN article, but the same day, I received an email from a hacker friend about an article on Attrition.org. Attrition is an organization that chronicles website defacements, and on April 29th they published an article titled "Cyberwar with China: Self-fulfilling Prophecy".

The article compared the timeline of defaced websites with the Wired news articles on the subject, and shows quite clearly that the Wired articles were reporting an incident that hadn't actually happened yet. Their conclusion was that the American media created the so-called Cyberwar by showing a clear line from the Wired news articles to American hackers defacing Chinese sites to Chinese retaliation.

But what prompted the Wired news articles? I know enough about the news industry to know that stories don't appear out of thin air. They must have been "reporting" on something. So I went back and catalogued all of the articles on the subject that appeared on mainstream news sources. This process revealed a much larger scope of the incident that tied it in with the spy plane incident.

From April 1st until April 28th there were 12 news articles published on Wired, ABC, CNN, The Washington Post, and Yahoo. Much of the same evidence is used in each of the articles. The majority of defaced websites refereed to by these articles are never actually linked to China. As I looked closer I could find only two websites that were in fact politically motivated attacks from China. The sites contained such radical political messages as "Remember that China has nukes too." An extremely naïve statement.

To put this in context, there are 100's of websites hacked each week; from any country, to any country. Russian hackers defacing Jamaican websites and Japanese hackers defacing Czechoslovakian websites. Two website hacks in three weeks does not a cyber war make.

But none the less these two sites warranted 12 news articles. They came in two waves. The first wave was prompted almost exclusively by a Navy press release that was first reported by the "Government Computer News" on April 6th. The article reported that two Navy websites had been hacked, but a navy spokesman "could not confirm suspicions that China was responsible."

Then, FBI statements to CNN and Yahoo News on April 16th prompted a second wave of articles. The articles state that the FBI confirmed "pro-China attacks have occurred." This statement is made without any additional support or evidence. On April 26th, the NIPC, a governmental security monitoring organization, issued an advisory warning to system administrators of American networks. The advisory warns of the possibility of "Increased Internet Attacks Against U.S. Web Sites". The story is picked up by Associated Press and creates a third wave of articles in nearly every major news source.

From April 26th to April 28th there is a huge rise in American hackers defacing Chinese websites. Their rantings directly encouraged Chinese hackers to retaliate, but it is not until April 28th that Chinese hacker organizations begin retaliation. At this point, American hackers become heroes, celebritized by the security media. They make interview appearances on Security News Portal just days after the soldiers held captive by the Chinese government make talk show appearances on Jay Leno.

All of the information about the spy plane incident was reported in the media and came directly from Pentagon reports. Given the role the media and government reports played in the creation of a Cyber war, is it possible that they also created the spy plane incident? There is a very obvious incentive to do so for the both the media conglomerates and the government.

Public opinion for military spending has been on the decline since GW took office. Nuclear threats from "rogue" states have had a diminishing return of public fear. Massive violent protests have been occurring all over the nation, from Seattle to Cincinnati. Even "Newt Gingrich is warning about a cyber Pearl Harbor."

A new cold war with China combined with the threat of nuclear terror from "rogue" states internationally and the energy crisis domestically, creates a need for more nuclear power plants and weapons. A May 17th article in the New York Times says that "a confidential Pentagon strategy review has cast the Pacific as the most important region for military planners and calls for the development of new long-range arms to counter China's military power."

The first Cold War was the most profitable war ever, but not for the government. It's companies like GE and Westinghouse that actually create and maintain nuclear arms. Ironically, the companies that would benefit the most from another arms race also own 90% of the media.

A new Cold War would also bring with it a need for additional domestic security. Just as the cyber war illustrates Bush's calls for "additional resources" to be budgeted for the FBI to "fight computer crime", so too would new cold war and arms race illustrate a need for the government to allocate additional law enforcement resources. Resources that could then be used to more effectively quell domestic protest.

After Russia, the next largest Communist country is China. The spy plane incident and the cyber war have helped to sway public opinion. They aren't another Pearl Harbor, but they have made China seem hostile in the eyes of the American public; a view that would be very profitable for all of the people that helped to make it a reality.

For direct action opportunities see killthepresident.org.