Friday, July 16, 2004

A Sense Of History

At the time I am writing this about ninety percent of the U.S. Navy is at sea and seven carrier battle groups are headed for the Taiwan straits off of China for an exercise. This is the most powerful deployment of American aircraft carriers off of China since the end of World War Two.

Granted that navy ships are radically less vulnerable to terrorist strikes (or any other form of attack) while at sea, some people may wonder why President Bush would stage a major and apparently intimidating naval exercise off the coast of China.

For one thing, the Communist rulers of Mainland China are insisting that Taiwan is a "lost province" and have repeatedly declared their intention to carry out a forcible anschluss of the island. (In the typical predator mode of speech they use the word "liberate.")

The Chinese communist armed forces have been carrying out a series of exercises that simulate an invasion of Taiwan which includes one fleet exercise involving our former ally France. (The French state apparatus are as their predecessors were a century ago shopping for allies, but that's a topic for another time.)

Some persons of a pacifist bent will object to the present American deployment on the grounds that the Mainland Chinese are America's biggest partner in international trade. That it makes no sense for Mainland China to prepare for a war with the United States.

What most people do not know is that in August of 1939 the biggest trading partner of National Socialist Germany was France, and that in May of 1941 the biggest trading partner of the Fuherereich was the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.

Do I have to mention what happened in the subsequent months?

Neither pacifists nor Despotcrats in general have a love of Liberty nor a sense of history.

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