Patriots to Taiwan
Sometimes I wonder what any of us saw in Barack Obama that made us think he might make a good president. Sure, it was enough that he would keep Sarah Palin out of reach of the Oval Office, but surely there was more to him than audacious hope. Did all he mean by change that he wasn’t George Bush?
The latest screw-up in a long string of failures is his decision to sell $6.4 billion in weapons to Taiwan. This comes at a time when our relations with Beijing are particularly important, and when Beijing has entered an era of greater warmth with the islands nation.
The weapons themselves aren’t a big deal. In fact, half the deal are Patriot missiles, those useless bits of hardware that failed to knock out a single Scud during the first Gulf War. Dunno why the RoC would even want them.
Which underscores the point that the deal only served to (1) put ever more money in the pockets of the merchants of death, and (2) produce considerable anger from the mainland government.
Obama reminds me somewhat of Tony Blair. A lot of style, but little substance. Blair was unrepentant last week before a commission investigating how and why Britain joined in the invasion of Iraq. He insisted that it was the right thing to do because Saddam was such a threat. But Saddam was no more a threat to Britain than to the United States and if Blair hadn’t agreed to go in with Bush, the invasion couldn’t have happened.
The British lost their empire over a century ago. Now our days are numbered, too. Roger Cohen had an excellent essay on the subject which he titled "Exit America" in which he spoke of a world, decades hence, when the poor Chinese will have inherited the crumbling mantle of world leader.
Dunno what it would mean to Taiwan if that happened. Surely the Patriot missiles wouldn’t matter a whit. But apparently that doesn’t matter in a world where image is more important than reality.
©2010 SetonnoteS
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