AD1184
Celestial
More importantly, what do the Taiwanese think about it?
More importantly, what do the Taiwanese think about it?
More importantly, what do the Taiwanese think about it?
I should think most Taiwanese are not too pleased about it. My understanding is that there are small but roughly equal minorities who want either re-unification with China, or de jure independence. The rest are happy to maintain the ambiguous status quo. Pelosi's trip is upsetting the status quo, so will only please the minority who wish to declare full independence.Good point, it is Taiwanese citizens who will ultimately pay the price for her visit should things spiral out of control...
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I should think most Taiwanese are not too pleased about it. My understanding is that there are small but roughly equal minorities who want either re-unification with China, or de jure independence. The rest are happy to maintain the ambiguous status quo. Pelosi's trip is upsetting the status quo, so will only please the minority who wish to declare full independence.
Do you remember an alternate reality where this phenomenon is known as the Mengele effect?ya know, I wondered about that and thought it was just me or the Mengele Effect. Just bullshit, I see. That and the Taiwan visit timed for our election cycle and polling numbers. At least right now nobody is talking about Mr.Pelosi, DWI and insider trading.
Do you remember an alternate reality where this phenomenon is known as the Mengele effect?
ya know, I wondered about that and thought it was just me or the Mengele Effect. Just bullshit, I see. That and the Taiwan visit timed for our election cycle and polling numbers. At least right now nobody is talking about Mr.Pelosi, DWI and insider trading.
The Daily Telegraph's defence editor Con Coughlin reckons that China is not up to the task:China launches its biggest ever live-fire military drill just 12 miles off Taiwan - with missiles shot OVER the island for first time 'in rehearsal for an invasion': Fears Beijing 'miscalculation' could spark WAR
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China has launched its largest-ever live-fire military drills around Taiwan today (left), sending stealth-fighters, helicopters, long-range bombers, destroyers and corvettes to surround the island (top right) as state media warns missiles are due to be fired over the territory for the first time, in what would be a serious escalation. Military experts who spoke to the state-run Global Times newspaper said the war games are a rehearsal for an invasion, and show Beijing's 'determination of resolving Taiwan question once and for all'. Foreign ministers from the ASEAN group of nations which share the eastern Pacific with China and Taiwan have called for 'restraint' - saying a single miscalculation could spark 'open conflict'. American forces, including the USS Ronald Reagan aircraft carrier, are thought to be lurking in the region while missile-tracking spy planes have been sent to watch over the drills. Xi Jinping has reacted with fury to US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi visiting the island between Tuesday and Wednesday, making her the most-senior politician to go to Taiwan since Newt Gingrich in 1997.
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The US should have had a different strategy with Afghanistan from the very beginning. It should have made periodic surgical strikes to kill Al-Qaeda in the country, rather than full-scale invasion, regime change, and "nation building". The latter is an impossible objective, thus this grand strategy was doomed to fail. However, the US felt the need to make a display of force by embarking on its deluded Afghanistan adventure in 2001. And then, when that was not felt enough, it embarked on another debacle in Iraq, the repercussions of which are still being felt across the Arab world and Europe.So the 20 years was a complete waste, the astronomical failures in Afghanistan are now complete...
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Al-Zawahiri’s death is a great win for America but confirms a catastrophic failure by Biden
(Excerpt)
First, congratulations to President Biden on bringing al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri to justice. It may have taken 21 years to get him since the evil terrorist dubbed “bin Laden’s brains” masterminded the 9/11 attacks. But better late than never.
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Yet after Biden’s disastrous overnight withdrawal from Afghanistan last summer, betraying the people there — including allies — to the Taliban wolves, the president assured us that al Qaeda was “gone” from the country.
“Let’s put this thing in perspective,” he said, “what interest do we have in Afghanistan at this point with al Qaeda gone? We went to Afghanistan for the express purpose of getting rid of al Qaeda in Afghanistan … And we did.”
Turns out he didn’t.
In fact, al Qaeda’s No. 1 terrorist swiftly moved into Kabul with his family, just a few months after Biden’s ill-advised and woefully inaccurate boast.
The brazen impunity of this move is disconcerting enough, but far more worrying are the disturbing questions it raises.
There is a not a snowball in hell’s chance that Zawahiri would have done this without the knowledge and explicit support of Taliban chiefs.
As Secretary of State Antony Blinken said, this constitutes a “gross violation” of the Taliban’s commitment in the Doha agreement made after the US withdrawal that they would not provide safe harbor to al Qaeda in Afghanistan.
Biden said yesterday that in recent weeks, Zawahiri had been making videos “calling for his followers to attack the United States and our allies.”
Incredibly, this means the leader of al Qaeda was actively plotting further terror attacks from inside Kabul, and the Taliban knew it.
Of course, this makes an absolute mockery of Biden’s claim that al Qaeda was “gone” from Afghanistan.
But if the Taliban allowed Zawahiri to do this, how many more al Qaeda operatives are back in Afghanistan right now, also planning to murder Americans and their allies?
The whole point of the 20-year war that followed 9/11 was precisely to stop al Qaeda using Afghanistan as a base to plan more such attacks.
(More on the link)
The Taliban are legitimate rulers now...After the Fall of Kabul in 2021 the past Northern Alliance leaders along with other anti-Taliban figureheads reorganized and call themselves the National Resistance Front of Afghanistan...I doubt they will be any match against the Taliban since the latter holds a vast array of state of the art Stark Industries, I mean, United States military hardware...The US should have had a different strategy with Afghanistan from the very beginning. It should have made periodic surgical strikes to kill Al-Qaeda in the country, rather than full-scale invasion, regime change, and "nation building". The latter is an impossible objective, thus this grand strategy was doomed to fail. However, the US felt the need to make a display of force by embarking on its deluded Afghanistan adventure in 2001.
For a short time it seemed Obama was going to invade Syria similar as we did in Iraq, and commit to regime change...Fortunately that did not take place, I think America has done enough damage in the Middle East...And then, when that was not felt enough, it embarked on another debacle in Iraq, the repercussions of which are still being felt across the Arab world and Europe.
I think a lot of the military hardware left in Afghanistan will be of limited use to the Taliban. Complicated equipment needs regular servicing by highly trained technicians. The Taliban do not have many of those. The coalition forces could not even instruct the Afghan soldiers they had recruited into that country's armed forces, and had trained, to use the complicated items due to the high rate of illiteracy and low levels of education in Afghanistan.The Taliban are legitimate rulers now...After the Fall of Kabul in 2021 the past Northern Alliance leaders along with other anti-Taliban figureheads reorganized and call themselves the National Resistance Front of Afghanistan...I doubt they will be any match against the Taliban since the latter holds a vast array of state of the art Stark Industries, I mean, United States military hardware...
For a short time it seemed Obama was going to invade Syria similar as we did in Iraq, and commit to regime change...Fortunately that did not take place, I think America has done enough damage in the Middle East...
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