Re: Stratfor's China/NK Report

[<DasHaas@aol.com>]

7 March

Ed!

    I'd hurry if I were you, in suing the Chinese for stealing your "novel in 
progress."  They may not be too far off in showing you (and everyone else) 
just how much they've stolen when they go for Taiwan!  

    The recent Chinese & North Korean leadership's experience with the 
Clintons (I always include Hilary as a co-president in these things) can 
hardly have boosted their respect for  the moral strength of those two in 
particular, or the U.S. in general.  It's the kind of experience that leads 
to the development of a strong contempt for a potential foe that can lead in 
turn to some bloody and serious miscalculations (e.g., Hitler's contempt for 
Stalin; Khrushchev's contempt for Kennedy after his first meeting with the 
latter in Vienna).

    But would an attack on Taiwan be a miscalculation?  If Clinton actually 
took on the Chinese, it would be an astonishingly close equivalent to Truman 
stunning his own Department of Defense (not to mention the Russians, Chinese, 
North Koreans, and everyone else) with his surprise decision to intervene 
militarily in Korea.  And that, after personally supervising the effective 
demobilization of the U.S. war machine in the post-WWII years.  A situation 
very much like what we have today . . . .  
I mean, it would be like deja vu all over again.

    uh oh.  aw shit

Mike

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Col Michael E. Haas, USAF, Ret.
Tel:  775-833-1508
Fax: 775-833-1608
Author,  In the Devil's Shadow: UN Special Operations during the Korean War, A
pollo's Warriors:  United States Air Force Special Operations during the Cold 
War, Air Commando!  1950-1975: Twenty-five Years at the Tip of the Spear
Member, Special Operations, Special Forces, Air Commando, The Ranger Regiment 
Former Intelligence Officer Associations, US Army Infantry Officer School 
Hall of Fame