All you folks who support the Chinese are invited to the Pit.
Yeah! We don’t want no dissenting opinions here! You’re either a true-blue American, or you’re a stinkin’ commie! And all you commies can go to the Pit!
Sheesh. Again.
I’d considering asking if some folks could consider the possibility that some folks trust neither the Chinese government or the Bush administration in this mess, but I keep getting drowned out by the singing of the “Star-Spangled Banner”…
Do you even read any of the posts here? I have already said that I’m not happy with the handling of this diplomatic crisis by the present administration. What bothers me is the lack of respect you’ve shown for people risking their lives for your freedom. If you had even bothered to read the OP I posted in the Pit, you would have seen that I regard the freedom to dissent as the epitome of being American. I don’t see your posts as being honest dissent so much as Jane Fonda-like aid and comfort to the Chinese. If you had calmly and honestly explained what the Bush administration is doing wrong in this affair, I’d be all ears ( well, eyes), but you haven’t done that.
You have shown contempt for the lives of service members being held captive in China.
You have been shown to be untruthful in your previous posts with no acknowledgement of or apology for your errors.
Instead of using logic and reason in refuting the points made in this debate, you have written snide and sarcastic posts that obfuscate the discussion at hand.
Exactly what points are you trying to make?
rjung…don’t go to the pit, there’s no need. Just this morning William Buckley’s editorial (and he’s a very well known conservative) questions the need for our government to continue the use of outdated reconnaisance flights in Southeast Asia just like the one that has gotten us into this mess. They were a fine way of doing this sort of dirty work when no other methods were available but now our technology has advanced well past the lumbering plane with a couple of dozen odd passengers buzzing a foreign power’s coast line. The sattelite pictures of recent days back this up.
Chris Matthews in his editorial this moring talks of his recent trip to Hanoi and the national sensibilities of the Vietnamese people. He visited the Hanoi Hilton which is now a shrine to the people who were tortured and lost their lives during the French colonization. He calls for kid gloves when dealing with Asian nationalism. He compares it to the sentiments of the Jews and Hitler’s Holocaust, and our own African Americans and their aversion to slavery.
You are not an idiot or a traitor to question US policy in Asia. You are also not alone. You are also well within your rights to question the behavior and policy of a president that barely made it under the wire to become leader of this country. He does not have a mandate from the people of the United States to force his right wing policies down our throats. He also does not have the right to undue years of advances in foreign diplomatic policy with his arrogant tactics. (See what the Canadian prime minister had to say about him last week, and what everyone else is NOT saying.)
I have never “supported” China in their efforts to strong arm us in this matter. But it is patently obvious to me (and I don’t think it’s un-American to say so) that we have laid ourselves wide open for this kind of trouble. I will state again that the Chinese are not stupid about playing these kind of games. What suprises me is that we did not expect something of this nature from them. Now we have to do damage control and get our people back. I say and still do that our initial reaction to this incident just dug us a deeper hole.
Most experts think this will eventually work itself out. Mainly because the Chinese national interest is more focused these days on their domestic situation. They do after all have over 100 million unemployed. Economic interests will eventually prevail. We may find that in the long run China’s motives for escalating this incident was not so much directed toward us but an attempt to divert internal conflicts toward national pride.
Do not address posters that no matter how hard they try, anyone that disagrees with them is either a bigot, an idiot or a traitor. (Makes me chuckle just a bit.)
Needs2know
Needs2Know,
Thanks for restoring the element of debate in this thread.
All due respect to William F. Buckley, but I think the old guy’s been out of the loop since the Ford administration. Why are we still making coastal recon planes when we have satellites? Evidently, there must be a reason, such as the possibility that such flights give us valuable intelligence that satellites can’t provide. Just as a guess, I’d say the difference between using satellites and collecting sigint from an EP-3 is analogous to looking at a mobster through a pair of binoculars, and actually listening in on his conversation through a bug at his table.
I’d agree that Asian nationalism is a very volatile force, and needs to be treated carefully. I wouldn’t agree that we should automatically lie down and be a doormat in every confrontation however. Look at the apology we made for the embassy bombing–that didn’t do anything to cool down Chinese nationalism, did it? Sometimes it takes a short sharp shock to make a country and its population understand the reality of the world outside. To do otherwise would be to act as an “enabler”. (Does that make sense?)
I don’t think anyone argues that you or whats-his-face don’t have the right to criticise the administration for its handling of this incident. What I think gets under people’s skins is the fact that you don’t back up your assertions with anything resembling rational argument. If you simply want to rant against Bush and tell the world how much you despise him and his cowboy ways, that’s fine, but this isn’t the appropriate venue. Take it to IMHO or the Pit instead.
And one more point:
I’d argue that this is precisely what makes the present moment so dangerous and unpredictible. The current Chinese regime has propped up its mandate to rule with two pillars: (1) giving its people a better standard of living, and (2) appealing to their nationalistic pride. The US could easily deal China a double whammy in this incident by humiliating its military (by showing up the inadequacy of its air force) and hurting its economy (through sanctions or failure to pass permanent MFN status). But could lead directly to a coup d’etat and the installation of a really unfriendly, militaristic regime in China.
Needs, your last statement shows exactly why you just don’t get it.
You think that what the spy plane was doing was “dirty work”. Bull. It was not dirty work, it was honest. Exactly what was so immoral about it? Don’t give me that “spying is wrong” line. Spying is neither wrong nor right in itself, it is not enough to label what they were doing as “spying” to show that it was wrong.
You (and your kind) have not and cannot refute the following:
- Our plane was flying in international waters.
- If one person broadcasts radio transmissions, it is not morally wrong to recieve those transmissions, even if the broadcaster doesn’t want you to listen to them.
- Our plane had the right to request an emergency landing in China because otherwise they would have died.
- It would be wrong for us to apologize because we haven’t done anything wrong that would require an apology, unlike other situations in which an apology was warranted and given (the Japanese fishing boat incident, the embassy incident).
And finally, I’m tired of you claiming that we find you ignorant, bigoted, and un-American simply because you don’t agree. This is just another tactic, claiming to be persecuted. Enough with the “poor me” pose.
First of all I have to disagree that William Buckley is any more “old” (or antique as I like to call them) than the Republicans running this country right now. They are all from the same “cold war” generation. I also cannot imagine that he’s less informed about foreign policy or military affairs than any of us.
Next please do not give me any more bulleted text about how we were in international waters on a recon mission etc. I know all of that. I did not call this a spy mission. The American media has called this a spy plane from the very beginning. If you take issue with the “spy” aspect I suggest you write CBS, NBC, CNN, etc. maybe if they’d correctly named this a “reconnaisance flight” then the public perception would be different. (Hey they can be wrong remember the election results.)
Also the simple idea that some might question our policies in Asia is nothing new. How far we’ve come since the 70s when our behavior in Asia was a very important issue. Some people might find it ironic that we defend our position about “keeping the peace” by selling arms to Taiwan, even now. I find it almost funny that while we are working an arms deal with Taiwan an American defense contractor is building on Hainan island (a mile away from where our plane is parked) a facility that will track nautical traffic for the Chinese. (Of course the defense contractor claims to be a “global company” and the tracking system is supposedly designed to track shipping traffic.)
The real truth is I’m not sure exactly how I feel about our Asian policies. My uncle spent 10 years working for our government in the Phillipines. His wife is Phillipino. Neither of us thought that it would do the Phillipino people any good economically for us to pull out our bases there. But we had angered the people (and not the first time, Iran comes quickly to mind here) by dealing with Marcos and his regime for so long. And I’m sure there were other reasons that I haven’t studied.
The fact is that our difference of opinion does not hinge on a difference of the facts, but a difference of what we should do about them. I don’t really disagree with us taking a strong military stance. But what I think some of you need to realize is that there is a certain segment of the population that does not see the reasoning behind distributing arms as a means of “keeping the peace”. And certainly there is a perception in many other countries that we say one thing and do another. That is really all I have been saying.
Needs2know
And for – what? the 12th time in this thread? – I will ask Needs2Know and others who feel as he/she does:
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How the Bush administration has handled this in a bad way, diplomatically; and
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How, specifically, better diplomats (which apparently means “Democrats”) would have handled it differently.
As I noted in another thread, Bill Richardson on “Hardball” last week said the Bush administration has handled this whole thing “just right.” Richardson, a Democrat, is a former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, and until about two months ago, was a member of Bill Clinton’s Cabinet.
Failure to address this specific question again will tend to indicate there’s nothing behind your debate stance but standard, partisan vitriol.
N2K, I just love your posts. They’re fascinating and chock full of interesting things. A couple things I want to point out:
The sat pics of recent days back what up? That recon flights that ‘buzz a foreign power’s coastline’ aren’t needed? You’re right. They’re not. We have no recon flights that do this. While I can’t get into specifics, I think the closest we get to another country’s coast line is in the Gulf (Iraq) and on the Korean Peninsula. And even then, there’s a pretty good buffer zone for safety of the plane and aircrew.
So, back to the sat pics. Just 'cause we get some good imagery we shouldn’t be flying recon flights? Did it ever occur to you that, while the EP3 may collect visint (optical stuff), it’s primary role is that of sigint (signals intelligence)? So, militarily speaking, saying a good imagery satellite negates the need for sigint recon flights is wrong. Very wrong. Do we have satellites that pick up sigint? Probably. But here’s something you have to consider: a) They’re in space. Not too sensitive. Having a platform at 25000 ft, looking at signals before they have a chance to bounce around the upper limits of the atmopshere, is helpful. You’d be surprised at the stuff we see vs. what a sat is seeing. I know I was. b) Some or all may not be in geosynchronous orbits, severely limiting their collection time. The EP3 sits there for hours at a stretch. c) The sats are machines with no human in the loop. The EP3’s… “passengers,” as you put it… (I call them “aircrew” out of professional respect… I’d love to put you into the aicrew training pipeline and see how well you do) give it the flexibility and focus that the sats lack. It also gives you much more advance warning or feedback with someone on the plane who is trained to recognize certain things and report them to the people that want/need to know, and do this within a minute or two of the event happening.
Do we have sats that can do all this? No. Is this stuff an important tactical advantage? Yes.
And another thing:
These are interesting words indeed coming from one who wrote this:
and
You didn’t call this a spy mission? Wow. I must not be able to read anymore, because it certainly looks to me like you did.
Honestly, there’s too much other stuff in your posts to pick at, so I’ll stop here. I could go on forever, I think, if I had the time.
I think Needs2Know is actually serving a useful purpose in this thread, namely to show how the media’s portrayal of events tends to obfuscate things in the popular mind.
OK, now there’s yer trouble, son. William F. Buckley, Colin Powell, Condi Rice, and GW Bush are very different animals indeed. It’s easy to think of “Republicans” and “Conservatives” as being members of some monolithic institution, all smoking cigars and swapping tales of the
Cold War over at the country club, but it’s not true. But, indeed, by watching any other news station but Fox, you would probably get that impression. Along the same lines, Salon.com goes so far as to equate Timothy McVeigh with what it likes to call the “gun-worshiping zealots” who constitute the majority in Middle America. It’s much easier to demonize those who disagree with you by dismissing them as “all the same”–and that’s what the media does, by and large.
FTR, I believe that Buckley himself has issued disclaimers to the effect that he has no inside line on the current administration whatsoever. I do think he represents a completely different mindset than the one prevelant in the current administration.
I think what Needs2Know means to say here is that she’s not the one who started calling this a “spy mission” from the very beginning–she’s right, the major networks have been using that potentially inflammatory phrasing all along. No wonder the poor thing was confused, until we at the SDMB enlightened her.
Our relationship with China is indeed complicated–even more complicated than I thought, if Needs2Know is right about the US military contractor working on Hainan. Is there a cite for this?
Now that you put it that way, I don’t think your point is that far off at all.
I don’t have a site for the story about the tracking system because I heard it on the news. I don’t watch Fox. I go home and catch Hardball and the one after with Mike Barnicle on MSNBC or the MSNBC news, and CSPAN. The night that they showed the sattellite pictures is when they announced that Lockheed or Boeing or someone like that was there building a tracking station. I’m sure someone can find it on the internet somewhere.
Chris Matthews had Buckley on last night. I say “nevermind”, when I see that guy in interviews I can never understand a damned thing he’s talking about! Way the hell over my head. I’m not sure anyone else understands him either. Chris Matthews looked a little stumped himself. He does come across a little easier to understand in writing however.
Yes, I’ve been hearing that Bush has been handling this thing just right. I’m not sure I agree with that completely. Especially since I’m pretty convinced that he’s handled some of his other foreign affairs with a little less finesse. Let me state again that the tone he set before this latest incident has not helped our position gobally, even if he is doing the right thing now. It also hasn’t instilled much confidence here at home or around the world for our military to have made so many terrible mistakes lately. (Please don’t tell me AGAIN that it happens often enough. I know, but we’ve had the bad luck of a little “cluster” of accidents lately that are still fresh in everyone’s mind.)
Oh and BTW…you guys did not enlighten me to anything. I’ve simply been doing my own looking and listening. I completely tune out rabid comments of “traitor”, “idiot”, and the like. I also do not bother to “re-read” things I already know. You see I can remember a time when our government was not always that open and above board about their involvement in other countries affairs. I can remember a few times we were caught not exactly taking the “high road” when it came to foreign countries, human rights, and global conflict. Perhaps I’m being naieve but I feel like we should try to be as honest about our position as possible. I also hope that once this incident is resolved that we can take a better look at our policies concerning Asia. I’m sure some will believe now that we need even more military presence in this area. I plan to pay better attention to the issue myself.
Needs2know
N2K:
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And when asked why, specifically (and repeatedly), you offer nothing.
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So, the Bush Administration’s handling of this is bad because you disagree with their stance on the Kyoto treaty about carbon emissions? Or is that why China is holding our people hostage?
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This I love. I’m fully prepared for four years of this. “Well, I don’t care if he’s doing everything right. He’s Bush, and I just hate the bastard.”
If the Bush administration is handling the China conflict the right way, the Bush administration is handling the China conflict the right way. Period.
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This has as much to do with what’s going on over in China as the Kyoto treaty.
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Ditto, babe.
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Your naivete is one of the few things you’ve demonstrably proven. But I would like to know how the U.S. is being dishonest about its position.
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I’m not exactly sure what this means. You seem to, yet again, allude to something that the U.S. was doing wrong in this region, either policy-wise or in this particular incident. But your allusions appear to be, well, illusions.
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I guess that depends on whether more and more aircraft and ships are going to be harassed militarily by the Chinese, as they attempt to assert their will over the South China Sea. Now that would be destabilizing to the region.
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Glad to hear it.
N2K,
I will admit that my Pit comments were harsh, but as I pointed out, I was venting my emotional response to some of the comments made in this thread.
The most frustrating aspect of this thread has been is that despite having limited knowledge of the military, Sino-American diplomatic history, or international law, you insist on having opinions that no fact can change. You had your mind made up that America must be wrong and that big business was behind it all, even after I showed you how wrong you were.
Some pointers for you:
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TV news provides very shallow coverage of news compared to print. I suggest turning off the tube and picking up The Washington Post.
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Try listening to others instead of thinking you know everything. Flyboy88 and others repeatedly told you facts about military surveillance, that our plane was over international waters, that the Chinese pilot provoked the incident, yet you have steadfastly refused to listen.
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If you come to GD, provide more than handwaving opinions.
You have not given a single cite for any of your statements
so far. We’re on the Net, it’s not that hard to scour MSNBC.com or CNN.com for some relevant info to back up your posts. Opinions are not facts. -
You have consistently made statements that were dead wrong and then ignored corrections of your errors. in
Our plane had to land on Hainan Island or go into the ocean.
[/quote]
But we’re over there buzzing around protecting our interests in Taiwan now aren’t we?..Can we use Taiwan and American Imperialism in the same sentence class?
[/quote]
Taiwan is a free, democratic semi-state that still exists because we have protected it for 50 years. Would you like to their freedom snuffed out? I’ve been to both China and Taiwan; trust me, there’s a difference.
You conflated collateral damage during an airstrike in Belgrade, an accident where a Japanese boat IN OUR WATERS was destroyed and profound apologies were made by the US government, and a military incident provoked by the Chinese.
What saddens me is that you have no respect or concern for people who are being held captive by a foreign government as a bargaining chip against your own country.
I’m so sorry to have offended you again goboy with my supreme ignorance, or is it really a difference in ideology? You see I’ve looked at flyboy’s posts. Sorry but greater minds than I have suggested that to call this mission “recon” is simply mincing words. After all there was a cryptologist on board, and sensitive equipment that had to be destroyed. This may not “prove” that we were spying but it certainly does “imply” that is what this thing is all about. I also take issue with you suggesting that I have no care for our military personell that are being held. I do, but perhaps when it comes to this I’m not quite as naieve as you. These are military personell, that is their job, and they know it. I am not moved by the pleas of their families. That one woman, I can’t remember her name, should not even be given the time of day, talk about betraying her country. Her son is a solider, that is his job, his chosen job. He wasn’t drafted. To even suggest that we compromise our position in this matter to save a handful of people who have enlisted to do this very thing is un-patriotic. She’s the one calling for us to apologize.
I also think it is very naieve of you to believe that we can always get away with doing anything we want, i.e. spying and getting caught, and then not have to deal with the consequences. (I know, we spy all the time, but THIS time there was an accident that has brought it fully out in the open.) So the Chinese have been pushing the envelope, being aggressive toward us on these “missions”. Certainly our government must have had some kind of inclination that we were annoying them. Yes, these are just my opinions but they are not off the wall from out in left field. How is it that we did not have some idea that the Chinese might be waiting for an opportunity to try and discredit us? I hope since you “read” the Times and such you’ve also noticed that none of our “friends” (friendly nations)have commented on this incident. Unless it’s happened today and I haven’t heard it yet. But many of them have made comments about this current administration being arrogant, i.e Kyoto. Naieve once again to think that Kyoto and other slights this administration has handed out before this incident will have no baring on our diplomatic relations. Once again, the global community may not necessarily care WHAT we are being arrogant about, they just simply see it as arrogance.
Why you refuse to see that it’s fine for us as Americans to excuse, justify or determine that our recent military accidents have no baring on this is fine. Go ahead and wave that flag! But the rest of the world may not be thinking along those lines, particularily those who might have a little bone to pick with us. Duh! We can excuse this all day long but our detractors might just love the opportunity to make us look bad. And BTW…what the hell are you talking about…we have a sophisticated piece of military equipment surface on a boat load of kids out fishing and you imply that they were at fault. You have gone off the deep end on that one. We also dragged our feet about apologizing, the accident was so stunningly bad for us. Don’t make yourself look silly with this one, it’s beneath you, I hope.
I’m sorry GB but I am right about one thing. Read your Times look at the myopic news reports…all of them say this thing will be eventually resolved because “economic” issues will win out. Gee! economic, that means money matters right?! I might have had the players wrong but the tune is the same.
Needs2know
Oh and last time I looked this is Great Debates not General Questions. This forum is for opinions. You might not think mine are backed up by fact. What fact? The fact that we played footsie with despotic rulers world wide for years until their citizenry rebelled. The fact that despite their “human rights” violations, Tibet and their supposed threat to other Asian nations we have been trading with China? How about our selective involvement in “human rights” affairs world wide. Why are some countries worthy of our intervention and not others? No one here has really given me any clear cut, absolute reasons why we should be spying and dealing arms with any of these people. No one has given a very compelling reason why we should be the watch dog between China and the other Asian nations other than, they’re communist. Oh boy! the Evil Empire again, the Red Tide. We played an economic waiting game with the Soviets and their evil empire finally collapsed in on itself. The “experts” are saying we’ve been playing the same game with China. If so, why the need for such an advanced military presence in Asia? Why the need to arm these countries? Are they covered under the 2nd Amendment too? Some people do question the wisdom in these policies, I am not the only one.
Needs2know
Nobody denies that the plane was gathering information. I believe Flyboy88 used the word “recon” as a professional term. “Spying” sounds like subterfuge and deceit, which is a slur on our military.
I have consistently said that we must not apologize because that will set a very bad precedent. I said you were insensitive to our military being held hostage because up til now you have said that the Chinese are in the right. By the way, “naive” means to be credulous or gullible. I leave that to other posters to judge which of us that describes.
An accident caused by Chinese aggression; what part of that don’t you understand? We were over INTERNATIONAL waters when the Chinese pilot hit our plane. They had no right to intercept our plane since we weren’t in their bloody territory. How many times do you have to be told that? Again, you blame the US when this incident is the fault of a cocky, hotshot Chinese pilot.
Again, as Milossarian pointed out, the abandoning of the Kyoto treaty has no relevance to this incident. Yes, it’s bad, but it is irrelevant. It has nothing to do with what’s going on. Can you please separate your hatred of George W from the facts? I didn’t vote for him either, but I can give the man props for chilling from his earlier, intemperate comments.
Nope, just using a bit of N2K logic. You have repeatedly said that our plane had no business being even 65 miles off the coast of China, so by your own reasoning, the Japanese ship had no business being in our waters. CaptainWaddleapologized for the accidental sinking of the Ehime Maru. The U.S.governmentapologized to the Japanese and paid $11,000 dollars in hospital bills for the victims. Yep, that’s U.S. arrogance. Colin Powell called the Japanese Foreign
Minister less than 12 hours after the incident happened to apologize. How is that “dragging our feet”?
I reiterate: you do not know what you are talking about. You inject half-understood TV news and your own anti-US and anti-military opinions into a forum where facts and citations are required. You have yet to submit a single citation to back up your breathtakingly uninformed assertions, which again been shown to be wrong.
Opinions are not facts!
Cite, please? If you mean that business leaders are worried about a Chinese trade embargo, you’re right. If you mean that your previous assertion that America’s trade with Taiwan keeps us allied with Taiwan, you are, of course, wrong.
Oh and last time I looked this is Great Debates not General Questions. This forum is for opinions. You might not think mine are backed up by fact. What fact? The fact that we played footsie with despotic rulers world wide for years until their citizenry rebelled. The fact that despite their “human rights” violations, Tibet and their supposed threat to other Asian nations we have been trading with China? How about our selective involvement in “human rights” affairs world wide. Why are some countries worthy of our intervention and not others? No one here has really given me any clear cut, absolute reasons why we should be spying and dealing arms with any of these people. No one has given a very compelling reason why we should be the watch dog between China and the other Asian nations other than, they’re communist. Oh boy! the Evil Empire again, the Red Tide. We played an economic waiting game with the Soviets and their evil empire finally collapsed in on itself. The “experts” are saying we’ve been playing the same game with China. (Oh that’s right, I got that off the tv news not the NY Times. Sorry it must be wrong, but wasn’t that a senator I heard talking? One on the foreign affairs commitee, never mind.) If so, why the need for such an advanced military presence in Asia? Why the need to arm these countries? Are they covered under the 2nd Amendment too? Some people do question the wisdom in these policies, I am not the only one.
Needs2know
Of COURSE we spy on China. Why? Because they spy on us. Sorry if some of you don’t like it, but that’s the way the ball bounces.
Also just read an interesting {url=“http://www.startribune.com/viewers/qview/cgi/qview.cgi?story=83949636&template=natworld_a_cache”]article about how the incident ocurred. It seems that the pilot of the F-8 was playing games and lost. Which, unfortunately, is one of the tragic rules of the game.
Of COURSE we spy on China. Why? Because they spy on us. Sorry if some of you don’t like it, but that’s the way the ball bounces.
Also just read an interesting {url=“http://www.startribune.com/viewers/qview/cgi/qview.cgi?story=83949636&template=natworld_a_cache”]article about how the incident ocurred. It seems that the pilot of the F-8 was playing games and lost. Which, unfortunately, is one of the tragic rules of the game.
And as I’ve said since the beginning–
Of COURSE China is being difficult with us. Why? Because we’d be difficult with them, if the situation was reversed. Sorry if some of you don’t like it, but that’s the way the ball bounces.
Unfortunately, all the flag-waving “real Americans” in this thread don’t want to hear this, because it indicates that America is not a paragon of fair play and honesty – which is an unpleasant truth, but a truth nonetheless.
(At this point, I’d really like to see China return our spy plane to us in a dozen crates, just to make the point. It’d certainly give the Soviets a chuckle, though I’m sure most folks won’t remember when we pulled the same stunt.)