Military cooperation crucial
MisperceptionsWu Ming-chi's (吳明基) article ("US military cooperation a must," Aug 7, page 8) is an inside analysis of the military exchanges between Taiwan and the US. As an active duty military officer, I fully support his opinions.
I had the privilege to be selected as a military exchange student to study in the US on an ROC air force scholarship and I graduated from the Citadel. I had the opportunity to participate in many military exchange activities between Taiwan and the US military in recent years.
Under the Taiwan Relations Act, Taiwan is able to procure necessary defensive weaponry from US, via the Foreign Military Sales program, to defend itself. In the past decade, Tai-wan has acquired substantial amounts of military hardware from the US, such as F-16 fighter jets, M-48 tanks, Knox destroyers, etc.
US President George W. Bush has also approved the sale of diesel-powered submarines -- a move that is regarded as a major breakthrough in mutual cooperation. Without doubt, it seems we have everything we want in our arsenal.
Most people in our society prefer these big-ticket items because they symbolize strong firepower. However, defense experts know that it's more important for Taiwan's military to enhance the quality of its forces, especially in field training and mutual exchanges with US military. Through frequent routine exchanges, our officers at all levels will be able to learn a lot from their US counterparts. The more we interact with the US military, the better we will understand each other. It surely is a win-win deal for both sides.
For instance, the US military has conducted several successful military interventions overseas. How do they achieve these goals with minimum casualties? The success depends heavily on an integrated C41SR (Command, Control, Communication, Computer, Intelligence and Surveillance) architecture to support the whole operation.
Taiwan's military is moving to upgrade many of its operational systems but does not appear to have an unified, overall C41SR infrastructure to ensure that planned systems will operate together in a synergistic manner and provide the anticipated increase in overall defensive capability.
It doesn't matter how many more weapon systems we are going to procure in the future, what it counts is how well we operate the available hardware right now.
From the standpoint of the US' strategy, it expects Taiwan to stand as a reliable partner in Pacific region. Therefore, mutual cooperation by the two sides is an inevitable trend. To achieve this objective, Taiwan's military should reduce the gap which resulted from US-Sino struggles over the past decades.
Captain Frank Huang
Taoyuan
Misunderstandings
The article about a Canadian woman who was raped 10 month ago and still waits for the district prosecutor's response, in addition to having been treated so indifferently by the police, infuriated me no end as it reflected my own experience in this "international" city Taipei 100 percent ("Rape victim blasts prosecutors," Aug. 17, page 2).
I have been living in this city for more than five years and the amount of indifference which has confronted me every time I needed help from any given police precinct has left me incredulous, as if I was a black man in the south of the US during the 1960s. Almost every time, when I meet new people in the city, they automatically assume that I'm an English teacher in some kindergarten. If I were from Indonesia, certainly they would assume that I'm an au pair or something like that.
Many Taipei citizens, including the police, don't realize that not every foreigner coming to Taiwan is a low-salary worker, staying here only for a couple of months and then going back. A lot of foreigners are studying and working here on a very sophisticated level of professionalism and want to be treated in that way. However, the rule of law must extend to all people equally, regardless of their social-economic background.
If the city, including it's governmental branches, is unable to attract and keep professional people within it's territory, those very people responsible for this flaw shouldn't be surprised if the city (or country) falls even further behind on the international stage of political, economical and cultural competition.
Claudio Cariola
Taipei
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