Upon reading about the bloodied victims staggering toward safety following the terrorist bombing in London, I had a chance to recall the recent displays of righteous indignation from mostly US senators -- mostly Democrats -- at reports that prisoners in Guantanamo Bay were being subjected to sleep depravation. I myself was very apprehensive at how awful it must have been for those poor terror suspects to not even be afforded the chance to eat a properly cooked meal.
My thoughts subsequently wandered off toward recollections of the Abu Ghraib prison scandal, and I experienced a renewed sense of shock at the thought of US soldiers actually daring to place a pair of panties on a prisoner's head. Further on I reflected upon the many audacious declarations from progressives in academia intimating a certain empathy for the insurgents' heroic resistance in Iraq.
I thought of the legion utterances from the intellectual Hollywood elite and liberal pundits condemning US President George W. Bush for cautioning that terrorism not be treated as the mere nuisance that another presidential hopeful had earlier suggested it was.
Eventually I lulled myself into a peaceful slumber, partly induced by the comforting notion that we are simply witnessing the effects of what is at root, a mere social malady of negligible proportions. Nothing a little therapy and diplomacy wouldn't remedy.
Miguel Guanipa
Whitinsville, Massachusetts
In a stark reminder of China’s persistent territorial overreach, Pema Wangjom Thongdok, a woman from Arunachal Pradesh holding an Indian passport, was detained for 18 hours at Shanghai Pudong Airport on Nov. 24 last year. Chinese immigration officials allegedly informed her that her passport was “invalid” because she was “Chinese,” refusing to recognize her Indian citizenship and claiming Arunachal Pradesh as part of South Tibet. Officials had insisted that Thongdok, an Indian-origin UK resident traveling for a conference, was not Indian despite her valid documents. India lodged a strong diplomatic protest, summoning the Chinese charge d’affaires in Delhi and demanding
Immediately after the Chinese People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) “Justice Mission” exercise at the end of last year, a question was posed to Indian Ministry of External Affairs spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal regarding recent developments involving the exercises around Taiwan, and how he viewed their impact on regional peace and stability. His answer was somewhat perplexing to me as a curious student of Taiwanese affairs. “India closely follows developments across the Indo-Pacific region,” he said, adding: “We have an abiding interest in peace and stability in the region, in view of our significant trade, economic, people-to-people, and maritime interests. We urge all concerned
In the past 72 hours, US Senators Roger Wicker, Dan Sullivan and Ruben Gallego took to social media to publicly rebuke the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) over the defense budget. I understand that Taiwan’s head is on the chopping block, and the urgency of its security situation cannot be overstated. However, the comments from Wicker, Sullivan and Gallego suggest they have fallen victim to a sophisticated disinformation campaign orchestrated by an administration in Taipei that treats national security as a partisan weapon. The narrative fed to our allies claims the opposition is slashing the defense budget to kowtow to the Chinese
In a Taipei Times editorial published almost three years ago (“Macron goes off-piste,” April 13, 2023, page 8), French President Emmanuel Macron was criticized for comments he made immediately after meeting Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) in Beijing. Macron had spoken of the need for his country to find a path on Chinese foreign policy no longer aligned with that of the US, saying that continuing to follow the US agenda would sacrifice the EU’s strategic autonomy. At the time, Macron was criticized for gifting Xi a PR coup, and the editorial said that he had been “persuaded to run