Battlefield

Dear President Obama, It has been two weeks since Judge Brown said you need to act about 'purgatory'

Dear President Obama,

It has been two weeks of "political purgatory" now for 23 million people. Actually, the people of Taiwan have been in purgatory for over 60 years but now the District of Columbia U.S. Court of Appeals has made it official.

If you don't know what I am talking about you should. As a former law professor, I encourage you to read the court's recent decision in Roger C.S. Lin, et al vs. United States. The decision says you are to act before the court can proceed "expeditiously" to resolve the long-standing "strategic ambiguity" that the United States has imposed on Taiwan.

Another bit of reading you should undertake is Formosa Betrayed by George Kerr. Since you are so busy let me just share with you several paragraphs from the book dust jacket. You see, you inherited a foreign policy mess created and fed by all of your predecessors from Harry Truman on. Formosa Betrayed will shed some light on the problem.

"After the Japanese surrender in 1945, the Formosans, despite the Cairo Declaration, hoped for a guaranteed neutrality under American or international trusteeship. Instead, they were delivered over to another and more oppressive occupation. Their prosperous society was invaded by a horde of mainland Chinese, often brutal, ignorant, and greedy--the dregs of the Nationalist army. The new governor, under orders, bled the island dry, ruthlessly and with dispatch."

"Yet still the Formosans hoped. American propaganda, promising freedom to all oppressed peoples and citing the glorious Revolution of 1776, continued to pour in upon them. In February 1947 unarmed Formosans rose en masse to demand reforms in the administration at Taipei. Chiang Kai-shek's answer was a brutal massacre. Thousands died--first among them the leaders who had asked for American help. Washington turned a deaf ear, while the Chinese communists rejoiced."

"After Chiang's military collapse and retreat to Formosa the situation became even worse. As America's emotional commitment to Chiang became more fervent, Formosan hope for American or United Nations intervention or understanding faded and died."

So, Mr. President, the people of Taiwan suffer under "political purgatory" that "infects the population's day-to-day life" and you are tasked by the federal appellate court in Washington, D.C. to act. The 1952 San Francisco Peace Treaty left some unfinished business. Purgatory business. Now it is time for you to act to restore America's moral standing and end the "strategic ambiguity" that we created.

Michael Richardson

http://www.examiner.com/x-1969-Boston-Progressive-Examiner~topic72211-Taiwan?selstate=topcat#breadcrumb