Soooo, Sorcha:

Just whose propaganda have we been copiously sucking up here, Komrade? Dan Ratherski, Brian GumBall, Opra....

"When you're wrong, you're wrong. US was seemingly at fault."

That's pretty much the Party line all right; the Chairman is no doubt proud of you.

Have you ever seen one of those P-3 ORION recconisance planes (NOT a "Spy" plane when it is operating in international airspace, by the way)? We have a Naval base nearby in Brunswick, Maine and the old turboprop birds can be frequently seen lumbering sedately along. To claim that a US pilot could even intentionally "swerve" into a fighter fet faster than even a Pilot-Trainee in an obsolete interceptor could take evasive action is as absurd as the proposition that said EP-3 Pilot would be INSANE enough to even attempt to ram another aircraft in flight!

One of the Taiwan Newspapers claimed shortly after the incedent that they monitor radio transmissions between US bases and aircraft, and that after the accident the damaged EP-3 attempted to return to it's base (they can fly one of those things on one engine, and they had at least two apparantly still running). They were instructed by the surviving Chicom F-8 to proceed instead to Hianan Island, and a burst of machine-gun rounds sufficed to convince the US Captain that he meant business. They essentially "invaded Chinese airspace" at gunpoint as PRISONERS OF WAR! This report was of course quickly squelched, but I think after the hostages are safely on US soil the truth will come out.

Do you ever READ anything other than what your handlers spoon feed you, or do you just watch TV? Just wondering.

You might be interested to know that much more credit for the ChiCom capitulation (they settled for much less than they originally demanded) than the Politicians, Diplomats, or Military is being given to a quickly spreading general BOYCOTT of Chinese goods by American Consumers fed up with China's arrogance and aggression in holding our US Servicepeople hostage. It seems that Wally-Mart and other high rollers in the international economics game started taking it in the shorts and called off thier Komrades behind the Great Wall before it really got out of hand.

I'm proud to have been not only a participant in this imprompteau"Citizen's Initiative", but one of the local instigators as well.

You're welcome!

For God and Country: "Uncle Jaque"