Rep. Skelton Foresees Trouble Over Taiwan

[Jack Ray]

Rep. Skelton Foresees Trouble Over Taiwan
By Philip Dine, Post-Dispatch Washington Bureau
St. Louis Post-Dispatch
September 5, 2007

WASHINGTON -- Rep. Ike Skelton, the top House member on military affairs, has returned from a visit to China alarmed about the prospect of a U.S.-Chinese armed conflict over Taiwan.

Skelton, D-.Mo., led a congressional delegation to China that had nearly unprecedented access to top Chinese generals and their military equipment. He said Chinese officials made it clear that they were prepared to act if Taiwan's president followed through on his threats to push a referendum item on the ballot authorizing him to seek membership for Taiwan at the United Nations.

"They mentioned it several times," Skelton said in an interview Tuesday. "They're very concerned. They're just adamantly against that."

Asked if the message was that China would take military action against Taiwan if that happened, Skelton said, "Yes. I don't know when, I don't know how, but yes, I did get that sense."

China claims that the breakaway island is part of China and that China has the right to deal with the situation as an internal matter; the United States has long said it would defend Taiwan against aggressive action by the mainland.

Skelton said he told the Chinese that the U.S. government accepted the one-China position, but that it also had long been the U.S. position that it would defend Taiwan.

"Then what, I don't know. That's what really worries me," said Skelton, chairman of the House Armed Services Committee. "Right now, we've bitten off a lot in the Middle East. Our military, especially our Army and Marines, are stretched thin. We're on the verge of having a broken Army. To take on anything else would be very difficult."

James Carafano, a military expert at the Heritage Foundation, said Skelton was focusing attention on a legitimate concern.

"The way to guarantee an accidental conflict is to ignore the possibility of an accidental conflict," Carafano said. He added that it was important that China's leaders "hear the message loud and clear" that it would be "a massive strategic misjudgment" to assume that Taiwan would be "a free lunch," he said.

U.S. officials have increasingly worried in recent years about the military buildup in China, the world's most populous nation.

Skelton said he was less concerned about the buildup.

"They point out that it's only one-tenth of our defense budget; however, I have questions about how transparent that is. ... But I came away generally pleased with their openness."

[Mark Petersen]

I would not be surprised if Hillary wins in 08 then in 09 she will back off of that commitment. If Barak wins, I'd bet the bank on it. In fact if Barak wins I expect to see a whole scale reduction in US defense spending because a win by Obama would probably be accompanied by a wave of far left congressmen/women and Senators. Plus I don't put a lot of stock in the US defense spending vs China ratio. Look at the troop pay levels, wage rates in the US defense industry vs the PRC etc. Every thime I hear some idiot brag the old the US is the worlds largest arms exporter they are only looking at the dollar value. What is more destabilizing to a region. The US selling a wing of fighter planes or China selling or giving away AKs and RPGs

[Dustermaker]

i laughed when he said "On the verge of a broken army". What an idiot.

[Jack Ray]

i laughed when he said "On the verge of a broken army". What an idiot.

Ike Skelton has been one of the House's greatest proponents for a strong military for the past 30 years. If he says that the Army is on the verge of being broken, he is very well placed to know. Contrary to many of his colleagues, he is neither dishonest, nor a hypocrite.

Two of his three sons are career officers (Army and Navy). His son Jim (LTCOL) earned a Silver Star (a real one) during Desert Storm and is in Iraq again today.

Jack Ray

[Werner]

You can't push an army into combat year in and year out, without clear objectives and not see something break.

The men need time to regroup and absorb the lessons of this campaign. The service needs to replenish equipment, materials and supplies, and the other services need to have their share of investment restored, particularly the hard-hit Navy.

It's an army, not a police force.

Overthrowing the Hussein family was a good thing. Not having a clear idea of what to do after that was very bad. Possibly the worst blunder since WW.II.

Paul Bremer's "De-Baathification" was the greatest mistake of all.

Possibly the only light coming from this whole operation is the way dedicated Islamists have been throwing themselves into the US Army "woodchipper" in Iraq instead of causing mischief in Europe and the USA.

[Sten Ekedahl]

Paul Bremer's "De-Baathification" was the greatest mistake of all.

I can't help but recall the allied illfated de-nazification process in Germany after WWII where all former members of the Nazi party were at first prohibited from holding public office in the new German civil administration that the Allies tried to establish after the war. Gen. Patton - resposible for the southern part of Germany - quickly relized that in order to have been publicly employed in Nazi Germany you had to be a party member, even if you didn't sympathize with the Nazi ideology. But these people were the ones he really needed because they already knew the job. When trying to get this strict de-nazification policy changed, Patton - a man with many virtues, but unfortunately very often with a tounge faster than his thoughts - tried to explain this to a group of visiting American journalists, said that since pary membership had been "mandatory" for public officials in Nazi Germany, it shouldn't be regarded as being any different from being a member of the Democratic or Republican party in the US. The result was headlines in the US newspapers saying; "Patton: Nazis same as Democrats and Republicans"!

Patton was fired from his post for this, but eventually the Allies soon changed their policy and even dramatically shortened jail scentences for several German administrators and industrialists convicted for "war crimes" in order to quickly get post-war Germany back on her feet again in face of the emerging Cold War.

Knowing this piece of history, it immediately struck me as a huge misstake to enforce a strict De-Baathification and to dissolve the Iraq Army and Police Force after the war.

[Werner]

Precisely. If only Bremer had watched the movie....

Keeping the Iraqi army together and under unified command (with American paymasters) would have been an obvious way to keep them out of mischief.

They probably would have ended the immediate looting out of a sense of purpose and duty.