Wednesday, March 23, 2005

My, That Was a Good Idea

China is honoring the Americans who flew for China before the US was pushed into World War II by Pearl Harbor:

China has erected a memorial to the Flying Tigers, a band of U.S. fighter pilots who defended China against Japan during World War II, the government said Tuesday.

The Flying Tigers were only about 100 pilots and 55 planes sent secretly by the US government (Hey Moveon.org, are you going to compare FDR to Hitler over this? Roosevelt lied! People died!), but provided much-needed air support to the Chinese government.

Given the importance of air power to dominate the Taiwan Strait and the shortage of Taiwanese pilots, I wonder if it isn't time to resurrect this fine idea and recruit retired American pilots (or other Westerners who have flown F-16s) to fly for Taiwan.

Taiwan might one day erect a memorial for the the Flying Falcons.

In an ideal world, all 1.3 billion Chinese might honor the Flying Falcons.