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[quote] “China is prepared to make joint efforts, enhance mutual consultations and deepen bilateral co-operation with the US in the fight against terrorism,” the foreign ministry statement said.
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So?
The increasing cooperation of the State Department and China on Xinjiang terrorist organizations marks a political crossroads for Taiwan. But who cares? 
I remain highly amused that the entire world is now engaged in a war against terrorism as a result of something bad happening to America. Some of us have been engaged in a war against terrorism for years. Without American money the terrorists in my little corner of the world would have only been able to kill a very small number of people indeed.
Very true. The Irish Republica Army (IRA) is still largely but secretly funded by Irish-Americans. But not one peep out of the US Justice Dept. Except for Patty Hearst and her old tiresome little band of wannabes. It seems Americans are such pathetic terrorists that even our ex-military veteran Timothy McVeigh needed to possibly solicit the support of the Filipino Islamic rebels. His wife was Filipino and a sidekick supposedly travelled into the remote area of Filipino rebels for an undisclosed purpose.
Those Muhajadeen were no true Allies during the Gulf War as some officers shared some of their tales of adversity, not goodwill, during the joint-operations in Iraq. Yes, America is a pathetic bunch except for the fighting Irish.
At the same time, the WTC attack was of a magnitude that shocked even cynical N. Irish people like me. It was kind of an open secret that America was unprepared for terrorist attacks, but this was far more audacious than expected (it was always going to be the anthrax bomb in the subway), and succeeded far beyond Beardface’s wildest dreams. Knowing what the horror of even a small bomb is like, most people in NI have a great deal of sympathy (not empathy) for the people of NY, and the security forces and firemen who will have seen the most horrendous things - things that ambulancemen and police here used to see regularly and thankfully see less of now. I was impressed to see that the US Govt did have a plan (albiet a nuclear attack contingency plan) to deal with the situation, and that Bush didn’t completely blow a gasket as I expected him to.
It is just a pity that the impression given is that terrorism is fine as long as Americans don’t get killed. A few Spanish children were killed in the Omagh bombing in N Ireland - if they had been Americans that would have been the end of the Troubles in Ireland. Period. The IRA has always been careful not to hurt American interests, and the FARC connection recently publicised has damaged Irish republican terrorism’s image amongst many high level supporters, who simply cannot be seen to support drug funded guerilla warfare. (The IRA-Libya-Cuba connection was never really widely known in America).
Essentially the problem is that Americans being hitherto free of external threat but yet seeking some sort of “common enemy” based social cohesion have had a tendency to fall in love with “freedom fighters” around the world. Of course it also manifests itself in hatred of blacks, communists, homosexuals, and what have you, but for the Irish American community there is a very convenient ready-made enemy - the “British”. Now we can add Brown Men with Beards. A less cynical person that myself may hope that this will lead to a more liberal attitude to all the other objects of hatred, on the basis that “well you may be a homosexual black communist, but at least you’re not a muslim”, but somehow I doubt it.
There is a very serious pitfall of American perceptions of the world. This is a large country with a relatively large population steeped in Eurocentrism. However, commoners have few inklings of the significance of anything in the outside world; just like with American English versus British English. In Asia, there is a China and Japan…what is Korea or Taiwan? Then there are two very common perceptions of China; 1. exotic traditional land of the Great Wall; or 2. a land of communist politics and totalitarian conformity. But the very fact that no one can authoritatively act upon the obvious Chinese threats to the American society posed by the obvious missile violations and corporate blindness to greed is the greatest insult to cultural ignorance. The PRC must think we’re a paper tiger at times based upon our society. Assessments based upon the prevailing cultural perceptions of the civilian population and civilian government have a serious disconnect from the military culture of the US.
News reports on the ineptitude of the federal intelligence community miss the decision makers in charge of these units. Embassies and military assets are repeatedly blown up but who cares? OK City is blown up by a domestic terrorist and the federal government still does not know how to deal with the social threat or even how to construct accurate “stereotypical” profiles of any aspiring terrorists. There has been clear evidence of terrorism and China issues for over 12 years, but they stuck their heads into the lines drawn in the sand in 1990. Oh, no problem except the self-perpetuation of American stupidity in a vaccuum of total igorance. Part of this failure is greatly attributable to a newer generation shift in leadership, but the rest is the American parochial environment is disconnected from the rest of the far bigger world realities.