"L'audace, l'audace, toujours l'audace."

Napoleon, and later General George Patton made "Audacity, audacity, always audacity." a famous phrase encouraging bold courage in the face of great challenge. In the same vein, blog friend Mark of Zenpundit has shown intrepid audacity for calling attention to the rogue beast roaming the strategy room in the White House for the past eight years.

It is the elephant in our strategy room - if the elephant was a rabid and schizophrenic trained mastodon, still willing to perform simple tricks for a neverending stream of treats, even as it eyes its trainer and audience with a murderous kind of hatred. That Pakistan’s deeply corrupt elite can be “rented” to defer their ambitions, or to work at cross-purposes with Pakistan’s perceived “interests”, is not a game-changing event. Instead, it sustains and ramps up the dysfunctional dynamic we find ourselves swimming against.

Mark is writing about a post that he linked from Dawn.com. The post itself is worth the read are many of the 200 comments. The comentary penned by Mark is masterful and as several of his readers note, is "spot-on." I think that his words ring out like Jefferson's metephoric "fire bell in the night," calling to, "America’s bipartisan foreign policy elite" to heed the warning before the mastodon turns on it's audience.

Read more: None Dare Call it A Rogue State.

After reading both Mark's post and the linked article, take the time to join the discussion or better; send a copy to your congressmen, senator, or even the White House, with a note that we are all watching and waiting for them to act with the same intrepid courage of those who call for this discussion.

December 7, 1941

December 7, 1941

Coast Guard Cutter Taney Dec 7, 1941

Coast Guard Cutter Taney, Baltimore

USS Hoga, 2007

USS Nokomis, Pearl Harbor, December 7th

This is a rerun of my post last year on December 7th, 2008. The message is eternal.

Each year the memory of The Pearl Harbor Attack, 7 December 1941" fades away as each soul who was touched by that event, passes on. This is true not only for the ever dwindling memories of those who lived to experience the event, but of the fading memories of the children who were raised on the recollections of their parents. The third and forth generations barely know what happened on that day and how it effects their lives today.

Today, December 7th Pearl Harbor Day, is remembered mostly by those above, and historians who with each graduation class, produce fewer who care about the study of war.

Taking a look back, it is important to recognize that we preserve the primary evidence of this seminal event in American History. Slowly decaying below the waters of Pearl Harbor is the symbol of that day the USS Arizona (BB-39). In a few decades she will embody the words "dust to dust" as she in her own way returns to the earth that emitted the ore that built her.

There was over one hundred warships and dozens of yard craft in Pearl Harbor on December 7th. Today, there are just three surviving vessels from that day. The best preserved is the US Coast Guard Cutter Taney the only surviving vessel who actually took part in firing back at the attacking planes. The Taney went on to serve in both oceans during the war and after the war, returned to being an patrol cutter with active duty in Korea and Vietnam. She was retired after fifty years of service, and is preserved in Baltimore Harbor as a reminder of her honored past.

There are two lesser known surviving vessels. True to their reputation for toughness, they are both tugboats. The Tug Hoga served in Pearl Harbor during the war and went on to a second career as a fireboat for the City of Oakland, California. Today, she rusts amid other laid up warships in the Suisun Bay Reserve Fleet, while waiting to be transferred to Little Rock, Arkansas where she is to be displayed in a World War II memorial.

The USS Nokomis (YT-142), has an even more interesting story. On duty in Pearl Harbor December 7th, she fought fires and rescued personnel from the water from the outset of the attack. She went on the serve as a yard tug during the war and then spent her elder years as a tug in San Francisco bay. A few years ago she was purchased in an auction in 2002 by Melissa Parker, who then founded the Historical Tugboat Education and Restoration Society, HTERS Home, USS Nokomis. The society is working to restore her to wartime livery, with the funds raised by offering educational cruises on one of her sister tugs.

It is important to preserve these few links to our past. Holding history in your hands and walking the decks of such vessels gives a window to pause and step back in time to have a brief moment to understand the events through the view point of those who were present.

Two other blogs also pause today to look at those less remembered.

EagleOne remembers one ship and it's crew who have been lost to history, in this post entitled: Sunday Ship History: 12-7-41

Somewhere in the miles between Tacoma and Hawaii, a steam ship plods through the ocean. Thirty-five souls are aboard in transit between one place and another. The ship's superstructure is white, her hull dark. She carries the name SS Cynthia Olson. Built in 1918, once named Coquina. She's now part of the Olson Shipping line out of San Francisco. A "steam schooner" they call her - all 250 feet of her. She's got a load of Army supplies and a thousand miles to to go to reach Diamond Head.

Two of the men aboard are in the Army, the rest are merchant sailors, some are veterans of a hundred sea trips, others newer to world of big oceans and little ships. Men on watch, men eating, men sleeping or reading or dreaming. A sailor smokes a cigarette. Another ties his boots. Casual chatter among the bridge watch and the engineers down below watch gauges and spin valves, adding or releasing steam, oil, water.

Out there at sea the ship is not alone. Unknown to the Captain or the crew, they have an unexpected companion. Suddenly a shadow rises from the depths and begins to attack them using a deck gun. The ship's crew radios for help, describing the gunfire from the submarine that suddenly appeared beside them at sea. The radio signal is weak and then gone - the message it carried is shocking - an unprovoked submarine attack on a merchant ship at sea.

CDR Salamander gives his readers a window on that day as seen from the people of Hawaii, in: Hawaii at war.

December 7, 1941 changed America forever in ways that have sent us plunging ahead into a vast new world of wonders and danger. It is important to pause and reflect back, before we loose all consciousness of those times.

600 Years of Naval Strategy

Zheng he's voyages 1405-1433

China's String of Pearls

Getting back into the daily routine after three weeks of what for a historian could only be dubbed the "mischief of historians," observing and collecting impressions to sound out what I already knew of the empirical data about China. I began to catch up on some of the blog posts that really caught my eye. One post by Galrahn jumped out at me because his headline put two two of my favorite subjects on the same line.

Let's begin by looking at his revealing post although small like a keyhole, would reveal a room of fresh ideas,China and Mahan.

Galrahn took note of his conversations with another blog favorite, Tom Barnett about the rise of China's interest in seapower. He then links an article from the Naval Institute's Proceedings magazine by James R. Holmes and Toshi Yoshihara entitled, Mahan's Lingering Ghost .

The key point of the article focuses on the real goal behind the theory of sea power by Captain Alfred Thayer Mahan. Their point is that Mahan saw maritime strategy in these terms.

Naval preparedness is the sharp edge of maritime strategy, then, but it is only a means to an end. For Mahan, commerce was the true path to affluence and national greatness: "War has ceased to be the natural, or even normal, condition of nations, and military considerations are simply accessory and subordinate to the other greater interests" they serve.17 Prosperity took precedence. The "starting point and foundation" for comprehending sea power was "the necessity to secure commerce, by political measures conducive to military, or naval strength. This order is that of actual relative importance to the nation of the three elements-commercial, political, military" (our emphasis).18

This is why nations covet access to faraway regions like Asia. In essence, commerce is about unfettered access to the means for producing wealth and national power. Reliable access is impossible without the military means to protect it, and to keep others from denying it. Mahan thus advances a tripartite concept, which we call his first "trident" of sea power. Access to sources of economic well-being-foreign trade, commerce, and natural resources-ranks first within the Mahanian trident, military access third. This cuts against the usual, military-centric understanding of Mahan.

I immediately took notice of this passage because during my recent trip I visited the Ming Dynasty Tombs, where 13 of the 16 Ming Emperors are buried. The Changling tomb of the third Ming Emperor, Yongle Emperor, has an exhibit that traces the acomplishment of this emperor, now considered one of the greatest in Chinese history. One exhibit is given prominence, and is centered to draw attention to Admiral Zheng He who under the sponsorship of Emperor Yongle led seven naval expeditions between 1405 and 1433.

My wife said that when she was growing up in China she could not recall ever hearing about Zheng He. Her recollection was of visiting the tombs as a girl as a way of having a grasp on how old their history was, but little focus was given to any acomplishments of the ancient ones. Since 2005 China has proclaimed July 11th, Maritime Day to commerate the date of Zheng He's first voyage in 1405.

Zheng he's ship compared to the Santa Maria

What was the motivation for these voyages? Not global conquest or imposition of their political system on their neighbors. The goal was to support the tributary system and promote trade and commerce. Historians are somewhat divided on why China ended the voyages and imposed the Hai jin order banning maritime activities. One thing is certain, today's China appears poised for the first time in 600 years to reach a level of power equal to the early Ming Dynasty.

How does this all square with Alfred T Mahan's theory? Let us look at the Yongle Emperor's goal. He wanted to gain respect and demonstrate to those in the extended region that China was the superpower because she controlled the seas. The result, would be tribute and commerce leading to prosperity and continued "national greatness" for China. A great plan, but in a world of a belief in the Mandate of Heaven manipulated by palace Eunuchs fate deemed a different result.

Fast forward 500 years to 1905 and Captain Mahan becomes a favorite of President Theodore Roosevelt who in 1907, sends the Great White Fleet around the world to demonstrate to the world that America had arrived and would secure the seas to insure safe commerce for the United States.

Today, it is understandable that strategists and historians in China are looking back at what could have been if they had continued to press their naval advantage. Armed with Mahan's principles of sea power and remembering the greatness that once was, China looks to ensure that this time they will protect their sources of trade and commerce in the same way that the Yongle Emperor through his agent, Zheng he envisioned. Alfred Mahan's proven strategy appears to fit nicely into China's matrix to regain what they see as their rightful place in history.

How do we Americans view China's rise and are we willing to adjust to a changing world. Recent polls conducted by the Pew Research Center has uncovered a distrubing new trend in American;s view of the world. Isolationist Sentiment Surges to Four-Decade High

The general public and members of the Council on Foreign Relations are apprehensive and uncertain about America’s place in the world. Growing numbers in both groups see the United States playing a less important role globally, while acknowledging the increasing stature of China. And the general public, which is in a decidedly inward-looking frame of mind when it comes to global affairs, is less supportive of increasing the number of U.S. troops in Afghanistan than are CFR members.

However, the percentage saying that the United States should “mind its own business internationally and let other countries get along the best they can on their own” has reached an all-time high of 49%. Four years ago, 42% agreed that the U.S. should “mind its own business” in international affairs; in December 2002, just 30% agreed wiHowever, the percentage saying that the United States should “mind its own business internationally and let other countries get along the best they can on their own” has reached an all-time high of 49%. Four years ago, 42% agreed that the U.S. should “mind its own business” in international affairs; in December 2002, just 30% agreed with this statement.th this statement.

As our nation seems to be turning inward and away from a world that for many Americans is both foreign and too troubled to be of our concern it would be wise to remember some of the reasons that China turned her back on the sea and in turn the world beyond her immediate borders.

At the same time that the voyages were being financed, the Yongle Emperor was building the Forbidden City which took 13 years and 200,000 workers to complete. Other government spending far outstripped the revenues. Most of the Great Wall was built during the Ming Dynasty to protect their borders. To better serve the new capital food needs, thousands labored to rebuild the Grand Canal. With so much money going out to fund government programs the country chose to turn away from what Chinese decision makers saw as a troubled world.

Here we Americans stand 600 years later, the strongest military and economic nation on the planet. We are overextended with massive spending programs that spread from military adventures to out-of-control social spending, coupled with bail out money spread to banks and the auto industry. The decision makers in the United States are the voters, and like the Ming emperors and their advisors, the burden of their own making threatens to contract into isolation at a time when renewing Mahan's strategy echoes from across the Pacific.

Draining the Swamp of Pristine Poverty

Chinese Armed Police


One of the rituals of Sundays past for many Americans was to settle in to a comfortable chair and digest the Sunday paper. Today, that role for me has been eclipsed by the internet where countless news links vie for attention. Usually I begin checking my blogroll, much like a trapper checks his trap line for the latest catch. My first stop today was Tom Barnett's blog where he offers this logic as to why we cannot continue along the path of being both the policeman and the social worker to the world without help.

Barnett begins:

Even if fewer troops are sent, or their mission is modified, the rough formula used by the White House, of about $1 million per soldier a year, appears almost constant.

So the math is easy: 40k troops for Afghanistan equals $40B.

This number has been around for a while, and I should have used it in all my books to make the point plain: We can play Leviathan given our force structure, but we are inherently limited by the same regarding the follow-on SysAdmin stuff, hence my oft-stated line that "America writes checks with its Leviathan that it can't possibly cash with its SysAdmin forces."

Tom's logic is spot-on, either we expand our tent to include those who have a vested interest or we will eventually retract our efforts until the next horrific incident prompts us to over react like a wounded bear.

Read more: The basic reality of America's limits to do the SysAdmin work

As I read Barnett's post, I was reminded of an article I read in the English language edition of China Daily during my recent visit to China. It was an opinion piece by David Shambaugh, a visiting Senior Fulbright Research Scholar at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences' Institute of World Economics & Politics on leave from George Washington University in Washington, D.C.

Mr. Shambaugh echoes much of what Tom Barnett has advocated for years that now is the time to enlist China in addressing mutual security matters. Here is a taste of where he sees opportunity for cooperation between China and the United States.

At present, two potential new areas of cooperation are Afghanistan and western Pacific maritime security. The first will require adjustments in thinking in Beijing, while the second will need adjustments in Washington and Tokyo.

China could provide a great deal of useful security, aid, and other humanitarian assistance in Afghanistan - if it decided to and Washington and its NATO partners welcomed it. To date, Washington has not asked and Beijing has been reticent to contribute. But China could allow the People's Armed Police (Wujing) to help train Afghan police (a pressing need), and the People's Liberation Army could perhaps even participate in the multinational military operations against the Taliban and Al-Qaida (also China's enemies).

(my inclusion of link)
Shambaugh's piece was written prior to Obama's visit to China, whether that visit produces the results that both Tom Barnett and David Shambaugh envision, remain to be seen.

Read more: What more can China do to boost ties?

As our new strategy is finally rolled out this week amid the timid behavior of our current allies who have either cut and run or are readying their excuses,resignations-over-kunduz-airstrike. Continuing down the same path will eventually exhaust the patience of the American public. The time is ripe to enlist those who have a vested interest in draining the poverty swamp of creatures that Tom Barnett describes as; "1) the dictators that must maintain it to maintain their power; and 2) the fundamentalists who must detach from this "evil" assimilation process that liberates women, "ruins" kids, and gives people all sorts of "dangerous" ideas."

China's Three C's Confucius, Communism and Capitalism

The past few weeks the blog has been quiet while I traveled to China to visit my in-laws and take time to absorb the massive changes in what is perhaps the world's most resilient civilization. I say that not as a card carrying Sinophile, but as a historian trained to steel himself to try and objectively examine each beauty mark and wart on the face of history. When I say resilient civilizlation, let’s look at the record. For almost 4000 years China has been ruled by one of eleven major dynasties. There were periods of war and chaos like the Spring and Autumn Period, Warring States Period and four hundred years of confusion between the Han and Tang dynasties before entering the 20th century as a weak caracture of it's former self. History of China

Recent Chinese history is filled with transition and change much like several of the periods between the successful dynasties. As the Qing Dynasty collapsed under the weight of internal stagnation, it's carcass was fed upon by the emerging great powers of the Western world. The 20th century saw China try and jump start what turned out to be a stillborn republic that ushered in the brief reign of totalitarism under the mantle of communism. China today, seems to be blooming in a  reawakening the great engine of humanity that has propelled her to greatness more often than almost any civilization in history. She retains the single party mantle, much like our own nation saw in the first decades, but the new creed is free market capitalism.

If one looks closely at China beyond the walls of the Forbidden City and back into her history, capitalism has always played a major role in propelling her civilization forward. Consider, the ancient trade route to Europe and the countless inventions as well as the voyages of Admiral Zheng he who sought trade and tribute before the age of sail. All these events served to inspire trade and ended in China becoming wealthy before and longer than any of todays Great Powers. People from all over the world flocked to the ancient capital, Xian and kept it the largest, most diverse city on the planet longer than any other city in history.

One of my blog friends Mark asked if I thought China was going to go the way of Singapore in a few decades. That is the unanswered question, can she sustain this awakening and direct it in ways she has never done before, or is she destined to give rise to a new Mandarin class where a privileged minority live extremely well at the expense of the masses that will eventually lead to decay, uncontrolled corruption and collapse.

Let us turn to the observation of others to help understand what is happening in China. Steve DeAngelis of Enterra Solutions blog has this timely post that contrasts the level of hope in the United States and what is now found in China.

The future held limitless opportunities. Everyone talked about achieving "the American dream." America doesn't seem to be dreaming as much as it used to. The Swiss have overtaken the U.S. as the world's most competitive country ["Swiss, not U.S., now the most competitive," by Elaine Engeler, Washington Times, 9 September 2009], China is predicted eventually to pass the U.S. as the world's largest economy, and unemployment remains in double-digits. The question is whether as a country the U.S. has lost hope in the future. That is the subject of an opinion column by David Brooks ["The Nation of Futurity," New York Times, 17 November 2009]. He begins his column by reminding readers that America was once the most hopeful nation on earth.

He goes on to quote from Brook,s article regarding the level of hope in China versus America.

The Chinese are now an astonishingly optimistic people. Eighty-six percent of Chinese believe their country is headed in the right direction, compared with 37 percent of Americans. The Chinese now have lavish faith in their scientific and technological potential. Newsweek and Intel just reported the results of their Global Innovation Survey. Only 22 percent of the Chinese believe their country is an innovation leader now, but 63 percent are confident that their country will be the global technology leader within 30 years.

The gist of Steve's post is that we as a nation need to find a path to becoming resilient, but currently he holds out little hope.

Given that Brooks and Herbert can see eye-to-eye, is it too much to ask U.S. politicians to find common ground on how to move forward, spruce up the country, educate America's children, employ its workforce, and instill hope in this and coming generations? I don't think so. I read that the election results in November didn't really tell us much about how the public was thinking -- except in one respect: the electorate is unhappy with incumbents. Hopefully, incumbents will get the message and begin to replace divisiveness with vision -- or maybe the whole lot of them will be thrown out during the next election.

Read more of this important post from Steve: Hope Infrastructure and the Future.

I can attest to much of what is been written in Steve's post and the articles he linked. Tom Barnett has compared today's China, to the United States in the period after the Civil War up to the early 20th Century. He is spot-on in his observation. All a person has to do to understand this, is visualize Beijing without cars and and instant reincarnition of our own past boomtimes comes into view. The Beijing is bustling with wealth and future modes of transportation competing with the old, just as our own pasttime saw horses and handcarts competing with trollys, gaslamps, early subways, conveying every class of citizen in a frenzy that saw people more interested in traveling to get somewhere and making a living, than loafing on street corners or hustling dope, as seen today on too many of America's urban streets.

China is no utopia, just as the United States was not perfect in our youth. The really troubling thing is that in our middle age as a nation we have become sloth and lost our national pride and the ability to dream of a better future.

This brings me to another example of how we need to find our way, courtesy of a book review over at Zenpundit. J. Scott Shipman has penned this review of The Genius of the Beast by Howard Bloom.

J. Scott's review jumped out at me because much of what Bloom writes about is coming to pass in modern China. Just as Western Civilization turns to navel gazing and self loathing about the system that in the long run improved the lot of billions of people.

Here some brief examples of how becoming a stake-holder in a society via economic prosperity is changing China. Two weeks ago, two snow storms struck Beijing and the northern proviences. 38 deaths, road and airport closures and clogged streets brought open criticism in the media of why the government did not warn or prepare for these storms. The complaining went on for a week after the incident, with government officials promising to investigate and do better next time. No Katrina event, but revealing to this observer that the govenment is taking the complaints seriousley.

Another example, is a growing Chinese pride in their national heritage. I noted before that there were no lines at Mao's tomb on a cold and blustery day. But the next day, when the temperture was even lower our journey to the Great Wall was impacted by a massive traffic backup of people traveling to an airshow. At the Great Wall, the temperature was well below freezing and the crowds, almost all Chinese had not diminished. The same was true when we visited the Terracotta Warriors, thousands of Chinese queyed up to visit this heritage site to remind themselves of their past achievements.

We may scoff at the idea of  people fawning over sites where thousands of their ancestors perished in the servitude of others, but those examples are a window on the pride being ignited in every Chinese soul that it is their time of destiny again. So as thousands of Chinese brave the cold winter's day to climb to tower #4 at the Great Wall in the opening photo at the top, we pause to look below at the reminents of hope from an earlier time that China will find a way to endure and prosper.

Reflections on China 2009

Grest Wall, Tower 4

Snow Day Beijing, November 9, 2009

Forbidden City, Beijing

Looking North to Qianmen Gate

Cable car to Great Wall

Great Wall

Strolling on the wall, 15 degrees and 20 mph wind.

The past two weeks my wife and I have been visiting her parents in Beijing, China and the blog has been silent. I am back now with thousands of impressions of China and how much she has changed since my last visit 6 years ago. The best way to narrate my travels is to describe our first days and what turned out to be the earliest winter in recorded Chinese history.

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When we arrived the sky was leaden and the temperature hovering just above freezing. Our driver whisked us from the airport along a modern expressway that soon slowed to a crawl typical more of Los Angeles Monday morning traffic than what I had last experienced in Beijing. The one thing that had not changed was urban travel which reflects every person for themselves; be they autos, bikes or pedestrians. Our driver threaded and honked his way to the hotel near my in-laws home in the Hadrian District home of dozens of universities. We settled in and after visiting my wife's parents turned in early to get a head start on the next day. We awoke find the city gripped in the worst snow storm in recent history. We laid low for a day and then set out the next day to visit the Forbidden City by taking a subway system that is as efficient as any in the world today. Two yuen, (28 cents) allows you to ride to your destination amid the crowds that saw over half the riders wearing surgical masks as a caution against contacting Swine Flu.

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The Forbidden City under a blanket of fresh snow is even more spectacular than it's summer livery. The contrast of white snow on the gold roofs and red palaces is amazing and serves to give an even more mystical aura to the home of two dynasties. The palace take all of a day to visit and absorb and is worth every penny of the entrance fee and the cost of a audio guide that does much better and is more accurate than the guides who offer their services outside the gate.

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The impression of Beijing is a city with part of the population in the 21st century and the rest deposited in each century going back hundreds of years. The contrast is stunning and ever present in all parts of the city. BMW's and Audi's share the road with thousands of taxis and pedi-trikes caring gross amounts of product balanced on their thin tires and bicycles who turn a deaf ear to the constant blaring of horns warning of an approaching car. Amid this chaos is injected millions of pedestrians who dart between the cars heedless of traffic lights. Amazingly I saw no one struck, and only one small fender-bender in two weeks of urban travel. I marveled that the road rage we are used to in America seems to be an unknown commodity in China. Part of this may be that people understand if they are hit it is their fault for not getting out of the way of the car or truck.

I would strongly concur with fellow blogger Thomas Barnett that he has never met a Communist in his travels to China. Those who can, are earning money hand over fist and are more adventurous capitalist than most Americans. Consider this from a report from China Daily Newspaper, there are over 440,000 millionaires in China with Beijing home to 143,000 millionaires and over 8000 billionaires. Of course this is in Yuen, but in dollars, China now counts 143 billionaires, second only to the United States. Chairman Mao's dream to find equality has been dashed on the rocks of Chinese history that now sees the rise of what can only be described as a new Mandarin Class who live a super rich lifestyle. The difference this time is that the common man now thinks that it is possible for him to reach that level via hard work and entrepreneurship by either building a better mousetrap or by being the guy who can market it.

The problem that glares out, is what to do with the rest of the country, approximately 800 million strong, who are just barely past the subsistence level of farming. If you bring them all on board and raise their lifestyles, they would make the over consuming United States look like monks in a monastery.

One stunning contrast is the line or lack of lines at Chairman Mao's tomb. My wife remarked that nobody cares about him except visitors who want to pretend to the communism still has the answers. Just south of Mao's tomb and beyond the Qiamen Gate lies a street that is lined with shops from every major brand. The street rebuilt to resemble an upscale Qing Dynasty channeling Disney's Main Street is separated from the squalor of small shops that border the back walls of those stores. Here you will find China in it's raw form, small shops on crowded narrow lanes hawking every kind of product imaginable. Turn left and a walk of fifty feet brings you back to upscale shopping. Again the contrast is stunning and not lost on this traveler.

Over the next week or so I will write more about my travels and what I saw and learned about China from being down in the street with the people and not on a tour bus or shepherded about by as a VIP. Before I close this post I want to note a bit about the hotel and many of our fellow guests. The Xijao Hotel caters to providing accommodations to many visiting foreign students who are attending either seminars or sessions at one of the 12 universities within walking distance of the hotel. Every day we took breakfast and found the dining room filled with students from the Middle East, Africa, Russia and Europe. We encounter no Americans, although they are present in small numbers. Most of the students staying in the hotel were there attending the Beijing language and Culture University learning to better their Chinese before moving on to other universities in the area.

If Americans are going to compete in the global market place we need to get them out into the world and build bridges before we find our nation surrounded by a rapidly gaining world that views us as having caused most of the environmental problems. The hype of Global Warming has rung like a gong in the ears of the rest of the world who now see America as the big consumer and driver of pollution and over consumption. It is ironic that China is now the #2 polluter and if their economy keeps up the pace they will overtake us in less than a decade for that title.

I have just scratched the surface of my impressions of China in 2009. As the days unfold I will continue to write about my experiences and share they on this forum.

Off to Zhōngguó "The Middle Kingdom"

The above term for those Sino-linguistically challenged is China in Mandarin. Blogging the next three weeks will be a bit sporadic while my wife and I visit her parents in Beijing. I will attempt to post a few reports and photos during our visit.

One reminder! Please continue to support Soldier's Angels. Even though I am on Team Navy, most of the wounded in these two wars have been Army and Marines and truly need our support. So let's all continue to pitch in and help our wounded by providing funds to buy voice activated computers so they can get reconnected to the world we all share.