Donald Trump started the big troop drawdown in Afghanistan, but you wouldn't think so when you hear politicians across the spectrum talk about Joe Biden's gigantic error in bringing the troops home.
One of those potshots came from Sen. John Cornyn, Republican of Texas. On Twitter, he wrote that the "numbers indicate we had achieved stability with relatively small troop exposure, and a good recent track record without casualties."
For comparison, Cornyn noted the numbers of US troops in Taiwan, South Korea, Germany, Japan and Africa. Each had far more troops than there were in Afghanistan just a few months ago.
The post stayed up for 13 hours, till Tuesday, with a howler of a goof: Cornyn said that the US had 30,000 troops in Taiwan. Nope. The Senator added three zeros to the current total (not counting 15 civilians).
By the time Cornyn & Co. woke up to the error, China was rattling its jian. China insists that Taiwan is not a country but part of mainland China. They want it back.
"If the tweet is correct," said the Communist Party's Global Times newspaper, "China could immediately activate [the] Anti-Secession Law to destroy and expel US troops in Taiwan and reunify Taiwan militarily." Other zingers included "If there are US troops present on Taiwan island, China will crush them by force."
The Global Times' editor-in-chief also tweeted that if the figures in Cornyn's tweet were factual, "Chinese military forces will immediately launch a war to eliminate and expel the US soldiers."
As the State Department might (not) put it, "Shut UP, Senator!"
https://www.cnn.com/2021/08/17/politics/cornyn-us-troop-numbers-afghanistan-taiwan-fact-check/index.html
Art: https://openclipart.org/detail/285858/texas-state-flag-map
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