@SenDanSullivan Senator, you shall see what Cheng will say to turn her meeting with you to favor KMT’s position to side with CCP. Hopefully you are unlike other naive American.
#China's CG deliberately intruded into the prohibited waters of #Taiwan🇹🇼’s Taiping Island (Itu Aba), using #Japan-#Philippine🇵🇭 delimitation talks as a pretext. But the JP-PH EEZ overlap is more than 1500 km away. What a shameless bully!
On June 9, 1944, the French Resistance captured a senior SS officer named Helmut Kämpfe near Limoges. The next morning, his unit, the 2nd SS Panzer Division Das Reich, was looking for a response. They had already hanged 99 men from the balconies of Tulle the day before, chosen at random from townspeople, leaving them to strangle slowly in front of their families because they couldn't find enough rope for a proper drop.
Now they needed something more.
On June 10, Sturmbannführer Adolf Diekmann led his men to Oradour-sur-Glane. Some historians believe he confused it with Oradour-sur-Vayres, a different village where the Resistance was actually active. Others believe he knew exactly where he was. Either way, at 2pm his soldiers blocked every road in and out of the village.
They told everyone to gather in the marketplace for a routine identity check. People complied. A dentist came. A farmer left his fields. Schoolchildren were told by their teachers not to worry, they'd be back by dinner. A man cycling through town stopped to see what was happening.
By 2:30pm, around 650 people were standing in the square.
Then the soldiers separated the men.
The women and children were marched to the church. The 190 men were divided into six groups and taken to barns across the village. The mayor, Dr. Paul Desourteaux, reportedly tried to negotiate. There was nothing to negotiate.
In the barns, the soldiers opened fire but aimed deliberately at legs. At thighs. At knees. The goal was not to kill but to incapacitate. To ensure that when they piled straw over the bodies and lit it, nobody could crawl away. Men who were on fire and still conscious screamed while soldiers stood outside the doors.
Six men survived by playing dead beneath other bodies. One died from his burns days later. Five lived.
In the church, the women had been waiting almost two hours with the children. Soldiers carried in a large wooden box and placed it in the nave. They lit a fuse and left. The explosion released a thick, suffocating smoke. Soldiers then entered and opened fire on anyone still moving. Then they piled wood, straw, and chairs onto the bodies and lit everything.
The church bell rang for hours as the fire climbed the tower.
Women broke windows. Those who reached the ledge were shot before they could jump. One woman, 47-year-old Marguerite Rouffanche, crawled behind the altar, found a small window, and squeezed through. She dropped three meters to the ground. A 19-year-old named Henriette Joyeux saw her and followed, throwing her seven-month-old baby out first. Soldiers shot the baby out of the air. Then shot Henriette. Then shot Marguerite five times as she ran.
Marguerite survived by lying still beneath pea plants in a garden while the village burned around her. She lay there until the next morning. She was the only person to leave the church alive.
The youngest confirmed victim was seven days old.
After the killings, the soldiers spent the afternoon looting every building. Food, valuables, livestock, wine. Some burned homes with elderly residents still inside. Then they ate dinner. That evening. In the area.
The next morning, relatives from surrounding villages arrived looking for their families. They found 642 dead and a village of smoking ruins.
The aftermath is almost as horrifying as the massacre itself.
At the 1953 war crimes tribunal, 65 men were indicted. Only 20 could be found. Fourteen were Alsatians, French citizens, and Alsace threatened to riot if its sons were convicted. An amnesty law was quietly passed. Almost everyone walked free within a year.
Nobody spent meaningful time in prison for Oradour-sur-Glane.
By French law, nothing in the original village may be moved, repaired, or altered. The rusted cars sit in the street where they burned. The sewing machines are fused to the shop floors. The baby carriages are still there. The church stands open to the sky with a plaque listing the names of the children killed inside.
You can walk through it today.
82 years ago this morning, those 642 people had no idea. The dentist was thinking about his afternoon appointments. The teachers were relieved the children were behaving. The man on the bicycle was annoyed about the delay.
By 6pm they were all dead, and the soldiers who killed them were eating dinner.
Never forget Oradour-sur-Glane.
Chinese Harrassment in Waters East of Taiwan: Update: June 9
SHIPPING HARRASSMENT REFUTED BY TCG
At 11:00 AM, June 9, five Chinese government vessels—including the "Hai Xun 06," "Hai Xun 08," "Hai Xun 09," "Dong Hai Jiu 113," and "China Coast Guard 2202"—were located 40 nautical miles east of Pengjia Islet (12 nautical miles outside of Taiwan's restricted waters), continuing to head north and away from Taiwan waters. Taiwan Coast Guard's vessels are maintaining continuous monitoring of the situation.
Meanwhile, the Chinese government vessels broadcasted radio inquiries to three passing merchant and cargo ships regarding their port entry and departure details. Taiwan Coast Guard's vessels immediately issued a stern response, stating: "This area the maritime zone of Taiwan. China has no sovereign rights and no jurisdiction here. Maintain your normal navigation; There is no need to respond to broadcasts from Chinese government vessel. If you need any assistance, please immediately contact Taiwan Coast Guard vessels, via radio or other means of communication."
US Senate Majority Leader John Thune is pushing to make Taiwan as "prickly" as possible against Chinese aggression. The top Republican senator signaled his firm stance on bolstering the nation’s defense while confirming he will not meet with KMT Chair Cheng Li-wun during her current trip to Washington.
Hilarious! Does China remember being OVERWHELMINGLY RULED AGAINST BY THE TRIBUNAL IN THE HAGUE IN 2016?!
In the 2016 South China Sea arbitration case brought by the Philippines against China under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). The tribunal, sitting in The Hague under the auspices of the Permanent Court of Arbitration, ruled OVERWHELMINGLY against China’s legal position on several maritime claims. It found, among other things, that:
China’s “nine-dash line” claim had NO LEGAL BASIS under UNCLOS.
China had violated certain Philippine sovereign rights within the Philippines’ Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ).
Some Chinese activities, including island-building and interference with Philippine activities, were ILLEGAL. @MFA_China 🇺🇸
I got to see inside the heart of Ukraine’s new strategy.
This secret underground weapons factory in Ukraine makes hundreds of long-range drones every day.
Fire Points drones are hitting targets nearly 1,000 miles inside of Russia.
Ukraine’s President, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, says these deep strikes, which he calls “long range sanctions”, are changing the dynamics of the war in Kyiv’s favor.