45 US Senators Want F-16s for Taiwan

Check this out.  More here. See the 45 senators' letter to Obama dated May 26.  While I'm gratified that 45 senators have some grasp of what's at stake, I'm pessimistic because the top leadership (*cough* Ma!  *cough* Obama! *cough*)  is simply so ... well, apparently clueless of said stakes.  Take a look at this piquant observation by Michael Turton:

The F-16s aren't coming here because the Ma Administration doesn't really want them and the Obama Administration doesn't want to sell them -- Ma is just making noise -- and because, as a friend of mine and I were just discussing tonight, there's a growing spirit of resignation in DC that Taiwan is circling the drain. Apparently everyone has forgotten the simple lesson that you don't make the monster smaller by feeding it. I'm glad I won't have to be the official who has to explain to the public why the US wouldn't defend 23 million people in an allied democracy with its own armed forces but will go to war over some uninhabited rocks in the ocean because of the US-Japan Security Treaty.

*Headdesk*  In a similar vein, one might see a parallel with another tiny country that is an embattled allied democracy with its own armed forces.  (At least that country has a decent head of state instead of the disgraceful squish that Ma is.)  At least both nations have some solid Congressional support ... but that's not enough.