ISIS had hundreds of thousands of fanatical troops and billions of dollars, Joe Hung said. The world would just have to live with the Islamo-Nazis’ new Thousand-Year Reich, he insisted. Because ISIS would bring peace and love and understanding to the Middle East, just like all the Caliphates did before it.
Oh, and never you mind about the lowly infidel (Yazidi and Christian women) relegated to sexual slavery to soldiers of the Master Faith. Yazidis & Christians are little people, and in Joe Hung’s world, the rapes of a few thousand little people are well worth the price of the grand Middle Eastern Utopia he assured us was just around the corner.
A few of Joe Hung’s mighty, invincible rapist-terrorists. After their defeat. Why, they look ten-feet tall, don’t they just?
#ISIS lost nearly 6000 terrorists in #Raqqa, then surrendered in large numbers. Once purported as fierce, now pathetic and a lost cause. 4/6 pic.twitter.com/JV9EFywqd4
"Perjury is the intentional act of falsifying an affirmation to tell the truth, whether spoken or in writing, concerning matters material to an official court proceeding. Contrary to popular misconception, no crime has occurred when a false statement is intentionally or unintentionally made in court while subject to penalty. Instead, criminal culpability only attaches at the instant the declarant falsely asserts the truth of statements which are material to the outcome of the proceeding."
You sound very knowledgeable and erudite and…hey, did you just copy all that from Wikipedia? Because here's Wikipedia on perjury:
"Perjury is the intentional act of […] falsifying an affirmation to tell the truth, whether spoken or in writing, concerning matters material to an official proceeding. Contrary to popular misconception, no crime has occurred when a false statement is (intentionally or unintentionally) made while under oath or subject to penalty—instead, criminal culpability only attaches at the instant the declarant falsely asserts the truth of statements […] which are material to the outcome of the proceeding."
"Statements that entail an interpretation of fact are not perjury because people often draw inaccurate conclusions unwittingly, or make honest mistakes without the intent to deceive. Individuals may have honest but mistaken beliefs about certain facts, or their recollection may be inaccurate, or may have a different perception of what is the accurate way to state the truth. Like most other crimes, to be convicted of perjury one must have had the intention (mens rea) to commit the act, and to have actually committed the act (actus renus).
Furthermore, statements that are facts cannot be considered perjury, even if they might arguably constitute an omission, and it is not perjury to lie about matters immaterial to the legal proceeding."
"Statements which entail an interpretation of fact are not perjury because people often draw inaccurate conclusions unwittingly, or make honest mistakes without the intent to deceive. Individuals may have honest but mistaken beliefs about certain facts, or their recollection may be inaccurate, or may have a different perception of what is the accurate way to state the truth. Like most other crimes […] to be convicted of perjury one must have had the intention (mens rea) to commit the act, and to have actually committed the act (actus reus). Further, statements that are facts cannot be considered perjury, even if they might arguably constitute an omission, and it is not perjury to lie about matters immaterial to the legal proceeding."
Hung maintains, quite wrongly, that Chen's testimony was immaterial to the conviction of Fung. Why exactly he should think so is rather a mystery, for Chen claimed to have been on the phone with Fung the entire time the rape occurred.
If Chen's claim was indeed truthful, Elmer Fung should have been exonerated. The innocence of Fung in a court of law hinged upon Chen Peng-jen's testimony, making that testimony material by definition.
As for the actual evidence used to convict Chen Peng-jen of perjury, Joe Hung is light on specifics.
On the one hand, phone records no longer exist that would corroborate Chen's testimony (leading Hung to suggest there wasn't enough evidence to convict Chen).
But on the other hand, Chen claimed he spoke with Fung while on the way to the American Institute in Taiwan to pick up a passport with a new visa.
The only problem with his story was that AIT was apparently closed that day. Oops!
But before I close this discussion of convicted perjurer Dr. Chen Peng-jen, there's one sentence in Hung's column that almost deserves some kind of award for its deceitfulness:
"No questions were asked of Professor Chen to defend himself [at his perjury trial]."
The impression that Hung clearly is trying to convey is that poor Chen Peng-jen was railroaded, and his conviction was a terrible miscarriage of justice.
When instead, what most likely happened is that the prosecutor asked Chen to take the witness stand, and Chen declined to testify in his own defense.
Whether that decision was his alone or done in accordance with the advice of his lawyer is – dare I say it? – immaterial.
Postscipt #2: A quick backgrounder on Elmer Fung. Some from memory, some from Wikipedia. (And NONE of it plagiarized, I hasten to add):
In 2003 / 2004, Fung was the vice-presidential candidate in Taiwan for a minor party advocating unification with Communist China. (His "New Party" received very little support in that election, garnering a meager 17,000 votes out of 13 million cast).
But a few months before the election, Fung's Filipino maid accused him of raping her. Fung insisted the sex was consensual, and claimed she framed him by fishing out his used condom from the toilet and depositing it in a wastebasket for the police to discover.
[About this: It should have been pretty easy to verify Fung's claim by having lab techs determine if the condom had been contaminated with toilet water.]
A very sordid he-said-she-said situation. Who to believe?
For me, that dilemma was solved when Fung fired the maid, and paid her a "bonus" of something like 6 months salary? [about $24,000 USD]. (That was all above board – no one knows how much he paid her under the table.)
Because of Taiwan's immigration laws, the unemployed maid was required to return to the Philippines. Once out of country, it'd be difficult for her to testify against Fung now. And on top of that – mirabile dictu! – the maid signed a sworn statement withdrawing her accusation. Ain't it grand what a little hush money'll do?
Nevertheless, the case was brought to trial.
Which resulted in his conviction.
Which was subsequently overturned.
A couple years later, he'd be convicted again. Only to win in a later appeal.
Anyways, I lost track, but apparently there were 7 trials held between 2005 & 2016.
Frankly, I was unaware that Taiwan's supreme court found him guilty in 2016, and sentenced him to 3 1/4 years in prison. And I also didn't hear that he only spent 85 days in prison before being released on medical parole.
But it does lead one to wonder though: will Chen Peng-jen the KMT perjurer spend more time behind bars than Elmer Fung the New Party rapist?
"In most jurisdictions, the false statement made by the individual must have been important to the case. For instance, a witness who lies about his whereabouts during the crime is committing perjury."
China and many other nations of Asia hope the [United States’ next president] can shift back to the Middle East again to contain the newly formed caliphate by peaceful means rather than force of arms. [Emphasis added]
Barack Obama should stop his Crusade against ISIS now, demands Hung:
Obama still has time to reconsider [his] new Crusade, lest he should repeat President Bush's folly by getting the United States mired ever more deeply in the Middle East quagmire.
A competent historian would never say Obama was engaged in a Crusade, for the simple reason that Obama's not trying to recover formerly Christian lands in the Middle East.
(It helps, when one accuses another of launching a Crusade, to have some familiarity with the actual DEFINITION of the word…)
Moving along, ISIS's grotesque little apologist in Taipei asserts the Islamofascist group cannot be fought because it's invincible:
Even supposing the new Crusaders succeeded in toppling the IS caliphate, suicidal terrorism could never be stopped. Caliph al Baghdadi has ordered a jihad. There would not be any lack of mujahideen. Hundreds of thousands of his followers are willing and ready to die in a holy war against the Western imperialists who they believe are launching the new Crusade.
No, 'fraid not. A caliph's religious and political legitimacy rests necessarily upon his control over TERRITORY. Remove his control over land and his legitimacy vanishes. After which, the orders of a phony caliph carry no weight.
Speaking of al-Baghdadi's legitimacy, supermajorities in Middle Eastern countries have a unfavorable opinion of ISIS and regard al-Baghdadi's self-proclaimed position as illegitimate. Read into it what you will that an agnostic Confucian like Joe Hung finds al-Baghdadi more legitimate than the vast majority of Muslims do.
Finally, Joe Hung suggests that because ISIS is invincible, it should be left alone to bring peace to the region, the way the Ottoman Caliphate did in years previous:
There was no trouble in the Middle East while the caliphs of the Ottoman Empire ruled it for more than 400 years.
This is all highly unconvincing, since according to Islamic law, a caliph is REQUIRED to wage at least one war every year against Infidel nations.
An ISIS caliphate is therefore likely to create A GREAT DEAL of trouble outside the Middle East, regardless of what happens inside. (Just as the Ottomans made incessant war on Eastern Europe and the Balkans.)
And as for his fanciful prospects of ISIS pacifying the Middle East, Joe Hung forgets the presence of 6 million Jews and many more million Shiites in the region, whom ISIS is unlikely to leave unmolested.
Um, you said "rapes" twice.
POSTSCRIPT: Joe Hung invents "facts" to satisfy his narrative:
As a matter of fact, one result of the Crusades, during which Jews were massacred by Crusaders in a pogrom, was the birth of Zionism, which finally triumphed with the creation of Israel. [Emphasis added]
Comrade Historian is apparently unaware that Zionism (like many other forms of nationalism) was largely a product of the 19th century.
The United States tried to contain the Soviet Union in vain. [Emphasis added]
Nice tin foil hat. Really goes with the suit.
In the same paragraph, Comrade Historian also rewrites the history of Asia to better suit his Zhongnanhai-directed Communist narrative:
Uncle Sam continued to contain Mao Zedong’s China after the chairman had sent his army to fight the Korean War. The containment did not work, of course, and it took President Richard Nixon ending it to pave the way for concluding the normalization of relations between the United States and the People’s Republic in 1979. [Emphasis added]
Now, I’m no doctor of history, but I DO know multiple sources confirm that no Soviet army overran Western Europe in 1963. Nor did any Chinese Communist army step foot in Taiwan.
So whaddya know? Maybe containment DID kinda work after all, huh?
UPDATE: Perhaps credentialed (but uneducated) Comrade Historian Joe Hung confuses the strategy of Containment with that of Rollback?
Because they are two very different things, you know. Not that a PhD-holder from Georgetown University could ever understand such highly-advanced concepts…
It took U.S. President Harry S. Truman — who had written off Chiang — to neutralize the Taiwan Strait right after the Korean War broke out in 1950 to prevent Mao Zedong from “washing Taiwan with blood.” With American military and economic assistance, Chiang was able to reorganize his defeated armies into a defense force strong enough to deny Mao a takeover of Taiwan by force…
That sounds suspiciously like saying Mao Tse-tung was successfully contained to me.
"Then, Mao sent his Army to resist U.S. aggression and aid Korea to fight the Americans in the Korean War…" [Emphasis added]
If it's a Joe Hung column, one expects bizarre Sinofascist Big Lies, and Hung fails to disappoint:
"…rising China…may turn out to be the true caretaker of the United States to keep world peace." [Emphasis added]
Yeah sure, Comrade Historian. That could happen.
But only if Beijing can exercise enough self-control to abandon its belligerent threats against its neighbors and drop its illegitimate territorial claims against Taiwan, Japan, the Philippines, Vietnam, Indonesia and India.
Oh, and resist the temptation to manufacture any NEW territorial claims…
The opposition party has been bullying the Hong Kong-born Kuomintang president since he was first inaugurated in May 2008. The bully preys on those who are afraid of him. As they show fear, the bullying gets all the more overbearing. It's a vicious cycle.
[…]
He has been a pushover for more than seven years, in addition to being labeled as an incompetent president. Actually, he isn't incompetent. He is a victim of the bullying.
Which leads to the inevitable question: If President Ma really is the spineless coward that Joe Hung declares him to be, why is it so difficult for his supporters to imagine that he'd capitulate to Communist China?
(Or is Joe Hung so divorced from reality as to believe that the Chinese Communist Party is a lesser bully than the DPP and the Sunflower Movement?)
"It was [Taiwan Governor] Ch'en Ch'eng who initiated one of the world's most successful land reform programs on April 12, 1949." — Joe Hung, A History of Taiwan. (2000). p. 261.
"Incidentally, no reform has ever succeeded in Chinese history." — Joe Hung, "Can Tsai Ing-wen win next year?" The China Post. February 23, 2015.
At least ONE of them is lying. But is it Joe Hung, or is it…Joe Hung?
Every presidential candidate promises reform. It's a hackneyed political cliche. Incidentally, no reform has ever succeeded in Chinese history. Can anyone build a corruption-free government? Corruption is universal, and no governments have succeeded in stomping out corruption and graft throughout history. Transparency in government is an ideal every democracy clings to, but has never fully achieved. [emphasis added]
All reforms are failures then, unless they deliver utopia. That's Joe Hung, setting the bar a little too high.
…will the grandiose Sunflower activists call it quits? They believe they are tough and strong, but there is another interpretation of “When the going gets tough, the tough get going.” It means: when the situation becomes almost impossible, those who are truly strong are wise enough to pull out, rather than being totally decimated.
Perhaps Joe Hung refers to a facetious screwball interpretation however, which suggests that apathy and cowardice are preferable to perserverance and resolution.
Understandably, such an aphorism holds greater appeal to a man who's sold his soul to the Communist Party of China:
