Tea at Trianon: How China Helps Iran Kill Americans

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Friday, May 22, 2026

How China Helps Iran Kill Americans

From AND Magazine:

On March 1, 2026, Iranian Shahed drones struck a U.S. command center at Port Shuaiba in Kuwait. Six U.S. Army reservists from Iowa were killed. Dozens more were injured, suffering traumatic brain injuries and shrapnel wounds.
No unclassified forensic examination of the remnants of the drones in this attack has been completed to our knowledge. More generally, however, the construction of Iranian Shahed drones has been documented extensively, and it has been well established that while these weapons are ultimately fully assembled in Iran, many if not most of their key components come from China.
The engine used in the Shahed drone is a copy of one originally designed in Germany. All of the engines are now made in China. Several different Chinese companies are involved, including Xiamen Victory Technology, Xiamen Limbach Aircraft Engine Co., Harbin Bin-Au, and Jinhua Hairun.
Xiamen Victory Technology is so proud of its contribution to the construction of Shahed drones that it even includes imagery of the drone on its website for marketing purposes. While the United States was bombing Iran, Xiamen was continuing to send marketing emails to Iran and focusing on expanding sales. (Read more.)