China Olympics

[Harlan Huckleby]

Boy, you certainly are a wild-eyed radical.

I think a coordinated, symbolic gesture by a large number of countries would be a big deal to the chinese, much more so than an individual acting.

edit: it occurs to me that some people didn't read the article and don't know what we are talking about. SC is showing the signs.

[Scott Campbell]

What article?

[Joemailman]

Chancellor Merkel of Germany will not attend Olympics.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/mar/29/germany.olympicgames2008

[texaspackerbacker]

France, believe it or not, is acting all tough on this too.

There are a lot of good reasons to get along with the Chinese--about 1.3 billion of them. A troublesome relationship with them, of course, would be as bad or worse for them than it would be for us. The point, though, is that it would be bad for us--economically and potentially militarily.

And for what? A bunch of people in Tibet who aren't really all that bad off, a large segment of whom, I recently found out, are actually Muslims.

If Europe wants to make a big deal about this, let 'em. Just don't help 'em out--like they haven't done crap for us in Iraq against a REAL enemy.

[MJZiggy]

Aren't there places in Africa that need our intervention a whole lot more than Tibet? I would think a young redhead traveling in Africa should not need to worry her father quite so much as her voyage did.

[Harlan Huckleby]

What is happenning in Tibet is similar to what we did to the American Indians.

I am completely in favor of joining the euros in protesting the Chinese brutalizing thousands of monks.

Tex's observation that a lot of Tibetans are Muslims is passing strange. Do we only want human rights for Christians? I also am disturbed by the anti-Muslim talk in the other thread. This is new to me, never heard such attitudes towards another group (well, except for my own numerous racist remarks. ) Very foolish and ignorant. The largest Muslim country in the world is Indonesia, the second largest is India. The muslim populations in those places are not radicalized.

[Harlan Huckleby]

Aren't there places in Africa that need our intervention a whole lot more than Tibet?

Ya know, we're not talking about sending the marines. ITs just not attending a ceremony.

[oregonpackfan]

Our current regime will do nothing to pressure the Chinese on something as trivial as the Olympic games considering they have us by the balls financially.

Freak Out,

There is quite a bit of validity to your argument. During the past years, the USA has gone from a creditor nation to a debtor nation.

China is the largest creditor of our 9 trillion dollar debt. The last thing we would want to do is anger our major creditor and have them demand immediate payment to them. It would financially paralyze our country.

[Harlan Huckleby]

Actually Oregon, you got it upside down. Its the debtor that has the creditor by the balls!

Nothing get you more respect and attention in this world like being in debt. Then people are concerned about your welfare.

(I'm only joking, but there is considerable truth in what I say.)

[Deputy Nutz]

The USA is going to bring in all of their own food for their athletes for fear of contamination of their athletes and other health concerns.

[Harlan Huckleby]

Will they order out chinese?

[Deputy Nutz]

Will they order out chinese?

HA HA HA HA....
Not unless they want to fail their drug tests.

[texaspackerbacker]

What is happenning in Tibet is similar to what we did to the American Indians.

I am completely in favor of joining the euros in protesting the Chinese brutalizing thousands of monks.

Tex's observation that a lot of Tibetans are Muslims is passing strange. Do we only want human rights for Christians? I also am disturbed by the anti-Muslim talk in the other thread. This is new to me, never heard such attitudes towards another group (well, except for my own numerous racist remarks. ) Very foolish and ignorant. The largest Muslim country in the world is Indonesia, the second largest is India. The muslim populations in those places are not radicalized.

What we did with the American Indians was conquer them, just as nations and ethnic groups have been doing to other nations and ethnic groups since the dawn of civilization. And we did it in a relatively more compassionate way than most other conquerors in history. The counter-examples to that compassion were aberrations, few and far between, and far less aggregious than atrocities perpetrated by the Indians. That is reality undistorted by wrongheaded political correctness.

It goes against the grain for me to side with China--basically STILL Red China. However, the new menace to basic decency and civilization in the world is Islamic fundamentalism. And that menace is even attacking yesterday's primary evil--Communism, as embodied by China.

Oh yes, Tibet is primarily Buddhist, and the Dalai Lama is a much adored man of peace, etc. But the Dalai Lama himself has made the statement that many of the troublemakers do not represent him. In fact, some percentage of them, I have to confess, I don't know how much, are Muslims.

I will not go so far as saying I condone the Chinese having a blank check to beat down the Tibetans. What I am saying, though, is that we don't really have a dog in this fight. There are a lot of evils in the world. To borrow a phrase from the non-interventionist liberals, we can't be the world's policeman--not all the time, anyway.

Combine that with the fact that China is an economic force that we need--almost as much as they need us, and it's best we stay out of this mess. Let the damn Europeans act macho if they feel up to it.

Harlan, I wholeheartedly agree with your response to Oregon about the debtor being in the catbird's seat over the creditor--both on the international scene and in many cases, micro-economically too.

[Freak Out]

Don't ever mess with the sacred flame fools!

Turned Off by Torch Guards

Beijing Battles Accusations of Rough Tactics by 'Sacred Flame Protection Unit'

By Edward Cody
Washington Post Foreign Service
Friday, April 11, 2008; A12

BEIJING, April 10 -- As protesters besiege the Olympic torch on its global tour, a phalanx of tall, tough-looking young Chinese men in blue-and-white running gear have vigorously protected the flame -- too vigorously in the eyes of those who consider protest a constitutional right.

With their steely demeanor and strong-arm tactics, they have become a symbol of what is going wrong for Chinese authorities who had hoped to make the 2008 Beijing Games a worldwide celebration of China's friendly new face.

Sebastian Coe, chairman of the Olympic organizing committee for 2012 in London, called the men "thugs" and said they had pushed him around when the flame passed through the city Sunday. A spokeswoman for the Paris police, Marie Lajus, said the men had failed to coordinate with local authorities when they grabbed the torch and put out the flame during protests in the French capital Monday. One torchbearer described them as aggressive and robotic; another called them tense and irritable.

A San Francisco police spokesman, Sgt. Neville Gittens, said city authorities debated whether to allow the Chinese guards to participate in the ceremonies planned Wednesday for the torch's only stop in North America. In the end, the guards stayed, but the torch was secretly rerouted to avoid protesters.

Fleeing the public and accusations of thuggery were not what Beijing municipal and Olympic organizing committee authorities had in mind last August when they held a public ceremony to swear in the Beijing Olympic Games Sacred Flame Protection Unit. The special squad was made up of closely vetted volunteers from the special forces academy of the paramilitary People's Armed Police, state-controlled news media reported.

Resentment of the Chinese guards in London and Paris was heightened by apparent efforts to maintain secrecy about who they were. After the complaints in London, British police refused to be specific. Police in Paris said they were not really sure.

Olympic officials in Beijing, meanwhile, said the guards were specially trained student volunteers but did not say from which school. China's Internet censors also removed long-standing online reports of the August swearing-in ceremony.

At the time, the reports said the volunteer policemen were chosen for their height, proportion and good physical condition. The reports also said the young men had received special training in five foreign languages -- learning words such as "back" and "forward" -- and were taught good manners, as well as how to drive cars and motorcycles in convoys along crowd-lined streets.

Jacques Rogge, president of the International Olympic Committee, said in Beijing on Thursday that surrounding the torch with private security agents has become "standard practice" in pre-Olympic relays. He did not differentiate between private security and China's People's Armed Police, which has been used extensively in recent weeks to put down protests in Tibet and other Tibetan-inhabited areas -- the conflict that inspired most of those demonstrating abroad as the torch passed.

China's civilian and military authorities have joint command over the People's Armed Police, nearly 700,000 men and women assigned to protect foreign embassies in Beijing along with suppressing riots, controlling the border and fighting fires. But their standard police tactics for China, where state authority is enforced with an iron hand, were bound to not play well during the Olympic torch's stops in London, Paris and San Francisco.

"China's Thugs," said a headline in London's Evening Standard newspaper. "Flame farce with Chinese heavies, jogging police and riotous demos," the Daily Mail said.

Against that background, Michael Phelan, the police chief in Canberra, Australia, told reporters that the Chinese squad would have no role when the flame stops in the Australian capital April 24, despite reports of planned protests.

Other stops where the flame's guards appear likely to be tested are April 17 in New Delhi, where India's large community of Tibetan exiles will have access; April 26 in Nagano, Japan, a country with a tradition of open demonstrations; and May 2 in Hong Kong, where residents are used to challenging Beijing. The torch will be in Buenos Aires on Friday.

Within mainland China, authorities have vowed to go ahead with a relay leg in Tibet, including an ascent of Mount Everest, despite the violence last month in Lhasa, the Tibetan capital, and plans for protests by Tibet independence campaigners. But Olympic organizers have refused to be pinned down on dates for the climb.

The Beijing Organizing Committee for the Olympic Games has not told foreign correspondents whether they will be able to cover the Tibet leg. As things stand, foreign journalists have been barred from entering the region, where People's Armed Police have been deployed in large numbers.

The impression left by the Olympic torch guards in London and Paris illustrated the gap between Chinese authorities' idea of crowd control and those of societies with guarantees of free speech and assembly. When the torch arrived in Beijing on March 31, the Tiananmen Square welcoming ceremony was untroubled -- mostly because People's Armed Police had closed the venue to anyone without a pass.

In addition, the senior Communist Party officials responsible for China's Olympic preparations have little experience of foreign societies and their values. The two top Olympic officials -- Xi Jinping of the Politburo's Standing Committee and Liu Qi, the Beijing party secretary -- rose through party ranks in provincial assignments.

Kang Xiaoguang, a sociology researcher at Beijing's Renmin University, said Chinese authorities appear determined to prevent protests, by foreigners as well as Chinese, during both the domestic torch relay and the athletic events in August. Some might argue that the Chinese government would gain by tolerating demonstrators, but that is not the way officials in Beijing think, Kang said.

Moreover, the official mood appears to have hardened since the rioting in Tibet. Since the violence, in which 22 people were killed, Chinese authorities have harshly condemned foreign news media and supporters of Tibet.

When House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) seemed to encourage demonstrators in San Francisco, for instance, a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman, Jiang Yu, accused her of lacking "morality and conscience." Jiang added, "It is clear that kind of person has ulterior motives to disturb and sabotage the Olympic torch relay in San Francisco and elsewhere over and over."

Correspondents Mary Jordan in London and John Ward Anderson in Paris contributed to this report.

[Harlan Huckleby]

i don't agree w/ protesters mobbing the torch runners. that ain't right. I agree w/ the protesters' statement, but they have no right to vandalize. and the runner is not doing anything wrong, they just weigh things differently.