This is not for debate, as everyone already has a well formed opinion. This is to inform. Further, lest Chinese nationalists say that this is "pro-western propaganda," the sources here are from Al Jazeera (the ones that normally are very anti-US in their middle east reporting, so much in fact, that most US media outlets refuse to even allow them to buy air time) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sYwJ...ws/asia-pacific/2009/03/2009311541289689.html http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M9-UxOH1BnY http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bAHHqA-VNUY In a rush? For a quick synopsis, just read the red highlighted lines. In another non western news source: Recalling reports from last year's uprising: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W0zBkFBySyI http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RnBkD_1N1QE&feature=related Lest we forget, the PRC isn't just fond of subjugating Tibetans, they enjoy doing it to Chinese too. From historic footage found on the net: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yyj-3S_ulvI&feature=related http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XJBnHMpHGRY&feature=PlayList&p=8C6996EBA4B45E91&index=0&playnext=1 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dumTF1PbxRA http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZoPS5sM0qwE&feature=related If the Chinese government was willing to do this to their own people, what chance do the Tibetans have? PRC definition of Self Defense: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BkMcj4vQtRU&feature=related http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M1ET0NweFoc
Why is it not for debate ? You expect us to soak in all in without responding ? Woo dictatorial aren't we ?
Tibetians Protest against the Dalai Lama Himself. He is being called a Liar and that the protesting Tibetians claims he is acting like a dictator and practice discrimination. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OSTuUCrgBpo Watch this clip and decide for yourself.
Persecution by the Dalai Lama ? This documentary attempts to throw light at this controversy. Watch Part 2 first. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aboblx-0zAs And if you are curious enough here is Part 1 and 3 too. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n5sOm-uQH9Y http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b1dILwsmwCQ
If the west really cared, they'd also keep the welfare of 30 million north koreas in the headlines, or argue for the independence of 30 million kurds. There are only 5 million Tibetans, but the prospect of making it an easy soft target against china was the only reason it stays in the headlines. The injustice is no more worse than other independence seeking groups. Tibet made headline and was the salt to rub against china's wounds during the Olympic, even if some mass genocide is/was occurring elsewhere, so, what's the west's real intention here, to help the Tibetans or to use it as an excuse to stop the rising China/farther destabilize/balkanize China up? All of the above? We can debate until the cows come home, but I doubt China will give Tibet up, no one would. China would be stupid if she gave it up too. No one is that stupid. One thing is for sure... this is one of the last card the west has against Chinese rise... the human right abuse thing is not working anymore (if you look at what west is doing in Iraq) and massacre in Tian-An-Men square happen when most of us was not even born... finally, most people dont even know what falun gong is anymore, nor care!
You hit the bulleyes mate Well said. The hypocrisy of those that keep harping on the tibet issues stink to high heaven. The west committed heaps of Human rights abuse right on their very own doorstep for years on end in Gitmo, Afghanistan, Iraq and they have supported proxy wars across the world. Let's see if the US, EU and the UN are willing to put their generals in trial for committing war crimes in those area of operation. Why does the US condones and support the actions of Israel while they park themselves high in the righteous tower of babel to rain down on China's record of Human right abuse ? To be even more blunt, human rights abuse happens in every nook and cranny of the world including the West themselves. But when it comes to China, woo, the guns just comes out blazing away.
The problem with the above style of argument is that it fails to really address the issue based on its merits. In a courtroom, this would be known as distraction. Talking about things that are important in another docket or another case, but having nothing to do with this one is a distraction. Or, if we were using a grade school example, it would be: "Yes, other children were cheating but the one I caught was you." So let's stick with the issue at hand, which is China in Tibet. If anyone would seriously like to discuss Kurdish independence or Starving North Koreans (as a matter of fact I had already started one a long time ago, see here), start another thread and I'll join in there. This thread is on China in Tibet. Further, by using the criteria of "...when most of use was not even born" as a criteria to preclude germane items from argument, then Opium wars, Boxer Rebellion, Nanking Massacre, and whole host of bad things happening in China would also have to be tossed out of consideration too. In fact, if you look upon it that way, then the west was the best thing that had happened to China if you considered only the things that has occurred since 1990 (one year after Tiananmen Sq). Some may like to withhold certain aspects of Chinese history because it is politically inconvenient for their argument. However, if you're finding that you have so many inconvenient things to go against your argument, perhaps you should consider that you're arguing for the wrong side. Tiananmen is a great example of just what the PRC government is willing to do to accomplish a political purpose. Some young Chinese may readily forgive their government for killing thousands of fellow Chinese, but I certainly don't. I also don't forgive them for allowing millions of Chinese to starve to death. And I certainly feel compelled to speak against them for their behavior in Tibet, whether it is against a few hundred, or only five million.
What essentially all news outlets are doing, whether biased or not, is reporting what they know. Even Al Jazeera, whom u believe to be anti-western, is doing exactly that... reporting what they know... China of course would rather keep their mouths shut... so most news anyone is getting is bound to be mostly from Dalai Lama sympathizers... notice, even in the report from India, they used a quote from an opinionated source... since when is an opinionated source fact, and since when are opinionated sources non-biased? The news no matter where you get it from always tell one side of a story, never two, three or more... Is Chinese occupation in Tibet right or wrong? I'm not getting into that... but at the moment, Tibet is under Chinese rule, there are millions of Han Chinese living in Tibet right now... China sending in armed military force, beefing up security to prevent conflicht/rioting on the anniversary of an unfortunate event is normal... What happened after 9/11? Now we can't even get on flights to domestic locations w/o a 3hour wait... everyone, even citizens of the US are treated as criminals, hands in the air for searches, while airports in Europe rarely have any searching... and this is almost after a decade of an unfortunate event... now we're here firing criticism at China for beefing up security based on the one year anniversary of a riot... Look Ralph, I'm really not trying to take a shot at you personally because you're a well educated man and I highly respect that, but you're also biased as well... Notice you failed to highlight "A trickle of isolated protests in recent weeks, including a monk who set himself on fire at the Kirti monastery in Western Sichuan, suggests lingering discontent."... I'm sorry m8, but that's just plain dangerous and irresponsible on the part of the protestors... if something like that happened in the US, everyone that remotely look like they were involved would be locked up immediately... Sure, processing would be a lot different than in China, but you can't ignore the result... btw, imho, Tibet is China's... and the west should just stfu... i'm not even basing this on history or any political BS... but honestly... China's all ready moved millions upon millions of Han Chinese into the region, they've built a working infrastucture there, and set up a working economy there... Kicking China out at THIS POINT... just seems like a waste of time, energy, resources... and most likely gonna end up in bloodshed...
I'm not certain how you can qualify my "red line ease of read" selection as any sort of bias. I do that just to let lazy readers get to the point, or else most would opt to just not read any of it. Seriously, your "....west should just stfu" is really not necessary at this point. Even the Dalai Lama himself has stated that Tibet should remain a part of China. His argument is over the heavy handedness of Beijing's administration. Much like how the state of Israel isn't going to go away any time soon (despite it being a huge political mistake to allow it to form in the first place), Tibet is nominally a part of China. Sort of like the bride that marries overseas to a man she would never love, they can learn to live together, but not when he's beating the shit out of her every night. If you ever read any of my other posts regarding Tibet, you'd already realize that my position is that the PRC is actually in the best position to deal with Tibet to begin with. They're essentially land locked and ringed by nearly impassable ranges and the only neighbor with the wherewithal to do anything long term for them is the Chinese. Again, co-opting a weaker neighbor is relatively easy if you come knocking with flowers and chocolates, and not a truncheon. It's the form and attitude that has gotten China into this public relations disaster. Also, consider two of the US's best trading partners that started out as vanquished enemies, Japan and Germany? How is it that the US was able to turn two former enemies into such partners who are now steadfastly in its sphere of influence? If you had to get your ass kicked and your country taken over, who would you choose to do it; the United States or China? As for building infrastructure, that may be so, but for whose benefit? The Tibetans may be backward, but they're not stupid. When their land is being raped and subsumed by another population, they're going to howl with the best of them. Let's face it, Tibet is a huge resource for the PRC to plunder, the least the Chinese could do is wipe their feet and mind the china (no pun intended) while they're going about it. The only thing that the Dalai Lama is asking for is a degree of Tibetan political autonomy. If China allowed it that, then so what? The economic reality still hasn't changed, and that is the thing that most Chinese fail to appreciate. Tibet is still going to have to deal with China in order to get things done, regardless. Imagine if this was not Tibet, but Hong Kong 1997, when the PRC first came in; suppose they marched troops down Nathan Road, and closed the HK legislature? And then trucked in several million mainland Chinese to take over everything, from utilities, to the police, and every facet of administration. What do you think HK would look like today? A bit like Tibet perhaps? Again, if you want to fuck someone, you can do it with wine and wooing, or you can go and rape them. Do the former and you're labeled "quite a lover" do the latter and you're a criminal. The choice is China's. Oh, and BTW, news blackouts are never good public relations. In Tibet, Iraq, or Gaza, it does little to engender public trust. Heavy handedness; the issue is the bloody crackdowns that don't need to have happened.
whether it be conscious or not, your highlighting is what you view as the main points of the article... in a way, your mind was all ready made up about who's in the right/wrong... certainly ur highlighting may be for the purpose of getting lazy people to read, but lazy people are lazy people, they will only read what u highlight... and clearly by just reading the red, regardless of whether the article was biased to begin with, it became biased... lol wait... ur bringing up Germany and Japan as vanquished enemies that came out on top... ok... and what about Iraq, Isreal and Afghanistan? who helped put Saddam in charge m8? Chiang Kai Shek neone? plz, don't make the US out to be the reason behind Germany and Japan's success... just like how people make believe WWII was won by the US... Japan and Germany WERE large sphere's of influence prior to WWII... u make it sound like they were just whiney babies throwing a tamper tantrum one day, only to grow up after getting a good spanking... Hitler may have been a god awful man, but he also helped rebuild a nation in shambles into a war juggarnaut... You also make it sound like Tibetans aren't beneffiting from Chinese occupation... Granted, it could be better... a lot better... but Tibetans are more economically well off as a residual effect of Han Chinese coming in... sure, the infastructure and the economic injection may not be intended for Tibetans... but you can't say that it doesn't benefit the Tibetans either... I'm sorry m8, but the US obviously doesn't care what the world thinks of it... why should China? double standard isn't it? Quoting a4agent, "If the West really cared..." really... if the west, the US, really cared... they wouldn't just be denouncing what China's doing... there are plenty of other things the west as a whole can do before armed conflict... such as putting trade embargos on China... but nope, they obviously don't want to risk hurting their own wallets for some backwards mountain living peoples in a region so far from home... plz... its plain as day that both sides are in the wrong... i just find it incredibly insulting to put more blame on one side than the other...
this is great discussion thanks to ralphrepo and Aoes. Now, I would tend to agree with Aoes more; but you both of you have very valid points.
Impressive reply mate Let's see if our Ralphy have the courage to look into the gross human rights abuse committed by the West and the US in Iraq, Afghanistan and Gitmo. Since he have openly quoted the analogy of the courtroom where by the case should be presented in a fair manner, then the onus is on him to defend the West and the US gross abuse of human rights at their very own turf. But would he ? The refusal to even acknowledge such abuse by Ralph is telling. Strangely, for such an academically endowed writer like Ralph, he would start a thread by saying that the thread is not for discussion but only for information. He presented a case, but he would refuse any participation or discussion of the points he brought up. That simply shows his predisposed bias and his stand towards the issue which is fine by me but to try to muddy the waters and project the image that he is "neutral", I find that intellectually dishonest. So I am going to post a few articles and it would be interesting to observe how his response should be. Cheers
UN to probe US 'atrocities' in Iraq Thu, 05 Mar 2009 09:08:53 GMT UN General Assembly President Miguel De-Scoto Brockmann The UN General Assembly president has urged a probe into the 'atrocities' committed by the US during the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan. "The aggressions against Iraq and Afghanistan and their occupations constitute atrocities that must be condemned and repudiated by all who believe in the rule of law in international relations," Miguel De-Scoto Brockmann said on Wednesday. De-Scoto, who was addressing the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, said that US military operations have directly led to more than a million Iraqi civilian deaths since 2003. The UN General Assembly president's fiery speech coincided with the Obama administration's decision to take up observer status on the Human Rights Council -- which the Bush administration had boycotted. De-Scoto urged the Council to put the human rights situation in Iraq on its agenda, accusing the US of 'war crimes' and a series of 'human rights violations'. "These must be addressed to bring an end to the scandalous present impunity," he said. Iraq has been the scene of daily violence including bomb blasts and fighting ever since the US-led coalition forces invaded the country in March 2003. According to JustForeignPolicy website, nearly 1.2 million Iraqis have lost their lives and many others have been displaced both inside and outside Iraq since the US invasion of the country.
From : http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2009/03/10/hiatt/ Glenn Greenwald Tuesday March 10, 2009 09:57 EDT New U.N. human rights report and America's lectures to other countries (updated below - Update II) The Washington Post's Fred Hiatt today condemns the Obama administration generally and Hillary Clinton specifically for "continu[ing] to devalue and undermine the U.S. diplomatic tradition of human rights advocacy." Hiatt is angry that on her trips to China, Egypt and Turkey, Clinton failed to issue sufficiently stern and condemning lectures about those countries' human rights abuses. The depths of the fantasy world in which our political elite reside -- and their complete lack of self-awareness -- borders on pathological. While it's true that there is something ugly about hearing Clinton proudly announce that "I really consider President and Mrs. Mubarak to be friends of my family" -- that wonderful "friend of her family" is one of the world's most repressive dictators -- the idea that the U.S. is in any position to play the role of human rights arbiter for the world is about the most unhinged notion imaginable. Few things have degraded international conceptions of human rights more than American actions over the last decade -- not only what we've done, but what we continue to do. As Billmon once wrote, the U.S., under the Bush administration, has "forfeited forever its ability to chastise the human rights abuses of others without triggering a global laughing fit." And that's to say nothing of our desperate dependency on, as opposed to leverage over, countries such as China. Yet Hiatt -- who cheered on many of the abuses and continues to do so -- actually fancies America as the country that goes around the world credibly wagging its finger at other nations for their human rights inadequacies. We didn't magically regain our moral credibility because we elected a new President. While some Obama supporters uncritically quote official administration documents and statements from Robert Gibbs in order to proclaim: "All hail the U.S. Constitution. It seems to be coming back to life through some vigorous resuscitation," the reality is quite different. Despite some very preliminary positive actions, there are many, many steps needed before that celebration is remotely warranted, and there are many actions that have been taken in the last month alone that are squarely at odds with that gushing praise. Consider a new Report from the U.N. Special Rapporteur (.pdf), submitted to the U.N. Human Rights Council. The Report documents the key events that led to the degradation of human rights conventions around the world over the last decade, with the U.S. as one of the leading catalyzers. The Report identifies the American programs of rendition and lawless detentions as ones which corrupted huge swaths of the international human rights order because they entailed the active complicity of so many other countries -- including Canada and Britain -- in our systematic torture regime (click images to enlarge them): Critically, the Report singles out what is now clearly an Obama administration policy -- namely, the invocation of secrecy claims to prevent investigations of these crimes and accountability for their victims -- as a key ingredient in the ongoing destruction of the international human rights regime: This is just a fact: the U.N. Human Rights Report is identifying as a gross violation of human rights and international obligations exactly that which the Obama administration is doing: namely, invoking claims of "State Secrets" in order to "conceal illegal acts from oversight bodies or judicial authorities" and to deny victims of torture and secret detention a judicial forum in which to seek remedies. We're not only doing that in our own courts, but also conspiring with and/or pressuring our allies to invoke claims of secrecy to conceal these crimes and prevent accountability. And that's to say nothing of the emphatic position we are still taking that we can abduct citizens from around the world, ship them off to a black hole at Bagram, and deny them any rights of any kind to challenge their detention. Moreover, citing the Convention Against Torture -- the treaty which Ronald Reagan signed in 1988 and the U.S. Senate ratified in 1994 but which must not be mentioned in decent company these days -- the U.N. Report also reminds the United States: I'm well-aware that there is hardly anything more ridiculous in American political discourse than the belief that it somehow matters what the U.N. has to say about American human rights practices, obligations and violations (as opposed to what it says about those of lesser countries), and it's even sillier still to argue (or at least to genuinely believe) that the U.S. should abide by its treaty obligations. That's the most Unserious thing one can argue, because it posits that the U.S. should abide by the standards to which the rest of the world is subjected, a premise that is directly at odds with the central dogma in the American religion: our own exceptionalism. Thus, the fact that our international treaty obligations compel criminal investigations for torture and bar the legalization of that behavior and retroactive immunity for the lawbreakers is almost never even mentioned, let alone honored, when we collectively insist that even extreme war crimes committed by our leaders must be concealed, protected and then erased from history. Still, just fathom the level of delusion, of pure reality-detachment, necessary to argue that -- even as the U.N. officially identifies ongoing American behavior as a central cause of the degradation of international human rights conventions -- American officials should travel around the world issuing righteous condemnations of other government's human rights violations. It's a by-product of the self-protective refusal on the part of political elites to come to terms with just how broken and extremist we've been and, in many cases, continue to be as a country. Who besides blind tribalists like Fred Hiatt could possibly believe -- as we actively conceal our own war crimes, immunize the lawbreakers in the name of Secrecy, and refuse to comply with our treaty obligation to investigate -- that our human rights lectures to the world are going to be taken even the slightest bit seriously? UPDATE: The country that did this and now seeks to cover it up and protect the perpetrators is the same one that Fred Hiatt thinks should travel the world, arrogating unto itself the right to sit in judgment of others, and decree whose human rights behavior is inadequate. To describe the mindset is to demonstrate how warped it is. UPDATE II: In its 2008 Report on Human Rights, this is what the U.S. State Department said while condemning Egypt: Article 42 of the constitution prohibits the infliction of "physical or moral harm" upon persons who have been arrested or detained; however, the law fails to account for mental or psychological abuse, abuse against persons who have not been formally accused, or abuse occurring for reasons other than securing a confession. Police, security personnel, and prison guards routinely tortured and abused prisoners and detainees, especially in cases of detentions under the Emergency Law, which authorizes incommunicado detention for prolonged periods. The government rarely held security officials accountable, and officials often operated with impunity. Egypt tortures prisoners, subjects them to mental and psychological abuse, detains them incommunicado for long periods, and then -- to top it all off -- doesn't even investigate or prosecute those who do that, but instead allows them to "operate with impunity." What kind of monsters could do something like that? Thankfully, our State Department is vigilantly documenting and condemning this behavior, though -- as Fred Hiatt righteously asks -- why aren't we, the United States, doing more to bring this wretched and lawless behavior from Egypt to light? The State Department Report went on to note: Although the [Egyptian] government investigated torture complaints in some criminal cases and punished some offending police officers, punishments generally did not conform to the seriousness of the offenses. Permit me to repeat that this Report -- complaining that Egypt's criminal punishments for its torturers did not go far enough -- was issued by the State Department of the United States. This is what else we are bitterly protesting in Egypt: The constitution prohibits arbitrary arrest and detention; however, during the year, police and security forces engaged in such practices, including large-scale detentions of hundreds of individuals without charge under the Emergency Law, which was extended on April 26 for two more years. Egypt detained people -- hundreds of them -- without charges, in violation of their own Constitution! The year before, we formally condemned Vladimir Putin's government for eavesdropping on Rusisan citizens without warrants even though Russian law requires warrants, and then -- more tyrannically still -- "there were no reports of government action against officials who violated these safeguards." The sheer lawlessness that exists in the rest of the world is so very upsetting. -- Glenn Greenwald
Exactly, many people from countries outside of China get the most bias side out of this. Tibet gained a lot from this alliance with China, and if the media mentioned about this then people's opinion might change. Without China, Tibet could have been dragged into some war - you never know - but since China is so strong with so many people, it can protect Tibet and they can work together in loads of different ways. Tibet develops more with China as they can aid each other if any problems occur. It's a pity western media depicts this Tibet-China protest for freedom thing in the worse possible manner, as if nothing good came out of the relationship. For people who are apathy with politic and history, they are vulnerable to brainwashing. Another thing I would like to point out. The west helped instigate separatist movements for the longest time there(too bad they failed every time haha), if they didn't stick their noses where it shouldn't be, human rights issue would not be as severe in Tibet, and life there would have been so much better.
-innocent2 -bigsmiles Ralph is entitled to his bias and double standards You see, history is never a one sided affair. To read the story of mankind from a single source is not the act of an enlighten knowledge driven person. As the cliche goes, every story have 2 or even more perspective or interpretation. To claim that the one sided presentation of perceive facts, is clearly an embellishing act itself, adding another shade to the subjective perception of "truth". Truth to me is the collective of conflicting perceptions but never a singular appreciation of facts. Take the example of Tibet. Tibet in its old glorious history once ran an empire that competes with Tang China. The dynastic name was "Tufan" or the Great Tibetian Empire was it height of achievement. As far as the plains of China is concern, it have always been a history of warring tribes and ethnic conflicts. You have the Mongols, the Khitans, Manchus etc that have ruled the central plains of China at one time or another. Worse, within each large ethnic groups, differences in terms of religious affiliations, tribal allegiance adds to the complexity of its social order. Take Genghis Khan the Mongol supremo, and Abahai the Qing founder, they found countless wars to subjugate their own tribes to bring it into a singular force before they even march on to take on the Han Chinese to conquer it. Even within the Central plains, the differences within the Han northern Chinese and Southern Chinese are obvious with different customs dialects etc. To think of China as a homogeneous society is just plain ignorance. To talk of China as a perceivable singular entity just shows the lack of analysis or the effort taken to understand the complex "ethnic" balance that China is made up of. Ralph talks about giving the Tibetans their autonomy. its like asking the leadership in China to commit instant suicide. Large chunks of China will break off into numerous small state. What you will have in the end, is endless bloodshed which might last god knows how long. Just look at China's tragic history on civil wars and strife and foreign invasion for the past 200 years and you know full well how vulnerable China as we know it now is. China have and will always be ruled by a dominant ethnic group. It is the Han Chinese that is the head of the family now, but 100 or 200 years from now, one would never know and going by China's history, that certainty can never be everlasting. Maybe the Mongols, the Manchus or even the Tibetans etc might emerge one day to take over the role. One thing for sure, the footsteps of History does not grind to a stop. In a globalized context and the modernization of deadly arms like nuclear bombs, that equation might have shifted in favor of the current dominant ethnic group. That I concede. But that does not mean it is an eternity cast in stone. Coming back, let me be even more blunt here. Actually, it would be interesting as conjecture, to allow the Tibetans to rule themselves. In all certainty, if the Dalai Lama ascend to the throne, you would have pockets of resistance by the Tibetans who would go into rebellion almost instantenously as they could never imagine themselves to be regarded as serfs to the countless lords that he would install in place to rule over them. Tibetan culture is just that. The Dalai Lama claiming that all he wants is some measures of autonomy is laughable. He have made no overtures to make a sincere declarations that he would abolish his kingly status or choose to abandon its system of slavery. For over thousands of years, the Tibetans have brutal battles amongst themselves. Scores of Tribes and differing sects of practice have been wiped out even before the Chinese move in. Which is why I posted the videos in the thread. Looking at the remaining theological states like Bhutan and Nepal, is Tibet as a theocracy viable ? I think the answer is plain. If the Dalai Lama truly and sincerely wants autonomy, he must present his form of leadership and a framework of how he would achieve that to negotiate with the Chinese. But that present another problem. The role of the Dalai Lama is an inherited process by "reincarnation". To present any other form of governance by some form of elections even within his own central religious, theocratic body is a non starter. So there. Its just that complex . And I don't think the Chinese would ever want to commit its own political suicide.
Despite the fact that I've been called biased, by your comments above, one can clearly appreciate that yours is the mind close to anything else other than your point of view. This guy smells like... and he also claims to be Chinese... is not much different from the race baiting spade comment that I refused respond to. Like US Justice Clarence Thomas (US Supreme Court Justice who happens to be African American) once stated when he addressed a group of black American attorneys; that just because he is ethnically or culturally identical to them does not necessitate he take or align himself with their political point of view. Despite your inability or reluctance to accept it, I really am 100% Chinese, but that should not even matter when we're discussing right versus wrong, nor am I interested in proving anything to you beyond what I've already said. This is exactly the reason why I prefaced the thread as purely for info and not debate, as generally, one cannot talk and be critical about Tibet to other Chinese without their questioning of motives or even one's pedigree. A similar response is often seen with Jews or Israelis that question the ethics of the Israeli government and their harsh treatment of Palestinians. They're labeled as anti-semitic (if they're not Jewish) or if they really happen to be Jews, derided with a quasi-psychological term as a Self Hating Jew. In other words, the assumption that they must somehow be mentally ill to even think the way that they do. Further, I recognize and sadly accept that there are elements within our human scope who don't function on rules of fairness. These are the ones that don't care if one's nation is responsible for murders, killings, or oppression of innocents so long as their group rises and sits on top. This was the inherent moral failure of manifest destiny and any group can easily fall prey to such self serving political ideology. It's also clear to me for some time now that these discussions tend to attract extremist personalities and views. While I welcome academic discourse and even disagreement, I won't waste my time or energy responding to those that race bait, or distract from the question with pretentious qualifiers of ethnic or cultural affinity as a test of an argument's legitimacy. Likewise, talking about the crimes and misadventures of others may seem to make the argument equal, but in actuality, seeks to avoids the argument by replacing it with another equally contentious issue. The US, Russia, and even the UN, certainly has human rights issues of its own. Most Americans, and as I, are appalled by reports of the bad behavior of some US troops. Those troops have been prosecuted and other still are being called to account for their actions. This is why having a free unfettered press access to conflict areas remains so important, so that the questions can be asked. The US is finally being forced out of an Iraq that it never should have gone into in the first place; most Americans freely admit now that the whole undertaking was a grave mistake. However, the focus of this thread is Tibet, and China is the country that is engaged in it (whether you consider Tibet being a part of China or not). Again, if someone wants to start a thread about the US abusing others in the world, that's fine; this thread is about China in Tibet. Flooding a discussion with counter charges about US atrocities, censorship, misdeeds, et cetera, is nothing more than a desperate attempt to hijack a thread and steer the spotlight of discussion away from a very indefensible topic, ie China in Tibet. Inotherwords, so yes, while the US had bloody hands and have been caught lying on numerous occasions; the question remains, what is China doing in Tibet? I personally believe that what the PRC is doing in Tibet is inherently wrong. Of course, people are entitled to their own opinions, even if their opinions are sometimes stroked and stoked by a government with an obvious agenda. Recalling just about every modern day human tragedy around the world, the first thing that oppressors do is to limit or curtail news gathering from areas under their immediate control. As examples, the Japanese did this throughout Asia in WW2, the Serbs did this in Bosnia, and recently the Israelis also with Gaza. One of the most damning things that any government can do is to proscribe press freedoms as truth is sometimes the only viable weapon of resistance that remains to a subjugated people. Typically, oppressive regimes will offer a host of excuses or rationales to avoid press contact. So I ask, for what reason does China have for keeping the press out of Tibet? And Aoes, I agree with your assessment that most westerners would be hard pressed to abandon their cheap Chinese products long enough to even consider the plight of a vague political entity half way around the world. But that is a failure or limitation of human nature, not that the cause or rationale for Tibetan autonomy or self determination is any less just. As for armed conflict by the west in Tibet? I never even came close to suggesting anything of the sort, and I certainly hope you're not either. Your assessment that China has done a lot in Tibet (whether or not to the Tibetans desire or benefit) is true. However, what it has gotten out of Tibet is paltry in comparison to what they could get if the political question was better settled. Tibet is rather like the reluctant bride; she doesn't love her husband, but can learn to live with him, however, not if he's beating the piss out of her on a daily basis. My arguments for post war Japan and Germany were illustrative of just what can occur with a degree of self determination and autonomy; of the cooperation that can occur with the proper political nurture.
