Comments on: Tibet: Ten Die In Protests

By: HiFly

HiFly — Sun, 16 Mar 2008 18:04:03 +0000

Freedom of Speech isn’t free and in China it is brutally repressed. Tibetens are willing to give up thier lives to highlight this continued repression of thier people. Reminds me of the one guy who stood in front of a long line of tanks sent to massacre a peaceful protest. Seems like the US should do more to acknowledge we haven’t supported freedom in China because it may upset the cheap products we so freely enjoy.

By: kritter

kritter — Sun, 16 Mar 2008 03:08:21 +0000

I think that both are repressive states that tolerate human rights abuses, yes.

By: Michael van der Galien

Michael van der Galien — Sat, 15 Mar 2008 17:24:30 +0000

Saudia Arabia and Pakistan are repressive, brutal states with large numbers of islamic radicals who hate the West as much as al queda does

Um. You think that Saudi Arabia and Pakistan are similar? Comparable?

By: kritter

kritter — Sat, 15 Mar 2008 15:58:35 +0000

The way it works is we stand on principle only when it doesn’t jeopardize our economic or security interests. China, our biggest trading partner and owner of a big chunk of our debt, is financing our wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, therefore we turn a blind eye to their human rights aberrations.

Saudia Arabia and Pakistan are repressive, brutal states with large numbers of islamic radicals who hate the West as much as al queda does, yet they are necessary allies because of our need for security in the ME, and our relationship with OPEC.

Cuba is a tiny nation, which is geographically close to Florida, yet poses no danger to us as a nation. Our outdated Cold War policy stems more from the need of presidential candidates to win over the large and vocal Cuban exile population in Miami than from a rational security standpoint.

By: Claudia

Claudia — Sat, 15 Mar 2008 14:51:47 +0000

Not just Tibet, but China itself should be an issue. It’s the utmost of hypocrisy to act as if the Cuban communist regime was the utmost of evil, so bad that sitting down to negotiate with them is treason, and visiting the country is forbidden of US citizens, and yet communist China, which kills and oppresses more than Cuba could ever dream of doing, is seen as an ally.

Yet another example of "we’re against dictatorships…except the ones that give us what we want". Much the same way we do with Saudi Arabia, we should at least admit that we deal on friendly terms with the most abhorrent regimes on the planet because we need something that they’ve got; oil in the case of Saudi Arabia, and cheap (read- slave) labor and a sizable part of the debt in the case of China. I’m well aware we can’t afford not to deal with them, but shying away from calling things by their name, and not officially decrying the odious human rights abuses China regularly does, makes us seem cowardly as a nation.

As for the Olympic games, we see once more that bringing the games to oppressive regimes doesn’t necessarily encourage more openness and better behavior. One would think the IOC would have learned that lesson in the 1936 Berlin games, but apparently not.