“Buddhist nuns waved American flags and the Dalai Lama ordered his followers to offer a standing ovation Friday morning as Nancy Pelosi, the speaker of the House of Representatives, came to Dharamsala, the emotionally charged headquarters of Tibetan exiles, and seized the opportunity to stick a finger in the eye of China,” the NYT reports.

All this public support for the Tibetans and their struggle is awesome, and useful in a way that it basically tells China that it has the world against it, but if that’s the best the West can do, well, then the Dalai Lama will probably need a couple of lives more before he sees his people liberated.