But Anne is an American. Does she seriously think that the same people responsible for the genocide in Iraq - should be whining about the sins of the Chinese? LMAO, the US is running TORTURE CHAMBERS as official policy - but Americans are upset about injustices in Tibet?

What a bunch of pathetic posturing.

God Bless America.

Are you familiar with arguments of moral equivalence?

I'm sure that if America were hosting the Olympics, there would be massive protests about Iraq and Tibet would be a non-issue.

In reality, most of the Americans who are out protesting the CCP's treatment of Tibet were out protesting the invasion of Iraq, so there's no real discrepancy there. Two wrongs don't make a right, and we can try to fix both simultaneously. Heaven knows Americans are desperately trying to find a way out of Iraq that won't condemn the country to a bloody civil war.

The Iraq protests were a lot bigger than these Tibet ones.

Oh, yarite, there might be protests about Iraq, if America were hosting the Olympcis, but like as now, the protests about Iraq would not be supported, they would not even make the news? The protesters would be deamonized and/or ridiculed.

You have a LOT of nerve when the media is forced to not even allow us to see the caskets of our dead coming home from Iraq to talk like this!

Meantime, this nice media you claim goes bat*#&$) crazy about CHINA's internal affair, when Tibet is little different than Texas (which was once an independent state) and Wales in Britain.

And do not LIE, because anyone who is slightly honest can just GOOGLE all this info, its well known, and this media coverage has been MASSIVE lies.

candoxx-

Did you mean to reply to my post, or were you talking about another one. I didn't say anything about the media, American or Chinese. Also, I'm not sure where your accusation of lying came from. What part of the post did you think was a lie?

The only part of your reply that seems to link to my post was an agreement about the fact that there would be protests about the Iraq war if the US were hosting the Olympics this year.

You guys don't have to wait till the US hosts an Olymipics to protest the Iraq War. You can call on the rest of the world to boycott US athletes. Anyone for the boycott of american athletes during this Olympic? I thought not.

What about the NASCAR races? They are all held on US turf all the time. The Army recruits there too. How come nobody goes out picketing these NASCAR events to protest the Iraq occupation?

If you want to ruin the Beijing Olympics because of the 4 tibetans killed by the chinese police (after they attacked and burnt down a police station- imagine that happening in LA or Detroit- the cops would go on a revenge binge!), but do nothing about your own country's invasion and occupation of Iraq- a war that caused a million deaths and 2 million displaced refugees; you are nothing but a rank hypocrite.

All America wants from Iraq is a government DOESN"T FLY
AIRPLANES INTO OUR SKYSCRAPERS! If the U.S. withdrew from Iraq, terrorists would once again use it as a base from which to attack us. The more terrorists we kill over there, the fewer there are to attack us elsewhere. I'd rather be boycotted than live under sharia law.

icemilkcoffee,

Some of us didn't wait until the US hosted the Olympics to protest the Iraq War. Some of us were protesting it before it even started. Some of us aren't engaged in protests of the Olympics, but feel that others have the right to protest whatever they want.

To compare the NASCAR races to the Olympics is disingenuous. NASCAR does not have anywhere near the exposure of the Olympics, a reason that the races would not be a popular protest venue. The implication that a US hosted Olympics wouldn't be subject to protest because NASCAR races aren't being protested is silly. If that's not what you're implying, then your post is not speaking to the issue, which is that the US is subject to a just as high a level of scrutiny for its actions in Iraq and elsewhere. The reason that the Tibet situation is so prominent now is that China has requested the international spotlight.

On a separate note, the idea that Americans should not criticize the Chinese government for its actions because the US government is also engaged in unethical activities completely ignores the fact that it's the same Americans protesting *both* governments.

These sorts of recriminations only distract from the main issue, which is that social justice should be pursued in all cases. Whether or not you feel that the CCP's choices are right or wrong is a valid point of argument, but the ethical implications of its actions have nothing to do with the Bush administration's actions in the middle east and elsewhere.

Protesting without sense can be a far more dangerous thing than imagined.

To protest the Iraq war based on not finding WMD is the same as saying Saddam Hussein was an advocate of social justice. That he should still be in power regardless of the fact he murdered his way into power and then murdered his way through his entire career. HE carried out genocide on TWO peoples.

How anyone can compare the religious violence in Iraq to a genocide is fantasy and simply gives "bitchy people" something to protest. Try protesting Hamas or Hezbollah for a real effect on world peace. It is the result of religious Fatwas given and backed by the Muslim scholars world wide that are seeking to overturn, by force, the UNs' formation of a jewish state that are at the root of ALL the killing in the middle east. Iraq is now just a place where religious zealots can easily fulfill their percieved duty to Allah in killing non-muslims on "muslim land". That tiny fact that the US has idolators on Muslim soil is all it takes for an edict to kill. Compare that to the Chinese!

Oh how awful the US is, going to the aid of those Saddam would surely have wiped out by now.

How awful the UN is for legitimizing the return of Jews to their ancestral land. How awful the Nuremburg trials were for electing not to prosecute Muslim leaders for their part in the nazi genocide but in lieu of that simply recreated the state of Israel.

Remind yourself of the absolute unforgiving way that many muslim scholars, over the last 60 years, have given Fatwas making the murder and mayhem of westerners and western life a DUTY to all muslims worldwide. PROTEST THAT!

Protest the Saudi kingdoms support for the destruction of Israel even to this day while openly criticizing and routing out "Alqueda terrorists". Protest that.

Protest the cutting off of heads, the torture of anyone accused of violations of Sharia law and the denigration of all females.

Get off the back of the US trying to stop the spread of these things into the civilized world you and I live in.

Aspen, I'm not sure what your point is about all of those atrocities. Are you saying that the US government was right to invade Iraq? What does that have to do with everything else?

In any case, I disagree with you that protesting the war on the basis that there were no WMDs is the same as saying that Saddam was a advocate of social justice. Most people who protested the war (that I knew of, anyway) did not like the Saddam regime, but did not think that invading without UN approval was the best way to go about helping the Iraqi people.

I still think that people have the right to protest, regardless of what their governments are doing at the time. There are some serious issues that China needs to address, and if it wants an international spotlight, then it will have to accept the fact that the world will see its flaws as well as its glories.

lisaz:

To compare the NASCAR races to the Olympics is disingenuous. NASCAR does not have anywhere near the exposure of the Olympics, a reason that the races would not be a popular protest venue. The implication that a US hosted Olympics wouldn't be subject to protest because NASCAR races aren't being protested is silly.

NASCAR has lots of exposure domestically. On a par with the Olympics. NASCAR probably has more viewer in the Red States than the Olympics. Once again- my point is that the anti-china protesters are all rank hypocrits. Why don't these people protest the Iraq War at the World Series, Super Bowl, etc? A lot more americans watch the Super Bowl than the Olympics. That would have been the perfect venue to protest the Iraq War.

lisaz:

On a separate note, the idea that Americans should not criticize the Chinese government for its actions because the US government is also engaged in unethical activities completely ignores the fact that it's the same Americans protesting *both* governments.

When did I say 'americans should not criticize the chinese government'? What I said was, any american who go out and protest against the chinese government for 4 deaths in Tibet, while neglecting to protest against the US government for the 1 million deaths in the Iraq War, is a rank hypocrit.

By the way- you mentioned you also went to the anti-war protests. Well- that was a few years ago. There hasn't been any large scale protests in the last 4 years or so. What happened? The war is still going on. People are still dying. 2 million Iraqis are still homeless. Why aren't you human rights champions out there protesting it?

icemilkcoffee:

By the way- you mentioned you also went to the anti-war protests. Well- that was a few years ago. There hasn't been any large scale protests in the last 4 years or so. What happened? The war is still going on. People are still dying. 2 million Iraqis are still homeless. Why aren't you human rights champions out there protesting it?

The main reason that I personally have not been to any protests at all in the past few years is that I have been living in a country without the same freedom of speech protections that America has. The government here generally does not allow protests.

Your post implied that the Americans who protested China did not protest the Iraq war. If you do not think that, then that's fine. I guess your statement about those people being hypocrites would just be a hypothetical, then.

The Olympics put a country in the international spotlight, a situation that often leads to protests. NASCAR does not put the US in the international spotlight. 2/3 of the US population watched the Summer Olympics last time, ten times the number who watched the Daytona Cup. The Summer Olympics were the top program every night. The Athens Olympics had almost 4 billion viewers globally, a world record. That's the difference, not to mention the whole "Olympic Spirit" ideal. That's why it's silly to compare the two as if they were equivalent.

The Superbowl had only half as many American viewers as the Athens Olympics. I stand by my statement that if the US were holding the Olympics, the massive protests would be about Iraq and Tibet would be a non issue.

I believe that the protests have slowed down for a few reasons. First, after the invasion actually occurred, there was not a consensus on what would be the best course to take. Second, the rest of America basically agrees that the war was a bad idea, so there's not a whole lot more convincing to do. Third, there are now candidates for president that agree with the protesters and are promising to do something about it when they get into office. Trying to get these candidates elected is a better use of time for those who care about this issue.

Also, the protests are about more than four deaths in Tibet, as I'm sure you know.

All America wants from Iraq is a government DOESN"T FLY

AIRPLANES INTO OUR SKYSCRAPERS!

Hey, wake up, maaan! Update your album of Old CDs.

Where do you live, in Wild Wild West?

Don't you know that this allegation has been proved wrong?

No grudges!

Laurie Mylroie has written extensively on this issue. Here is her homepage: http://www.lauriemylroie.com/

Atta's visit to Prague, persumably to see the Iraqi consul there, has been widely publicized. Surely this isn't the first time you have heard this allegation.