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Thank you for "correcting" me with TYPICAL neoconservative ultranationalist propaganda.Tibetan nationalist have been vandalizing chinese buisnesses in Lhasa and attacking and killing unarmed Han chinese civilians there. Essentially what they've done since this "uprising" is nothing more than plebian ethnic cleansing.

Only if such a thing is decided by a referendum by the people living in that area.



That is somewhat true, that that doesn't make the principle of self-determination wrong.



That's the Chinese government's official propaganda, not the truth. The Chinese government constantly twists the truth or engages in outright lying in order to turn the population into nationalistic, jingoistic bigots. The West used the same disgusting rhetoric in the defense of colonialism 100 years ago. Based On how much the Tibetans have been treated like s**t it's easy to see why they are rioting. When an oppressed population revolts the elites always call them vicious, sub-human animals that refuse to "know their place," thus, again, the Chinese government is using the same rhetoric used by Western colonial powers 100 years ago.



So you are totally fine with the ethnic cleansing of Tibet? You are sick.

Have you ever heard of the uprising in the Warsaw Ghetto during WW2 when Jews tried to resist the occupying Nazis? Do you think the Jews were wrong to resist their extermination as a people? Your position is morally indefensible and as Odin said you are sick. If you love China so much then you should go live over there and see how great it is for yourself.

Seconded. As I pointed out in my last post the situation is more historically and politically complex than the media portrays, but the systematic destruction of a people and a unique culture is thoroughly repugnant. The Chinese government has shown no regard for the human rights of any of its citizens and hides behind a curtain of media control in order to hide its shame from the rest of the world. Hearing people try to defend this makes me fell physically sick.

This is overblown rhetoric - Chinese rule is authoritarian and repressive, but they're not sending millions of Tibetans to the gas chambers. Nobody claims the deaths in this crackdown are anywhere near Srebrenica, let alone the Holocaust.
The foaming-at-the-mouth paleoconservatives conveniently ignore how many US allies treat their own minorities, without a word of protest from the US. As I said, it's the usual hypocrisy: those that go ga-ga at theocracy in Lhasa seem to forget their arguments when it comes to Tehran. China seems a model of liberty compared to Saudi Arabia, for example.
I'm no fan of Beijing but a some point painting it like the most evil regime in the history of humanity has to be either the result of a hidden agenda or of hysteria.

Odin,tybald, and Psychlone-WHAT makes you fellows so damn sure that you have the TRUTH regarding what is REALLY going on inside Tibet?? Have you BEEN there? It is turning out that much of the horror stories in fact have come from Tibetan exiles THROUGH the Dalai Lama himself who vows to make himself Supreme DICTATOR for life and has ruthlessly blacklisted any Tibetans who disagree with him in the slightest as being pawns of the Chinese. Lemme be clear-I do NOT support the way the Chinese treat Tibetas....HOWEVER-Neither do I support Tibet being granted independence any time soon!.
As for your comment on "ethnic cleansing" that is EXACTLY what Tibetan rioters are doing! They are attacking and killing chinese residents in Lhasa to ethnically "purify" Tibet. Also, as far as sucession of the American SW goes-would you ALSO have been in favor of the traditional "American South" being granted independence? So essentially you would have sided with the confederacy in the American civil war, brilliant . So essentially you dont really believe in minority rights. If the majority of a state here in the US wants to suceed we just let 'em huh............

I think people are entitled to express their opinions here about world political affairs and leaders. (BTW, I don't share D1nk0's opinion)

I don't have a problem with Iran. I would protest if my country attacked them. But I want to point out that there would still be a difference, because if the US did go to war with Iran it would not be to forever annex the country. We would change their government and that would be the end of it. So if Tibet's old government is a problem, then why not install a new one and then have the Chinese get the eff out of there?

I'm not saying a religious theocracy should be set up in Tibet. I'm just saying they should be free and independent, and they should have a new government which would be democratic. However, the Dalai Lama should probably be given some ceremonial function much like the Queen in England. Why would anyone have a problem with this?

There is no credible alternative to theocracy and Chinese rule, unless you turned the place into a beggar-state run by UN or NATO troops, sort of like Kosovo (though I do think that in the case of Kosovo giving them independence was the lesser evil). In practice it's going to be Chinese rule, because China is not a pathetic, feeble, bankrupt country like Serbia.
Britain has had centuries of parliamentary government - this belief in instantly turning a feudal theocracy in an isolated backwater into a European-style monarchy is just Western hubris a la Cheney.
I clearly posted about annexation of Iran (i.e. something equivalent to Tibet), not a regime-change intervention by the US. Were that to happen, I am skeptical that the Western press would fawn over the exiled ayatollahs with the same gusto as it does with the Dalai Lama.
The thing is, there are lots of oppressed minorities in countries that are far, far more easily influenced than China, and China is by no means the most oppressive country around - this focus on Tibet in the name of lofty principles reeks of self-interest and hypocrisy.

Above is a fine example of literacy, perhaps even erudition, and a grasp of some of the history that is roundly abused for the sake of finding the good and bad even as the author tells us that such characterizations are oversimplifications. Bait and switch – that is the tactic employed by those who seek to misinform. First they sound reasonable and then they launch into an emotional vitriolic attack that is not backed up or examined in any way.

There are no innocents in the Tibet situation. Violence has been used on all sides to further political aims. For instance, it is not well known that Tibetans regularly execute by beheading other Tibetans who convert to Christianity. As a regime that seeks to enforce theocratic fundamentalism, Tibetan converts to other religions represent the most dangerous threat to the lamas’ hold on the people. Christianity, with the lure of Western glamour and promise of communal fraternity, is a serious problem for the strictly hierarchical and ascetic Lamaist Buddhism that the lamas wish to impose. When the Dalai Lama talks of preserving the culture of Tibet, he means that Tibet must remain a Lamaist state with no tolerance for other religions. A Tibetan can have only one choice in life and must be devotee to the lamas; giving up worldly goods and life even if need be at their command. Why should anyone of us accept that?

There can be no defense for the violence which the Chinese employed especially during the Cultural Revolution. But if you are cognizant of Chinese literature and culture, you would know that the Chinese today are themselves disgusted by Cultural Revolution just as the French came to view with revulsion the terrors that followed the French Revolution. But the context is important. Lamas and monasteries were not just the leaders and places of worship, they were also the lords and political foci for communities. In feudal Tibet (which refers to the time before 1959), a lama were almost always someone who was related landed gentry or warlords. A peasant who joined a monastery as a monk may not even be taught to read much less to comprehend scripture. Peasants who became monks were often treated as servants and used in much the same way that they would have been used back in their own village. In this way, the system of privilege was perpetuated. Hence, to move Tibet out of feudalism, these monasteries had to be destroyed to break their hold on the people’s lives. As the local political elite, resistance continued to be organized by the lamas even as their land owning backers fell. The painful clash between the Chinese military and these lamas was sadly inevitable.

The comparison with the British Raj is a very poor and misleading one. The British were interlopers who colonized India with deception and force taking advantage of the goodwill of weak minded Indian rulers to further their imperial goals. The Tibetans and the Hans have been at it for thousands of years with each side defeating the other at one time or the other. During the Tang Dynasty for instance the Tibetans actually sacked the capital Chang An and forced the Tang emperor to flee for his life. The Chinese came back and during the Qing Dynasty under the Emperor Qian Long, Tibet was definitely subjugated and accepted the suzerainty of the Qing Court. Why is France, France, and why is Germany, Germany? And why have they all become a part of Europe? Through thousands of years of wars and genocide, the boundaries have been fixed and the peoples settled. Rewriting boundaries can only be done with a pen dipped into rivers of blood. Why would anyone of us want this?

As a citizen of a former British colony, I can tell you that a colonial power behaves very differently from a government of the people. If roads and railways are built, it is only to serve the colonial interests and not that of the people. The British built roads throughout its colonies simply so that it could transport the plantation produce quickly and efficiently back to industrial Britain. They would not build any schools because like the slave owners in America’s antebellum period, teaching the natives or slaves was considered foolish. The natives were kept as coolies (literally means hard labor) and their children were also regarded as such. Even though the Chinese Communist Party has made mistakes in Tibet, in no way can it be said that they are behaving as a colonial power. Throughout the Tibetan regions, a huge effort is made to eradicate illiteracy and promote basic healthcare. The Tibet railway was built at great expense to promote economic growth and not to extract natural resource because Tibet is not known to possess any meaningful mineral deposits. This is exactly what you would expect an indulgent government to provide.

China is on the path to democracy and by expending huge sums to develop Tibet, the Chinese are also setting Tibet on the path to democracy. The innocent though annoying mistake that Americans tends to make is that the conditions for democracy exists everywhere in the world. What kind of choice can a man have if he does not have enough to feed himself or his family? Once the level of prosperity in China reaches a certain critical level, democracy will become the only way to solve social conflicts. But it will take time.

As for the news blackout, just take a look at how Western journalists have misrepresented the facts. China is not the only country that seeks to control the news flow. For that sort of masterful propagandizing, America is the true leader. Just look at how skillfully they have controlled information coming out of the Middle East.

By your reasoning it would be okay if a mob of KKK wizards tore a black man from limb to limb. Should the United States have allowed the outside world to "assess" the damage and causes of the L.A. riots? Should the French have allowed foreigners to tell them how to solve the nationwide black ghetto riots that broke out a few years back?

This is not just a matter of siding with China's rising star but a stand for fundamental human rights which cannot find any guarantees under the lamas of Tibet. Only in a modern secular state can the right of man find any fundamental grounding. Look at the Taliban and tell me that anyone thinks that religious fanatics can act as guarantors for humanity.

Wow, China as an imperialist power. We have come a long way from the days when China was forced by other imperialists powers to acede to damaging treaties from the threat of force of gun boats. You assume that the people of Tibet do not want to be a part of China but since no census has ever been done, no one knows. Do not make such ignorant assumptions on matters you clearly do not understand.

I agree with what you say about theocracies, which is why I do not support theocracies, whether Tibetan, Afghan, Iranian, etc. I did not mean that we should support China because they're strong; I meant that the most realistic outcome is that Tibet will remain under Chinese rule.
The Western chattering classes are probably too lazy to even consider that there might be a difference between the impoverished majority of Tibetans and the theocratic, feudal elite - because frankly, we have on the one side the Han authorities in Beijing, and on the other the exiled priests that want to restore theocracy; who speaks for ordinary Tibetans? If the Dalai Lama's fans knew anything about the Third World, they might be more wary of automatically believing an elite that claims to speak for the majority, instead of being the paleoconservatives' useful idiots.

I wonder what an impoverished member of an African country would say if he were asked if he wanted his country to be given back to Britain or France. You may be surprised, but he may rather his country stay independent. Maybe as a colony his country had a better economic outlook, but you have to understand there are more than economics involved. Economics do not make people happy, and people want self-determination whether it helps them economically or not. Though he will remain poor, at least he has the freedom to decide things for himself and that is important.