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Post by anthony on Oct 22, 2011 7:53:15 GMT -8
Well it seems the bill here for one dead dictator was one billion one hundred million dollars.
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Post by saturniidave on Oct 22, 2011 9:44:40 GMT -8
Don't worry, that will be repaid in oil deals.
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Post by panzerman on Oct 22, 2011 17:59:46 GMT -8
Gaddafy(I have seen 5 versions of spelling his name!) was more of a clown, he was an boy scout when compared with Saddam, Khomeini, Assad, other Middle Eastern despots.
Think of this, President Nixon travelled too Red China in 1972 to open up relations with the Communist regime of Mao Tse Tung, a monster who was responsible for 75-120 million deaths, Franklin Delano Roosevelt turned a blind eye to reports coming out of the Soviet Union about the 16 million Kulaks who died from Stalins manmade famine, which as Lev Kaganovich bragged was "cheaper then bullets". It seems US foreign policies are a little lacking in character.
John
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Post by dertodesking on Oct 23, 2011 10:28:22 GMT -8
It not just US foreign policies which are lacking John...why has nobody done anything about Mugabe? Because he's not sitting on vast oil reserves. But he IS a despot who has turned his country from the bread-basket of Africa into a country where white farmers are killed on a daily basis...
Simon
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Post by panzerman on Oct 23, 2011 18:02:23 GMT -8
Simon you are bang on about Mugabe, the British should have dealt with him and his murderous band of thugs, the way they wiped out the Mau Mau in 1954-55 Kenya. There are many of these cases in Africa. Like in 1994 when the U.N. turned a blind eye to the ethnic massacres in Rwanda commited by the Hutus vs their Tutsi minority. Ditto, when Jean Bedele Bokassa ruled the Central African Empire(now R.C.A.) this guy was a cannibal and a sadist, just as bad as Idi Amin. Then, remember when Nigeria pratically straved the breakaway Biafra state into submission back in 1969.This is why I stated before in a posting, that most Africans were better off under "colonial rule" Just think of all the failed states...Sudan, Somalia, Eritrea, Angola, Equatorial Guinea, Niger, Nigeria, Benin, Liberia, Ivory Coast, Uganda....
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Post by lamprima2 on Oct 23, 2011 21:50:24 GMT -8
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Post by dertodesking on Oct 25, 2011 12:40:25 GMT -8
Hey Sergey, Not sure how this supports John's comments...it's a very thinly veiled attack on the Republican Party and John McCain's comments that Gaddafi should be "brought in from the cold" (so to speak) so that we can access Libya's oil. Nevertheless, I think it's true to say that the installation of whatever government, following the collapse of old empires, has not been the cure all that some thought it would be... John - you're right about Mugabe et al...if we in the West were genuine in our desire to help liberate those living the iron boot of some two-bit dictator we be sending troops into MANY African countries (plus China...a country with one of the worst human rights records in the world plus...an army numbering millions!) to overthrow their ruling regimes...but we both know that there's nothing in it for us. So...we invade some countries (those with natural resources we want) and then take the moral highground... Simon |
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Post by starlightcriminal on Oct 26, 2011 5:08:27 GMT -8
I think China is not at all on the same level as the the rest though, it's easy to point out that they have a rough history with human rights because it happened recently- revolution only about 60+ years ago. Mao's wife was an evil person for sure. Mao was an idealogue himself, comes with good and bad because it means inflexibility but not necessarily bad intent. On the one hand, the dynastic feudal system was stamped out (and let's remember what feudal system is like, you would think all of Europe had the worst humans rights ever if you extended that window of time back, including almost a millenia of human rights being non-existent) on the other it was a very rapid and violent overhaul which is where we start to get images of peasants starving to death on the roads. Definitely some issues still of course, mostly that non-information stuff. But it's not so different from the west in most respects anymore, just a different route to the same basic end.
However not so long ago while China was abusing it's own population, us western-European cultures were importing and enslaving, raping, whipping, lynching people from all over Africa and the New World and wiping out anyone who resisted including most of the native population of the Americas. At least China gave the option of assimilation, a courtesy not extended to those poor souls on the trail of tears for example. So let's make sure we don't pretend we are standing on moral high ground compared to China lest we risk calling the kettle black, it's just easier to think about Chinese atrocities because that government appeared very recently and still exists in a vague permutation of its former mid-century self while we stopped back in... oh wait, our moral transgressions were not that long ago either! So it's more moral if the people you abuse, exploit and wipe out are not your own kind?
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Post by arrowhead on Oct 26, 2011 8:01:22 GMT -8
I read somewhere that back in the early 2000s Donald Rumsfeld sent a memo to his
'upper echelon" that the U.S. had plans to "take down seven countries" on the agenda. I thought the U.S. constitution specifically states that there shall be no interference or aid to foreign nations at war unless they attacked us on our own soil. But the constitution seems no longer relevant, what with all the 4th and first amendment violations (and others). Of course everyone has heard about the U.S. president's "kill List", which has already been used. One of the victims was of questionable trouble towards this country, but the other (as far as they're telling us) was a magazine editor.
Now I'm not taking up for despots. But It's a shame that the United States thinks it has to take it's citizen's tax money to start or help orchestrate all these wars with that defense (or is it offense?) policies. We have BIG problems at home.
I am thankful for Insectnet being international in that we here in the U.S. get to hear from outside sources. You definitely can't count on our media for the exact truth. It's amazing the different takes you can get from PBS's world news station. And I'm not just talking about the BBC--Arrowhead
'
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Post by dertodesking on Oct 26, 2011 12:53:30 GMT -8
At least China gave the option of assimilation Hey Starlight, Assimilation? Is that what they did to Tibet? "Assimilate" it? Simon |
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Post by panzerman on Oct 26, 2011 19:43:06 GMT -8
Actually, it was Chairman Mao who was the most "evil man" in human history. This guy killed over 60 million just in his "Cultural Revolution" In 1949 he invaded Tibet, and ethnically cleansed the populace, his fanatical policies accounted for mass stravation, he also invaded S. Korea in the Korean War. Today, China supports some of the worst regimes on the planet like N. Korea, Sudan, Iran, Zimbabwe, Myanmar, Syria. They are also run a huge complex of gulags, something Mao learned from his buddy Josef Stalin. They should be kicked out of the U.N.
John
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Post by wollastoni on Oct 27, 2011 7:22:24 GMT -8
Will be hard to kick them out as they have a veto right...
Anyway it would be more efficient to support Chinese opposition but our governments just do not care.
Let's hope China will achieve a popular unrest as the Arab world just did...
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Post by starlightcriminal on Oct 27, 2011 7:34:13 GMT -8
Yes, but take that with a grain of salt because you get only Richard Gere's perspective on it. Just like other overhaul, it was violent. But it also ended what amounted to Feudal Slavery in Tibet. Every wonder what the social function of Bhuddism is? Simple- your life sucks as a starving peasant (some literally even chained to the land they were forced to work by the theocratic dictator, the previous Dalai Lama 13) but don't complain, don't try to get better because you obviously did something terrible in your past life to make you suffer this way now and if you don't suck it up then you will get worse the next go around.
We hear about it from people who paint old tibet as Shangri-la, which is a huge myth. It was an agrarian feudal society with a ruling class made up of people who's sole activities are religious seclusion. Bhuddist monks running that country were extremely oppulent for folks that are supposed to sacrifice the material for the spiritual. They can't kill, but breaking of legs and plucking out eyes and leaving on a Himalayan mountain side is still acceptable. Do you know how much money our government currently gives Tibet? How about how much went there back then? Do you know that we trained monks (the CIA did this) that we drop off in Tibet to continue the war there, as assassins? Not at all the picture the current Dalai Lama paints of his people- like they are all nature loving peaceful happy peasants working the land and meditating all day. Times before him, before Chinese invasion, were brutal and harsh just like everywhere else. The ruling class was just as cruel, exploited just as much as anywhere else. That was a dictatorship that also needed to fall. So how is Chinese intervention any different than intervention from the West in the Middle East or Europe or Africa? It's not, they saw something they wanted and saw a good excuse to take it so they wove a story about instability and went ahead in, just as we do when we feel it suits us.
More importantly, all history aside, the population of Tibet in large part now enjoys roads, cell phones, public education and healthcare. These things are all priorities to the younger generation, I have been there on medical business for long periods and consider myself fairly aware of the historical and current sensitivities of the people of Tibet in regard to their Chinese host. The overall feeling of people not displaced by the revolution (so basically everyone that wasn't old and/or rich) is not anti-Chinese as we see it painted by our new-age pseudo-Bhuddist celebrities here in the US. That would be like talking to Miami about Cuba. You won't get a fair picture and you shouldn't expect to. There were all kinds of human atrocities going on in Tibet prior to Chinese invasion, so it's really a mute point. The question is what the population who has to live there now wants- some sense of sovereignity for posterity but more emphasis on modernization which is the opposite of the former Bhuddist theocracy's agenda.
And yes, that is literally assimilation. Most Tibetans are functionally Chinese now, so they are assimilated. They hold Chinese jobs, they use Chinese resources. Their economy is largely based on tourism from other parts of China. Good to know about a historical dilemma before you try to take sides because it is rarely what you hear on TV and it is fluid over time.
There is a book called "The Snow Lion and the Dragon" which explores the lesser told parts of the US/UK-China-Tibet interactions by an eminent scholar on the subject. There almost was no violent transition, it was really instigated in large part by US and UK involvement (and India), both of which were highly anti-communist at the time. The people of Tibet were caught in the middle of an ideological struggle between the west and the east at the time, it was about politics that really had nothing to do with Tibet but go played out there anyway.
My point is that Tibet is still full of mostly Tibetans compared to Armenia or Rwanda where we are talking about Genocide, not assimilation. Tibetans are still permitted to practice their religion, it's just that all things are second to national health in China as is the policy. Do I necessarily agree with everything or think it was a perfect idea? Of course not. But it's not at all on the same level as the messes we see in Africa so often. Know what you criticize or don't criticize- don't mean to sound harsh but when you hear people say anything about Tibet in that tone it's very obvious that the historical research is lacking and that it is all learned through vague exposure in the media and other uninformed western dialogue. It's outdated anti-communist propaganda which is not productive nor pertinent to the situation as it stands today. As more history is revealed, we now know that things were, not surprisingly, misrepresented at the time in order to further a particular agenda which was outside of the literal details of the events in question.
I'd say that Tibetans were far more assimilated than Native Americans, wouldn't you? Most of them still live in Tibet, Native Americans were forcibly marched across the country until they found themselves (or what few were left anyway) in Vancouver. Yet we still say that they are "assimilated." Reserve your judgment of China until you have some legitimate background information, not celebrity side talk.
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Post by wollastoni on Oct 28, 2011 0:40:07 GMT -8
starlight < For having been twice in Tibet, I would say your vision is a bit too idealistic.
Tibetan has no power anymore in Tibet, most of them are unemployed and poor because all jobs are reserved to Han immigrants. Tibetan will very soon be a minority in Tibet due to massive immigration encouraged by Beijing. Tibetan associations are severly fighted by Beijing. Tibetan earn nothing from the economic boom in Tibet.
A little bit like Papuans in West Papua with Indonesian immigrants.
With your kind of speech, we could say Algeria should better still be French and so on... People must be free, Tibetans, Papuans ! Of course, economic progress is important but not upon human rights and people freedom.
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Post by starlightcriminal on Oct 28, 2011 6:10:38 GMT -8
It's not idealistic, I didn't at all state that it was a perfect situation. But is it better than it was? Better than feudal oligarcic theocratic dictatorship? Sure. The real idealistic problem you pose is this- is a sovereign but brutal and under-resourced country better than an occupied, but stable territory? What is idealistic is thinking that China's withdrawal or there not having ever changed the social structure in that region will somehow have made Tibet a better place today rather than just one more crazy little country with a violent regime ruling it's downtrodden population with an iron fist. It was on the latter route for most of recent history, even when it was prospering while it was absorbing countries around it (yes, did you know the Tibet we want to free was actually invading and taking neighbors itself before China became powerful?). Now there is at least relative stability. People are poor, just like many places in Southeast Asia and most of China for that matter, but poor is better than being shackled to the earth you are forced to work for a religious ruling class that sits on top of a mountain in a golden palace all day. Can you see how that is like asking for Europe to surrender its various claims to land to the Pope because at one point they owned basically everything? So what?
The argument at hand is that China's regime is somehow equivalent to Gaddafi but the reality is that it is much more like we are. Think about Ireland. And how are Native American populations doing in the US? Poor, mostly on reservations, poorly paid and mostly not even in this country anymore. And a huge percentage of them were also killed. It's not that I am defending the mode in which the transition was made, but I'm saying it's a lot more complicated than Tibet should be free in the manner of restoring it's former self because it's former self was not at all free and was in fact worse, full of worse human rights violations. That's like saying "well Iraq didn't turn out well, let's get Saddam back in charge." Understand? There is a difference between a heartlessly forward moving culture and genocide. Of course there are still racial tensions, they exist in all of the countries listed (France I found to be the most outwardly racist place I have been, frankly, and then next a couple of places in Latin America). But what I am saying is that arguing for a free Tibet is not fully understanding what that implies. A free Tibet argues about allowing Tibet to liberated now? If so, then what you say is let another country swoop in, uninvited, change how everything works so you are more modern, and then leave. Is that not exactly what the west likes to do in the middle east? So why is China demonized but Europe and the US are not? Because they continue to occupy? We still occupy all the land of all the native peoples we wiped out or relocated. It's naive to say "freedom is better" absolutely because "freedom" is relative.
The issue is what your definition of "free" is. In my mind, making a living albeit meager is better than making no living at all. This is what I hear from the rural populations in Tibet as well. I hear a whole other story in India, but as I said that is like going to Miami to ask the older generations about pre-Castro Cuba. That was no great place either, but the people who fled during that time period were the people who were benefiting from the corruption. Just because the state it is today isn't perfect doesn't mean that it isn't better than it was when the revolution happened. And now that it has, what do you do? Re-instate the wealthy elite and force the population back into land-labor slavery? It's very complicated. But you can't fault China any more than you can fault any other country that has been engaged in such activities because there is both a positive and a negative which are neither here nor there in relationship to the status of Tibet 70 years ago. The question now is really whether or not an ethnic minority should be allowed to succeed, literally. Is that a good option? Just because the region was not under Chinese control so many years ago (and also recall that Dalai Lama XIII was actively pursuing expanding his kingdom into China which was vulnerable and weak just prior to that due to Sino-Japanese interactions, so it's also a bit of tit-for-tat I think) means the dominant ethnic group should be able to take back their land and every improvement another nation made to it? There are so many similar cases all over the world that no one is interested in at all, like all of Africa with ethnic groups split over many country lines that were arbitrarily drawn by Imperialists based on what they claimed. And if China leaves, does it degrade into something like that? Or like North Korea? The free Tibet movement, therefor, has little to do with anyone actually knowing what is going on the with social structure and history of that region and more with anti-Chinese sentiment, which is not a very good reason to desire such dramatic steps as to re-liberate a country that was not in good shape to begin with. It's easy to look through a window, much less easy to imagine looking back at yourself from outside.
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