@GeeSussFreeK, you sure sound like a Bush fan.

I think that he probably should've come home from China sooner.

I think that he probably shouldn't have made assurances to Georgia that we would protect them from Russia before fighting broke out.

I think he should at least mention that Georgia started the fight.

I think he shouldn't start off with accusations of a potential escalation that didn't happen, and then instead of using the usual "The United States condemns the actions of Russia", says "Invading a sovreign country is unacceptable in the 21st Century".

I think rather than letting Condi finish out her vacation, he should tell her that her country needs her to be in Moscow, ASAP.

He doesn't mention it in this video, but I think we should stop pushing the idea of Georgia joining NATO for the moment (something Bush/McCain express a need for in other statements).

Toothless outrage followed by a mumbling of diplomacy is exactly the wrong message to be sending. It should be diplomacy first, with a mumbling about standing for our allies if necessary.

Bush isn't Clinton. Setting my bar as low as it will go, I will say at least Clinton avoided committing human rights violations during his 8 years, while Bush seems to have gotten rolling with them in 2002, and hasn't looked back since.

If you meant to compare George H.W. Bush with Clinton, I think that's pretty fair, since they were both pretty moderate and capable (while still managing to piss off people from the other political party).

You can be upset by more than one thing at a time seed... hehe. No one is saying other things are not more important.
This particular instance just gives a glimpse into what China values and how concerned they are about the appearance of their event.
It has nothing to do with their human rights violations. There are plenty of other discussions you can have about that sort of thing.

>> ^bcglorf:
>> ^Pprt:
Israeli roadblocks are a deplorable human rights violation. It's a affront to humanity to control passage from one state to another.
And the request to take off the trousers was evidently meant to humiliate that innocent child. Israel should be ashamed.

You say this after just watching this clip, where it is stated that 4 other such attempts have been caught at this checkpoint alone. The affront to humanity is the monsters attaching bombs to children's chests and trying to send them into cities. This checkpoint stop not only saved the child's life, but likely saved a lot of civilians as well. If your gonna call this video proof of Israeli atrocities it in fact says a lot more about your own world view.


I guess I'm losing my touch at thinly-veiled sarcasm.

>> ^Pprt:
Israeli roadblocks are a deplorable human rights violation. It's a affront to humanity to control passage from one state to another.
And the request to take off the trousers was evidently meant to humiliate that innocent child. Israel should be ashamed.


You say this after just watching this clip, where it is stated that 4 other such attempts have been caught at this checkpoint alone. The affront to humanity is the monsters attaching bombs to children's chests and trying to send them into cities. This checkpoint stop not only saved the child's life, but likely saved a lot of civilians as well. If your gonna call this video proof of Israeli atrocities it in fact says a lot more about your own world view.

Once again religion shows it's ugly side.

"Israeli roadblocks are a deplorable human rights violation. It's a affront to humanity to control passage from one state to another."

A necessary evil. It's a good thing they stopped him from blowing up in the middle of a city.

"And the request to take off the trousers was evidently meant to humiliate that innocent child. Israel should be ashamed."

He could be wearing more explosives. Of course they have to be certain.

Israeli roadblocks are a deplorable human rights violation. It's a affront to humanity to control passage from one state to another.

And the request to take off the trousers was evidently meant to humiliate that innocent child. Israel should be ashamed.

I'm still confused. Are you saying we should boycott the olympics because China is occupying Tibet? If so, then should we also boycott any future olympic games being held in the US, in Russia, Australia, Turkey, Spain and Israel (just the countries I can think of at the top of my head)?
I'm not saying the situation is anything but grim in Tibet, but as I understand it the Chinese consider Tibet a part of China which would make the Tibetan nationalists rebels. What I'm trying to get at is that there's always (atleast) two sides to an issue, and from what I've gathered the west has chosen to highlight and support the Dalai Lama's plight with strong propaganda against China. Apparently, the situation before the Chinese invasion wasn't any better than today, and while it in no stretch justifies murder like what we witness in the video, I think boycotting the olympics because they're held in China makes little sense.
First of all, it's not like they chose to hold the games there because the Chinese (in our perspective) occupy Tibet nor because they've commited human rights violations. Instead, they chose that particular country because it proved it was able to successfully hold the event, properly set up the various arenas and make sure the games were covered adequately.
Second of all, and this will be my last point, if we should decide on boycotting the games for above mentioned reasons then I'm afraid we'll quickly run out of countries to hold them in. I guess we could hold them on Iceland, but that's kind of self-defeating since the whole idea (as I understand it) is that every country that participates should have a chance of holding the games, and that should be the only thing relevant to the people watching the olympics in my mind. It's completely detached from any of its participating countries' internal policies, and it should stay that way.

This could very well become the great US shame, the dark stain on their history much like the killing of the indians and the segregation in the south.
Of course, most countries in the world have variations of these kinds of crimes in their past, certainly the countries who've held positions of power in the world at one point in time. That doesn't justify human rights violations, and it goes to show there are no such things as "forces of good" and "axis of evil" in the world.

Don't like human rights violations

*ban, but I'm still gonna take his advice.

I'm off to beat, stab, bludgeon, kill, and tease all those responsible for human rights violations! Viva la resistance!

And I will make sure I do it to ALL PERSONS!!!!!

Chechnya and others started resolving to military actions (including violating human rights toward Russian soldiers) whenever Russia was weak historically (this time, pre-2000 without today's Russian oil business). And desperate to hold the government from downright collapse, Russia started to implement torture and violation of human rights etc.

What's going on in Chechnya and other provinces of Russia is a necessary evil. You may argue that Russia doesn't have to resolve to torture and oppression. But how else would you fight against a militarily active independence movement that outright refuses to abide by Russian rules? If they don't want to play by the rules, then the rules don't apply to them either.

You may say this is cruel, but we had a similar history of our own. We had Confederate States of America declaring independence, forcing USA to declare war, killing total 3% of United States population. These guys wanted to secede from United States and wanted to keep slavery (violation of human rights). It came from a very distinct political stance and desire to protect local economy (also influence of Texas, who wanted a country of their own as well), as seeing end of slavery would mean collapse of already dwindling southern economy.

You could argue that United States would've been better off granting independence to CSA without a declaring war. Well then I don't see why US should keep Texas or California or New Mexico or Vermont. And with CSA continuing to have slave trade, and Texas continuing to raid local Indian settlements to gain territory?

Would we have been better off as a divided nation? That is a very serious question.


In reply to this comment by messenger:
More civic power in certain culturally different areas of a country leads to demands for rights and independence, which either leads to actual independence, or to violent oppression. In these cases, it was violent oppression, and that's what I don't like. When I say that it's human rights violations that are holding those two countries together, I mean that human rights violations are forcing Chechnya and Taiwan to remain part of the country, not that the whole country would fall apart.

Ah. I see where our misunderstanding lies: When I said something about "nations clamoring for independence," I was referring only to Chechnya, Tibet, etc., NOT China, nor Russia. The only changes I would like to make in those countries is to stop their human rights violations, by I-don't-know-what-method, but certainly not by imposing democracy from the outside. That clearly doesn't work.

More civic power in certain culturally different areas of a country leads to demands for rights and independence, which either leads to actual independence, or to violent oppression. In these cases, it was violent oppression, and that's what I don't like. When I say that it's human rights violations that are holding those two countries together, I mean that human rights violations are forcing Chechnya and Taiwan to remain part of the country, not that the whole country would fall apart.

In reply to this comment by legacy0100:
It's because

1. Russia actually DO want Putin to stay in power. Despite what Kasparov says there, the general Russian public does have a strong support for Putin. Especially young Russians support Putin with much optimism and vigor.

2. If released Chechnya, other states with private militaries would start demanding the same thing. Many of them being remnants of instability since the collapse of USSR. So even though Chechnya alone does have a legitimate cause to demand independence, Russia just cannot afford to show signs of 'giving up' at this time.

Once things have settled down, they may give it another chance.

3. Improved human rights treatment can be achieved without having to make a democratic nation. People usually confuse democracy automatically resulting to better humans rights and civic power. It's actually the opposite. More civic power means more demands for civilian rights, and civilian rights leads to democracy.

Human rights violations result from power struggles (government instability) and lack of civil power. Once government stabilizes and economy goes up, these things will take care of themselves.

It's because

1. Russia actually DO want Putin to stay in power. Despite what Kasparov says there, the general Russian public does have a strong support for Putin. Especially young Russians support Putin with much optimism and vigor.

2. If released Chechnya, other states with private militaries would start demanding the same thing. Many of them being remnants of instability since the collapse of USSR. So even though Chechnya alone does have a legitimate cause to demand independence, Russia just cannot afford to show signs of 'giving up' at this time.

Once things have settled down, they may give it another chance.

3. Improved human rights treatment can be achieved without having to make a democratic nation. People usually confuse democracy automatically resulting to better humans rights and civic power. It's actually the opposite. More civic power means more demands for civilian rights, and civilian rights leads to democracy.

Human rights violations result from power struggles (government instability) and lack of civil power. Once government stabilizes and economy goes up, these things will take care of themselves.

In reply to this comment by messenger:
@legacy:

You have said several times that you democracy can't be forced on a people who aren't ready for it. I fully agree with the principle and your examples. But I don't see how that sentiment applies here. What country is being considered for "forceful" democratization? Nobody's talking about going to war to make China and Russia democratic. We're talking about nations that are clamoring for freedom and being militarily repressed. As I said above, if Russia and China stopped their human rights violations, Tibet, Taiwan, Burma and Chechnya would be free, and soon democratic. Heck, Taiwan already is democratic, but not freely so. China and Russia would be imperceptibly smaller, and free to continue on as the dictatorships they are now, without having any democracy "forced" on them.

@legacy:

You have said several times that you democracy can't be forced on a people who aren't ready for it. I fully agree with the principle and your examples. But I don't see how that sentiment applies here. What country is being considered for "forceful" democratization? Nobody's talking about going to war to make China and Russia democratic. We're talking about nations that are clamoring for freedom and being militarily repressed. As I said above, if Russia and China stopped their human rights violations, Tibet, Taiwan, Burma and Chechnya would be free, and soon democratic. Heck, Taiwan already is democratic, but not freely so. China and Russia would be imperceptibly smaller, and free to continue on as the dictatorships they are now, without having any democracy "forced" on them.

All that's holding Russia and China together right now is gross human rights violations. Without them, both countries would fall apart. It's true. And that's a good thing. I'd rather have a divided Russia and a divided China, and a free Taiwan, a free Tibet, a free Burma, and a free Chechnya.