Tibet, Taiwan, and Human Suffering

It is strange when talking about mature.

Should China invade any neighbouring nations, or bombing
any cities, or sending tanks to a town to prove it is mature
enough?

"John Savard" wrote in message
...
Recently, the documentary "What's Left of Us" about the desperate plight
of the Tibetan people in their homeland was brought to Edmonton.

Now that taking action to end the long-running tragedy of the Tibetan
people would not trigger a response from the Soviet Union, and given
that although the People's Republic of China has nuclear weapons, its
effective capability of delivering them is limited, the question comes
to mind: why has this sort of thing been allowed to continue?

The Tibetan people wanted no part of China's Cultural Revolution, they
want no part of Communism, and so regardless of whether Tibet had been
under Chinese rule during some portion of Chinese history, why not just
simply tell China in no uncertain terms to keep its hands off Tibet?

And, of course, Red China also threatens the island of Taiwan - where a
free Chinese people live as part of our world of civilized, democratic
nations.

Given such events as the terrorist outrage of September 11, 2001 on the
one hand, and the reckless suicide attack on an American military
airplane over international waters near China on the other, many lovers
of freedom are concerned that the near future might hold for America a
two-front war, against the world's one billion Muslims on one side, and
against the world's one billion Chinese on the other.

That certainly is one good reason for the United States to exercise the
restraint that it has been exercising towards China, and in its war
against terror.

Thus, George W. Bush, despite criticism from John Kerry and others, is
allowing the government of Pakistan to pursue the search for Osama bin
Laden, despite its difficulty, and the importance of bringing him to
justice for the American people, because the alternative of simply
ignoring the wishes of the Pakistani government, and presumably taking
over the rule of a discontented and angry people is disproportionate to
the value of vengeance. It is difficult, as things are, for him to
organize further terrorist acts, and that will have to be enough for the
time being.

China may decide yet to invade Taiwan. Should that happen, it is likely
the U.S. will make as measured and proportionate a response as possible.
What the U.S. appears to hope for is that Taiwan could do a "one
country, two systems" deal with China to allow the U.S. to wash its
hands of the problem.

But if this cannot happen, and China responds to a U.S. attempt to
frustrate, by conventional means, its invasion of Taiwan, with an attack
on American cities?

Then there would be war.

And war causes disruption and chaos.

The likely consequence in China would be, to paraphrase Saddam Hussein,
"the mother of all famines".

It is therefore not surprising that while compassion for human suffering
moves us to deplore the plight of Tibet, compassion for human suffering
prevents us from doing the one thing that has any hope of ending that
plight, unseating the present Chinese government by sheer force.

Rather than precipitating a conflict, the United States acts on the hope
that China will mature and mellow in time on the one hand, and that
terrorism is something unrepresentative of the Islamic world, and can be
once again reduced to the occasional minor and isolated incident.

But realism demands that we not accept our hopes as facts. Perhaps the
future of humanity on Earth will be bleak, and the United States will be
overwhelmed by an alliance of the Islamic world and China. Europe, and
the world's other democracies, will need to make very uneasy terms with
the new order in that case.

And so we have another hope that freedom will survive.

Instead of being preoccupied with war preparations, before the night
falls, it has been proposed that the United States animate its space
program with new vigor, so as to make possible the opening of the planet
Mars to human settlement.

As the future is uncertain, what better step to take than placing some
free men in a redoubt beyond the reach of tyrants?

Human suffering may be inevitable in a world of people who are driven to
have children even when they are not certain of being able to feed and
take care of them properly.

If human history can lead to achievements in the arts, in the sciences,
and in the advance to democracy, then, at least, there will have been
some point to what humanity has suffered. If, on the other hand,
suffering only leads to more and worse suffering, until human extinction
is achieved, it would all have been tragically pointless.

I hope that as much of humanity as possible will become part of the
opportunity to live as humans should live - in peace, freedom, and
prosperity. But to begin with, we must ensure that in the future, at
least a few humans will live this way, instead of none at all.

John Savard
http://home.ecn.ab.ca/~jsavard/index.html

John Savard wrote:
Recently, the documentary "What's Left of Us" about the desperate plight
of the Tibetan people in their homeland was brought to Edmonton.

Spare us the self-serving garbage. You don't care who suffers. You
excuses about Tibet are only because you like to pick on people who
can't fight back.

--
Ray Fischer

This person (Mr Savard) is proposing using violence
(war) to make tibetan people "free".

A war is against the very nature of the tibetan culture,
as stated by the Dalai Lama several times.

The Dalai Lama has never started a war or a violent act
against anyone, and is the only high ranking political
person that has followed the belief in non-violence
to their logical consequence.

This aspect of the tibetan culture is the one that
impresses me the most: the non-violence of their
approach.

In this times where we seem to be drowning in a wave
of violence, where man kills man, this message of
brotherhood is like a light in this darkness, a guide.

The Dalai Lama has never killed, either directly or indirectly
anyone or started an action that could result in violence.

Chinese and tibetan people must solve the problem of the
destruction of the tibetan country by the dictators in
Peking.

But the unsetting of those dictators is the task of the
chinese and the tibetan people, not of anyone else and surely
not the United States.

Mr Savard proposes that the US should start another war
against China.

Bin-Laden hunt is not so important, Mr Savard continues.
Most important is to answer the chinese aggression of
downing a spy plane near the chinese coast.

Mr Savard is trying to convince people to start doing
the ultimate sin:

Killing.

If there is something that stands at the opposite side
of tibetan culture that is it:

Killing.

"John Savard" wrote in message
...
Recently, the documentary "What's Left of Us" about the desperate plight
of the Tibetan people in their homeland was brought to Edmonton.


Thus, George W. Bush, despite criticism from John Kerry and others, is
allowing the government of Pakistan to pursue the search for Osama bin
Laden,

I'm not aware of any one saying "Don't search for Osama bin Laden." What
are you talking about? Kerry criticized Bush for failing to capture bin
Laden a couple years ago, but that's a past event. Kerry is not saying to
Pakistan "Don't search now."

China may decide yet to invade Taiwan. Should that happen, it is likely
the U.S. will make as measured and proportionate a response as possible.
What the U.S. appears to hope for is that Taiwan could do a "one
country, two systems" deal with China to allow the U.S. to wash its
hands of the problem.

One option is to fire bomb a Chinese city, killing a million people, and
then stop fighting and go home. It would be a way to punish China for
invading Taiwan without getting drawn into a long drawn-out war. There is
some risk of retaliation.

We could stop all trade with China and default on all the Treasury Bills
China owns. That would be highly disruptive for both countries. Over time,
we could find other trading partners.

Mike Rhino wrote:
One option is to fire bomb a Chinese city, killing a million people, and
then stop fighting and go home. It would be a way to punish China for
invading Taiwan without getting drawn into a long drawn-out war. There is
some risk of retaliation.

Are you serious? When has such a strategy ever worked
in practice before? "Proportional response" is just a
code word for laziness and revenge.

"Christopher M. Jones" wrote in message
...
Mike Rhino wrote:
One option is to fire bomb a Chinese city, killing a million people, and
then stop fighting and go home. It would be a way to punish China for
invading Taiwan without getting drawn into a long drawn-out war. There
is
some risk of retaliation.

Are you serious? When has such a strategy ever worked
in practice before? "Proportional response" is just a
code word for laziness and revenge.

It wouldn't work, but it would be a deterrent to the next person who wants
to invade something. I didn't use the phrase "Proportional Response" and I
don't know what it means in this situation.

Mike Rhino wrote:
"Christopher M. Jones" wrote in message
...
Are you serious? When has such a strategy ever worked
in practice before? "Proportional response" is just a
code word for laziness and revenge.

It wouldn't work, but it would be a deterrent to the next person who wants
to invade something. I didn't use the phrase "Proportional Response" and I
don't know what it means in this situation.

Exactly what you meant. Tit for tat, attempt to discourage
further similar behavior with a limited punishment. This
tends not to work.

"Christopher M. Jones" wrote in message
...
Mike Rhino wrote:
"Christopher M. Jones" wrote in message
...
Are you serious? When has such a strategy ever worked
in practice before? "Proportional response" is just a
code word for laziness and revenge.

It wouldn't work, but it would be a deterrent to the next person who
wants
to invade something. I didn't use the phrase "Proportional Response"
and I
don't know what it means in this situation.

Exactly what you meant. Tit for tat, attempt to discourage
further similar behavior with a limited punishment. This
tends not to work.

I wasn't thinking of it as being proportional to anything. You say that it
tends not to work implying that there is some historical data on this
subject. What examples did you have in mind?

China did exactly that with Tibet & E Turkestan

Hypocrisy - yuk !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

"Water Barbarian" wrote in message
news:u48jd.362199$MQ5.119339@attbi_s52...
It is strange when talking about mature.

Should China invade any neighbouring nations, or bombing
any cities, or sending tanks to a town to prove it is mature
enough?

"John Savard" wrote in message
...
Recently, the documentary "What's Left of Us" about the desperate plight
of the Tibetan people in their homeland was brought to Edmonton.

Now that taking action to end the long-running tragedy of the Tibetan
people would not trigger a response from the Soviet Union, and given
that although the People's Republic of China has nuclear weapons, its
effective capability of delivering them is limited, the question comes
to mind: why has this sort of thing been allowed to continue?

The Tibetan people wanted no part of China's Cultural Revolution, they
want no part of Communism, and so regardless of whether Tibet had been
under Chinese rule during some portion of Chinese history, why not just
simply tell China in no uncertain terms to keep its hands off Tibet?

And, of course, Red China also threatens the island of Taiwan - where a
free Chinese people live as part of our world of civilized, democratic
nations.

Given such events as the terrorist outrage of September 11, 2001 on the
one hand, and the reckless suicide attack on an American military
airplane over international waters near China on the other, many lovers
of freedom are concerned that the near future might hold for America a
two-front war, against the world's one billion Muslims on one side, and
against the world's one billion Chinese on the other.

That certainly is one good reason for the United States to exercise the
restraint that it has been exercising towards China, and in its war
against terror.

Thus, George W. Bush, despite criticism from John Kerry and others, is
allowing the government of Pakistan to pursue the search for Osama bin
Laden, despite its difficulty, and the importance of bringing him to
justice for the American people, because the alternative of simply
ignoring the wishes of the Pakistani government, and presumably taking
over the rule of a discontented and angry people is disproportionate to
the value of vengeance. It is difficult, as things are, for him to
organize further terrorist acts, and that will have to be enough for the
time being.

China may decide yet to invade Taiwan. Should that happen, it is likely
the U.S. will make as measured and proportionate a response as possible.
What the U.S. appears to hope for is that Taiwan could do a "one
country, two systems" deal with China to allow the U.S. to wash its
hands of the problem.

But if this cannot happen, and China responds to a U.S. attempt to
frustrate, by conventional means, its invasion of Taiwan, with an attack
on American cities?

Then there would be war.

And war causes disruption and chaos.

The likely consequence in China would be, to paraphrase Saddam Hussein,
"the mother of all famines".

It is therefore not surprising that while compassion for human suffering
moves us to deplore the plight of Tibet, compassion for human suffering
prevents us from doing the one thing that has any hope of ending that
plight, unseating the present Chinese government by sheer force.

Rather than precipitating a conflict, the United States acts on the hope
that China will mature and mellow in time on the one hand, and that
terrorism is something unrepresentative of the Islamic world, and can be
once again reduced to the occasional minor and isolated incident.

But realism demands that we not accept our hopes as facts. Perhaps the
future of humanity on Earth will be bleak, and the United States will be
overwhelmed by an alliance of the Islamic world and China. Europe, and
the world's other democracies, will need to make very uneasy terms with
the new order in that case.

And so we have another hope that freedom will survive.

Instead of being preoccupied with war preparations, before the night
falls, it has been proposed that the United States animate its space
program with new vigor, so as to make possible the opening of the planet
Mars to human settlement.

As the future is uncertain, what better step to take than placing some
free men in a redoubt beyond the reach of tyrants?

Human suffering may be inevitable in a world of people who are driven to
have children even when they are not certain of being able to feed and
take care of them properly.

If human history can lead to achievements in the arts, in the sciences,
and in the advance to democracy, then, at least, there will have been
some point to what humanity has suffered. If, on the other hand,
suffering only leads to more and worse suffering, until human extinction
is achieved, it would all have been tragically pointless.

I hope that as much of humanity as possible will become part of the
opportunity to live as humans should live - in peace, freedom, and
prosperity. But to begin with, we must ensure that in the future, at
least a few humans will live this way, instead of none at all.

John Savard
http://home.ecn.ab.ca/~jsavard/index.html

Just like what happened to the American
Indians.

"TK" wrote in message
...
China did exactly that with Tibet & E Turkestan

Hypocrisy - yuk !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

"Water Barbarian" wrote in message
news:u48jd.362199$MQ5.119339@attbi_s52...
It is strange when talking about mature.

Should China invade any neighbouring nations, or bombing
any cities, or sending tanks to a town to prove it is mature
enough?

"John Savard" wrote in message
...
Recently, the documentary "What's Left of Us" about the desperate plight
of the Tibetan people in their homeland was brought to Edmonton.

Now that taking action to end the long-running tragedy of the Tibetan
people would not trigger a response from the Soviet Union, and given
that although the People's Republic of China has nuclear weapons, its
effective capability of delivering them is limited, the question comes
to mind: why has this sort of thing been allowed to continue?

The Tibetan people wanted no part of China's Cultural Revolution, they
want no part of Communism, and so regardless of whether Tibet had been
under Chinese rule during some portion of Chinese history, why not just
simply tell China in no uncertain terms to keep its hands off Tibet?

And, of course, Red China also threatens the island of Taiwan - where a
free Chinese people live as part of our world of civilized, democratic
nations.

Given such events as the terrorist outrage of September 11, 2001 on the
one hand, and the reckless suicide attack on an American military
airplane over international waters near China on the other, many lovers
of freedom are concerned that the near future might hold for America a
two-front war, against the world's one billion Muslims on one side, and
against the world's one billion Chinese on the other.

That certainly is one good reason for the United States to exercise the
restraint that it has been exercising towards China, and in its war
against terror.

Thus, George W. Bush, despite criticism from John Kerry and others, is
allowing the government of Pakistan to pursue the search for Osama bin
Laden, despite its difficulty, and the importance of bringing him to
justice for the American people, because the alternative of simply
ignoring the wishes of the Pakistani government, and presumably taking
over the rule of a discontented and angry people is disproportionate to
the value of vengeance. It is difficult, as things are, for him to
organize further terrorist acts, and that will have to be enough for the
time being.

China may decide yet to invade Taiwan. Should that happen, it is likely
the U.S. will make as measured and proportionate a response as possible.
What the U.S. appears to hope for is that Taiwan could do a "one
country, two systems" deal with China to allow the U.S. to wash its
hands of the problem.

But if this cannot happen, and China responds to a U.S. attempt to
frustrate, by conventional means, its invasion of Taiwan, with an attack
on American cities?

Then there would be war.

And war causes disruption and chaos.

The likely consequence in China would be, to paraphrase Saddam Hussein,
"the mother of all famines".

It is therefore not surprising that while compassion for human suffering
moves us to deplore the plight of Tibet, compassion for human suffering
prevents us from doing the one thing that has any hope of ending that
plight, unseating the present Chinese government by sheer force.

Rather than precipitating a conflict, the United States acts on the hope
that China will mature and mellow in time on the one hand, and that
terrorism is something unrepresentative of the Islamic world, and can be
once again reduced to the occasional minor and isolated incident.

But realism demands that we not accept our hopes as facts. Perhaps the
future of humanity on Earth will be bleak, and the United States will be
overwhelmed by an alliance of the Islamic world and China. Europe, and
the world's other democracies, will need to make very uneasy terms with
the new order in that case.

And so we have another hope that freedom will survive.

Instead of being preoccupied with war preparations, before the night
falls, it has been proposed that the United States animate its space
program with new vigor, so as to make possible the opening of the planet
Mars to human settlement.

As the future is uncertain, what better step to take than placing some
free men in a redoubt beyond the reach of tyrants?

Human suffering may be inevitable in a world of people who are driven to
have children even when they are not certain of being able to feed and
take care of them properly.

If human history can lead to achievements in the arts, in the sciences,
and in the advance to democracy, then, at least, there will have been
some point to what humanity has suffered. If, on the other hand,
suffering only leads to more and worse suffering, until human extinction
is achieved, it would all have been tragically pointless.

I hope that as much of humanity as possible will become part of the
opportunity to live as humans should live - in peace, freedom, and
prosperity. But to begin with, we must ensure that in the future, at
least a few humans will live this way, instead of none at all.

John Savard
http://home.ecn.ab.ca/~jsavard/index.html