Beijing boycott draws criticism
By: Source: UWIRE, The Rocky Mountain Collegian
Issue date: 4/11/08 Section: Views
Recently, it has become very fashionable to call for a boycott of the Beijing Olympics.
This is a very bad idea. A boycott would achieve nothing other than irritating China and depriving our gifted athletes of the opportunity to compete at the highest levels of their sport.
The idea that a bunch of Americans running around yelling "free Tibet" will have any impact on a totalitarian regime is laughable. China won't care if we protest, and they know there is nothing America can actually do to free Tibet. We aren't going to invade mainland China, owner of a very large ground army, if we can't even win a war in Iraq.
So, a boycott would be entirely ceremonial, it would achieve no positive ends while angering the largest nation in the world.
While boycotting the Olympics serves no purpose, the cause has still attracted plenty of support. People often rally around distant causes such as boycotting China or saving Sudan as a means of turning their attention to distant unsolvable problems.
In case you haven't noticed, America has a glaring number of human rights abuses herself. We need to make an attempt at fixing our own crimes before we can go smugly criticizing other countries.
None of this is to say that China is not guilty of great crimes; they are one of the worst offenders. However, their nation is trending in the right direction towards freedom and capitalism, while our own country is becoming increasingly unjust and vindictive.
For one quick example, we've killed tens and maybe hundreds of thousands of innocent Afghani and Iraqi bystanders while waging our modern-day crusades. The suspension of prisoner's rights and their subsequent torture at Guantanamo Bay is also shockingly primitive.
We are also the world's largest arms dealer. Far too frequently, both sides of a war are firing off American made and sold weapons. Yet, while I hear tons of clamoring about Sudan, nobody is trying to shut down Boeing, one of our own companies, which manufactures weapons of mass destruction.We also have disastrous foreign policy. We sided with Saddam Hussein and Iraq in the Iraq-Iran War and then fought that same Hussein twice in the next two decades. We funded Bin Laden's fighters in Afghanistan and then had them turn around and massacre our own people.
America also inexplicably funds and arms the ruthless Israeli regime who gleefully use our weapons to repeatedly invade Lebanon and destroy Palestinian refugee camps. The governments of Israel and Palestine are both corrupt beyond belief; taking sides in a war between two thugs is morally reprehensible.
This is a very bad idea. A boycott would achieve nothing other than irritating China and depriving our gifted athletes of the opportunity to compete at the highest levels of their sport.
The idea that a bunch of Americans running around yelling "free Tibet" will have any impact on a totalitarian regime is laughable. China won't care if we protest, and they know there is nothing America can actually do to free Tibet. We aren't going to invade mainland China, owner of a very large ground army, if we can't even win a war in Iraq.
So, a boycott would be entirely ceremonial, it would achieve no positive ends while angering the largest nation in the world.
While boycotting the Olympics serves no purpose, the cause has still attracted plenty of support. People often rally around distant causes such as boycotting China or saving Sudan as a means of turning their attention to distant unsolvable problems.
In case you haven't noticed, America has a glaring number of human rights abuses herself. We need to make an attempt at fixing our own crimes before we can go smugly criticizing other countries.
None of this is to say that China is not guilty of great crimes; they are one of the worst offenders. However, their nation is trending in the right direction towards freedom and capitalism, while our own country is becoming increasingly unjust and vindictive.
For one quick example, we've killed tens and maybe hundreds of thousands of innocent Afghani and Iraqi bystanders while waging our modern-day crusades. The suspension of prisoner's rights and their subsequent torture at Guantanamo Bay is also shockingly primitive.
We are also the world's largest arms dealer. Far too frequently, both sides of a war are firing off American made and sold weapons. Yet, while I hear tons of clamoring about Sudan, nobody is trying to shut down Boeing, one of our own companies, which manufactures weapons of mass destruction.We also have disastrous foreign policy. We sided with Saddam Hussein and Iraq in the Iraq-Iran War and then fought that same Hussein twice in the next two decades. We funded Bin Laden's fighters in Afghanistan and then had them turn around and massacre our own people.
America also inexplicably funds and arms the ruthless Israeli regime who gleefully use our weapons to repeatedly invade Lebanon and destroy Palestinian refugee camps. The governments of Israel and Palestine are both corrupt beyond belief; taking sides in a war between two thugs is morally reprehensible.
Viewing Comments 1 - 3 of 4
Shivam Pandey
posted 4/11/08 @ 2:36 PM CST
Oh how very convenient; I guess these days people will say anything to stand out... geez, the entire world is horrified to see the atrocities committed by China in Tibet and people are calling to boycott the Beijing Olympics, so someone has to pop-off saying the idea of a boycott is ridiculous! How lame, whoever wrote this article needs to do some research and find facts before they write something for public consumption; here's a news flash for ya. (Continued…)
Steven Trinkl
posted 4/11/08 @ 3:14 PM CST
The entire premise of this article is absurd. China cares what people think about it hosting the Olympics, hence why Chinese get so angry when they find out about Western attitudes towards their human rights record. (Continued…)
Shivam Pandey
posted 4/12/08 @ 4:18 PM CST
By the way, freedom of expression does not imply freedom from responsible journalism (take a hint Ram Page staff); publishing such drivel in our campus newspaper depicts poor judgment. (Continued…)
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