Ok, this is really weird. Today, Bush National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley was on Fox talking about whether Bush would boycott the Olympics' opening ceremony, and talked about the issue of "Tibet." Later the same morning he went on ABC and discussed the same issue, but he consistently talked about "Nepal."
(As Think Progress and CrooksandLiars point out, these are 2 distinct places.) Very curious -- is Hadley just a moron? Or is there some diplomacy-speak reason that someone would tell him to actively switch from "Tibet" to "Nepal" between shows?
"We want to say to China, 'We thought that the Olympic Games would help you improve your human rights record," Tutu said. "We still hope... But what we are saying to the heads of state, to President George Bush, is, 'For goodness sake, don't go to the Beijing games... for the sake of our children, for the beautiful people of Tibet. Don't go!'"
First things first: there are no suicide bombers in Tibet. But unless the Chinese government makes some drastic changes to policies with Tibet, there will be, potentially very, very soon.
At the risk of being a finger-wagger, I can't help but be somewhat appalled at the lack of commentary on the violent protests that have taken place in the Tibet Autonomous Region and surrounding provinces this past week. When the election cycle takes 3 years, we should make a concerted effort to start thinking about some of the things the next president is actually going to have to deal with. Like a violent guerrilla movement against one of our more problematic and violence-prone allies.
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