Oh, what tangled webs we weave

when we practice to kiss up to murderous regimes with tantalizingly large but ephemeral markets. Yes, I'm talkin' 'bout China.

Now, Hillary is calling for W to boycott the opening ceremonies. She is right, of course, but I think she would have more credibility in this endeavor if her husband had not sold missile defense secrets to the ChiComs in exchange for campaign contributions. What? Did those contributions dry up at this most inopportune time, Hillary?

For that reason, Nancy Pelosi may be the more effective promoter of this idea. Meanwhile, the protests against Beijing continue, this time in Paris and San Francisco. There is some indication that Beijing used agents to "protect" a torch bearer in London.

First, to the International Olympic Committee: enjoy your bed. you picked a vile, despicable host for your prize event, ignoring their murderous, bullying and totalitarian conduct. Now, you are ordering others to ignore this murderous, bullying and totalitarian conduct as well. Beijing deserved to host these games like Saudi Arabia deserves to hold the international ballet competition. Yet in your see "no evil" view of the world, you ignored it like you did Berlin in 1936. You short-sheeted yourselves.

And what is this about the Olympics are supposed to be apolitical? "It's wrong to protest on the Olympic torch route," they say, "because the Olympics are not about politics." Bullshit. That's exactly why the Chinese wanted them and promoted them the way they do, just as Hitler did. To make a political point about their regime. Don't cry when people use the Olympic torch relay to make a political counterargument. Goose, meet gander.

You say Jimmy Carter's boycott of the Olympics in 1980 over the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan was an embarrassment and a failure? Well, pretty much by definition anything Carter did as POTUS was a failure. He just had that way about him. Still does. But years of my own research into Afghanistan and the Soviets suggest that to me that the 1980 Olympic boycott was the one punishment they truly felt. Because they wanted the Moscow Olympics to succeed .. for exactly the same reasons the current ChiCom regime does.

And before you ask, I was screaming my head off back when the games were awarded to Beijing. I just didn't have a blog back then.

To the Chinese government: you suck. You are a firm member of my list of countries to be invaded when I become supreme ruler, just to remove your sorry asses from power. I do support the reunification of China, just not under you, but under the Taiwanese government. You could do your country and the whole world a favor if you would just shoot yourselves in the head.

To W and the American business class: why the fuck are you kowtowing to these people? (Oops! Sorry, I meant to say "engagement," as you call it? My bad ...) Most favored trading status? Olympic games? Close military contacts? Buying the old Long Beach navy base? Allowing our software companies to design censors for China's internet capabilities? All for access to China's market of one billion people, right? And what precisely has been the benefit of "engagement?" China still murders its own people and those of Tibet. China is even more of a bully than ever (just Google "Spratly Islands"). China steals practically all of our intellectual property. China harasses our carrier task groups and won't even let our ships ride out hurricanes in their ports. China actively opposes our policies in Iran and North Korea. Our manufacturers now move their operations to China, where they help us import goods poisoned with lead. And our access to that one billion-person market of China never seems to materialize.

What good, precisely, has this policy of "engagement" created?

(BTW, for you supporters of trade with Cuba, how exactly would Cuba be any different?)

Finally, for the Dalai Lama, I love ya, pal. Really, I do, but there is a reason why Tibet has gotten more publicity in two weeks than it has gotten for the last fifty years combined. Your policy of non-violent resistance is a failure. Non-violence will not work when you are facing people with guns who are very happy to use them. The British India model with Mahatma Gandhi doesn't really work in most places. (Heck, if I had been in charge in Britain, it wouldn't have worked in India, either.) Pacifism is a morally bankrupt and practically ineffective philosophy in contexts such as this.