Free Tibet, But Not Iraq?
As the protests against the Olympics in Beijing heat up around the globe, is anyone else wondering why all these people who oppose the war in Iraq are suddenly agitating for action against China?
Pre-invasion, the human rights situation in Iraq was much worse than the human rights situation in Tibet, so why wasn’t the left happy when we freed Iraqis who were suffering under the boot of Saddam’s oppressive regime? Why is Tibet such a focal point for protest and uproar, but not Iraq? Are the people of Tibet more important than the people of Iraq?
The Bush doctrine states that we should support the aspirations of free people all over the world. Now certainly the Bush administration itself has been imperfect in doing so, and the task is much easier said than done giving the realities of international politics and the limits of even America’s diplomatic and military influence, but philosophically shouldn’t we be as supportive of freeing Iraq as we are of freeing Tibet?
I can’t see any compelling reason to draw a distinction between the two situations.
