It makes me sick, not figuratively but literally, giving me a disgusting, nauseous knot in my stomach to see how our liberty-hating president and secretary of state have handled the Chen Guangcheng affair. The blind dissident heroically makes his way to the US Embassy, a place he mistakenly thought represented freedom, and our embassy gave him the bum’s rush, turning him over to his totalitarian jailers. If you’re not disgusted, you’re not paying attention.
"I would like to say to President Obama: please do everything you can to get our family out," Chen told CNN, according to a translation of his quote.
Chen's comments came hours after US-based rights group China Aid said the dissident had "reluctantly" left the embassy and that it had been told by "reliable sources" that Beijing had made threats against his relatives. (Yahoo)We are all Neo-Kissengerians Now
China demanded an apology, and instead of standing up as proud Americans and shining our beacon of freedom on the plight of its dissidents, we cowered and pissed down our leg…
Despite Wednesday's agreement, Beijing demanded that the United States apologise for what it called "interference" in its affairs.
"China is very unhappy over this. The US action is an interference in China's internal affairs and China cannot accept it," Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Liu said. (Yahoo)A servile US official obsequiously assured our red overlords that “there would be no repeat of the incident.”
We no longer stand for freedom in the world
At the embassy, Chen said he came under tremendous pressure from American officials—“not those from the embassy but others “—to leave the diplomatic facility as quickly as possible. (Melinda Liu)
Janet Reno, fresh from burning up all those religious nuts in Waco, had her stormtroopers raid his relatives’ house in Florida at Castro’s behest.
Chen’s pleas fall on deaf ears…
Economist - Chen, China and America
CBS News – US Weighs Options
* - Update: A Breakthrough?
Chen’s pleas fall on deaf ears…
“Please try to contact the embassy to send someone over here. I need your help, I’m absolutely, absolutely ready to fly out on Hillary Clinton’s plane. Please tell the embassy what I’m saying, Meiyuan,” he pleaded from his hospital room, using my Chinese name. “I don’t know why the Americans didn’t answer my phone calls.” (Melinda Liu)Sorry Chen! The Land of the Free and Home of the Brave is now the Land of the sheep and home of the bankrupt cowards.
Economist - Chen, China and America
CBS News – US Weighs Options
* - Update: A Breakthrough?
38 comments:
Is Obama's "coolness" actually something else?
Sure, international relations is a part of this ignoring Chen's pleas. Obama doesn't want to oppose China for numerous reasons.
Ultimately, China has achieved the upper hand, and Obama will do NOTHING to "insult" China.
Chen is toast now. **sigh**
Another low point for the Obama Administration. But what do you expect. It's not a wise idea to anger those you owe money to.
The "Friends of Obama" see him for what he is...a paper tiger. They will walk all over him. Russia now threatens to bomb our defensive missles in Poland and The Czec Republic.
This country doesn't even represent true freedom for US anymore, let alone a dissident.
We're told what we should eat, we ignore voter fraud, we're insulted for having differing viewpoints than this administration (by him), we're living with a media afraid to criticize their own party....
It's almost laughable to picture us protecting Chen Guangcheng.
And, let's not forget how much debt we're in to China, too......$$$
We've lost the fight we had in us, we've lost the integrity, we've lost the faith of nations....
Scottcarp is so right...Russia is doing this exactly for the reasons we've discussed here; they know America's nothing now...a paper tiger, indeed. Talk about making one literally sick.
Yeah, pretty week. Probably even weaker than Chucklenuts' response when they downed our spy plane.
Major screw up but business is business and they had to call the CEO of Goldman Sachs first.
You bring up Gonzalez but after due process ruled that he should be returned to his father that was kidnapping. Sometimes you have to accept the law, or isn't that true for fringe righties?
Silver, the child molesting gun loons in Waco had shot deputies trying to serve a lawful warrant. The freaks chose immolation.
What's your problem with that. They had freedom of choice.
SF: The news now is that Chen is coming to America to attend university. Hillary's saying that all of this has been his choice all along, that we've just followed what he wanted. Hard to figure he'd get to the US Embassy with help from friends whose lives were jeopardized only to have turned asylum DOWN, but...oh, well, that's Hillary's story.
The university acceptance is, according to the news, "to save China face" :-)
Thank you Ducky for reminding us of the Progressive worship of state over individual.
Lurking just below the Progressive surface is a will to dominate others and a lust for the Strong Man in action.
This man is not an American citizen, yet you ASSume that America must protect him. You support Conservative anti-immigration policies, so you deny those being persecuted, a place of refuge. You prefer to have the World be just like America. You are simply an imperialist. A war monger who thinks our military, is supposed to suppress the rest of the World, in favor of your ideology of forced government.
"standing up as proud Americans and shining our beacon of freedom on the plight of its dissidents, we cowered and pissed down our leg…"
Let me change this to the real meaning...’Obama & Clinton’ cowered and pissed down ‘THEIR’ leg.
Liberty loving, constitutional respecting Americans would have pissed ON Beijings leg.
I see an active global partnership being formed all in opposition to the dominance of the United States. Russia, China, Iran, Venezuela, Turkey, and the rest are all in cahoots together against us. I hate to think how it will all end within the next 30 years.
Honestly, I don't think that it would have been all too different regardless of who was president. Michelle Bachmann was right when she Hu's your daddy. We owe them so much money and they are so vindictive that we had to allow them to save face. This won't change until we pay down our debt.
I just read the update to the post. It appears that I was too pessimistic about the outcome for Chen.
But I have to wonder exactly how this breakthrough happened and how much journalists will not be censored and otherwise restricted in China.
According to BBC News:
...One of China's main official newspapers, the Beijing Daily, accused the dissident of being "a tool and a pawn for American politicians to blacken China".
In another development, the Chinese authorities have told some foreign correspondents covering the Chen story they may lose their visas if they breach regulations again.
The police warning came after the journalists, thought to number about 20, were accused of entering the hospital where Mr Chen is being treated without permission....
Furthermore, I find it difficult to believe that all the recent talk of the Chen case hasn't made Obama's minions within the administration stop and say, "Uh oh! This Chen thing makes The One look bad, so we need to find a resolution that will lull the American electorate back to sleep."
AOW: It wasn't just you. I too am kneejerk pessimistic.
Who knows what really happened? Any administration so willing to hand citizens back over to rotten regimes, no questions asked, greatly disturbs me.
Obama and his administration wouldn't dare do a darn thing to offend China, we owe them too much money.
That man is going to turn up dead or missing. Count on it.
@Silverfiddle -- Thank you Ducky for reminding us of the Progressive worship of state over individual.
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Full of crap. Absolutely full of crap.
The boy was returned to his father - family values which you so often champion which were adjudicated.
Now, if you are a supporter of the psychotic Waco child fucker then you have indeed walked off the pier.
Nothing like bold state action to excite the passions, eh Ducky?
If he does make it out, it means that we paid one heavy price in whatever deal they cut for us to have him. China does not give up anything for nothing.
Hack said...
I see an active global partnership being formed all in opposition to the dominance of the United States. Russia, China, Iran, Venezuela, Turkey, and the rest are all in cahoots together against us."
I do, too....throw in Afghanistan today; it's been found that Obama signed in that agreement the other day that we can never use Afghanistan by which to go into Pakistan no matter what. Our kids died there, but they're calling the shots and this president signs on.
No I think you tried to go a bridge too far, Silver, or maybe two.
The state performed legitimate functions in both the Gonzalez and the Waco affairs.
Defying the court order and kidnapping is fine if the father is Cuban? Why?
The state should not serve a warrant on a flagrant child molesting cult leader and the cult should not assume personal responsibility when the immolate themselves? I though you righties were big on that personal responsibility meme.
No, you have been extremely inconsistent here.
As for the situation in China, we may yet do the right thing.
What if he had come from North Korea? Would it be OK to return him?
As for Waco, there's a right way and a stupid way. Clinton's ballsiest cabinet member did it the wrong way.
But it's the government, so it's all OK!
You cons always blithely discount the reality that there are forces beyond nation states that wield as much power: multinational corporations and the international corporate world.
The United States does not have the leverage with China it had 30 or 70 years ago. And at best, such leverage has only been tenuous throughout our relations with China, the nation state, over the years.
However, the communist Chinese enterprises, over those years, created a sort of feudal/industrial city-state system. These various enterprises slowly but surely went about making deals to get their goods into Western nations who did not have state-owned commercial or industrial enterprises.
That relationship goes back a long ways, and has become exponentially less tenuous over the years.
And all of you who are comfortable with "Free Trade" are to blame.
JMJ
North Korea? I assume there would be a petition for asylum since his life would be in danger.
That would not be the case in Cuba.
Now, is it okay to kidnap and deny a court order? If so, under what circumstances?
Of all our diplomatic postings I would have to say the Asian ones are probably the most difficult.
The differences in culture and way of thinking are the greatest between West and East.
First, look at what the Chinese government actually said:
"Chen Guangcheng could apply to study abroad"
http://news.yahoo.com/china-dissident-says-unable-meet-u-officials-051814920.html
They didn't say "he could study abroad" they said he could "apply".
This position establishes and reinforces the relationship between Chen and his government.
We in the west tend to think in a linear fashion viewing this as a dispute between Chen and his government, possibly seeing ourselves as mediators. Or we may simply look at this as a political issue, or a human rights issue.
In the east, this is a much more complicated contextual problem with a far greater number of players. You can't play two dimensional chess on a three dimensional board, you'll lose.
I have no idea what's going on behind the scenes, but I can't fault State for anything I've seen in the news.
You cannot come at the Chinese from a position of strength and superiority, nor can you come at them obsequiously. Neither position will work towards any desired outcome. The only effective way to deal with the Chinese is as equals, whether you believe that or not.
Duplicitousness is not necessary viewed as a character flaw, as the preservation of relationships and the social status quo is viewed as more important.
If it were me?
Given the Chinese statement that Chen may apply to study abroad, I would publically state that the entire matter is at the discretion of the Chinese government, yet the US as always, supports Chinese measures to foster and expand human rights while fighting corruption.
I would convey privately that they would be better off without him, and offer privately that as a gesture of goodwill we would relieve them of this burden.
This publically acknowledges that the Chinese are masters of their own house while clearly delineating what our preference is, while at the same time making us 'appear' to be trying to be helpful.
If I were to predict outcomes based on this approach, I would say we would have a pretty good chance of resolving this successfully.
If the Chinese were to allow him to come to the US, I think they would approve a four or six year visa to "study", while making it abundantly clear to him and his family that they never want to see them again.
I think there is an outside chance they may take a different approach, say allowing him to study in Hong Kong, effectively getting him out of their hair while remaining on what is ostensibly Chinese soil.
You can't get anywhere in Asia with a carrot and a stick.
Cheers!
Jersey: ... You communists... bla bla bla...
Ducky: So condemning someone to certain death is bad, but if they die slowly, with the soul expiring first, that's OK...
Progressivism is a disease, you need to go to Cuba to cure yourself...
Always On Watch said...
Is Obama's "coolness" actually something else?
Probably need to ask his composite girlfriend.
Great post SF. Whatever happened to America's protection of Freedom Fighters.
Do we only go to war for Muslim Nations these days?
We turn our back on Israel and help in the attacking of Libya, and Egypt.
How things have changed.
The Muslim Brotherhood my azz.
A corporate Merchantilist state like China or America doesn't need freedom or liberty. All it needs is a monopoly on capital. That way the elites can reward their friends and crush their enemies... and the only people whose asses that anyone has to kiss are on the Boards of Directors. After all, only a fool would pay investors for the rent of their money. And if you really need some, all the government has to do is PRINT more of it and then raise prices and taxes on the peasants.
Of course, sometimes you don't crush all your enemies... you ALLOW one or two to go study abroad... leaving your "recognized authority" to crush all the others within your borders, intact. Ain't freedom GRAND?
Its so nice to see the Communists siding with the countries that oppress and persecute its citizens. So much for the State standing up for a person's human dignity or/and human rights. The commies only care about their human rights especially when it involves killing another human body in the womb.
FJ: That is incredibly cynical and exceedingly well-stated. I agree wholeheartedly.
"Jersey: ... You communists... bla bla bla..."
So, no intelligent response to the growing power of multinational corporations, their effect on our sovereignty and foreign relations, and the relation of Free Trade to all that, huh?
Just what I thought. Too complicated for a conservative.
JMJ
Too complicated for a conservative.
No professor. I generally agree with your comments. They are standard mainstream thought, nothing earth-shattering, and they have nothing to do with this post.
Free trade is a good thing. Putting your nation in hock to another is a bad thing. That is central to this incident, not "multinational corporations," but I forgive you your predictable liberal tics. I know you can't help it.
Libertarians are to liberty as conservatives are to conservation!
Cute one, Ducky!
Who do you think cares more about the environment and is more in tune with nature? Latte-sipping metrosexuals who've never been camping, or rightwing gun nut hunters and fishermen?
As Democrats are to democracy.
Latte-sipping metrosexuals... lol
The environment...that's that thing on the otherside of the window, right?
liberals like to portray themselves as bastions of freedom and liberty, the reality though is far from the truth.
I suppose Chen was foolish to appeal to obama, Syrians murdered by the thousands and obama only has time to study his navel and watch the grass grow. This after attacking Libya for doing exactly what's being done in Syria.
It's something the freedom-loving world has to learn the hard way, if there's a democrat in charge, I suggest you shelve your plans for freedom and safety until said democrat leaves.
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