Manifest Destiny and Tibet, What's the Difference

TrailerMonkey · Mar 30, 2008

Invisible Fan said:

It's a very pragmatic call, and one I highly doubt the West will willingly accept. Shoot...we jumped head first into the Balkan situation while brushing aside the fact that it was the stomping grounds for the last two World Wars. Noticeably silent in that EU recognition of Kosovo were states who have their own separatist difficulties: Cyprus, Greece, Romania, Slovakia and Spain.

I won't judge much in this topic about Chinese treatment of Tibetans but I find our current treatment of our Native Americans clearly lacking. Poor tribes stay poor. They lack the law enforcement authority to pursue roaming criminals and serial rapists within their jurisdiction while the Bureau of Indian Affairs and FBI twiddle their thumbs and drag their feet on the issue. We privatized their reservation lands in the 70s, which created a land grab for mineral corporations while the Indians saw no direct benefit. In that same era, we encouraged them to migrate into urban projects in order to promote assimilation, but left them with no skills training or overall follow through to survive in the city. Furthermore, in the poorer tribes, their tribal councils are cherry picked with government friendly figureheads whose interests have openly clashed with their traditional leaders. This is not the Noble Savage who has one upped the White Man with the sale of gambling and fire water.

Like it or not, the Iraq disaster has caused a souring shift on our espoused principles of exporting democracy. I don't think China will become one anytime soon. Singapore has a planned economy. Japan relied heavily on the MITI model, and exported it to its neighbors S. Korea, Thailand, and the Philippines where they have enjoyed good gains with similar planned economies. Will there be at least a veneer of democracy in China like those listed countries? Possibly, but not immediately. Their overall base (though impressive in sheer number) isn't mature enough, nor is the infrastructure, and nor is there a pressing need to enact social reforms. In fact, we lost our moral authority, and without it it's harder to divide authoritarian nations to enact individual concessions. They're banding together and improving their networking to override our international institutions we ourselves had set up 60 years ago in order to check them.

The next President has no easy task. There is no 8 year mulligan. He/She has a foreign diplomacy mountain to climb without the wealth of resources and institutions formerly at his disposal. I'm not sure many Americans understand that. I have a feeling both Dem candidates do, but I'm not optimistic in McCain's approach. Regardless, it's too early to decide without them giving more clues.
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Excellent post.

Refman · Mar 30, 2008

snowmt01 said:

But it is still ok for Uncle Sam to f* the middle-east and support the Israel.
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Imagine that...the US supports a state that was created by th United Nations in 1948. Who would have thunk it?

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