WTF- US Military "Prepped" Guantanamo Detainees for Chinese Interrogators

i personally think, if an inferior culture is no longer relevant. it should be trying to adapt to something better. there is no reason to preserve something just for the sake to be different.

if you are afraid what they are going to do, then they are terrorist to you.

why only tibetan or uighur? there are 50+ more ethinic groups. they don't get blamed attributing to the group they belong to. i doubt the first thing police gon care is, what ethnic group are you? more like, why the heck did you beat that guy?

 

And here lies the problem. This kind of thinking is the problem. It isn't up to you to decide what's relevant or important for other groups.

 

It is up to that group of people to decide. If all the Indians in the US decide they want to live like the rest of the Americans can they not do that? Or are they only allow to live the way of their ancestors?

Of course you know that Yuantian is a Chinese minority, if he and other minority of his race decide they want to live like the Han Chinese, is that cultural genocide? If their parents teach the kids Han Chinese but not their own language is that not allow?

 

Yes I agree that the minorities can decide for themselves. That's the point. It isn't cultural genocide for him to decide to live any way that he choses. It's when he decides for the whole culture that the problem occurs.

 

The group of which he was a part revolted against the Chinese several times centuries ago but were eventuallly overrun - as a consequence their language and culture is vanishing and wil soon be gone. You can call it a choice but that's not what it was.

 

How many instances of Chinese government is forcing the minorities to abandon their culture and languages?

 

Oh so several centuries ago is also the problem of current Chinese government? Was it the Qing dynasty that conquered the Han people?

 

No - nobody said that at all. Nobody is arguing about things that happened then, more likely things that are ongoing.

 

if it happens in the past, it will continue to happen in the future. that's what happens when multiple cultures live side by side. it's not like the government is actively erasing minorities. i don't call a group of 8 million people and labeled as minority as cultural genocide. if that's the case, why don't they just say, you are all Han. and then nobody will remeber what they were before. isn't that what assimulation is?

 

I've been tied up with work for the past few days and haven't been able to visit CF.net so pardon the lateness of my reply.

Except I wasn't asking you about terrorism. I was asking you regarding if you are OK with the US essentially creating a lawless detention facility as long as they cooperated with China? I certainly think terrorism should be fought whether by the PRC or the US but I also think the rule of law should be respected. They are not mutually exclusive but I was asking you regarding the latter.

Some might feel that way but I think most of the posters in this thread don't agree with the idea of Gitmo as a lawless detention facility in the first place whether the PRC is involved it or not. The presence of the PRC I don't think changes the views of most which is why I'm asking you specifically since you have previously been very critical of the Bush Admin's somewhat lawless tactics in the war on terror.

The PRC should be receiving help from an Interpol partner the problem is though should they be receiving that help when it is under questionable legal circumstances. The status of detainees at Gitmo has never been legally defined and if we are to accept the Admin's argument they have no legal status. Now do you agree that the US should create a prison where they can hold people to no standard of law except their own choosing as long as that benefits China? Does the fact that it benefit China trump any concerns you might have regarding the questionable nature of Gitmo?

 

First let me say that this and quite a few of the China threads are very informative for me. I know next to nothing about China.

China seems to be making great strides in many areas especially economically.
It appears that they are making strides wrt to democracy and human rights, though from the US perspective they have a ways to go. Under Bush-Cheney we are very hypocritical about democracy around the world and are backsliding here at home. Guantanamo is an example.

My question to the Chinese on this thread. Granted great strides are being made and perhaps it is understandable to focus on economics at present given the extreme poverty that still exists in parts of China, but do you eventually want US style freedom of speech, association, democracy. BTW the industrial revolution in Britain or the US was not a uniformly pretty sight.

I don't know much about Singapore either. However, what model would you prefer to be more like? e.g. Singapore or like a Western democracy? If anybody knows is their quite a bit of freedom and democracy in Singapore. We mainly hear about their extreme orderliness and relatively rigid rules.

 

of course we want freedom. but due to huge cultural differences, it doesn't make sense to copy US style democracy. it makes perfect sense to try and see how things goes on our own. find a system that fits China the best. democracy is a rule of majority, it never guarantees freedom. so whatever the system maybe, as long as the people are satisfied with their rights and also well being, then it's a good system. there is no need to label it. that's partially why people don't really care about whether the government is Communist or not. it's just a name now as it's trying to find ways to stay in power but yet provide sufficient and satisfactory rights. it still has ways to go, but most people are happy at the direction it's heading too. after all, those people in power originally did come from the people. so they do have clues about what people needs.