I thought, from my understanding, that the Olympics were supposed to be set up and established as an apolitical event? Was I incorrect in that assessment? I was under the impression that they had been revived in the spirit of allowing the athletes of the world to come together and compete without the constraints of political wrangling and haggling.
Yet since the 1956 Melbourne Olympics, politics has wormed it's way into even the Olympics, as it has managed to do yet again with the upcoming Beijing Olympics of this year.
It's an interesting thing that for the one U.S. stop of the Olympic Torch, an event meant to usher in a season where our world class athletes are gathering in hopes of competing with others from around the world, people bent on protestation over the relations between China and Tibet set out to extinguish the torch. The situation was serious enough that the torch route had to be changed for security reasons.
The announcement came during a day in which the torch's trek through the city was shortened and its path altered to try to minimize the chances that protesters would mar the event.
Anti-Chinese protesters and Beijing supporters lined the streets along the planned route hours ahead of the start of the relay.
The torch was lit in a short ceremony at AT&T Park in front of hundreds of pro-Chinese supporters who waved Chinese, American and Olympic flags.
I can honestly understand the outrage over the China/Tibet situation. I can equally understand outrage over the China/Taiwan situation, but it seems that's a less popular "cause" than Tibet. I have to wonder why? Do the people of Taiwan not deserve as much a chance to live without the threat of mainland China taking them over as the people of Tibet deserve?
Africa comes to mind, as well. At any given moment, on any given day, there are horrors and atrocities committed on the African continent, and yet no one protests. No one complains. No one forms groups to go out and picket on behalf of the people of Darfor, which was, for a few days, slightly newsworthy. There are no mass demonstrations against the atrocities of the Sudan. The United States went to war in Iraq and removed Saddam Hussein, and who was vilified? The dictator who was committing genocide, or the nation who had, supposedly, committed itself after 9/11 to go after terrorists any where that they were being given sanctuary.
How many warnings did we give the old Iraqi government that we were going to do something? Plenty. We gave them enough advance warning that they had ample time to move any weapons of mass destruction out of the country so that they wouldn't be found if and when American and coalition forces invaded. And yet the evidence of genocide was found in the forms of mass graves, torture and rape rooms, and the like. Yet that wasn't protested; the invasion OF Iraq to stop a dictator was what came under fire.
And yet Hillary Clinton and others are calling for George Bush to boycott the Beijing Olympics, while at the same time calling for a withdrawal of American forces from Iraq at a time when doing so would clearly destabilize the region.
I do not understand picking and choosing which evil to vilify and which to condone. The treatment of Tibet by China is wrong, but at the same time the treatment of Kurds and Iraqi's by Saddam Hussein was wrong, as well. Other nations call for the elimination of the nation of Israel, and they are celebrated, not protested. If an Israeli so much as sneezes in self-defense, there is outrage among those on the left in this country.
But are these things, are these situations, cause for protesting the Olympics? The Olympics are not Chinese, they are not Iraqi, they are not Israeli, they are not American. They are, truly, an international event designed for the spirit of athletic competition. And yet we have politicized even our sporting events now, protesting the host nation by taking out our outrage on the international community as a whole.
The Olympics are not about China, they're about all of us, all around the world, every man, woman, and child in every nation who wishes to compete in a fair and friendly atmosphere for the sake of competition.
In my opinion, in my mind, politicizing them cheapens the entire organization.
Once and Always, an American Fighting Man
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