...When you mess with which child is singing Ode to the Motherland, offer up phantom fireworks and fake fans, have soldiers create your spectacles billed as volunteers and face allegations that some of your athletes are not eligible, it makes people wonder what is real and what is fake...Joe Warmington, a columnist at the Toronto Sun, thinks that China owes the world an apology for what's been happening at the Olympics. Not having followed the games myself, I don't know but he makes a pretty strong case.
However, there are a whole lot of injustices more pressing and more pernicious for which the world deserves an apology from Communist China. Among them?
* Severe persecution of religious believers.
* Coercive abortion and sterilization policies.
* Harvesting and selling human body parts.
* Extensive use of slave labor and denial of worker's rights, safety and health concerns.
* A long list of other human rights abuses.
* Support of repressive governments in Burma, Belarus, and other places.
* Destruction of national economies (like our own) through cheap imports.
* Support of terrorists.
* Military aggression in Asia...and beyond.
* Extensive spy networks in their own country and many others.
* Theft of Western technology.
When you look at this list, the chicanery of underage gymnasts (though certainly an unfair ploy) seems rather tame. But it does reveal how brazenly unapologetic is China's attitude. Even when the world has come to town, even when the cameras are running, even when the coaches themselves have revealed the truth about their team breaking the rules, Communist China (and the Olympic committee too) simply shrug, smile -- and get ready for the next chicanery.
