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  • Intense security to overshadow Olympic celebrations

    Intense security to overshadow Olympic celebrations


    By Edward Cody, The Washington Post
    Monday, July 21, 2008


    YENGISHAHAR, China -- Shortly after dawn on July 9, the local government here bused several thousand students and office workers into a public square and lined them up in front of a vocational school. As the spectators watched, witnesses said, three prisoners were brought out. Then, an execution squad fired rifles at the three point-blank, killing them on the spot.

    The young men had been convicted of having connections to terrorist plots, which authorities said were part of a campaign aimed at disrupting the Beijing Olympics by the East Turkestan Islamic Movement, an underground separatist organization here in the vast Xinjiang region of western China. The group has long fought for independence on behalf of the region's Muslim Uighur inhabitants.

    The public execution of the men was a dramatic example of the massive, unforgiving security operation that has been mounted in China to protect the Beijing Games from what Communist Party authorities describe as an urgent threat of violence and anti-government protest.

    "Especially as the Beijing Olympic Games draw near, a range of anti-China forces and hostile forces are striving by any means and redoubling efforts to engage in trouble-making and sabotage," Yang Huanning, a vice minister of public security and an anti-terrorism specialist, said in a declaration to the Public Security Bureau's newspaper.

    With the Games three weeks away, the precautions already have proved so sweeping that some observers question whether the sense of fellowship and fun that is supposed to accompany the Olympics can survive. Alongside the crackdown against Muslim extremists here in Xinjiang, for instance, have come confusing new visa restrictions, multiple roadside checkpoints, reinforced pat-downs at airports and subway stations, and raids on bars popular among foreigners. The result has been an atmosphere of coercion, not celebration.

    On Thursday, China issued a manual advising the public what to do in the case of a terrorist attack, according to state-run media. The manual included guidance on how to respond to 39 scenarios including explosions, kidnappings and shootings, and attacks involving chemical, biological and nuclear weapons.

    Meanwhile, China's leaders have extended the scope of their concerns to include peaceful political protests. In public and private comments, Chinese officials have seemed just as determined to prevent pro-Tibet demonstrators from unfurling banners in front of television cameras as they are to head off hotel bombings by Muslim extremists, according to Chinese specialists and foreign diplomats.

    The Beijing Public Security Bureau warned recently on its Web site that any demonstration must have prior approval from authorities, in effect banning anti-government protest.

    Aware of the misgivings about overkill, Chinese authorities have said their top priorities must be to guarantee the safety of Olympic athletes and spectators, and to prevent political protests from ruining the display of international harmony long promised to the Chinese people. If the resulting security measures seem heavy-handed to some foreigners, they have said, it is only because of a failure to understand the stakes involved.

    "A safe Olympics is the biggest indicator of the success of the Games," Xi Jinping, a member of the party's elite Politburo Standing Committee and the senior official supervising preparations, said in a recent speech. "A safe Olympics is also the biggest indicator of the positive reflection of our nation's image."

    Ma Xin, a government security expert who is part of an Olympic advisory team, said security must be tight not only because of the threat of violence but also because thousands of foreign dignitaries will be on hand, including President Bush, and could become targets for international terrorist groups such as al-Qaida.
    here's the link if anyone would like to continue reading: http://www.chinapost.com.tw/china/na...2Dsecurity.htm
    ZhongwenMovies.com

  • #2
    We need to do that in the US.

    Beijing has always had problems with the Muslims from that region; they just never advertised it. They always cracked down harshly on them.

    It's a beautiful, yet horribly poor and uneducated region. These people want their independence, yet they really can't take care of themselves. Kind of like the Muslims in southern Thailand on the Malaysian border, who are actively pursuing the same thing.
    Experienced Community organizer. Yeah, let's choose him to run the free world. It will be historic. What could possibly go wrong...

    "You're just a jaded cynical mother****er...." Jeffpeg

    (more comments in my User Profile)
    russbo.com


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    • #3
      Doc as a bodhisattva u shoud go and speak with terrorists about non violence...

      Dont u believe in the power of dialogue?
      Because it might make u vote for the muslim Obama?
      Forget the wrong Kalachakra...

      Dialogue is the strongest qi, slow as water but it can move mountains.

      Peace to u shaolin bodhisattvas.

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      • #4
        I doubt I'll ever think about voting for the "muslim Obama".

        I believe in the power of dialogue when dealing with rational human beings.

        And I'm too tarnished to be even slightly considered to be a bodhisattva.

        But thanks for the thought.
        Experienced Community organizer. Yeah, let's choose him to run the free world. It will be historic. What could possibly go wrong...

        "You're just a jaded cynical mother****er...." Jeffpeg

        (more comments in my User Profile)
        russbo.com


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        • #5
          Obama isnt a muslim for one. Secondly there is no way to reason with a terrorist.
          The essential point in science it not a complicated mathematical formalism or a ritualized experimentation. Rather the heart of science is a kind of shrewd honesty the springs from really wanting to know what the hell is going on!

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          • #6
            Originally posted by doc View Post
            I doubt I'll ever think about voting for the "muslim Obama".

            I believe in the power of dialogue when dealing with rational human beings.

            And I'm too tarnished to be even slightly considered to be a bodhisattva.

            But thanks for the thought.
            Well, I am sure not as hell going to vote for McCain. The guy is ancient for one, and about as bright as 2 watt light bulb!
            "For some reason I'm in a good mood today. I haven't left the house yet, though. "

            "fa hui, you make buddhism sexy." -Zachsan

            "Friends don't let friends do Taekwondo." -Nancy Reagan

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            • #7
              He also doesnt know the difference between Sunni and Shiite. Thats kinda important in this global political scene
              The essential point in science it not a complicated mathematical formalism or a ritualized experimentation. Rather the heart of science is a kind of shrewd honesty the springs from really wanting to know what the hell is going on!

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              • #8
                Funny to see that terrorists are not rationals. So are they mad?
                Of course the israelian army when it kills a palestinian children is being rational.

                There is this practice in tibetan buddhism, taking and giving. It is to take the suffering from other beings and give them ur happiness.

                I guess if u d really try to understand the suffering of a muslim terrorist, u can see the rationality behind him.

                to say they r not rational is just a kind of despise and racism

                The buddha and Gandhi advocated that in most cases only dialogue could deeply solve the problems.

                Was Kissinger rational?
                [edit] U.S. involvement

                Further information: U.S. intervention in Chile CIA documents show that the CIA had close contact with members of the Chilean secret police, DINA, and its chief Manuel Contreras. Some have alleged that the CIA's one-time payment to Contreras is proof that the U.S. approved of Operation Condor and military repression within Chile. The CIA's official documents state that at one time some members of the intelligence community recommended making Contreras into a paid contact because of his closeness to Pinochet; the plan was rejected based on Contreras' poor human rights record, but the single payment was made due to miscommunication.[35]
                A 1978 cable from the US ambassador to Paraguay, Robert White, to the Secretary of State Cyrus Vance, was published on March 6, 2001 by the New York Times. The document was released in November 2000 by the Clinton administration under the Chile Declassification Project. In the cable Ambassador White reported a conversation with General Alejandro Fretes Davalos, chief of staff of Paraguay's armed forces, who informed him that the South American intelligence chiefs involved in Condor "[kept] in touch with one another through a U.S. communications installation in the Panama Canal Zone which cover[ed] all of Latin America". According to Davalos, this installation was "employed to co-ordinate intelligence information among the southern cone countries". Robert White feared that the US connection to Condor might be publicly revealed at a time when the assassination in the U.S.A. of Chilean former minister Orlando Letelier and his American assistant Ronni Moffitt was being investigated. White cabled that "it would seem advisable to review this arrangement to insure that its continuation is in US interest."
                The "information exchange" (via telex) included torture techniques (e.g. near-drowning, and playing recordings of victims who were being tortured to their families).[citation needed]
                This demonstrates that the US facilitated communications for Operation Condor, and has been called by J. Patrice McSherry (Long Island Univ.) "another piece of increasingly weighty evidence suggesting that U.S. military and intelligence officials supported and collaborated with Condor as a secret partner or sponsor."[36]
                It has been argued that while the US was not a key member, it "provided organizational, intelligence, financial and technological assistance to the operation."[5]
                Material declassified in 2004 states that
                "The declassified record shows that Secretary Kissinger was briefed on Condor and its 'murder operations' on August 5, 1976, in a 14-page report from Shlaudeman. 'Internationally, the Latin generals look like our guys,' Shlaudeman cautioned. 'We are especially identified with Chile. It cannot do us any good.' Shlaudeman and his two deputies, William Luers and Hewson Ryan, recommended action. Over the course of three weeks, they drafted a cautiously worded demarche, approved by Kissinger, in which he instructed the U.S. ambassadors in the Southern Cone countries to meet with the respective heads of state about Condor. He instructed them to express 'our deep concern' about 'rumors' of 'plans for the assassination of subversives, politicians and prominent figures both within the national borders of certain Southern Cone countries and abroad.'"[6]
                Ultimately, the demarche was never delivered. Kornbluh and Dinges suggest that the decision not to send Kissinger's order was due to a cable sent by Assistant Secretary Harry Shlaudeman to his deputy in D.C which states "you can simply instruct the Ambassadors to take no further action, noting that there have been no reports in some weeks indicating an intention to activate the Condor scheme."[37]McSherry, adds, "According to [U.S. Ambassador to Paraguay Robert] White, instructions from a secretary of state cannot be ignored unless there is a countermanding order received via a secret (CIA) backchannel." [38] Kornbluh and Dinges conclude that "The paper trail is clear: the State Department and the CIA had enough intelligence to take concrete steps to thwart Condor assassination planning. Those steps were initiated but never implemented." Shlaudeman's deputy Hewson Ryan later acknowledged in an oral history interview that the State Department was "remiss" in its handling of the case. "We knew fairly early on that the governments of the Southern Cone countries were planning, or at least talking about, some assassinations abroad in the summer of 1976. ... Whether if we had gone in, we might have prevented this, I don't know," he stated in reference to the Letelier-Moffitt bombing. "But we didn't."

                [edit] Henry Kissinger

                Henry Kissinger, Secretary of State in the Nixon and Ford administrations, was closely involved diplomatically with the Southern Cone governments at the time and well aware of the Condor plan. According to the French newspaper L'Humanité, the first cooperation agreements were signed between the CIA and anti-Castro groups, fascist movements such as the Triple A set up in Argentina by Juan Perón and Isabel Martínez de Perón's "personal secretary" José López Rega, and Rodolfo Almirón (arrested in Spain in 2006).[39]
                On May 31, 2001, French judge Roger Le Loire requested that a summons be served on Henry Kissinger while he was staying at the Hôtel Ritz in Paris. Loire wanted to question Kissinger as a witness for alleged U.S. involvement in Operation Condor and for possible US knowledge concerning the "disappearances" of 5 French nationals in Chile during military rule. Kissinger left Paris that evening, and Loire's inquiries were directed to the U.S. State Department.[40]
                In July 2001, the Chilean high court granted investigating judge Juan Guzmán the right to question Kissinger about the 1973 killing of American journalist Charles Horman, whose execution at the hands of the Chilean military following the coup was dramatized in the 1982 Costa-Gavras film, Missing. The judge’s questions were relayed to Kissinger via diplomatic routes but were not answered. [41]
                In August 2001, Argentine Judge Rodolfo Canicoba sent a letter rogatory to the US State Department, in accordance with the Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty (MLAT), requesting a deposition by Kissinger to aid the judge's investigation of Operation Condor.[42]
                On September 10, 2001, a civil suit was filed in a Washington, D.C., federal court by the family of Gen. René Schneider, murdered former Commander-in-Chief of the Chilean Army, asserting that Kissinger ordered Schneider's murder because he refused to endorse plans for a military coup. Schneider was killed by coup-plotters loyal to General Roberto Viaux in a botched kidnapping attempt, but U.S. involvement with the plot is disputed, as declassified transcripts show that Nixon and Kissinger had ordered the coup "turned off" a week before the killing, fearing that Viaux had no chance. As part of the suit, Schneider’s two sons are attempting to sue Kissinger and then-CIA director Richard Helms for $3 million.[43] [44] [45]
                On September 11, 2001, the 28th anniversary of the Pinochet coup, Chilean human rights lawyers filed a criminal case against Kissinger along with Augusto Pinochet, former Bolivian general and president Hugo Banzer, former Argentine general and dictator Jorge Rafael Videla, and former Paraguayan president Alfredo Stroessner for alleged involvement in Operation Condor. The case was brought on behalf of some fifteen victims of Operation Condor, ten of whom were Chilean.[citation needed]
                In late 2001, the Brazilian government canceled an invitation for Kissinger to speak in São Paulo because it could not guarantee his immunity from judicial action.[citation needed]
                On February 16, 2007, a request for the extradition of Kissinger was filed at the Supreme Court of Uruguay on behalf of Bernardo Arnone, a political activist who was kidnapped, tortured and disappeared by the dictatorial regime in 1976.[46]

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