@Steven L.: I must agree with Dave on what you say about China. You insist a lot on saying that they are bad guys but everybody are “bad” in terms of business interests, foreign policy, geo-politics, etc. The Chinese are certainly not any worse than any other people. By the way, this culture is infiltrated by an ancient criminal organization, called the Triad. I assume that the people running the Chinese government are good and decent people like any other, but they have to deal with the Triad, the same way Russia has to deal with its criminal gangs. Dave is right when he says that it is not in our interests to mingle into Russia’s or China’s business. They are very old peoples and they have the right to have their own societies and civilizations.

Globalization has transformed China into a giant sweatshop to allow the transnational corporations to dump their cheap products into our regional economies, destroying the small and middle-size businesses, destroying the middle class, in a nutshell, breaking our economy for their profit. Look how we have become poorer since the Free-Trade agreements have been signed. Weren’t they supposed to bring us prosperity?

Again, I agree with Dave. It is incredible how little criticism is heard on Saudi Arabia but a lot on Iran, how little on Tibet but a lot on China, how little on the Palestinians but a lot on Israel, etc, etc. U.S. interests wouldn’t have anything to do about it, would it?

@LarryFW: I don’t know the book but judging by the trend, I would say Dave is probably right. Mimi Alford just published Once upon a secret, a book in which she basically says that Kennedy was a sexual deviant, that he treated women like whores and lot of other stuff that can be invented by anyone. After trashing Roosevelt for the New Deal and for stooding against the fascists, now the Reich seems to be in a mood for targetting Kennedy. And why, according to you? Because Russ Baker has done such a good job at studying the Bush familiy and the murder of JFK, than now, their only option remains to try to smear, slander Kennedy and destroy his reputation, because they can’t respond on the level of ideas and documents. Standard Republican procedure.

Never heard of the book “Against Them.”

Again, we both realize that there is something terribly wrong in both Russia and China, and that you are absolutely correct in that meddling in the internal affairs of both nations has accomplished nothing positive.

And, frankly, I feel the same way about Iran as well. Their government may be horribly oppressive, but do those policymakers in D.C. honestly believe for one second that the Iranian people might not be scared of conflict enough to hide behind these very same tormentors?

It’d be like a democratic Congo invading dictatorial Zambia. Granted, in this hypothetical situation, many of the Zambians despise their leader and want him out of office. But what if the Congolese air force decided to bomb every village that may have hosted the enemy at one point? What if some of these bombs killed many innocent civilians, including perhaps some who may have welcomed the Congolese? What if Congolese soldiers continued to receive faulty orders and ended up killing people who they thought were enemy militants but were really innocent? Isn’t it possible some of the Zambians might stand behind their leader, even a few of those who might have despised him, just because they want the mass fatalities to cease?

We want change, don’t we? I would say to Congress and the President: “Let the people wake up on their own, as they have started to in Iran a couple of years ago! Unprovoked wars and subterfuge haven’t done anything! They have only turned people against us! Let the people see for themselves, how corrupt their governments are!”, or something to that effect. Last thing we need is for another botched conflict to further harm America’s reputation in the world, especially when our current President is doing his best to begin fixing it. Unfortunately, only time will tell, really.

Keep up the good work, Dave, and I do hope you’ll be back on the air.....someday. =)

And, of course, we have Saudi Arabia, who provides the majority of our oil. That seems one of the primary reasons that the human rights abuses are usually ignored over there.

If you want to hear my opinion, I think the best thing that could happen to China, would be change that comes from within and from the people and for the people. I, too, don’t see how meddling in Xinjiang has helped us one bit.

(And I do apologize if it seemed like I was attacking you as that was definitely not the intention I had in mind.)

You’ve repeatedly opined about the Chinese being “bad guys” and hinted broadly that I don’t seem to be aware of that.

Perhaps this simply reflects a difference in age (I’m in my ’60’s), but I do not believe in “good guys” and “bad guys” in the way that you appear to do.

I have NO illusions about China–it is no accident that it is the “sweatshop-de-jour” for the transnational corporations.

However China is a major power, and screwing with the Chinese won’t help us at all.

By the same token, interfering in the internal affairs of Russia will not benefit us.

I have no illusions about Putin either.

We are not in a position to attempt destabilization of either country and should refrain from doing so.

Imagine Russia or China supporting the Lakota claim to independence.

Do you think the U.S. would tolerate that for a minute? And this is not to say that the Lakota do not have real, serious grievances.

For the U.S. to align itself with the Muslim Brotherhood in championing either the Uighurs or Muslim independence in the North Caucasus is madness.

We don’t complain about Saudi Arabia’s abuse of human rights. Why do you think that is the case, Stephen?

Cheers,
Dave Emory