A marriage made in Mecca? Iraqi Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari and Iranian VP Mohammad Reza Aref proclaim their friendship in Tehran.

If you are thinking the scenario of Iraq becoming an Iranian sister state is far-fetched, please leave this blog now and read this detail-rich article that walks you through the evolution of this blossoming friendship and its implications. (Requires that you watch a 20-second advertisement.) I’d like to paste the whole thing, but for economy’s sake I’ll snip a few of the best parts.

Iraq’s new government has been trumpeted by the Bush administration as a close friend and a model for democracy in the region. In contrast, Bush calls Iran part of an axis of evil and dismisses its elections and government as illegitimate. So the Bush administration cannot have been filled with joy when Iraqi Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari and eight high-powered cabinet ministers paid an extremely friendly visit to Tehran this week.

The two governments went into a tizzy of wheeling and dealing of a sort not seen since Texas oil millionaires found out about Saudi Arabia. Oil pipelines, port access, pilgrimage, trade, security, military assistance, were all on the table in Tehran. All the sorts of contracts and deals that U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney had imagined for Halliburton, and that the Pentagon neoconservatives had hoped for Israel, were heading instead due east.

Jaafari’s visit was a blow to the Bush administration’s strategic vision, but a sweet triumph for political Shiism. In the dark days of 1982, Tehran was swarming with Iraqi Shiite expatriates who had been forced to flee Saddam Hussein’s death decree against them. They had been forced abroad, to a country with which Iraq was then at war. Ayatollah Khomeini, the newly installed theocrat of Iran, pressured the expatriates to form an umbrella organization, the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), which he hoped would eventually take over Iraq. Among its members were Jaafari and Abdul Aziz al-Hakim. On Jan. 30, 2005, Khomeini’s dream finally came true, courtesy of the Bush administration, when the Supreme Council and the Dawa Party won the Iraqi elections.
….
It was not only history that brought Jaafari to the foothills of the Alborz mountains. The Iraqi prime minister was attempting to break out of the box into which his government has been stuffed by the Sunni Arab guerrilla movement. Jaafari’s government does not control the center-north or west of the country and cannot pump much petroleum from Kirkuk because of oil sabotage. Trucking to Jordan is often difficult. The Jaafari government depends heavily on the Rumaila oil field in the south, but lacks refining capability. Iraq lacks a deep water port on the Gulf and needs to replace inland “ports” like Amman because of poor security. An initiative toward the east could resolve many of these problems, strengthening the Shiites against the Sunni guerrillas economically and militarily and so saving the new government.

Iraq’s Eastern Policy does not come without at least symbolic costs. On Saturday, Jaafari made a ceremonial visit to the tomb of Ayatollah Khomeini, on which he laid a wreath. In a meeting with Supreme Jurisprudent Ali Khamenei on Monday, according to the Tehran Times, Jaafari “called the late Imam Khomeini the key to the victory of the Islamic Revolution, adding, ‘We hope to eliminate the dark pages Saddam caused in Iran-Iraq ties and open a new chapter in brotherly ties between the two nations.'” The American right just about had a heart attack at the possibility (later shown false) that newly elected Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had been among the militants who took U.S. diplomats hostage in 1979. But the hostage takers had been blessed by Khomeini himself, to whom Jaafari was paying compliments.
….
For his polite forbearance as his Iranian hosts boasted of the superiority of their Islamic government and grumbled about all those trouble-making American troops in the Iraqi countryside, Jaafari was richly rewarded. Iran offered to pay for three pipelines that would stretch across the southern border of the two countries. Iraq will ship 150,000 barrels a day of light crude to Iran to be refined, and Iran will ship back processed petroleum, kerosene and gasoline. The plan could be operational within a year, according to Petroleum Minister Ibrahim Bahr al-Ulum, whose father is a prominent Shiite cleric.

In addition, Iran will supply electricity. Iran will sell Iraq 200,000 tons of wheat. Iran is offering Iraq use of its ports to transship goods to Iraq. Iran is offering a billion dollars in foreign aid. Iran will step up cooperation in policing the borders of the two countries. Supreme Jurisprudent Khamenei has called for the preservation of the territorial integrity of Iraq.

It only gets better.

Nothing else seems to upset “supporters” of the war than bringing up this nightmare, and not one has addressed it yet except to argue that it doesn’t exist, period, end of discussion. In fact, it is now the only solution we have if we’re to get out. The insurgents cannot be defeated, but they must not be allowed to win. And the only way to ensure that is to prepare Shiite militias and the Iraq army to fight them once we are gone so they can continue the battle without us (proabably for years to come, like the IRA). And this wll also require extensive military help from fellow Shiite state Iran.

Just today Maureen Dowd tells us how Shiite theocrats in Iraq are quickly reducing womens’freedoms. And the party’s just getting started. Life under Saddam was no picnic, but a theocratic dictatorship hostile to women, Jews, gays, America and Israel was not what we were told would arise from his ashes at the cost of all those US lives and dollars. Is this what we gave those lives up for?

Have no illusions. This is where we are heading, even if the new constitution doesn’t say so (like China’s, it’s just a piece of paper unless it’s enforced). Even if there’s a coalition government in place when we leave. It’s coming because this is what they want, an Islamic state with Israel prominently featured as its enemy and Allah as its god and savior. And since we promised them democracy and because we never thought it through, we’re going to be stuck with it, yet another source of grief for the Middle East and the precise opposite of the bill of goods we were all sold.

Something must have gone wrong. Bush apparently appointed someone smart, competent and moderate to be his “man in Beijing,” as this profile in Newsweek indicates. (Well, he was Condi’s choice, and Bush did as he was told, but credit where due, to both of them.)

he Bush Administration’s point man on China is Deputy Secretary of State Robert Zoellick, a fierce and sometimes combative moderate who was handed the job largely by default. Last week in Beijing he wrapped up the first round of a bilateral dialogue that puts him in the driver’s seat of one of Washington’s most crucial relationships. But Zoellick has the backing of George Bush, a fellow pragmatist—at least on China—who kids Zoellick for being something of a nerd.

…

Colleagues say Zoellick frequently attends cabinet meetings in Rice’s place and is known to defend his moderate and nuanced views on China against administration hawks respectfully but forcefully. It was Zoellick who pushed the White House to commit larger packages of aid and generous trade concessions for tsunami-afflicted Southeast Asia in December, his colleagues say, and he is credited with preventing a trade war with China last year over Beijing’s alleged unfair subsidies of state-owned firms. The bow-tied and pedantic Zoellick offers a stark contrast to the anti-intellectual Bush, who occasionally ribs Zoellick for his mastery of wonkish detail. “Bush regards Bob as kind of a geek,” says a former colleague of Zoellick’s. “But they respect each other.”

Good article. It strikes me as proof that Bush himself doesn’t believe for a second all the hysteria whipped up in recent months about the imminent CHina “threat,” and that he and Rummy pay lip service to it as a political gesture to the hard right. Just my theory.

I swore I wouldn’t blog anymore tonight, but a reader sent me this article, which ran in yesterday’s Wall Street Journal, and I can’t pass it up. I’m going to let Lam’s words speak for themselves. It’s quite outspoken and certainly contradicts some recent arguments made by commenters about China’s fight with Japan in WWII.

Willy Lam: China’s Own Historical Revisionism

China’s government bitterly accuses Japan of historical revisionism, but the new Chinese leadership should also earn high marks for creative and self-serving misinterpretation of past events. Going by a recent propaganda offensive, for instance, one would easily conclude that the Chinese Communist Party single-handedly defeated the Japanese imperialists in World War II.

The fact is, of course, that when Tokyo surrendered to the American-led Allied Powers in 1945, the CCP could hardly claim victory. It was, for one, expending at least as much effort fighting the better-equipped Kuomintang (KMT or Nationalists) forces as Japanese invaders.

It’s easy to see why China’s ruling communists would want to savor today a triumph that eluded their predecessors 60 years ago. The disinformation campaign requires relentless media manipulation and political mobilization, but it aims to boost the party’s sagging legitimacy as well as preventing archrival Japan from emerging as a political power on the world stage.

As a true disciple of Mao Zedong, President Hu Jintao is a master at molding history to serve political ends. And though the Hu team probably understands that nationalism is a double-edged sword, the “anti-Japan card” seems indispensable at a time when Communism is dead and the social fabric is being torn asunder. Thus the marathon WWII-related ceremonies and television documentaries teaching these peculiar “lessons of history.”

And relentless they have been. While inspecting WWII battlegrounds in central Shanxi Province late last month, Mr. Hu — who has nearly four decades of experience as a Marxist theorist, commissar and spin-meister — noted how “the great victory over the atrocious Japanese invaders” was achieved “under the flag of the anti-Japanese national united front championed by the CCP.” Mr. Hu then paid tribute to the larger-than-life exploits of the Long March generation of party elders.

During the sometimes frenetic commemoration exercises of the past few weeks hardly any mention has been made of the perhaps equally heroic — and certainly of much larger scale — efforts made by the non-Communist elements who fought in the 1937-1945 anti-Japanese war. The state media has also only made the skimpiest reference to the fact that the Japanese war machine was crushed mainly by the U.S. Instead, Mr. Hu earlier this year chose to dwell on how Soviet soldiers had helped China defeat the hated Japanese by fighting “shoulder to shoulder” with their Chinese comrades in the northeastern provinces.

The truth is that, though the KMT leadership that ruled much of eastern and central China during this period was incorrigibly corrupt, Nationalist soldiers did most of the fighting against the Japanese intruders. The great majority of casualties sustained by Chinese soldiers were borne by KMT, not Communist divisions. Mao and other guerrilla leaders decided at the time to conserve their strength for the “larger struggle” of taking over all of China once the Japanese Imperial Army was decimated by the U.S.-led Allied Forces.

Apart from using the 60th anniversary of WWII to drum up support for the CCP, Mr. Hu and his colleagues in the Central Military Commission want to underscore the imperative of strengthening the People’s Liberation Army, which earned its spurs during the twin anti-KMT and anti-Japanese campaign. As the Soviet-trained defense minister, Gen. Cao Gangchuan recently put it, “the history of WWII has shown that we’ll be invaded [again] in the absence a strong national defense.”

Maybe someone will have some thoughts to share.

Digby today examines how and why Cindy Sheehan has overnight become a household name, and in so doing managed to shake Republicans into paroxsysms of rage and blue-faced, cataleptic paralysis.

Digby’s gift is seeing right to the heart of issues and cutting through the bullshit. There is a simple reason why Sheehan has been such a galvanizing pheomenon, and especially why the Republicans are so frightened of her.

Atrios posted a question from a reader around that time about the same subject in which he or she asked:

…Can’t someone come up with a pithy sound bite that captures this and makes it accessible to a non-political, non-foreign policy public? I love your indignation and your explanations, but I have a hard time seeing this go anywhere without a talking point that even a Democratic senator can remember.

That’s what Cindy Sheehan has finally been able to do. And it’s why she’s driving the Republicans crazy.

I said I want the president to explain what was the noble cause that my son died in, because that’s what he said the other day when those 14 marines were killed. He said their families can rest assured that their sons and daughters died for a noble cause. And I said, “What is that noble cause?”

It is not an academic exercise for her. She lost her son — and she’d like to know why. Nobody can explain to her — or to any of us — why we invaded Iraq and why people are dying. They said it was to protect us — but it wasn’t a threat. Then they said it was to liberate the Iraqi people, but Saddam and his government are a memory and yet the Iraqi people are still fighting us and each other. Our invasion of iraq has inspired more terrorism, not less. Oil prices are higher than they’ve ever been. The country is swimming in debt. People are being killed and maimed with the regularity of the tides.

And everybody knows this. Deep inside they know that something has gone terribly wrong. We were either lied to or our leaders are verging on the insanely incompetent. That’s why when Cindy Sheehan says that she wants to ask the president why her son died — in those simple terms — it makes the hair on the back of your neck stand up. It’s not just rhetorical.

She literally doesn’t know why her son had to die in Iraq. And neither do we.

So there it is. All the ranting of our echo chamber was having little effect on a nation generally disinterested in the details of the war and the arcane tracking of the lies we’ve been told. They tended, so far, to be malleable, accepting at first that it was all about weapons and Al Qaeda (ha), then as the goalposts moved they bought into the freedom crap and that we’re “safer without Saddam Hussein,” though no one can say how or why this is so. But with so much recent evidence that we’ve been shafted, people were becoming more open to criticism of their president. And then Cindy Sheehan appeared, at precisely the right moment.

Sheehan solved the problem of getting through to Americans. You can argue all day in masturbatory posts and comments about the details and the history and the lies. But all of that dissolves in an instant before the image of something we all can relate to, a mother who has lost her son and simply wants to know what he died for, and why our president sees it as a noble cause.

They only grease up the slime machine like this when they’re scared, as they were when Wilson exposed their yellowcake fantasies. Yesterday, Drudge’s screeching headline was that “Sheehan’s family begging her to stop it!” But when you click the link, you see it’s some obscure aunt who emailed the Sludgemeister to say she wants Cindy to stop and so does Cindy’s godmother. This dominated his page all day but was quietly removed. It appears the entire thing was a fraud and her family is strongly supportive. So we know they are in a corner and have to kick their way out with the help of dirty tricks.

Meanwhile, for those of you convinced that Sheehan is the Antichrist or a puppet of Michael Moore or an unbalanced hateful kook, take a minute and listen to her for yourselves. (Big file.) Listen to how she brushes aside Bush’s pusillanimous, platitudinous crap (“We must stay the course…”) You’ll see how she just might mark a turning point in the history of this sleazy war. She just might get enough Americans thinking. And critical thinking is the death knell for the Bush administration, founded on and grounded in “faith” and pseudo-religious nonsense like “Intelligent Design.” They can’t stand up to close scrutiny, but Ms. Sheehan may force them to.

Let’s hope nothing happens to her. The stakes are very high.

Update: A massive new article on Sheehan just came out, and it’s great. It describes her evolution and who she was before Malkin and O’Reilly made her famous. She’s hardly the Antichrist they’d lead you to believe.

This is going to be a regular feature of this blog. There are already entire web sites dedicated to pointing out Malkin’s crimes and misdemeanors, but there’s always room for another set of eyeballs.

Here is the post of the day, without a single word of commentary! Malkin does all the talking, hoisitng herself on her own sleazy petard. Read it and laugh — and cry, because so many longshoremen and freepers think she’s a goddess. We’ll see what we can do about that.

Link via Atrios.

Thanks a lot, Atrios, and thanks to Oliver Willis, too. This is just after two hours.

Update: And thanks to The Left Coaster as well.

It’s sweet to see Ms. Maglalang getting her comeuppance for her Macbeth-like plotting, conniving and prevaricating. All over the blogosphere, you’ll see references to her outrageous efforts to demolish the character of Cindy Sheehan in the same style the GOP noise machine tried to destroy Joe Wilson and John Kerry.

First, Media Matters takes us on a step-by-step chronological journey of how the slime machine works, starting with Drudge (of course), who then passes the baton to Maglalang, who then works in concert with falafel man Bill O’Reilly. Never mind that they so butchered Sheehan’s quotes that it amounts to bold-faced lying, and never mind that they wildly (and knowingly) take things out of context — that’s the formula, that’s how it works. And, voila! A totally false but contagious meme is born.

Then, to underscore Maglalang’s issues with being a compulsive liar and human-body-hating freak, Atrios links to this oldie but goodie, describing how Maglalang is prudishly and neurotically obsessed with Christina Aguilera’s body (draw your own conclusions about that) and how she literally makes stuff up with no compunction. It’s as though she’s just pulling her “facts” out of her …whatever.

Tbogg then throws her own “In Defense of Internment” argument back at her, making the case for Maglalang to be thrown behind the barbed wire she’d love to see encircling America’s Moslems. Lock her up, I say.

Ms. Sheehan responded to Maglalang’s venom with dignity — angry dignity, that was far more civil and humane than any of Michelle‘s cackling.

I didn’t know Casey knew Michelle Malkin…I’m Casey’s mother and I knew him better than anybody else in the world…I can’t bring Casey back, but I wonder how often Michelle Malkin sobbed on his grave. Did she go to his funeral? Did she sit up with him when he was sick when he was a baby?

Not surprising that wherever you go today, Maglalang’s name is everwhere for her hit job on Cindy Sheehan, who, quite ironically, is now emerging as quite the folk hero of our time.

Liberal Avenger illustrates Maglalang’s specious rationalizations of racial profiling (which perhaps can be rationalized, but not with Michelle’s stupid reasoning).

Martini Republic, who’s been all over this story, points out the absurdity of Malkin complaining today about hate mail she’s receiving (“people in glass houses…”).

Malkin Watch says our lady of perpetual venom just keeps digging herself in deeper with her easy-to-fisk lies about Sheehan.

The Net is teeming with examples of Malkin fatigue. It’s everywhere. Let me just close with a final example and a healthy clip from the irrepressible Rude Pundit, who refers to Maglalang as “a creeping nutzoid.”

All around Left Blogsylvania you can read articles about Cindy Sheehan, the mother of Casey Sheehan, a soldier who died in Iraq, fighting in Sadr City back in April 2004, shot in the head. Cindy Sheehan has become one of the leading voices of families of soldiers opposing the war. She now sits a few miles outside of President Bush’s ranch in Crawford, Texas, along with other anti-war protesters, waiting to speak to her son’s Commander-in-Chief, to tell him to bring the soldiers home. She wants to speak directly to Bush, not to his lackeys and handlers. Cindy Sheehan’s nation didn’t elect Stephen Hadley, the National Security Adviser, who did talk to Sheehan for 45 minutes this week. No, Bush is the President of citizens of a republic and, as such, in an ideal republic, is merely the equal of each and every one of those citizens. She has met with Bush before and came away from the occasion sickened by it.

All over Right Blogsylvania, the creeping nutzoids are looking for any way to attack and discredit Cindy Sheehan, for, like for so many non-violent protesters before her, the reaction to her silent disobedience shows the true face of those who oppose and wish to silence her.

Let us ponder for a moment the sensibility of a man, our President, who refuses to give Cindy Sheehan the time of day. Trent Duffy, speaking to the sweaty press in Crawford, declared that Bush met with her in July 2004, “and he was glad to meet with her at that time,” as if Cindy Sheehan had her one shot and the President doesn’t need to give the time of day to her anymore. Maybe if she donated $100,000 to the Republican National Committee, he’d find some more time.

Public relations-wise, this is an easy one, isn’t it? If you’re the President, you meet with Sheehan. You invite her in. You give her some lemonade. You listen. You say you’re sorry. And then you let her go back out. PR problem over, no? Fuck, while she’s talkin’, you can have monkeys dancin’ in your head. But doesn’t this seem like a no-brainer?

Unless, of course, you don’t give a shit. Unless, of course, you think of yourself as unquestionably right and, frankly, you couldn’t give a happy monkey fuck what the opposition says. And, of course, Bush doesn’t.

So often symbols of protest are created by the power of the opposition. Right now, Bush is making Cindy Sheehan into a more powerful figure than he could ever imagine. Than he could ever wish for himself. In the end, if Sheehan indeed becomes a new Rosa Parks, then, like the war itself, the President will only have himself to blame.

No, he’ll also have Bill O’Reilly and Michelle Maglalang to blame. She was a curiosity a few days ago. Then they turned the big guns on her, and whaddayaknow, a star is born. Thanks for your good work. Now let’s watch Fox News and Rush Limbaugh continue running on overdrive with stories of Sheehan torturing small animals and passing out ricin-soaked brownies at the playground.

Because there should always be a troll-free open thread.

I’m also going to move the three-day-old Tibet thread up a few notches, because it’s still humming.

[Disclaimer: I am no expert on Tibet and claim no special knowledge. I am posting this because I’m hoping readers will offer their opinions and maybe start a dialogue that will help people like me to straighten out what Tibet is really all about. Thanks.]

Way, way back in the old days, a reader emailed me her thoughts on Tibet and the (allegedly) false and closed-minded perception most Westerners have of it. After that, I came to learn her perceptions were similar to the way Chinese people view other controversial issues, such as One China/Taiwan (“Taiwan must reunite with its mother country”), Japanese war guilt (“they never truly apologized”) and Tiananmen Square (“it is terrible the students died, but in the end it was good that the CCP ended it as they did, as it was suffocating the country – and things soon got much better”).

The unanimity of their opinions on these issues is striking to a Westerner, because in our own countries there are so many verions of history and so many schools of thought interpreting these events. Just look at the current bloodbath in Iraq and the arguments raging about what it means, even about what is actually happening there!

Anyway, back to Tibet and the email I received. Here is what the reader wrote:

How much you know of that region? Have you ever been there? I met many Americans or westerners who have strong opinion on this topic. But once we started discussion, I found they barely know anything about the issue except Dalai Lama and a general impression of how much tibetan people are suffering from suppression. They don’t know before 1956 (?), tibet had slavery system. Most tibetans were slaves or peasants, owned by monks and aristocrats. They don’t realize that dalai lama was indeed an emperor living in a huge palace, serving as both political and religious leader, enjoying all the luxuries (he had a car disassembled into parts in order to get into Lahsa.) I believe if Dalai never left tibet, he might not allow girls to go to school even up to today.

Fewer people know that as early as 400 yrs ago, then 5th dalai came to beijing to see the mandarin empiror to receive an official title and subsede to central government… I figured it’s getting nowhere to argue with people without these basic knowledge. I’ve been to tibet myself. I’m sure the freedom of religious pratice is limited there. But I also saw the tremendous change the area has embraced. Ask an ordinary tibetan, would he/she choose modernity or primative living condition, you may have very dispersed answers.

This post got some of the hottest comments my site had seen to date, but unfortunately they were wiped out when I ported the site off of blogspot. Chinese readers mainly agreed. Expats commented that this was the usual word-for-word party line you’d hear from just about every Chinese citizen.

There’s certainly some truth to the email. Far from being a Shangri-La, Tibet was a rather primitive serfdom and a mighty nasty place for many of its citizens. The Chinese did bring development and modernization with their “liberation,” but for me, the jury is out on whether the people of Tibet see it as a good thing or a crime.

A new article on this subject from the Independent, however, moves me to think the invasion is more resented than appreciated (as most invasions are).

China is showing a smiling face to the world while brutally crushing Tibet – a police state where supporters of the Dalai Lama can be beaten to death.

“Look here, here is where they shot at His Holiness.” The Tibetan monk, pointed to two bullet holes in the ornate brass hinges on the front door of the exiled Dalai Lama’s summer palace.

On Chairman Mao’s orders, the Chinese People’s Liberation Army stormed the place 46 years ago. With bombs and bullets flying, the youthful Dalai Lama disguised himself as a Tibetan soldier, slipped outside and headed over the Himalayas into a life of peripatetic exile. His path was cleared by Mao, who ordered his army “not to obstruct the way”.

“The holes are a secret they don’t know about,” added the monk, pointing in the direction of a cluster of CCTV cameras behind which the Chinese State Security Bureau police were watching and listening.

Hidden from view by the heavy wooden door, the monk pulled out a pair of scapular medals. One contained the banned image of the Dalai Lama, the other the equally seditious photo of the Panchen Lama, the 16-year-old boy who most Tibetans see as second in line to the Dalai Lama. Today he is the world’s youngest political prisoner.

“If you see His Holiness,” he said, “tell him all Tibetans support him and the Panchen Lama. And tell the world how we hate the black hand of the Chinese.”

Then he was gone. Despite carefully financed restoration, the bullet holes remain, silent witnesses to the harsh reality of China’s rule over Tibet. Hopes that political freedom would blossom alongside China’s new affluence have proven illusory. Dissidents are still clubbed to death, executed or given long prison sentences.

When a European Union delegation visited the notorious prison of Drabchi some years ago, they encountered a demonstration by inmates. A group of Buddhist nuns shouted “Free Tibet” and “Long live the Dalai Lama” instead of the required patriotic songs at a flag-raising ceremony convened by the prison. The police beat the prisoners so severely afterwards that in the words of a survivor, “it looked like an abattoir. They beat us with their belts until their belts broke. Then they used electric batons.” After more torture including electric shocks, and sexual humiliation, four nuns died, reportedly after stuffing their mouths with their Buddhist katak scarves.

The four, Choekyi Wangmo and Tashi Lhamo, both aged 24, Dekyi Yangzom, 21, and Khedron Yonten, all died on the same day, more than a month after the demonstrations. Another nun reportedly hanged herself.

Although many Chinese and Tibetans now own mobile phones, three months passed before information about the protests reached the outside world. Prison officers and released prisoners were threatened with severe reprisals if they spoke about it. Today, the Chinese authorities still deny that anything happened.
….
It is starting to win the international respectability it craves. But during a five-day visit to the “Roof of the World” I found ample evidence that, if anything, China’s iron grip on Tibet is tightening. China is becoming a consumer paradise, but as the Communist ideology falls away, the Tibetans find themselves confronted by equally blind and aggressive Chinese nationalism. It is a creed that views Tibet’s dream of self-rule as a deadly threat to China’s integrity.

In reality, with its tiny population of some 2.6 million native Tibetans, Tibet poses no threat to China’s one billion people. But the vast Tibetan Plateau, an eighth of China’s land mass, is seen by Beijing as a strategic buffer to the West and as a potential El Dorado in terms of unexploited mineral and energy resources.

The propaganda machine relentlessly pumps out the message that the Tibetan people are delighted to be part of the greater Chinese family. It is a sinister but successful policy, so much so that a series of man-in-the-street interviews produces nothing but platitudes in praise of China.

Man-in-the-street interviews on CCTV, full of platitudes and canned phrases? Who would have guessed?

It’s an immense article, and it offers a lot of surprising information, none of it very flattering to the CCP. 85 percent of Tibetans, it says, are worse off than they were, and have reaped none of the benefits of the great economic miracle.

I hope you can read it all, and let readers know whether you believe it’s on-target or off the wall, and why.

So interesting, how Westerners view Tibet one way, and Chinese see it as something altogether different. Like they are in two separate universes. I have always been suspicious of the Richard Gere-style “Free Tibet” movements, with their idolization of the Dalai Lama, who has certainly been romanticized ad absurdum. But I’m equally skeptical of the CCP’s claims that it was a liberation for which the Tibetans are eternally grateful.

So which is it?

Read it and weep.

Police seized 2 ounces of marijuana at the home of Anthony Diotaiuto after shooting him 10 times, according to information on the drug raid released Tuesday.

Also Tuesday, while many friends and relatives of the 23-year-old bartender and student mourned him at a Davie funeral home, others appeared at a Sunrise City Commission meeting to demand an explanation for the fatal raid.

“Do 2 ounces of marijuana constitute a death warrant?” asked Sunrise resident William de Larm, a friend of Diotaiuto’s.

We’re all so much safer. Thank God America has its priorities straight.

China isn’t the only place with a fucked-up legal system. Yes, theirs is worse, but this sure makes us look like idiots.

Via Balloon Juice, John Cole’s conservative-leaning blog that’s becoming one of my very favorites.