China, Chomsky, Vietnam, Vineland

[Doug Millison]

>" If China decided to punish pro-Tibetan
> or pro-Turkestan groups advocating armed resistance to Chinese rule?"

There's no "if" about it.  China has actively persecuted Tibetan and
Islamic nationalists (accepting the Chinese Communist Party's designation
of them as "terrorists" is highly problematic, especially the non-violent
Tibetan Buddhist monks and nuns who have been horribly mistreated for their
non-violent protests) -- with armed force, torture, and imprisonment -- for
decades, not in retaliation for any violent actions but simply for
agitating for religious freedom,  political and human rights.  On an
extended visit to Qinghai Province (north of Tibet), including a trip to a
Chinese fishing commune in the midst of a Tibetan minority settlement on
the shores of the vast salt lake, Qinghai Hu, in 1986, I personally visited
with Tibetans who spoke of these matters, and I observed the occupying
Chinese Army and police.  In Xining, capital city of Qinghai Province, I
also had a chance to speak with corroborating Muslims, and also saw the
occupying Chinese Army and police.   The Chinese persecution of Tibet has
been rather well reported and publicized, the persecution of Muslims in
Qinghai and Xingjiang Provinces less so. These are people who, to the
degree that they fight for nationalist reasons, have every right to be
called freedom fighters, although I won't applaud the Muslims who have
enlisted to fight for the spread of a fundamentalist Islamic state.   (It's
also worth noting that China has a sizeable Muslim minority that has
thoroughly assimilated to the majority Han Chinese culture, they use
Chinese names, and many of them are secular, not observing Islam as a
religion. It's only as you travel farther west in China -- beyond Xian,
which has a large Muslim population and a large mosque, which I visited a
year ago -- that you begin to see Muslims who have for quite a long time
tried to separate from the domination of the Chinese empire.  The Chinese
government has also co-opted a small but highly visible number of Tibetans
who serve the CCP and promote China's internal program of colonization of
Tibet and suppression of native Tibetan culture outside of museums and
other folkloric displays designed to drag in tourism dollars.)

After some tough talk about China's suppression of these religious
minorities, Bush seems to have backed away from it, choosing to give China
a free hand to terrorize Muslims and Tibetans in exchange for support for
the US war on the terrorists it chooses to suppress -- very similar to the
way Bush seems to be giving Putin a free hand against the Chechens.

"Morris" -- you're embarrassing yourself, because you simply don't know
enough about Chomsky or the issues he addresses to talk intelligently about
them.  I suggest you back off and let one of the more intelligent
warmongers/Chomsky bashers speak up instead, or maybe you just like looking
ignorant. In any event, the sordid history of U.S. foreign relations over
the past century or so speaks for itself  (and forms the subtext for much
of Pynchon's fiction); only people who are willing to deny what's actually
happened (and which has been meticulously and voluminously documented by
impartial observers and historians -- none of whom you seem to know
anything at all about) or who actively suppress the record can dismiss it
as you do. There are observers of world affairs consiberaly more astute and
better informed than the yahoos in the Bourbon Street barrooms who would
appear to be your sources. Or, maybe you're just getting your information
from US television, and if so that's a real shame.

Otto -- you make an excellent point about the counter-culture protest
against the US war in Vietnam, and how that affected people around the
world.  It's important to note that this "counter-culture" remained very
much a sub-culture in the U.S., and that, after a few years of airing the
facts of this shameful episode in US history in the '70s, with Reagan/Bush
the US mainstream once again embraced that war and has ever since spoken of
it as a noble but failed cause. The music and fashion of  the '60s
counter-culture has of course permeated mainstream US culture as the Baby
Boomers have aged, but not the politics -- hence, I believe, Pynchon's
lament and critique in Vineland.