What I don't understand is why the IOC picked China in the first place, it's not like human rights abuses are something new to China. They've been doing this all along, the world needed to go to the IOC then and say what are you thinking picking China as a host country. I don't see where boycotting the opening ceremonies will make any real statement. If you want to make a statement if no or very few countries show up for the games now that will make a statement! If this doesn't send a message to the host country why did China boycott the Russian Olympics in 1980? So the President(he won't) or congress will grow a set and vote to forgo sending a team to this Olympics.

In fact why isn't China banned from the Olympics till they clean up there act!

John Stone, Louisville, KY

@Esther

Somehow I don't think burning buildings because the owners were of a certain race, or beating old men on bicycles to death, equates to peaceful protesting.

Howard, Manchester,

I just hope the West and the media can be fair enough. Do they themselves allow such riots and burning in their homeland ? How come no people come out and stand for the common Iraq people who have suffered so much for the past 6 years of war ? How come no people come out to express their opinions on the America War camp at Gitmo ?
Do not do to others that you do not do to yourselves ? Let us have one single moral standard instead of a double standard ?

Richard Hung , Markham , Canada

Lauren
Murdering its own citizens when they are peacefully protesting.
Suppressing all forms of free speech and expression.
Brutally enforcing a one-child policy which has actively encouraged the infanticide of baby girls.
Displacing thousands upon thousands for showhouse engineering projects.
Executing more people than the rest of the World combined, often for crimes that would merit a short prison sentence elsewhere.
State censorship of all media.
Are we seriously supposed to regard these are "cultural differences" and that to be repelled by them is merely political correctness ?

Esther, London,

I think this is the most demostration of ignorant and incompetent government that the USA have today. Every hour, I see the news saying the last headlines and numbers os the election (or pre-election) of United States... and always that I see this, I pray that this country take a positive command (or SOME command).

About the boycott of the Olympic Games by U.S., there is no to comment. I think that the planet Earth is dividing in two parts now: the USA and the rest that have some value (all others countries)...

Milton Junior, Santa Cruz do Sul, Brasil

There is a time for politics and a time for pease, the olympics are intended to be a non-political tool that helps the world work together. For us to push politics onto the Olympics would be like the US saying we don't have to listen to NATO's international rules on war or torture. Oh, we did that also didn't we. OOPS!

Brian, Cleveland, Ohio, USA

Chris from Coventry

I don't believe any police force in the UK has advocated parading suspect through the streets in handcuffs and shooting on unaramed demonstrators as means of promoting law and order....................

Esther, London,

It is ridiculous that the U.S. should be lecturing any nation about respecting human rights. According to some estimates over one million Iraqis have been killed and many millions displaced due to the American invasion. Iraq is essentially destroyed, its infrastructure ruined, its people embittered and traumatized.

Robert King, Detroit,

Boycotting the opening ceremony would be a pointless, toothless act. If our government leaders were serious about bringing pressure to bear upon China, they'd be calling for meaningful economic sanctions: revocation of most-favored-nation trading status; tariffs on and/or boycotts of Chinese goods. But those would require us to stick our necks out and assert principle over short-term economic considerations. God forbid! So no, we won't hear about any meaningful like that. Only pointless symbolic acts that are utterly meaningless to the Chinese.

N. Marshall, Denver, CO

While we occupy Iraq, I hardly think we are in a position to try and take the moral high ground by boycotting the opening ceremonies of the Olympics due to China's illegal occupation of Tibet. Would this not be the proverbial pot calling the kettle black?

Bill, GREENSBORO, North Carolina

This issue has been so overly exploited because of cultural differences. China is a very traditional and strict country. Many Westerners don't understand their point of view because society, here, has become so lax and politically correct to the point of absurdity. I am not saying that the Chinese government is correct in what they are doing, but that maybe everyone else is being too harsh. The rest of the world needs to respect the Chinese culture.

Lauren, Va, USA

The really embarrassing thing which this Olympic/Tibetan issue highlights for us, is how many of our trading partners in Asia are still in the Middle Ages when it comes to political freedoms and human rights.

The attitude of the Chinese authorities has been so comically high-handed throughout the crisis that it would be funny if it wasn't tragic. They are still totally entrenched in the uber-nationalism of the Cultural Revolution, and anyone who as much as disagrees with them is either a national traitor, or, in the case of the foreign press "not serious enough to be worth considering".

Very uncomfortable for those who care only for commercial exchange, but don't give a hoot for anything else.
Uncomfortable but alas, true.

As long as the Chinese continue on this tack, the case for boycotting the Olympics increases by the day. Very sad, but then again so is the torture and rape of innocent civilians just because they won't bring themselves to spit on their objects of veneration.

Al Green, Bristol, UK

Winston Churchill said "to jaw-jaw is always better than to war-war"

Nigel, London, UK

foe me,a chinese ,
attend or boycott, anyway.
but see you westman ,is so arrogant.what do you think about now?is it 19th century?please open you eyes and use your heart,watch careful what have happened in lahas, it is riot ,anywhere and anycountry cannot permit it.

shao, chengdu, china

I thought Wilbur Varela made an excellent point above, I did not realise the Olympics were about athletes or the contests between them.

barry å·´ç»´, HK, HK

It is a common sense to take off our sun glasses when we try to investigate something. When we are discussing about the riot of Tibet, it is critical to keep neutral. Then you can ask yourself what kind of methods you can use to handle the riot occured in Tibet? Do you think the looters, arsonists and attacher with gun and knife are criminal and should they be punished ? If not, what about the human right of the victims?

Please put down your prejudice for just a moment, look at the pictures of the burned shops.

Chris, Coventry, UK

The Olympics are a sporting event? You could have fooled me. I haven't heard one word about the athletes, but rivers of ink have been written about the politics and nationalist propaganda of these so-called "games".

Wilbur Varela, Los Angeles, california, usa

Talking to china doesn't work, never has, never will. With friends like the Americans and the indians does the Dalai Lama need enemies? It is clear the Americans have learned nothing from Pearl Harbour where they were lead up the primrose path by the British.

John Sinclair, Dundee, UK

May be these Tibet monks wish to improve religional freedom.
But they in the wrong way , they burned shops , looted stores and attack Han chinese. No governments can bear such things.

Johnson, London, UK

your govt is not courage enough to condemn the attacks and suppression by the chinese authorities in Tibet. Tibet used to be an insdependent nation such as the Tamil Homeland in SriLanka. But the British Raj annexed the three states into one as one SriLanka like the annexartion of India. Now this Govt cold not even bring in sanctions against that chauvinist Govt in SriLanka. The Dynasty of late Bandaranaike vanished from the scene but it left behind the ugly teeth of the Racist ideology and all the benefits which should be enjoyed by the Tamils were given to the minority Muslims living there.
so that living with them in peace is not possible any more.
Your Govt just watch when student protestors were massacred before and now it is watching when the Majority of Tibetans were brutally suppressed.It is time for giving them autonomy and the ethnic chinese should not be allowed to take over the entire nation like what happened in Srilanka.Ethnic identity of the Tamils is being destroyed.

K.Balakumaran, London, U.K