The dubious politics behind the Beijing Olympics protests

At the center of the protests is the Chinese regimes repression in Tibet and its overall human rights record. In addition to pro-Tibetan activists, a coalition of groups, including opponents of Chinas policies in Darfur and Burma, as well as persecuted religious sect Falun Gong supporters and animal rights movements, have organized the events.

In London and Paris, demonstrators attempted to snuff out the Olympic flamesucceeding several timesas it was carried through city streets.

In San Francisco several hundred protesters gathered Tuesday afternoon and a larger crowd assembled at a vigil that evening in the citys UN Plaza. They were addressed by actor Richard Gere, Archbishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa and Richard Blum, multimillionaire financier husband of Sen. Dianne Feinstein (Democrat from California), among others. A bigger protest was planned for Wednesday when the torch was to be actually conveyed along San Franciscos waterfront.

The anti-Chinese protests, which, while vociferous, have not mobilized massive numbers of participants, have received wide coverage in the US media. It should simply be noted that vast worldwide demonstrations against American intervention in Iraq in February 2003, which numbered in the millions, did not garner one-tenth the airtime or column space.

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