In this mailing: - Soeren Kern: Growing Calls for Moving or Boycotting the Beijing Olympics
- Alan M. Dershowitz: A Long and Sordid History of Crowds Threatening Violence in the Event of a Jury Acquittal
- Amir Taheri: Beware of Cut-and-Run in Afghanistan
by Soeren Kern • April 25, 2021 at 5:00 am "We're dealing with a government of intolerance, dictatorial, brooks no dissent, arrests people at a drop of a hat. I think there's a very strong case to be made that China should not be rewarded for its astonishingly bad behavior." — British MP Sir Ian Duncan Smith, Co-chair, Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China. "We therefore call on governments to boycott the Beijing 2022 Games — anything less will be seen as an endorsement of the Chinese Communist Party's authoritarian rule and blatant disregard for civil and human rights." — A coalition of more than 180 human rights groups, in a letter to the International Olympic Committee. "The IOC's failure to publicly confront Beijing's serious human rights violations makes a mockery of its own commitments and claims that the Olympics are a 'force for good.'" — Sophie Richardson, China director at Human Rights Watch. "We must boycott the 2022 Winter Olympics in China. It would be a terrible loss for our athletes, but that must be weighed against the genocide occurring in China and the prospect that empowering China will lead to even greater horrors down the road." — Former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley. "To be clear, I do not support a boycott. Boycotting these games will only hurt athletes who have spent their lives training to represent their country on the international stage. Instead, it should be the position of all democratic nations that the IOC can and should move the 2022 Games to a nation that respects human rights." — U.S. Senator Rick Scott, in a letter to German Chancellor Angela Merkel. "This is not about 'opposing views' between countries. There is no room for a middle ground. Either you make yourself an accomplice by closing your eyes, or you stand up for the values that are close to your heart — such as freedom and democracy." — Glacier Kwong, a human rights activist from Hong Kong who is currently residing in Germany.
 A growing number of Western lawmakers and human rights groups are calling for a boycott of the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing, in response to burgeoning evidence of human rights abuses against Uyghur Muslims in Xinjiang, a remote autonomous region in northwestern China. Human rights experts say that at least one million Muslims are being detained in hundreds of internment camps. Pictured: Senior officials of the organizing committee of the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics raise a toast at an event held for international media on April 12, 2021 in Beijing, China. (Photo by Kevin Frayer/Getty Images) A growing number of Western lawmakers and human rights groups are calling for a boycott of the next Winter Olympics, set to take place in Beijing in February 2022. The calls for a boycott have come in response to burgeoning evidence of human rights abuses against Uyghur Muslims in Xinjiang, a remote autonomous region in northwestern China. Human rights experts say that at least one million Muslims are being detained in hundreds of internment camps, where they are subject to torture, mass rapes, forced labor and sterilizations. Anger is also simmering over China's political repression in Hong Kong, Tibet and Inner Mongolia; its increased intimidation of Taiwan; its threats to its other neighbors; as well as its continued lack of transparency over the origins of the Coronavirus pandemic, which has resulted in the deaths of more than three million people around the world, according Johns Hopkins University. Continue Reading Article by Alan M. Dershowitz • April 25, 2021 at 4:30 am Oliver Wendell Holmes correctly pointed out: due process simply cannot be achieved for any defendant in the presence of hostile crowds ready for violence if a verdict of not guilty is rendered. The ACLU, if the shoe were on the other foot, would be demanding a new trial — if the defendant were black, and white crowds were demanding a conviction or else. But the ACLU is no longer a neutral civil liberties organization. It has become a partisan claque that espoused due process for "me but not for thee." Real civil libertarians, who demand due process for all, including guilty police officers, must now take over where the ACLU has left off. Whether guilty or not, Chauvin must be given a new trial at which the jury is sequestered, as it should have been from the beginning of this one. As an alternate juror candidly acknowledged, she had "mixed feelings" about jury duty, because of concerns about "disappointing" either side and the possibility of "rioting." There is no reason to believe that the unsequestered jurors who actually decided the fate of Chauvin were oblivious to this concern. The appellate courts should use this case to establish a clear rule that jurors must always be sequestered in racially charged cases where outsiders are threatening violence in the event of a not guilty or reduced verdict.... In the absence of sequestration, the legitimate protests of the outsiders may well deny the defendant his equally legitimate right to a fair trial. That is unacceptable under the Constitution.
 Oliver Wendell Holmes correctly pointed out: due process simply cannot be achieved for any defendant in the presence of hostile crowds ready for violence if a verdict of not guilty is rendered. Pictured: Protesters outside the Hennepin County Government Center in Minneapolis, Minnesota, where the jury announced its verdict in the Derek Chauvin trial, on April 20, 2021. (Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images) "I very seriously doubt if the petitioner ... has had due process of law ... because of the trial taking place in the presence of a hostile demonstration and seemingly dangerous crowd, thought by the presiding Judge to be ready for violence unless a verdict of guilty was rendered."
No, this is not your author complaining about the lack of due process in the trial of Derek Chauvin in 2021. It Is the great Oliver Wendell Holmes describing the trial of Leo Frank, a Jew convicted of murder in 1913 and eventually lynched by a mob that included prominent officials, after the governor commuted Frank's sentence from death to life imprisonment. Continue Reading Article by Amir Taheri • April 25, 2021 at 4:00 am It is precisely on Afghanistan that Biden has adopted Trump's hare-brained scheme for total troop withdrawal in exchange for a vague promise by the Taliban, one of the larger terrorist groups, to tone down their deadly attacks. Interestingly, this is precisely the policy that Biden, as Obama's vice president, opposed as "premature." His [Biden's] cheerleaders in part of the US media and political elite have also forgotten their opposition to Trump's initial plan, which they dubbed as a "shameful cut-and-run" number and praise Biden's wisdom of choosing a highly symbolic date for the withdrawal. [W]hat if the Taliban or kindred terror groups such as ISIS, Khorasan and the Haqqani network choose precisely that date [9/11] to remind the world that they are still alive and kicking? Who could guarantee that parts of Afghanistan would not , once again, be turned into bases for "exporting" terror beyond the region and, why not, as far as the United States? Obama baptized Afghanistan as "the good war" in contrast with the "bad war" in Iraq. Two decades later, the "nation-building" strategy has proved more successful than I thought in 2002. This is why, having argued for a speedy disengagement from Afghanistan in 2002 or 2003, I now believe that continued engagement is in the best interests of the United States. The US military presence is now down to around 2,500 advisers, training officers and technicians, no longer involved in combat. Their presence is a morale booster for Afghans and a guarantee of support for 8,000 troops from other NATO members. It is also a strong signal that the US does not abandon its allies and does not leave a position unless asked do so by an allied government. As for the cost of involvement, it is now in the peanuts category compared to what the US spends in Europe or the Far East. Biden's dwelling on the length of US involvement is bizarre when we remember that American presence in Germany, Japan and South Korea started eight decades and 13 presidents ago. Ironically, a day after fixing the date for withdrawal from Afghanistan, Biden ordered the sending of more troops to Germany. Deciding a major national security issue on the basis of a vague and necessarily shaky deal with a terrorist group that is hated by a majority of Afghans is a signal to other terror outfits that their best option is to stay in the ring until the "Great Satan" is overcome by political doubt and moral fatigue. Biden could link withdrawal to the formation of a transition government that is part of the deal.... The US and NATO allies should be involved together with the United Nations Security Council. Remember that US involvement in Afghanistan happened on the basis of a UN mission. The transition government cannot be concocted through traditional conclaves of tribal chiefs, mullahs and elders known as "loya jirgah". Afghanistan now has a constitution and new political culture shaped over the past two decades with several referenda, local, parliamentary and presidential elections. To ignore all that would be wrong and unjust, a betrayal of both Afghan and American peoples. Biden aides talk of a withdrawal with honor. To me, unless transition takes place within the parameters of the Afghan constitution and the participation of a new political generation that reflects today's Afghan realities, the Trump-Biden scheme would be nothing but a cut-and-run number unworthy of America.
 The US military presence in Afghanistan is now down to around 2,500 advisers, training officers and technicians, no longer involved in combat. Their presence is a morale booster for Afghans and a guarantee of support for 8,000 troops from other NATO members. It is also a strong signal that the US does not abandon its allies and does not leave a position unless asked do so by an allied government. Pictured: American soldiers stands guard at Kandahar Air base in Afghanistan on January 23, 2018. (Photo bu Shah Marai/AFP via Getty Images) A specter is haunting the United States' foreign policy: the specter of Donald Trump, at least as far as some of the questionable aspects of the former president's choices is concerned. On China, the new Biden administration has ratcheted the hostile rhetoric, blaming Beijing for a raft of misdeeds while praising it as a strategic partner in "saving the planet," whatever that means. On Russia, the new US president has triggered a series of diplomatic gesticulations while talking of close cooperation on issues such as persuading the mullahs of Tehran to return to the infamous "nuke deal" concocted by Barack Obama. At a different level, Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is designated as something of a gang leader while courted as a partner in chasing the mirage of peace in Afghanistan. Continue Reading Article |
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