I'm thinking a blood-red ink would be more appropriate about now
Well of course he and Bush get along. Although he was presented the Nobel Peace Prize in 1989 "for his consistent resistance to the use of violence," the Dalai Lama (aka Tenzin Gyatso) supports war, including the Iraq war. Of course by now we know that the Dali Lama supports everything. It's what makes him so popular.
Today I accidentally came across a post I wrote four years ago at about the time of the last visit to the White House of the West's vagabond Tibetan saint obsession [what I call the bandwagon/group-think syndrome]. I think it was already the smiling Gyatso's second audience with Bush, and at that time I excerpted a report on the Guardian site:
The Dalai Lama said Wednesday that the U.S.-led war in Afghanistan may have been justified to win a larger peace, but that is it too soon to judge whether the Iraq war was warranted.I've looked everywhere online, but I couldn't find any sign that history has told His vacuous Holiness anything yet."I think history will tell," he said in an interview with The Associated Press on Wednesday, just after he met with President Bush.
I'll end by confessing that I'm no longer capable of being surprised by another form of hypocrisy, that of our peace-lovers in Congress pretending to be fired up about a Chinese-occupied Tibet while they continue to pursue the ruination and occupation of their own, equally-defenseless victim state in the Middle East.
[image of the Dalia Lama's handprint from mmothra]
I don't support this war anymore than you do, and I understand that the state that Iraq is in is 100% because of the U.S. occupation, but to say it's as much an "equally-defenseless victim" as Tibet is just ridiculous. i think the Tibetans would take great offense at this. I also scoured the Internet, and nowhere did I find mention of Tibetans forming tribes, making suicide vests and destroying markets killing hundreds of fellow Tibetans all in the name of the same religion.
Thank you James for saying it so well. It is something to watch them get on the bandwagon. Wonder where they would be if the Lama came out and told Bush and his likes in congress to buzz off, the war is wrong, what they are doing to the planet is wrong and they are just plain wrong, the dems and repub alike from a spiritual and religious point of view. The Dalai Lama smiles too much for me and the its all okay bit is sick.