Obama will meet the Dalai Lama of Tibet this coming Wednesday in a move sure to inflame resentment against the US in China. Various wealthy mystics in Hollywood have promoted the Dalai Lama as an exemplar of refined spirituality, but in reality the Dalai Lama’s operation, currently based in India, is a relic of the Allen Dulles-Richard Bissell era of Cold War extremists at the CIA. The current Dalai Lama attempted to lead an insurrection against Chinese rule in 1959, which was supported by the oppressive feudal nobility of Tibet, but failed because it had little appeal to the former serfs and slaves who made up about 80% of Tibetan society. Tibet under the Dalai Lama was a country where 200 wealthy families held 93% of the wealth, while the masses were so poor and downtrodden that the population was declining. During the 1960s, the CIA gave several million dollars a year to the Dalai Lama’s court, with the Dalai Lama personally getting more than $180,000 per year from the US taxpayer. Today, the Dalai Lama’s court in northern India is the home of a gaggle of reactionary Tibetan aristocrats supported by $2 million per year from that same US taxpayer. This is a very bad investment for the United States. It is time to defund the Dalai Lama, stop interfering in China’s internal affairs and foreign commerce, and engage Beijing in realistic diplomacy.
Webster Tarpley will discuss the Dalai Lama’s visit to Washington in the context of alarming Sino-American tension with host Peter Lavelle and his other guests in the Crosstalk program to be broadcast on Russia Today on Friday, February 19, 2010.
