Commentary
The Winter Olympics, or as some prefer, “the Genocide Games,” are in progress in Beijing, with participation from 91 countries. I generally eschew hyperbole, but my mind keeps straying to the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin, the first time in Olympic history that a boycott was proposed—but failed to launch—on human-rights abuse grounds. Hitler took international rejection of the boycott as a sign that his persecution of Jews and expansionist policies would be tolerated if he accelerated them after the Games. He was right.
