Friday, July 25, 2008

Iraq banned from Summer Olympics

Time and again, politics has come into play in the Olympic games. One of the things that the Olympics is supposed to do is bring the world together in spite of political issues. This time around Iraq has been banned from Summer Olympics due to political issues between the government of Iraq and it's own Olympic committee. The Iraqi government disbanded the standing Olympic committee due to concerns of impropriety, replacing it with it's own appointees (which, by the way, is just as improper). The International Olympic Committee the disqualified Iraq from the upcoming games.

These machinations may only seem to affect seven Iraqi athletes. However, this kind of thing tarnishes the games for the entire world in my opinion. This is especially sad since it involves Iraq. That country certainly deserves a chance to be involved in something positive on the world stage; it deserves a chance to be proud and to hope.

1 comment:

barbie2be said...

i was just reading something about a local (to me) athlete that had been asked to cover syncronized swimming and china has refused to give her a work visa because she is associated with athletes for darfur or some such group. china said they didn't want any "trouble". whatever. so much for their "one world, one dream" theme.