The International Olympic Committee is not noted for its awareness of problems and its courage and ability to deal with them. The coming Olympics in Beijing this August provide another example of the IOC’s tendency to hide out and try to conduct business as usual, even when the climate is ripe for tension and trouble and commitments are not met.

Phog Allen, the famed Kansas University basketball icon, was one of the earliest and most outspoken critics of arrogant Olympic officials. Allen began his criticisms in the 1930s when the American Olympic people and the international officials engaged in one high-handed activity after another.

At one point in his tirades against the Olympics and their four-year recurrence, Allen declared that many of the Games’ leaders were little more than “quadrennial oceanic hitchhikers along for the ride – and they don’t even own a hurdle.”

Since then there have been many instances to justify critics such as Allen and others. In recent times, we have seen clear-cut fraudulent and even criminal behavior in the operation of the Games, both summer and winter. There have been under-the-table payments to athletes and promoters, judges found to be crooked; the list is long and unflattering.

Now comes 2008 and Beijing, China. The host country didn’t deserve the Games to begin with, has terrible pollution problems, lacks proper water and sanitation supplies and, worst of all, has a miserable record regarding human rights that the spirit of the Olympics is supposed to foster. But China made a lot of hollow promises to get the Games and the IOC bit on the bait.

Nobody has described the current climate better than Sally Jenkins, the noted Washington Post columnist. Jenkins wrote this week:

“At this point, the Beijing Games are shaping up as a disaster. The violent police action in Tibet and other events of the past two weeks make one wonder if the Chinese government is fundamentally unfit to host an Olympics. Officials there have violated the basic spirit of the event and reneged on every promise they made to the International Olympic Committee about their willingness to accommodate the world. When anyone publicly tries to hold them to account : they charge critics with trying to ‘sabotage’ the Games. The only event they seem interested in hosting is the Totalitarian Propaganda Back-Flip.”

Yet the International Olympic Committee continues to hide behind the door and shows virtually no intent to deal with the matter. Many will agree with Jenkins’ conclusion:

“It’s time for the IOC to make the Chinese government live up to its word, and to the Olympic charter and spirit. Otherwise, take the Games away from Beijing.”