All Hat and No Cattle

In an effort to be “diplomatic”, the Embassy turned Cambodian refugees over to the Khmer Rouge, knowing full well that they would be killed.

On television, a journalist tells that dramatic events that took place in the [French] embassy. The Kampucheans who took refuge there were handed over to the Khmer Rouges! Among them, the husband of Ung Balk. “I did not any more smell my legs, explain it twenty and one years later. My daughter, who was 12 years old, ran with joy to embrace the screen while saying: “Don’t worry mom, dad will join us”. Me, I understood that all was finished, that I was going to be alone and have to assume sll the family responsibilities.”

Never mind the fact that the writer is using the term “Kampuchean” which was favored by the Khmer Rouge, and now firmly rejected by Cambodians today. As for that superior humanism?

“Remember that Mr. Dyrac had to face a true ultimatum, whose consequences for the community from abroad taken refuge in the [Embassy] compound could, in the event of refusal, become catastrophic.”

Why ask why? For the simple reason that nothing has changed – the inability to back the offer of a carrot with a stick:

Defense budgets in Europe are dropping. The US defense budget is larger than the next 20 largest defense budgets in the world combined. The European solution is to solve problems multilaterally, and not by military means. Why? If a military solution is required, then Europe must follow the American lead and be in America's shadow. This is a dignity issue. If international problems are addressed multilaterally, then Europe has 27 EU nations, and in international forums like the UN, Europe has more than 30 votes, and the US just one.

And with that their dimished ability to be heard, because the consequences of ignoring their wisdom are few, even though the irony of the situation is that the formation of the EU is in part an attempt to re-establish some significance to themselves in a larger world.

- Thanks go to reader btesh for the story link to RealClearPolitics.