In other words, will they do it our way or another way?
"Clinton, in historic visit to Laos, touches on toll of Vietnam War" by Stephanie McCrummen | Washington Post, July 12, 2012
VIENTIANE, Laos — Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton became on Wednesday the first high-ranking US official to visit Laos since the Vietnam War era, when the United States dropped 260 million cluster bombs across the countryside in a nine-year campaign to crush North Vietnamese supply lines and bases.
We do that to a lot of people.
See: More Pentagon Problems
Maybe you might like to consult the database?
Clinton met with Prime Minister Thongsing Thammavong and other Laotian officials for talks that centered mostly on addressing the lingering effects of that war — including a sense of mutual estrangement — and then toured a small museum devoted to its human toll.
In the sweltering afternoon, Clinton walked through an exhibit of dangling cluster bombs and crude wooden artificial legs made by villagers whose limbs had been blown off by unexploded ordnance, the legacy of a war that Clinton herself had protested as a college student in the 1960s.
Lebanon was littered with them by stuff we gave Israel, U.S. has dropped them in Serbia, Iraq, Afghanistan.... and how far she has fallen. Reminds me of a certain senator.
Then, she met Phongsavath Souliyat, who had been blinded by and lost both hands to a cluster bomb.
He told her he hoped governments would ban the weapon.
‘‘We have to do more,’’ Clinton responded. ‘‘That’s one of the reasons I wanted to come here today, so that we can tell more people about the work that we should be doing together.’’
Haven't we done enough?
The stop in Vientiane, Laos’s capital, was a brief but symbolically significant part of a longer trip that has also taken Clinton to Mongolia, Vietnam and, eventually, to the Cambodian capital, Phnom Penh, where she is to attend the regional meeting of the ASEAN group of 10 Southeast Asian nations.
Related: Clinton Mouths Off in Mongolia
The trip is intended to underline the Obama administration’s much-promoted strategic pivot toward Asia and more particularly to convince ASEAN nations that US interests in the region are not just security-based, but economic as well.
The United States is trying to encourage ASEAN nations to assert themselves in a simmering territorial dispute with China over the South China Sea, which analysts view as a test case for how a rising China will deal with the world — through threats and coercion or according to international legal norms.
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Btw, the Vietnamese are happy now:
"Vietnam seems an unlikely champion of gay-rights issues. It is routinely lambasted by the international community over its dismal human rights record, often locking up political dissidents who call for democracy or religious freedom. Up until just a few years ago, homosexuality was labeled as a ‘‘social evil’’ alongside drug addiction and prostitution."
Like torturing, indefinitely detaining AmeriKa could really comment with any credibility.
On to Cambodia:
"Clinton seeks regional deal to South China Sea dispute" Bloomberg News, July 13, 2012
PHNOM PENH, Cambodia — Secretary of State Hillary Clinton warned on Thursday of more confrontations in the South China Sea without a region-wide solution as China rebuffed calls to expedite talks on rules for operating in disputed waters.
‘‘Issues such as freedom of navigation and lawful exploitation of maritime resources often involve a wide region,’’ Clinton told Asia-Pacific foreign ministers during a meeting in Phnom Penh. ‘‘Approaching them strictly bilaterally could be a recipe for confusion and even confrontation.’’
Unless we are talking Israeli-Palestinian peace talks.
The double standard must be truly amazing to Asians.
On Wednesday, vice foreign minister Fu Ying said China would start talks on a legally binding code of conduct in the South China Sea ‘‘when conditions are ripe,’’ according to the official Xinhua News Agency. It warned nations this week to avoid mentioning the territorial spats with Vietnam and the Philippines at Thursday’s regional security meeting that includes envoys from 26 Asia-Pacific nations and the European Union.
Related: "Tropical Storm Saola kill[ed] 26 people in the Philippines."
Also see: Filipino Pffffts
Diplomatic squabbling between the United States and China escalated after Clinton’s remarks in Mongolia this week in which she criticized governments that lock up dissidents and hinder freedom of speech. On Thursday, the Communist Party’s People’s Daily newspaper blasted US ‘‘arrogance’’ in commenting on human rights and democracy in Asia....
She's some diplomat.
The US interest in the South China Sea is based on the importance of freedom of navigation in the 1.2 million-square-mile body of water that links the Pacific and Indian oceans, Clinton said Thursday.
TELL IT TO PALESTINIANS!!
The Defense Department noted in a 2009 report that China’s growing military strength increases ‘‘Beijing’s options for military coercion to press diplomatic advantage, advance interests, or resolve disputes in its favor.’’
In other words, they might start behaving like we do, Amurkns!!
Related: Africa Chooses China
OR NOT!!
Looks to me like THERE WAY is a BETTER WAY than SMASHING and INVADING PLACES and then wasting billions if not trillions not rebuilding the place -- or home.
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Related: High Seas Treaty Sunk in Senate
She really does have some nerve!
