Asian Tribune
09 August 2014
- RSIS
- Media Mentions
- Will Business Always Overrules the Conscience?
Will Business Always Overrules the Conscience?
With John Kerry landing in Nyapydaw this Saturday, whatever lingering moral authority remaining in the administration of President Barack Obama may fell to dust. In a country like Burma; one is immediately struck by the staggering glibness that tore a great many people to pieces, among them many innocents, particularly the non Myanmar ethnic nationalities.
As bad as the “some folks” gambit was, this, this right here, is where the moral authority of the American president and his administration became a dumpster fire. No one has any business blaming President Obama and his administration for the deplorable actions of his predecessor. However, the simple fact of the matter is that all of them swore a public oath to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution. They are required to swear that oath not for the times when defending the Constitution is easy, but for the times when it is hard. Otherwise, the oath itself is pointless.
Beyond that oath is the Geneva Convention Against Torture, of which Burma is not a signatory. The American Constitution was violated, the Geneva Convention was violated, and still everyone walked away because Burma is moving towards democracy. The moral failure in this is so vast as to be bottomless. President Obama isn’t going to get any static from them on the issue of torture; which the Myanmar had inflicted on their enemies (both Myanmar and non Myanmar) since the monarchial days of which Adnoram Judson is but one of them their hands are grimy with the blood they helped to spill.
… “We need to be cautious about wanting to speed it up and going out and making very strong and aggressive statements,” said Joseph Liow, Southeast Asia studies chair at The Brookings Institution’s Center for East Asia Policy Studies. “Of course it satisfies domestic audiences in the U.S. and lawmakers would be happy. But beyond political points for making such statements, how does that help the problem we are trying to shed light on?”
RSIS / Online
