Republicans! Make up your minds!

Now that I have your attention, could we please talk for a minute or two about the race for the Republican presidential candidacy. Let me recap the results so far, and please pay attention because there's going to be a big test in August!

"Catcher's Mitt" Romney has won two of the three primaries held so far.
What?! OK, make that one. "Hold `er Newt" Gingrich and "Tricky Rick" Santorum have won one, too. Three primaries, three different "winners".

And what of Walt's choice, "L. Ron" Paul? He has finished third, second and fourth. A respectable enough showing. But the pundits of the lamestream press keep saying Ron hasn't got a chance, and Republicans will have to make up their minds and unite behind middle-of-the-road Mitt or a real conservative. What's Ron Paul, if not conservative? But noooo, he's not electable, so forget about him.

What, I ask you, is wrong with Ron Paul?! He's not Mormon. He's not Catholic. He's only had (and still has) one wife. And he's not filthy rich.

Ron Paul advocates smaller government, lower taxes and a sound dollar. Is there anyone out there, Republican or otherwise, who doesn't want those things?!

So what's the problem then? Oh. The foreign policy thing. Because he has called for the US to stop being the world's policeman, Congressman Paul is accused of being an isolationist, a pacifist/defeatist/comsymp, a latter-day "know-nothing". Like nobody else wants to stop pouring American money and American lives down some third world rathole?!

Let's face it, folks. The US of A has not exactly brought democracy, peace and prosperity to the troubled lands of Africa and Asia. Regardless of who's been in power, America's post-war foreign policy has been pretty much a great big FAIL.

Yes, but Hellery Clinton and her predecessors are winning friends and influencing Arabs, Russians, even the Chinese, to reform themselves and make the world a better place. Right? WRONG! Here's how one Chinese university student sees America's policy and actions vis-à-vis her part of the world.

"America dropped an atomic bomb on Japan," Yvette told [Michael Levy], "sent its army to Korea, invaded Vietnam, sent the CIA to Tibet, bombed Cambodia, built bases in Okinawa, and stationed its navy around Taiwan. At a time when we were weak and you were very strong, you surrounded us with violence. This is what we remember."

Yvette uttered those words in 2006. At the time, the US was also making friends in Iraq and Afghanistan. Libya came later. And now the Obama administration is mulling intervening in Syria, Iran, or just about any little country whose citizens have somehow missed out on the benefits of Western civilization.

Honestly... honestly... does it make sense to continue that kind of foreign policy? It's what used to be called "gunboat diplomacy". Today it's not just gunboats, but gunships, gunmissiles, gundrones, guneverything.

Should we change horses in mid-stream? Hell no! Steady as she goes! In fact, let's send US troops back into Iraq! OK, it was Rick Perry who said that, and it's now generally accepted that he's a moron. But did Gingrich, Santorum or Romney call him out? No. Only Ron Paul has had the courage to offer a clear alternative to "foreign affairs as usual".

Come on Republicans! A candidate of principle is out there. Can you handle principles?!

* Michael Levy is a former Peace Corps volunteer who was sent to China's Guiyang University to teach ESL. His book Kosher Chinese (Henry Holt & Co., 2011) is the source of the quote.

Uighurs deported to China and death

How do you deal with refugees and other "illegal immigrants"? If you're the government of Cambodia, you send them back to their country of origin, even if it means almost certain death.

That's how China will likely deal with 20 ethnic Uighurs who were returned from Cambodia over the weekend. In a terse statement, the Chinese Foreign Ministry said "Cambodia deported 20 Chinese citizens in accordance with immigration laws for illegal entry into Cambodia. China received these people in accordance with usual practices."

Chinese "usual practices" for "criminals" (including people who might have wanted to separate their region from greater China) included execution by firing squad. And it was the practice to make the victim's families pay for the bullet. (Scots, you could learn something from the Chinese!) Agent 78 told me this practice had stopped but I wasn't clear on whether she mean the shooting or making the victims pay.

The Chinese comments came, by the merest coincidence, as a top Chinese official began a visit to Phnom Penh to boost commercial ties. China is Cambodia's biggest investor, having put more than $14 billion into that country in foreign direct investment, including buying up huge tracts of farmland the produce of which will be shipped to China...or possibly to the west.

And where do the Uighurs fit in? They are an ethnically Turkic Muslim people who used to be the majority population in large parts of northwestern China. Lately they have become a minority as the majority Han Chinese have colonized ["developed"? ed.] Xinjiang and neighbouring provinces.

The Uighurs don't much like being colonized and reduced to second-class status in their own land, so have been agitating for the Chinese to go away and leave them alone. In July, ethnic rioting (Uighurs vs Chinese) claimed the lives of nearly 200 people. The Uighurs lost.

Some of them fled into neighbouring Cambodia (the land of Pol Pot and the Killing Fields) and applied for asylum at the United Nations refugee agency office there. The UNHCR has condemned the deportations, but has failed to stop them. Another triumph for international law, human rights and the United Nations.