That history provides a huge hint as to Kouchner's priorities and ideas. In 1987, he published a book with a title that also strongly signals his priorities: The duty to intervene. He declares simply, "mankind's suffering belongs to all men." -- Rodger Payne, The Duck of Minerva
So the founder of Doctors without Borders is the new Foreign Minister of France. Read the Duck post. Nothing for me to add other than that 'neoconservatism' is not a dead duck, and probably never will be, in any greater way than name only. This nettlesome issue of being aware of other peoples' suffering is at the heart of it. The raise-awareness crowd likes to think that once people are made sensitive to suffering, they'll do something about it. This is a mistake. People all day resolve to do nothing about suffering -- their own and other peoples'. How deep, how absolute, must a motivation be to spur an active response to a call of duty? And in what sources do we find that kind of depth? Beyond pity and contempt there is the simple problem of the practical hierarchy of local interest. The things that shake it shake us out of being all too human, and that poses a certain problem for our internationalist champions of merely human solidarity.
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