Monday 4 June 2007
Philip Hammond
Is THIS the most dangerous man in Europe?
Bernard Kouchner poses as a rule-breaking rebel determined to save the wretched of the Earth. In fact his 'humanitarianism' is a recipe for mayhem.
France's new foreign minister, Dr Bernard Kouchner, personifies the 'right to intervene' that was invoked in the 'humanitarian military interventions' of the 1990s and in post-9/11 arguments for 'regime change'. It is a prescription for mayhem, and now that he has taken on a powerful role in a powerful state, we should keep a close eye on him.
Kouchner might relish being described as 'dangerous', as he is in the headline to this article. He has long cultivated the persona of a romantic iconoclast, an idealistic rebel who respects no frontiers. 'My first rule', he says, 'is be illegal if you have to - in order to change the law'. (1) His critics, Kouchner manages to suggest de haut en bas, are plodding and conformist by comparison, mired in an old world of tired politics and conventional legality which he has already heroically transcended.
The image, familiar from countless emergency-room dramas, is of the insubordinate but brilliant medic who can save the patient - but only if he ignores the regulations and restrictions imposed on him by the pettifogging hospital bureaucrats. Yet the image is false. This doctor is not so much flouting authority as imposing it in a new and more insidious way. And in the process he tends to prolong and aggravate the ills he claims to cure. The rule he most consistently breaks is that most basic precept of medical ethics: first, do no harm.
See the rest at:
http://www.spiked-online.com/index.php?/site/article/3438/