CULTURAL REVOLUTIONSrnPOL POT, who presided over the murderrnof more than a million of his fellowrnCambodians, has been condemned tornlife imprisonment after a jungle showtrialrnbv the Khmer Rouge—or what isrnleft of it. Many of Pol Pot’s accusersrnwere, in happier days, his accomplices,rnand the trial had about as much credibilityrnas a Nuremberg Trial presided over byrnHimmler and Goering.rnSecretary of State Madeleine Albrightrnimmediately called for Pot to be draggedrnbefore an international tribunal. Obviously,rnit would give many people a greatrndeal of satisfaction to sec the mass-murdererrnhumiliated and executed on liverntelevision, but like most quick-fix solutions,rnan international tribunal would dornmore harm than good.rnConsider the record of the much-publicizedrnHague Tribunal for genocidalrncrimes in the former Yugoslavia. So far,rnon] the smallest of small fry have beenrnput on trial, and the worst thugs, Serbia’srnSlobodan Milose’ic and Franjo Tudjman,rnhave not een been indicted.rnWhy? Because they are playing ball withrnthe United States. “rnThe model is, of course, the NurembergrnTrials of Nazi war criminals afterrnWorld War II. There is no doubt thatrnmost of the Nazi ringleaders deservedrntheir fate, but even at Nuremberg, a double-rnstandard was at work: “gentlemen”rnlike Albert Speer, near the top of thernNazi hierarchy, were spared, while thernguttersnipe propagandist, Julius Streicher,rnwhose crime was writing anti-Semiticrnfilth, was executed. Winston Churchillrnwas not the only statesman who dislikedrnthe Nuremberg Trials, which left the permanentrnimpression that the victors werernonK’ getting their revenge.rnWe were in a war in Southeast Asia,rnonce upon a time, fighting to contain thernspread of communism in Vietnam, Laos,rnand Cambodia. We lost that war. Thernreasons no longer matter as much as thernfact that we lost. Now, 25 vears later, v’ernhave a chance to get even, not vith HornChi Minh or his top generals, but with arncommunist killer, most of whose victimsrnwere Cambodian, not American.rnPol Pot is a stain on the human memor,rnbut no worse a blot than our alKrnJoseph Stalin or our friend Mao Tsetung.rnThe late Deng Xiaoping, whornserved as Mao’s hatched man during thernCultural Revolution, was honored byrnAmerican statesmen and Presidents bothrnduring his life and after his death. Comparedrnwith Mao and Deng, Pol Pot wasrnsmall potatoes.rnThen why are we calling for an internationalrntribunal? It is partly revenge, ofrncourse, and partly the Clinton administration’srnobsession with creating a newrninternational order in which the IhiitedrnStates v’ill attempt to use the Lfnited Nationsrnand other international agencies asrna puppet. It might work for a while, sornlong as we have no international rivals,rnbut the world is a big and dangerousrnplace, and no country can monopolizernpower for ery long. The United Statesrnplayed the same game in the 1950’s, beforernthe Soviet Union was a superpower.rnBut by the time of the Vietnam War, Sovietsrnwere able to manipulate internationalrnopinion against us, and the IhiitedrnNations became a forum for anti-Americanrnpropaganda.rnIn 1967, leading European intellectualsrn(principally Bertrand Russell andrnJean-Paul Sartre) set up their own internationalrntribunal in Stockholm and put arnnation on trial for its war crimes. Thatrnnation was the United States.rnThe crimes of the Klimer Rouge wererncommitted against Cambodia and otherrnpeoples of Southeast Asia. Let themrnhandle their history as best they can. Wernha’e enough to do here at home.rn—Thomati FlemingrnMADELEINE ALBRIGHT’S renditionrnthis summer of Madonna impersonatingrnEvita Peron (“Don’t cry for me, Argentinaaaarn. . . “) was neither intrinsicallyrninteresting nor aestheticalh pleasing.rnThe venue was an aircraft—paid by yournand me—en route from Kuala Lumpur,rnMalaysia, to Singapore; and according tornan eyeyvitness, the only thing missing wasrna red orchid in her hair. The audience ofrnassorted media hacks and admiring GS-rn11 brown-noses would have called it a lotrnof fun—in public, at least—had the notedrnEpiscopalian not preempted them allrnby declaring “it was a lot of fun!” Lucki-rnK for the former, it was a short flight.rnBut the Secretary of State’s junket wasrnfar from trivial. According to the NewrnYork Times, Albright went to the annualrnASEAN meeting in Kuala Lumpur torndefend that well-known philanthropist,rnGeorge Soros, from the accusation—rnmade by Malaysia’s Prime Minister MahatirrnMohamad—that Soros and his fellowrnspeculators had used their marketrnprowess to undermine Southeast Asia’srncurrencies. While wc readily admit tornknowing as much about Malavsian mone’rnmarkets as we do about Mr. Soros’rnWorld War II record in Nazi-run Europe,rntwo things arc striking here. One, Mr.rnSoros has become firmly established asrnan American icon, at least inside thernBeltwa. Attack him, and you may soonrnbe suspected of planting explosives inrnfederal buildings, or worse, being a Serb.rnTwo, why did Albright feel called uponrnto intervene in his favor? Now, it wouldrnbe idle to pretend that their commonalityrnof ethnic, cultural, and geographicrnbackground is purely coincidental here.rnBut even if it were, the episode is tellingrnin showing that globalism is not really arnconspiracy: it is a social system, a mentality,rnand an expanding wave of redefinitions.rnAlbright and Soros do not share arnsecret oath, but they do share a culturernand an ideology.rnFor example, both of them secrn”Bosnia” as an attractive concept becausernit is an inherently unstable and artificialrnedifice; it is the very opposite of arnEuropean nation in any conventionalrnsense, a grotesque caricature in fact,rnwhere the most brazenly anti-Christianrnparty has been instructed in the rhetoricrnof “multiethnicity” for the benefit of thernUpper East Side, Boulder, Aspen, andrnBerkeley. Both Albright and Soros insistrnad nauseam that Bosnia has to be preservedrnas an “experiment in multiculturalism,”rnwhich can only end in a globalrnempire devoid of nation-states andrncleansed of the hicrarch of values, culture,rntradition, and bonds of loyalty bornrnout of centuries-long shared experiences.rnAs Michael Stenton of CambridgernUni’ersity has recently noted, to suchrnpeople formal legitimacy is becoming arnside-issue, as functional legitimacy isrndeemed sufficient and redefined as less arnmatter of effectise authority or een bal-rn6/CHRONICLESrnrnrn