Is it time to invade Burma?

[happydreams]

Source: Time

By ROMESH RATNESAR
Sat May 10, 11:55 AM ET



The disaster in Burma presents the world with perhaps its most serious humanitarian crisis since the 2004 Asian tsunami. By most reliable estimates, close to 100,000 people are dead. Delays in delivering relief to the victims, the inaccessibility of the stricken areas and the poor state of Burma's infrastructure and health systems mean that number is sure to rise. With as many as 1 million people still at risk, it is conceivable that the death toll will, within days, approach that of the entire number of civilians killed in the genocide in Darfur.

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So what is the world doing about it? Not much. The military regime that runs Burma initially signaled it would accept outside relief, but has imposed so many conditions on those who would actually deliver it that barely a trickle has made it through. Aid workers have been held at airports. U.N. food shipments have been seized. U.S. naval ships packed with food and medicine idle in the Gulf of Thailand, waiting for an all-clear that may never come.... more



Read more: www. minx.cc/?post=262156

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Wonder what Bushboy, SS kindasleezy and Halliburton's Cheney think?

[featherman]

1. Do they have oil? Guess not then.

[graycem]

10. Aw, shucks..

I was gonna' say that! :P

[Moderator]

2. Better link

http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1739053,00.html?imw=Y

[gaspee]

3. Nah- nothing to exploit there

Too bad for them.

:sarcasm:

[spindrifter]

4. They do have oil--they are natural-resource

rich, but have idiotic "leadership."

[Webster Green]

5. I wouldn't be against that invasion.

Not by the U.S. alone though. We have no credibility left.

UN intervention?

I would go do it myself, but I'm too old, too broke, and there aren't enough of me. :smoke:

[Mudoria]

6. No. I don't support the the war in Iraq or Afghanistan and

I wouldn't waste one American soldiers life to stop the killing in Darfur or Burma. let them solve their own problems...

[pscot]

7. It had occured to me

that it wouldn't take much of a shove to topple this regime. I read somewhere that part of the reason aid is moving so slowly is that only 5 of their 12 helicopters are working.

[RaleighNCDUer]

8. It was the aftermath of another cyclone that caused the downfall

of the government of East Pakistan, starting a civil war that ended with its secession from Pakistan and renaming it Bangladesh.

This government may well not survive - there will be millions of pissed off citizens if the army remains unresponsive to the deaths of 100,000+ of them.

[Miss Authoritiva]

9. Maybe Burma's leaders have read THE SHOCK DOCTRINE

(I)t's hard to imagine a regime this insular and paranoid accepting robust aid from the U.S. military, let alone agreeing to the presence of U.S. Marines on Burmese soil — as Thailand and Indonesia did after the tsunami.

And yes, Burma does have natural resources that would be of interest to the US, as they already are to India and Japan. According to the http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ei/bgn/35910.htm">US State Department, Burma has huge reserves of natural gas, and also has oil, coal, and timber.

If I were the leaders of the Burmese junta, I wouldn't let the US Marines land either.

[Billy Burnett]

11. More shock first, then awe to follow.

Gotta get the world in a frenzy to support an invasion of one sort or another (humanitarian, of course :eyes: ).