By Just another reason why I do not buy TIME magazine:
Burma’s rulers have relented slightly, agreeing Friday to let in supplies and perhaps even some foreign relief workers. The government says it will allow a US C-130 transport plane to land inside Burma Monday. But it’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. The trouble is that the Burmese haven’t shown the ability or willingness to deploy the kind of assets needed to deal with a calamity of this scale — and the longer Burma resists offers of help, the more likely it is that the disaster will devolve beyond anyone’s control. "We’re in 2008, not 1908," says Jan Egeland, the former U.N. emergency relief coordinator. "A lot is at stake here. If we let them get away with murder we may set a very dangerous precedent."
That’s why it’s time to consider a more serious option: invading Burma. [Romesh Ratnesar - TIME]
I wonder if TIME’s editors think while the US military is busy invading Burma whether or not they should just go roll in and invade Tibet as well? The TIME editor makes it sound like it would all just be so easy if the US military will just show up and the Burmese military will just give up and everyone will be singing kumbayah. Where have I heard this scenario before? You have to be really disconnected from reality to think launching a third war, in jungle terrain, with poor infrastructure, against a Chinese ally is really a good idea.
I think the Belmont Club sums this issue up pretty well:
Burmese Army units will stand about as much chance as ants before a kid’s homemade flamethrower. And then all of a sudden the assumptions will collapse in reverse order. People are going to say, ‘we didn’t realize invasions meant killing people’; ‘we didn’t realize we wouldn’t have allies’; and finally ‘we did not think it would be so expensive’. And then we will hear that classic line: "I was for it before I was against it."
Here’s what I think. The US can invade any country it wants for a good reason and with a full understanding of what it entails. The Time magazine article is proof that there are a whole lot of people who are a long way from either having reasons or understanding — and a good chance they’ll all be in office by 2009.
Hopefully we can complete the invasion of Burma before President Obama’s campaign promise to invade Pakistan.
6:23 am on May 14th, 2008 1
I thought you’d be happy to invade Pakistan and Burma because Iraq isn’t enough to keep you busy.
Thanks to Iraq, you better brush up on Chinese. Your country owes them over one $Trillion dollars and counting.
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6:31 am on May 14th, 2008 2
“If we let them get away with murder we may set a very dangerous precedent.”
Is that one really a precedent?
I think it was Charles Krautanhemer (mangled spelling his last name) who I first heard said that the intellectual left in the US since Carter has had as a central foreign policy guiding principle that the US should only get involved in the use of military forces in nations where we have no large strategic or economic interests.
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6:46 am on May 14th, 2008 3
Soon we’ll run out of troops and money and just have to start using nukes.
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7:08 am on May 14th, 2008 4
Come on, man…
Sure, they may have been unrealistic ideas because of the proximity to China, or for tactical reasons, but do you accept the Iraq war as somehow more “just?” Or the failed effort in Afghanistan (which I did and do support), which was given too few resources to complete its mission because we’re sinking good troops and money into a hopeless and pointless war in Iraq?
For all the ire that has been poured on us “lefties”, the budget was balanced and America was secure when Clinton left office, blowjobs aside. I’ll take a lie over bimbos and blowjobs in a president over this one any day.
Let’s see: Bush has driven the economy into the ground (started that BEFORE the wars), overstretched our military, squandered our country’s good name even in the countries who are our closest allies, and not made the world any safer. Oh, and made a runaway executive that makes imperial Presidents Adams or Lincoln look tame by comparison.
Before getting on Obama’s case after responding to a theoretical scenario — man, do you not acknowledge that our actual present situation is worth far more anger than anything some writer for Time dreamed up? I don’t know about you, but give me McCain (who knows the meaning of solders’ lives and didn’t shirk his duty when called), Clinton, or Obama any day of the week.
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7:13 am on May 14th, 2008 5
Perhaps the UN should invade. We’ll sit this one out. I’m sure there are plenty of humanitarian-minded countries who realize the importance of using an international body to protect freedom and human rights. Oh . . . wait, nevermind.
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7:16 am on May 14th, 2008 6
Yes, because we all know that it is Clinton’s and Obama’s fault the George Bush prematurely ejaculated the words “Mission Accomplished” back in 2003
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7:47 am on May 14th, 2008 7
Brian, they’ll just send Hans Blix to Burma to tell the junta how upset the UN is with them.
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8:38 am on May 14th, 2008 8
I think Michael missed the part where I said:
“Where have I heard this scenario before?”
Which I was referring to many of the false assumptions on the right about how easy the war in Iraq would be due to being blinded by ideology. This just shows how easy it is for people on the left can be fooled as well due to ideology of how easy an invasion of Burma would be.
It isn’t just Burma either because I have heard plenty of the same arguments for invading Darfur and Tibet which are all sacred cows of the left just as much as getting rid of Saddam was a sacred cow of the right before the war.
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8:57 am on May 14th, 2008 9
If someone believes the war in Iraq is and was hopeless but not the war in Afghanistan, there is no hope for them.
Clinton left the US secure. Kind of explains how 9/11 happened.
Clinton (and Bush Sr.) left us with no-fly zones and the root source of the problem both intact in Iraq.
Squandered out countries good name: that is becoming an absolutely hilarious line.
I always thought it was crap because I could remember world opinion before Bush and things like Clinton having to stage a finger waging with “friend of America” Chirac after Chirac was microphoned making fun of Clinton and the US – in the elitist, French way he also put down Tony Blair. But, hey. He was the leader for France. So his opinion must be right, lefties, right?
But now, we have a growing list of pro-US leaders being voted in across Europe. — Hey —- I guess they are doing it because Bush will soon be out of office…
What a joke….
On the economy, my weakest area, I would tend to think the 9/11, the technology bubble, and the housing bubble had something to do with the state of the economy — and those date back to Clinton. (But I’m an idiot who tends to think even Carter got way too much blame for the state of the economy during his time in office. Though I don’t point to anything he did to help it much).
The stuff on imperial president is just as full of crap.
And Time and the media were angry and bashing Bush before he had even won the Republican Primary in 2000.
Some of us are not as short sighted on history as others tend to be.
Bush was hated by the left dating back to his time in Texas.
So start by telling me how the death penalty is abhorred and opposition of abortion rights is abhorred. And how could an ethical nation possibly elected someone so clearly stupid and against basic human rights —– before you start peddling this other stuff.
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9:04 am on May 14th, 2008 10
Read Tommy Franks’ book to see how the Mission Accomplished banner and speech came about.
I’d recommend also going back to reading and watching tape of what experts in the media was predicting would happen in Iraq before the invasion began. Aren’t we still supposed to be involved in a Vietnam-style quagmire? Oh. we are. I see. What was the Vietnam quagmire like again? Can someone refresh our memory?
I guess there is no quantitative and qualitative difference between the Afghani quagmire the Soviets suffered through until they accepted defeat and the one we are apparently still going through and refuse to admit defeat in and pull out — like we should in Iraq – as some short-sided, history challenged people seem to see it…
But this stuff really is wonderful to read….
Mission Accomplished and Imperial Presidents and Squandered good names and Obama Changes.
Perfect arguments from sure as hell seems to be a bumper sticker oriented party this election…..
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9:10 am on May 14th, 2008 11
European NATO members, minus the US, should be able to handle Burma by themselves for the UN – just as they were willing to do in Bosnia and Kosovo…
And a serious question for the military guys: Do we still have troops in either of those places?
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9:11 am on May 14th, 2008 12
If we invade Burma our rice prices will probably get out of control just like our oil and gas prices have after invading Iraq. It is time for the U.S. to stop creating wars for political reasons and take care of itself.
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10:04 am on May 14th, 2008 13
Does your junta misbehave?
Beg for us to invade?
Burma’s in for a close shave.
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10:38 am on May 14th, 2008 14
Perhaps the South Korean government can ship some more artillery shells to Burma to help out.
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1:57 pm on May 14th, 2008 15
To all you nude lefties and naked hippies:
Do you have no heart? What about the rape rooms in Burma; the weapons of mass destruction; its sinister collusion with Al Quaida in bringing down the world trade center.
Invading Burma will be a cake-walk.
Don’t forget 9-11, remember the Alamo, Pearl Harbor, the Maine, the Gulf of Tonkin, remember Jessica Lynch’s and Pat Tillman’s sacrifice.
Why don’t you nude hippies go to North Korea where you all belong. And wear some clothes, will ya!
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8:35 pm on May 14th, 2008 16
At #13, Classic one from the road, Chickenhead, well said!
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10:35 pm on May 14th, 2008 17
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