Even as thousands of Burmese continue to die in the swath of wreckage created by Cyclone Nargis, the ruling junta seems determined to keep the international community out -- an act of epic negligence, given that the aid is ready to flow, and international organizations ready to deploy thousands of relief workers. This situation has provoked various calls for action, the generals be damned.
In response, we're getting a chorus of voices urging the world to intervene. But they don't spell out exactly how. "Yes, we should help the Burmese, even against the will of their irrational leaders," writes Anne Applebaum. "Yes, we should think hard about the right way to do it. And, yes, there isn't much time to ruminate about any of this." In other words, no idea.
Some are calling on the United Nations, which in 2005 declared its collective "responsibility to protect" victims of state-sponsored violence or negligence -- in essence saying that states could not use sovereignty as a shield to exempt themselves from responsibility. Here's the Washington Post's Fred Hiatt:
But the stalemate in Burma, also known as Myanmar, shows how difficult it is to translate "responsibility to protect" into action. It's hard to imagine a government more deserving of losing the national equivalent of its parental rights; yet it seems more likely that hundreds of thousands of people will die needlessly than that the United Nations will act.
It is indeed difficult to translate the UN's vague commitment (the R2P program's website says it is "an evolving concept," which means a still-unformed one) into action in this case -- not because the UN doesn't have its act together, but because there is not really much it can do to force Burma to open its borders.
Imagine, for a moment, that the international community tried to gin up a multinational force to accompany aid workers and help distribute relief supplies over the objections of the Burmese leadership. This might take weeks to organize; even if it could be done by this Friday, its mission would be dangerously muddled. It would be a relief force, but also a provocation and a target.
Perhaps the generals will conclude it has too much to lose in a hostile response and stand aside. But this is a deeply eccentric, unpredictable regime, and the stakes very, very high. Do we want to gamble on the likely response with the lives of relief workers?
Lamentably, there is very little the international community can do when the rulers of a xenophobic police state decide to shut it out. Realistically, some food and supplies can be airdropped into targeted areas. But to have an impact on a disaster of this scale, you need people on the ground -- lots of them -- to distribute food, provide medical care and supplies, and clean up. And they need to operate in safety. In other words, you need the cooperation of the local authorities. Maybe this cooperation can still be achieved. If it isn't, the result will be yet another terrible crime perpetrated by the SLORC. But declaring that "something must be done" without an idea of what is just moral posturing, something that's only gotten us into trouble in international affairs of late.
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The role of the government is to interact with other world governments, not swoop down from on high and lift up every downtrodden. The death toll in Burma is still fewer than six digits, opposed to the millions we’ve allowed to be killed in the conflict states of Africa.
The death squads in Africa are acts of genocide either sponsored by, or beyond the local government’s controle. This situation in Burma is a natural disaster. We’re up and arms about how a government is choosing to handle their own problems, but not other governments targeting entire demographics for death?
Can the US government offer aid? Of course, but to force aid down someone’s throat? Let’s follow that line of thought.
Air supplies are dropped in. Within hours the local military commandeers them. What then? Fire on the military convoys? The government buildings? Next, Marines secure land and soldiers have up-armored convoys to deliver the aid. Now we have a non-lateral gorilla war of attrition because we don’t like how another nation does business. Awesome.
The reason a soldier is under arms is to kill people and destroy things. The military is not designed to help people and rebuild things. Basic training isn't teaching water shed renewal, but the most lethal employment of the bayonet. Please stop suggesting improper use of the military as a fix all for foreign relations.
But send in no troops, just humanitarian aid, while the politics works out.
Hey we haven't fix New Orleans yet how many years?
George Bush (another Military Dictator) would not let over a thousand Volunteering Cuban doctors, with medical supplies, into the country to help the victims.
Just a Reminder
In the past, Cuba has refused U.S. offers of aid, the most recent following Hurricane Dennis. That storm killed more than 10 people in the Caribbean island nation in July.
At that time, Castro said he would not accept help from Washington because of the U.S. trade embargo against his country. The United States has no diplomatic relations with Cuba.
A reassessment of sanctions compels us to appraise the Beijing regimes claims to suzerainty as more proximate than the Military juntas shortcomings, and most probably related. Before suzerainty migrates to sovereignty and Burma becomes another inseparable part of the Motherland, it behooves those concerned to engineer engagement. Pinning all possible hope on the resuscitation of a dynastic link to a previous military regime, if it is not fantasy chain rhetoric, is at best locating all the eggs in one precarious basket.
Let us hope the aid gets through, even if it involves doing some backflips in boycott diplomacy.
Mary Callahan, Robert Taylor, Guy Lebeigt, David Steinberg and many other specialists on Burma have published articles detailing how Myanmar/Burma is being steadily annexed by their northern neighbor. Apparently you belong to the camp of Senator Mitch McConnell, and we disagree.
SURE a full scale invasion takes a long damned time but scare the hell out of these bullies by taking out the leaders of the junta overnight and see how fast they open up to help.
AND this country WOULD welcome us with open arms, flowers and daughters delivered on beds of flowers.
I HATE people who say, "At last a rational look" and then declare that the best thing to do is NOTHING. Would love to see them in the reversed position and thanking everyone for not doing anything.
Something COULD be done but it takes the guts to stand up and take responsibility for it and give the okay as opposed to everyone being terrified of something going wrong THEREFORE do nothing and allow tens of thousands of people to die.
Yeah that is totally rational.
The US should start taking care of its own and let some "other" country come in to save the day.
I still cringe at the ads for Darfur, "Mr. President, do something".
Worse still, we don't even appear to be capable, as voters, of even recognizing leadership when leadership is bloody staring us straight in the face...if you know what I mean.