Silence From Our Sabre Rattlers as Burma's Dying Cry Out to be Saved

What are we waiting for? Where now is liberal interventionism? Over 100,000 people are dead after a cyclone in the Irrawaddy delta and the United Nations has declared that one and a half million people, deprived of aid for a week, are at risk of death. Barely ten per cent are reported to have received any help at all. The world stands ready to save them. The warehouses of Asia are crammed with supplies. Ships and planes are on station. Nothing happens.

Anyone who has visited this exquisite part of the world will know how avoidable is further catastrophe to the delta people. They are resourceful, peaceable and hugely resilient. Like those of low-lying Bangladesh next door, they are used to extreme weather. Their agriculture is fertile and they are self-sufficient in most things. But no one can survive instant starvation and disease.

They need not wait. There are three giant C130s loaded and ready in Thailand. There are American and French ships in the area, fortuitously on a disaster relief exercise, with shelters, clothing, latrines, medicines and water decontamination equipment. Above all there are helicopters vital in an area where most roads are impassable by flooding and fallen trees. The Australian aid agency, World Vision, has 600 staff in Burma and tons of supplies waiting in Dubai. The world cannot prevent natural calamities, but since the tsunami of 2004 it has learned how to cope with their aftermath.

Nothing can be done because the Burmese military regime refuses to permit it. Instead it is wasting time this weekend holding a nationwide referendum, devoid of open debate, to legitimise its hold on power and exclude the opposition, led by Aung San Suu Kyi.

The regime last week impounded the only two UN relief planes that managed to land in Rangoon, forcing the UN to suspend further flights. The regime's leader, hiding in his jungle "capital", refused even to take a call from the secretary-general, Bang Ki Moon. Visas are denied to doctors and logistical experts. What has been allowed in from China, Thailand and Indonesia is a trickle and must be distributed by the Burmese army, which cannot cope. Where 40 relief planes a day should be landing at Rangoon there is barely one.

Hundreds of thousands of people are thus condemned to death by one thing alone, the viciousness of a dictatorship more concerned with its pride and xenophobia than with the wellbeing of its citizens. Like Soviet regimes of old, the Burmese government would rather pretend that disasters have not occurred than admit it cannot handle them. When the cyclone tore off the roof of Rangoon's Insein jail, crammed with 10,000 prisoners, and part of it caught fire, the guards opened fire and killed 36. An aid worker told the BBC, "They are murdering their own people."

I have opposed many of the macho military interventions conducted by the west over the past decade. Their justifications have been obscure, their motives mixed and their morality situational, especially those aimed at "regime change". Those in Afghanistan and Iraq had the additional defect of built-in failure.

On the other hand the west did intervene to try to stop humanitarian catastrophes in Bosnia from 1992, Somalia in 1993, Kosovo in 1998 and Sierra Leone in 2000. The failure to intervene in Rwanda in 1994 and more recently in Sudan's Darfur province was generally attributed not to timidity but to the logistical difficulty of deploying power in the African interior.

These interventions were not ideological, whether "liberal" or "neo-con". They were to save lives from being lost by the thousand. They were covered by international law (possibly not Kosovo) because the UN charter's respect for territorial integrity also stipulates that it "shall not prejudice the application of enforcement measures" to avert a humanitarian crisis.

This was reinforced when the Security Council in 2005 and 2006 imposed a responsibility on the international community to protect people whose governments failed to do so. It castigated in particular the "intentional denial of humanitarian assistance". Such an extension of the concept of military intervention was advocated by Tony Blair in his Chicago speech of 1998, when it was dismissed by the Americans (pre-9/11) as irresponsible. Today it is widely regarded as legitimate, even by those opposed to much of the belligerent militancy that ensued under Blair and George Bush.

It is hard to think of a more glaring application of the humanitarian principle than today's Burma. In none of the above interventions was anything like the same number of lives at risk as the 2m now threatened in the Irrawaddy delta. This is eight times the 230,000 reckoned to have died in the 2004 tsunami.

In Burma, the airlifting of supplies from offshore vessels to stricken areas would indeed be an offence against the sovereignty of Burma. But the intervention would not constitute an attack on a government or occupy its territory. Indeed it would be occasioned strictly because of the lack of government in a particular territory. It would be to save the lives of people abandoned to their deaths by their rulers.

Yet where today are the brave rattlers of sabres against the Iraqis, the Afghans and the Iranians? The American ambassador to the UN, Zalmay Khalilzad, says he is "outraged by the slowness of the response" of the Burmese authorities. His outrage will bring scant comfort to those dying in the delta.

On Friday the British and French foreign ministers, David Miliband and Bernard Kouchner, announced that "we look to the regime" to lift restrictions on aid distribution. Nobody "looked to" Milosevic to stop slaughtering Kosovans or the rebels to stop the killing in Sierra Leone. We intervened.

The Foreign Office remarked last week that there was "no excuse" for delay and then thought of one. The British chairman of the UN security council, John Sawyer, claimed that the 2006 resolution referred only to "acts of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity rather than government responses to natural disasters." But in 2001 there was no evidence that the Taliban were committing such acts, yet Britain intervened. And what is happening in Burma if not an "intentional denial of humanitarian assistance."

The option of sending in relief supplies by air may well face logistical objections. Ships and heavy-lift equipment must be in position, with air cover to ensure the safety of the operation from possible retaliation by the Burmese. There must be some sense of order on the ground to ensure that drops are other than random, though at some point a starving and dying population would presumably welcome any help rather than none.

It may be the case that diplomatic pressure on the regime might soon force it to reverse its negligence - though at present this is unlikely. Indeed the west's policy of merely hurling abuse at it looks counter-productive. A regime that turns away the Red Cross, will not take calls from the UN or even listen to its friendly super-power China seems immune to pressure.

There is no justification under the UN charter for intervening to topple the Burmese military regime. That task would rightly be opposed by other powers in the region and must one day be performed by the Burmese themselves. But aid drops over the Irrawaddy delta are nothing to do with that case. The outside world has waited a week, and protested to no effect.

Either way some enforced intervention must surely be planned. The British aid minister, Douglas Alexander, said last week it would be "incendiary". He did not explain why a "dump-and-run" of emergency supplies in the delta would be incendiary - compared, for instance, to his antics in Afghanistan.

He cannot hold to the thesis that Burma is not ripe for "liberal intervention" because the loss of life is the result of a natural disaster rather than political or military oppression. What is this fine distinction between a massacre and what the military are now inflicting on the Burmese people? A corpse is a corpse.

This catastrophe is not past but ongoing. A western world adept at intervening elsewhere on a humanitarian pretext is suddenly inert. Why? I suspect the reason is that it has too much intervention on its plate already. The Burmese must die because we are too busy pretending to save Afghans and Iraqis. To such cynicism has liberal intervention sunk.

Comments

[Dnode]

I've been to Burma within the last year. I have many close friends there. It DOES require outside intervention. The people DO want it, and WILL appreciate it. AND it won't take long!!! The people themselves have tried rising up numerous times, only to be ruthlessly squashed by a military that monopolizes all conceivable weaponry in the country.

It's a beautiful country, full of beautiful, warm-hearted, industrious, peaceful people. They hate their government, as universally as anything can be among human groups. But they are HELPLESS! The world is remiss for not forcing a merciful hand into the midst of this incalculable calamity.

Much thanks goes to obstructionist China, by the way, and to China's weakling business partners, the trough-feeders of the global economy.

[OliverTwist]

Let's just leave the aid on the porch and skip the killing of people in our way and the stealing of the resources we want (oil and gas) this one time.

[TEEHead]

Hey Oliver - if we stole all their oil how come I'm paying $4 a gallon for gas? I mean I know crime doesn't pay but I thought it would buy me a little breathing room on the budget...

Lots of complicated reasons why we went to war. Simplifying it into your own tired version of a campaign slogan does no one any good. Doesn't advance the discussion. Doesn't help find a way forward in Iraq. Doesn't help understand what to do in a situation like Burma.

Your tired old lies about this Iraq thing being a war for oil are as tired as the tired old lies from the Administration about its fumbling of the conflict.

...so tired...

- Thoughtful­Expression­_EmptyHead

[Dan Stewart]

Simon Jenkins says:

"So Burma must die..."

Such nonsense. Akin to the rhetorical lies that got us into Iraq.

Burma is not going to die -- as long as there's no WAR.

People have been recovering from natural diasters for thousands of years without outside relief efforts. But if there's military intervention, tens of thousands of the weakest and most vunerable will die horrible deaths and the suffering will go on for years. That's the only thing the so-called liberal good intentions promises to bring.

I rather live thru a natural disaster than a war -- and so would Simon Jenkins.

[Dan Stewart]

I see...we have to destroy it to save it.

When will these lunatics ever learn.

War is evil on Earth. War is not better than anything.

[TEEHead]

War wasn't better than letting the South continue slavery?

War was not better than letting Nazi Germany taking control over Europe?

Letting China and North Korea invade South Korea?

Get rid of the Taliban?

How exactly do you expect to "Save Darfur"? "Free Tibet"?

[OliverTwist]

I am inclined to think that the pressure to intervene has as much to do with a desire by some to secure political control of the oil and gas resources and potential as any desire by others to help the citizens.

There are good reasons for previously colonized and occupied nations - whether we like them or not - to fear foreign and especially western involvement in their internal affairs.

If we want to send aid fine. When aid is delivered by unwelcome foreign soldiers it becomes conquest.

We've done enough harm helping in that way over the last several hundred years.

[TEEHead]

(continued…)

Why did Somalia fail as a humanitarian operation? Because to save most of those people our military had to go in and kill a bunch of others. News flash - killing in a war zone is indiscriminate; good people die, bad people die, our people die. When our media started flashing pictures of our dead on TVs, Billy-boy shat himself and withdrew forces - otherwise known as "cut-and-run". Result: *many* more Somali's died and they are still killing each other en masse today.

So…fast forward today when another charismatic smooth talker wants to be president and apply the same disastrous, morally-empty logic to US military policy. On no, there’s a mess in Iraq! What do I do? Gosh, I better run away…that will fix everything…just like Somalia.

And now this pinhead says we should step into someone else’s shithole (Burma) because *these* people are hurting more than the Iraqis, and, you know, they deserve to be saved by us because their country is, like, *much* prettier, and you know they will just looove us invading their country.

[TEEHead]

Moderator - I tried to post this 3 times - what's up - why not?

Hypocrites. You leftists are amazing - military intervention is always wrong...except when you think it's right. Body counts never matter ("if just one person is killed, it's not worth it...")...except when they do, because it makes this humanitarian disaster is worse than this other one. You like the *idea* of intervening to save lives, but never the implementation because - surprise - the application of force is ugly and unpredictable and filled with moral paradoxes which typical latte liberals can't handle.

"The option of sending in relief supplies by air may well face logistical objections." Bullshit. The invasion of Burma is what would be required here and whether we were in Iraq or not, invading Burma would be messy and bloody and fraught with "logistical objections" that whiny intellectuals sipping tea in London have no friggin idea about. I'm sure NBC would just love a shot of American helos laying down covering fire across a Burmese beach full of the refugees that their own military was using as human shields. That would be something to blame Bush for, along with all the wars in the world, rising oil prices, and crummy tummies.

(continued…)

[kusalarhetoric]

Part 3
Giving our unconditional love, unqualified support, and now, generous shipments of humanitarian aid may, in the end, do nothing more than save a half a million lives. But if it is followed up by lifting of the boycott, and a positive and enthusiastic engagement on all fronts possible, more change will come. A foreign firm now in the process of setting up a pipeline for natural gas is being opposed by a boycott which would have the firm replaced by the PLA. Similarly, American companies who were bold enough to go into Burma before should return -- in opposition to the Massachusetts law -- and bring their friends with them. For whatever exploitation might occur with an American company, it will be greatly enhanced in the hands of a firm well used to running factories with political prisoners (and probably producing fake Levis as well!). Tourism should also flourish. The Burmese government can grant visas online to facilitate entry. The more contact with nationals from countries other than China, the better. The course that the government will take in front of this onslaught of good will is not of course clear. Beijing will strenuously object to the opening up, and may be in a position to cut it off. They won’t relinquish their hold on Burma easily. The presence of so many other foreigners will at least make it more difficult, and may pave the way for alternative avenues for development.

The boycott against Burma needs to be

[kusalarhetoric]

Part 2 out of 3:
The coalition of those who support the boycott is indeed a strange one, mixing left and right. On October 10, 2007 (coincidently the day of the largest public celebration in China, China’s National Day), Laura Bush published an op-ed piece in the Wall Street Journal extolling the virtues of the boycott and castigating the Myanmar/Burma government. A coalition of the hip in Hollywood (to which Bush would normally be anathma) is in the midst of a 30 day countdown, ostensibly in sympathy with Burma and the boycott. Kim Kardashian has made undoubtedly the most transparent of these PSAs: All are equally ignorant of the realities of change in Burma. In none of these PSAs is the role of China clearly identified: At most, China is requested to exert its influence to improve the situation. This seems naïve (and again expressed most clearly by Ms. Kardashian, but present in all the spots). The situation is such as it is because of China’s influence. Now, for China to reverse course, to no longer have on it’s agenda to turn Burma’s suzerinity into sovereignty, would be a mighty easy solution. And so it’s hard to fault the pundits-cu­m-celebrit­ies who advocate this solution . . .as H.L. Mencken put it, “For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong.” In fact, boycotting Burma forces the Military government into the waiting arms of the CCP. It’s all too convenient.

[kusalarhetoric]

I suspect that, like most unpleasant things related to the government in Myanmar/Burma, this refusal of aid is not exclusively the will of the ruling military power circles, but the will of Beijing. It is all too convenient for Beijing to enforce their suzerainty with absolute brutality, and it may be that the ruling junta has little choice but to accept the strictures imposed or go the way of Tibet. In any event, the solution is clear cut and simple, and is proposed by Simon Jenkins without fear or favour: The aid should come in. Initially, planes were sent in bearing journalists and self-righteous aid workers. Like weapons inspectors in Iraq who were also working for Israeli intelligence, the opportunity to do some freelance dilettantism probably did not escape the overeager. One can interpret this as a military junta delicate about political engineering; or, fatally sensitive to the wrath of its northern neighbor, primary arms supplier, and now nearly exclusive trading partner. Either way, part of the blame for this mounting human catastrophe must lie beyond the initial week of dithering identified by Jenkins, and at the feet of those who have been advocating: Boycott!

[Chavez08]

"Silence From Our Sabre Rattlers as Burma's Dying Cry Out to be Saved"

[wildflowermaven]

I think its simplier than this. There is no plot, and its not that the world doesn't want to help, as all the supplies at the ready demonstrates. But forcibly delivering aid, creating conflict and war to help a disaster just seems distasteful, it doesn't make sense, to hurt while you're trying to help. Besides, what the aid agencies really want is their experienced people on the ground to deliver the supplies and administer medical aid, neither of which would happen under a forced aid program.

[DFDoerr]

War with China?
Naunced.

[SamThornton]

"Bombs 'N Bullets For Burma!" It's snappy, alliterative and fits on a bumper sticker. Yee-Haw!

Or maybe a 50 mega-ton "device" (use 'em or lose 'em) on the Burma capitol. Acceptable collateral damage only. Ten, twenty million, tops!

I see this paying for itself. The Burmese will greet us with garlands of flowers. Get Paul Bremer on the horn. He can be our first Viceroy.

[Chavez08]

The Friedmanites in Washington will hold out and offer them an IMF subprime when they feel they've suffered enough.

"Eat it! Eat your Capitalism!! You know-it's-­goof-for-y­ou!"

[IneptitudePrideB4Fall]

__________­__________­__________­__________­__

I suspect the war power powers figure, "What's the big fuss about hundreds of thousands of unnecessary deaths?" After all, we have killed way more than that number BY CHOICE in Iraq and have plans to bomb, bomb, bomb the Iranians - for the same reason we have killed the Iraqis - no reason whatsoever. A few hundred thousand dead here and there - fuggeddaboudid!

__________­__________­__________­__________­___

[EngineerBill]

What!? You think those in power care enough to do anything militarily to help defenseless people? Don't make me laugh. During world war two allied reconnaisance planes flew over europe. Their photos clearly showed all the pieces of Hitler's Genocide infrastructure. The train tracks, the camps it was all there. You want to know how many bombs they dropped to disrupt any of it? Want that number again? Ah, the morally superior west! Bombs for our own self interest ,yes. Compassion not-so-much.

[indypete]

Any oil under Burma? Didn't think so. Tough shit, guys.