Monday, May 12, 2008

Time to Invade Burma?   [Lisa Schiffren]

Actually, that's not my idea. Not that I'm opposed, but our military is pretty overcommitted just now.  Time Magazine, of all peace-mongering publications, has a huge article outlining the case for invading Burma in order to save as many as possible of the probably 1 million people at risk for death by starvation, disease, and exposure in the wake of last week's typhoon.  It is a tragedy that the evil, repressive junta which has governed Burma these past several decades is so scared of threats to its own continued power that it won't allow other nations and/or NGOs with the experience, personnel, and equipment for dealing with major natural disasters to do the job.

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. Some observers, including former USAID director Andrew Natsios, have called on the U.S. to unilaterally begin air drops to the Burmese people regardless of what the junta says. The Bush Administration has so far rejected the idea — "I can't imagine us going in without the permission of the Myanmar government," Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Thursday — "but it's not without precedent..."

To be sure, mostly the precedent is that we don't interfere when authoritarian and/or communist governments let millions of their captive subjects die. But maybe Gates, and his boss, the much maligned as a "war-lover" President Bush, should be giving it some thought. When it comes to being known as a warmonger, may as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb....

The reporter discusses costs and complications, both of which would be high, and concludes by noting that nations usually resort to war only when their interests are threatened. "As the response to the 2004 tsunami proved, the world's capacity for mercy is limitless. But we still haven't figured out when to give war a chance."

Let's rule out the possibility that this is Time Magazine's idea of a parody of a conservative magazine editorial, or that P.J. O'Rourke wrote it. For one thing, unilateral air drops are a good idea to start with. For another, this would be an excellent moment for the CIA to begin co-ordinating the internal dissidents and rebels on the Thai-Burmese border who would like to overthrow the junta. (Oh, no one's organized that? Pity, because when a million people lie dead for entirely preventable reasons, governments should fall without much help.) And perhaps the Time writer could press his colleagues on the political beat to ask Senators McCain and Obama what they think about it. And what they would do, if they were in the catbird seat right now.  

05/12 02:22 PMShare