Was just reading this article on CNN and can’t believe there isn’t a pit thread on this (or if there is I must have missed it)! These idiots are unreal!
In the midst of a disaster, with the international community rallying to give them aid…and they are worried about said aid undercutting their authority?? Fuck them…ear, eye and nose! Unreal!
-XT
Well it’s not necessarily that they are worried about the aid undercutting their authority, it’s, as you quoted, “an Asia society fellow based in Washington” who is telling us what they think. According to this beeb blurb, their foreign minister says they’re willing to accept assistance. Of course those are just words too. As things stand right now, an American aid team has been refused permission to enter. Will this change? I’m waiting 48 hours.
Even conceding that all to be true I’m thinking a hearty ‘fuck you’ is still in order for these folks. IIRC there was little or no warning from the government that this thing was decending on the people…and from what I’ve been reading they seem more interested in the constitutional referendum than in this emergency.
-XT
Didn’t they respond similarly to the big tsunami a couple years back? Just that time there was so much damage in other places nobody paid much attention.
With respect xt, aid faced the same challenges during the Asian tsunami recovery. This time it’s a junta in charge, a junta with which our State Department has cultivated acrimonious relations. I envision the ruling body as Cartman sitting on bloated dead flotsam crying “you will respect my authoritah!” as he shakes his fist at a relief ship.
I have a solution: let Wal*Mart invade and shoehorn the poor savages into a proper consumer society. Better yet Lowe’s: they rep Katrina Cottages.
We could send the Marines in, giving them a cold, hard taste of freedom and democracy, thusly saving them all! But then, we would be the bad guys, and diminish our stature in the eyes of the international community.
(pick your own next line here, I’m up too late as it is)
My dad has a friend who fought as a guerrilla against those guys back in the 90s. He was at our house a lot when I was a kid.
When I was in high school, after not having heard from him for a long time, he sent me a copy of the book Jonathan Livingston Seagull. For some bizarre reason, I thought that the book was some kind of Scientologist propaganda (I swear to God) and I didn’t read it. I still have that book somewhere. I should read it one of these days.
Erm, kudos to them for sticking to both the spirit and letter of how to run an autocratic state?
They have also been accused, undoubtedly quite accurately, of engaging in what amounts to genocidal warfare against some tribes within their borders. So indifference to aid is part of the package. When some people were bruiting about that we had to invade Iraq because it was a brutal dictatorship, I was thinking of the colonels as an even more brutal dictatorship.
I have a colleague here who is trying to put together a response team for the emergency in Myanmar and the Gov. of Myanmar keeps rejecting people on his team for being from countries that are too close to the west, or from the west themselves. These are relief professionals who know how to do rapid response humanitarian assistance to countries that have been hit by disasters and the government keeps rejecting some of them. My colleague can’t get a team together and he’s been working on it for a couple of days.
When I was 18, I thought it was the most brilliant, wonderful book ever written.
At 36, not so much. Sweet, a little overbearing and obvious, and harmless. I think I still have it around.
According to the “State Peace and Development Council”, the tsunami conveniently stopped at the Burmese border.
There’s all kinds of reasons to decline aid. Didn’t the US refuse aid from some countries in the wake of the Katrina catastrophe? Sometimes the long term effects of accepting aid outweighs a short term benefit.
When I read the paper this a.m., my first response was “What assholes, refusing US aid!” But then I quickly realized, who would I trust less than the US? “No really, those are red cross workers. We simply ran out of clothing with red crosses and had to use these extra special forces uniforms. No, they’re not with the CIA, why do you ask? Why would the US even think about subverting a sovereign nation’s government?”
Pity the people
of Myanmar
Our aid refused
which seems bizarre
Burma Shave
I’m fucking confused. I thought they changed the name from Myanmar to Burma.
Explanation here.
Thanks!
Didn’t realize a country’s name could be so politicized.
And I have a degree in this stuff. :smack:
I wonder what they’re telling the people trapped within their borders. Seems to me this situation could be leveraged to reinforce their stranglehold on power.
“We’ve been begging the international community for help! But they’re insisting on all these conditions and rules that make it clear they prioritize their own agenda over your well-being! They’re turning their backs on you! They don’t really care about you! Stop looking outside the country for anything, because they’re all a bunch of frauds!” etc etc.
Maybe I’m too cynical, but catastrophes are often very useful for the conscienceless tyrant.
The US initially refused Gorbachev’s offer of help for the SF quake of '89 because we just didn’t need it (we later took Russian engineers as a good-will gesture). Giuliani refused “a $10 million donation for disaster relief from Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal after the prince suggested U.S. policies in the Middle East contributed to the September 11 attacks.”