Thousands dead in Burmese cyclone

[Duskofdead]

Did we actually turn stuff down from them? I remember Hugo having a blast criticising Bush but I also remember us accepting a million dollars from them.

If we did accept the help it was very delayed. I remember reading about it in real-time and for the first five or so days after Katrina hit, it was just being "considered."

[Mikey]

You know what, Dusk? You're right - innocent people are in need of help. It doesn't matter what the approach of the Bush administration has been, nor does it matter what kind of facade the Myanmar junta wants to put on. We have Starlifters full of relief supplies waiting to be delivered, and Myanmar is refusing them. I don't care why. Should Bush be more diplomatic? Of course. Should he be more intelligent? Sure, but miracles don't always happen. However, should the US beg Myanmar to accept our free stuff? Nope.

[sunnyside]

I was going to ask what are they worried about. The US is more than busy, and the rest of the world wouldn't consider lifting a finger whatever you do.

But I guess they've got a serious pro-democracy rebel problem, so they're probably worried about that getting touched off somehow or other.

[Teaos]

McCain is suggesting getting China to organise things since they are more trusted than the west.

[Duskofdead]

You know what, Dusk? You're right - innocent people are in need of help. It doesn't matter what the approach of the Bush administration has been, nor does it matter what kind of facade the Myanmar junta wants to put on. We have Starlifters full of relief supplies waiting to be delivered, and Myanmar is refusing them. I don't care why. Should Bush be more diplomatic? Of course. Should he be more intelligent? Sure, but miracles don't always happen. However, should the US beg Myanmar to accept our free stuff? Nope.

Mikey, you are thinking like a global citizen of the human race. Not like a politician. As I already admitted much earlier, it shouldn't be that way, but it is. What was that line from DS9? Sisko is talking to his dad and his dad says something like you're always telling me space is so big, filled with endless wonder... so you'd think there'd be more than enough room for people to leave each other alone. But it doesn't work that way.

I'd love if the aid could just be magically transported in. But in the real world, things like that require organization, cooperation, and yes diplomacy. I don't like that the world works that way anymore than you do but it's reality. It's like saying I like freedom, humans are meant to be free.... so why aren't all humans free? These things take blood sweat and effort. Could the Myanmar government be better, could it have responded 10,000x better, yes. Could the world community, not exactly being ignorant of Myanmar's government and distrustfulness of outside interference, have put aside politics and the chance to try to force an oppressive regime to humble itself for the sake of the people, rather than the sake of world government posturing? Yup.

Tragic situation, but much like Katrina, a lot of the tragedy has been manmade. You and I just wish those people could be helped and get aggravated with the artificial and totally unnecessary obstacles being thrown up in the way. All I am pointing out is that it's very naive to think the way this has been handled is wholly politics on Myanmar's side and wholly humanitarianism on the U.S.'s side. This is a case of two stubborn governments playing politics with each other, it's a political game of chicken. I'm saying that if I were in charge I'd say screw the pissing contest, get me the Myanmar ambassador and tell me exactly what conditions have to be followed for them to allow this stuff in ASAP. Not give me the Joint Chiefs and deliver a message to Myanmar that we're going to help them on our terms or else make you look really bad on the world stage and trot out the first lady to chastise you, which is how this tragedy appeared to play out.

And, for the record, I would probably not be QUITE this cynical if not for Katrina. Katrina showed me quite clearly--- and I think anyone who was paying any objective attention whatsoever--- that our admin could give a flying you-know-what about humanitarian concerns even with regards to its own people if it wasn't in the interests of war profiteers or oil conglomerates. So what happened? It turned into a PR war where Democratic politicians who'd been screaming about the levees for 12 years got blamed and the media turned into a sickening racist victim-blaming fest where the public's attention was shifted so that the STORM and the RESPONSE wasn't the problem, it's those good for nothing criminal black people running around shooting each other and a bunch of mostly debunked exaggerated claims that survivors were trying to kill rescue workers. I don't trust anything about this government and I certainly don't believe there is a lick of humanitarian concern in anything that they do, it's all about politics, loyalty, corporate campaign contributors and who's going to play our game on our terms for our interests. Poor black people or oppressed Myanmarese don't fit into that equation except as pawns in the game.

But hey, I'm just some guy that wanted to see good get done here by any means necessary to make it happen, and I'm pointing out why I think it didn't happen. We can berate the Myanmar gov't but we knew what they were like for years so again it comes back to the question which comes up about ANYTHING the Bush Admin tries to do... "Are they totally incompetent or are they creating failure on purpose?" Because it sure as hell is one or the other. If the people of Myanmar get fed up and overthrow their regime over this I certainly won't feel bad for the Myanmar gov't, but we knew the nature of the beast and acted, either out of ignorance or intentionally, in a manner that a fifth grader should have been able to see wouldn't work as far as reaching the desired effectiveness.

[Duskofdead]

I was going to ask what are they worried about. The US is more than busy, and the rest of the world wouldn't consider lifting a finger whatever you do.

But I guess they've got a serious pro-democracy rebel problem, so they're probably worried about that getting touched off somehow or other.

They're extremely paranoid and one of the things I heard the very first day after the storm was that one of the concerns (I have no idea if this comes from a Myanmarese gov't source or was simply an educated guess) was that since the U.S. wanted to deliver aid via the military it would wind up being a pretext for recon and inserting agents and what not. Think of them as being like the Cardassians, it's a fairly reasonable comparison. Needing help but too proud to admit it and too fearful and paranoid about everyone being out to get them to react to "potential friends" instead of "potential enemies."