May 14, 2008
Intervention in Myanmar?
Yes, says Amitai Etzioni, of George Washington University — bomb it with rice and medicine.
Drawing on Francis M. Deng’s notion of “sovereignty as responsibility,” Etzioni writes:
An invasion would cause only more casualties on both sides. Nor should we bomb its obstructionist military, as temping as this might seem. However, if the authoritarian rulers of this country (or any other) continue to endanger the lives of many hundreds of thousands of their people by refusing to accept badly needed food and medicine, then the international community should act. It should provide food and meds by air drops. Too often nations bomb nations — killing thousands in the name of one value or another. Such bombings must pass a much higher test before one can judge them as justified. “Bombing” food and meds—to save lives—should come much easier. Like right now.Alex Kafka | Posted on Wednesday May 14, 2008 | Permalink
Comments
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Yes, let’s drop food from planes, but of course Myanmar is going to try to strafe those“in-coming” planes, so I guess we should send a few planes with guns and bombs too to take out the Myanmar defensive guns. So you’re talking war. Any more suggestions?
— Marka
— Marka May 14, 12:18 PM #
Daniel Shorr on NPR suggested a similar idea. He said the UN should have the authority in situations like these to ignore or remove sovereignty from a country’s leadership. The firsts, of course, that such removal usually requires force.
— Evan May 14, 12:43 PM #
I meant to type “forgets that such removal usually requires force.”
— Evan May 14, 12:45 PM #
I can imagine what President Obama would do in this kind of situation:
“Sir, what is your decision on invading Burma?”
“Well, you know, General, haw, hem, you know, it’s all about haw, hope, haw, hope and hem, hem, haw change.”
“Delta Force! The president has given direct orders for you to hem. haw, and hope beginning at 0600 hours.”
— S. Britchky May 14, 02:08 PM #
Perhaps we should invade them? opps that means we would have to pull troops out from the Middle East with all its oil.
— Henry Collins May 14, 03:45 PM #
Amitai Etzioni would suggest this. He’s a “communitarian” and Communitarianism is sort of like Fascism with a smile. The United Nations is NOT a government. If it tries to act like a super world government by “removing sovereignty”, it ought to be slapped the crap out of. No wonder the Burmese don’t want officials or functionaries from European or American (or Japanese?) powers in there — pronouncements like these sound like the same old pretext for colonialism.
— Joseph F Foster May 14, 03:50 PM #
I dunno. Seems like we are in another situation where both our country and the overwhelming majority of nations who are reacting in horror in the Myanmar slaughter-by-neglect are dawdling and wringing their hands while a country dies. It happened in Rwanda and Darfur. We should do whatever it takes along with other outraged countries, including defending the coalition forces from hostile attacks against the mission as we move to do the right thing. Air drop the needed food and supplies and send overwhelming air power with them to give any irresponsible government second thoughts about shooting down humanitarian aid. War you worry about? If it gets started, the coalition forces will not have started it; only an utterly depraved government would do that.
And if a healthier population rises up to throw the rascals out, more power to them. We should do for them what France did for the rebels in the USA back in the late 1700s.
If Russia and China are against overiding the “government” of Myanmar, it says more about them than it does about much of the rest of the world. Especially China, after their recent disasters—-how can they not be sympathetic with tthe millions of suffering people in Myanmar?
— Number cruncher May 14, 08:33 PM #
Send the Secretary of State to meet with the government. Myanmar has many government officials with degrees from U.S. Universities. Also, this is the only country I know of that has trained it’s military to grow rice. I think they can handle some part of the current disaster, but they will continue to need outside aid.
— LJ May 15, 12:01 PM #
I may come to regret this statement, but how can a people live under such irrational tyranny and not rise up and slay their oppressor?
— original marcii May 15, 04:50 PM #
Lets go in, wipe out the military, feed the people., and make it the 51 state.
— dan brown May 18, 08:33 AM #