Special Report
Throwing Away the Key in Burma
The future is bleak for those who protested Burma's high fuel prices.
(Page 2 of 2)
Nothing under earthly power can be done about it, barring an outside overthrow. Democracy activist Aung San Syu Kyi has lived under house arrest, off and mostly on, since the military junta overturned the country's last democratic elections in 1990. And there are no signs of change, given last year's flattening of the peaceful monk marches.
British Prime Minister Gordon Brown wrote in his book Courage: Eight Portraits, "So Suu Kyi's courage is the courage to sacrifice her own happiness and a comfortable life so that, through her struggle, she might win the right of an entire nation to seek happy and comfortable lives."
Sadly, this long struggle she has shared with her nation has not broken the stranglehold that evil has upon Burma.
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George True| 11.20.08 @ 4:43PM
If ever there were a just war, it would be for a coalition of willing and righteous countries to invade Burma and terminate the ruling junta with extreme prejudice. I pray to God that it will happen one day.
seejay| 11.21.08 @ 9:29AM
More of the same. We must go to war to force this sovereign nation to act as WE wish!
(Oh, and to allow our companies to extract their oil and minerals..) All in the name of "democracy."
The people of Myanmar -That's the name of the nation - are socially conservative. They'd LOVE the wealth the west promises! But they love their culture EVEN MORE! (How DARE they!)
A culture with VERY LITTLE drug-use and prostitution, UNLIKE their western neighbors!
If we want others to respect OUR sovereignty, we should respect theirs.
George True| 11.21.08 @ 12:27PM
I'm not sure what the point of the Seejay rant is. But to address each point: First, the name of the country is Burma. It was the unelected totalitarian military junta that renames it Myanmar. Burmese expats that I know still refer to it as Burma. Secondly, I was not aware that Burma had any significant oil or mineral reserves. Third, the invasion by coalition that I fantasized about (which will never happen unfortunately) would not be to make the mass-murdering regime in Rangoon do as we or anybody else might wish. Unless of course we and other countries might have a completely iunreasonable wish that a totalitarian military junta stop doing such annoying things like, you know, mass murder and other stuff like that.
The Burmese culture is overwhelmingly Buddhist. Of course they are conservative, and there is relatively little vice compared to a a Western culture. Does this mean they are somehow not deserving of being liberated from the oppressive, murdering regime that has stifled Burma for the last two decades? The ruling fascist regime in Burma has NO redeeming virtues whatsoever. And by the way, did I mention they have engaged in genocidal mass-murder against their own people from day one? An illegitimate, autocratic, murderous, unelected regime cannot claim 'sovreignty'. They have no right to be 'respected', and they should suffer the same fate as Mussolini, Hitler, Pol Pot, and Saddam.
Jim| 11.21.08 @ 3:54PM
Tell me again why there is a UN. Oh, that's right, they keep the peace they don't save lives or free people from oppression.