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Well, why the heck not? Lots of oil and natural gas in Burma -- 1.5 billion barrels of petroleum, they say. Forget about humanitarian compassion. Just invade the place and take that oil! I mean, this "war for oil" thing worked out so well in Iraq, right?

The Pentagon should deploy Robert D. Kaplan to Burma immediately. If necessary, we should send every think-tank wonk in Washington -- pack 'em into C-130s and airdrop them on Burma. We ought to be willing to fight to the last "senior analyst" over this Burma thing, and I look forward to watching the Beltway policy establishment flock to the Marine Corps recruiting stations to volunteer for this "simple moral decision," as Kaplan calls it.

UPDATE: National Review's Rich Lowry frames the question slightly differently: "A Humanitarian Invasion of Burma?" Yes, enthusiastically so. By all means, let the humanitarians invade Burma. The do-gooders, the 501(c) compassion crowd, the State Department bureaucrats and NGO types -- Sally Struthers! Bono! Bob Geldoff! -- we'll send them in as the second wave of the invasion, immediately after we airdrop all those policy wonks into Burma.

topics:
Iraq, Oil