Comments for U.S. flying cyclone aid to "outpost of tyranny" »
Posted By DiffeeOnline 1 year, 7 months ago in NewsThe United States was set to fly relief supplies on Monday to Myanmar, a country it has called an "outpost of tyranny", as aid continues to dribble into the reclusive state nine days after a devastating cyclone.
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hyperbola1 year, 7 months ago
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Politicizing the Tragedy in Burma
From the administration that used the 9/11 tragedy to violently pursue an unrelated vendetta against Saddam Hussein's Iraq, we get Round Two. After a cyclone devastated portions of Burma (which the despotic Burmese government has renamed Myanmar) and killed an estimated 100,000 people, instead of concentrating on providing relief, the Bush administration couldn't resist scoring points on First Lady Laura Bush's pet issue â;; the tyranny of the Burmese military junta. Mrs. Bush, apparently the administration's self-anointed czar and expert on U.S. policy toward Burma, went before the White House press corps and laid into the Burmese government for giving its citizens insufficient warning of the coming storm....
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hyperbola1 year, 7 months ago
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.... Even Burmese dissident groups criticized the timing of the administration's rhetorical onslaught against the junta â;; declaring that it made getting rapid relief to the desperately needy that much more difficult. According to the Washington Post, exiled Burmese political analyst Aung Naing Oo called Laura Bush's verbal harangue "totally and utterly inappropriate. She is trying to score political points out of people's disaster." Similarly, the newspaper also quotes Thant Myint-U, a former United Nations official and Burmese historian, as saying, "the problem is that everything, including aid, has been politicized, with suspicions on all sides." In response to the administration's verbal barrage, a Burmese government spokesman defended the junta's storm warning, request for international help, and provision of boats and helicopters.
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hyperbola1 year, 7 months ago
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He noted that the government had issued a cyclone warning two days before the storm, and retorted that "what we are doing is better than the Bush administration response to the Katrina storm in 2005, if you compare the resources of the two countries." Ouch!
So as with U.S. policy toward Saddam Hussein's Iraq, administration attempts to score points in its campaign of global democratization against despotic regimes are unfortunately likely to result in much needless loss of life.
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joeblowe1 year, 7 months ago
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See. Now here's a case where I think a position could reasonably be taken to USE U.S. troops to...um, COUNTERACT the idiocy of the fools currently in charge over there. Send in a carrier group, TELL the buttwipes that we are GOING to deliver humanitarian aid, stay out of the way or get bombed to oblivion. Then, after we've done what needs doing, simply LEAVE. Don't build any huge permanent bases, don't depose the leaders, don't bomb the utilities.
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djrevelky1 year, 7 months ago
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You really are a foreign policy novice aren't you?
So we send in troops, and forcible take over the country for a few weeks to give out supplies? We come into a conflict with their government, blow up a few things, give some collateral damage, and then leave without doing anything?
Oh yes! I'm sure countries, governments, and citizens just love it when you invade their country, blow ****** up, then leave without fixing it.
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joeblowe1 year, 7 months ago
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Who said anything about blowing stuff up? Or taking over the country? In fact, I think I specifically said DON'T blow anything up and DON'T take over, didn't I? Lemme check......yes, that's correct: "don't depose the leaders, don't bomb the utilities." The idea is to THREATEN to bomb them, not to ACTUALLY bomb them. Although it seems you can't ascribe much common sense or intelligence to those fools, it would be hard to believe they wouldn't take such a threat seriously. They aren't THAT far from Iraq.
On the other hand, if you want to lobby in favor of simply letting the common folk there suffer because they are under the control of a bunch of military junta fools, I'll concede that it may be a valid position.
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djrevelky1 year, 7 months ago
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Read your own comments.
"COUNTERACT the idiocy of the fools currently in charge over there" ..."stay out of the way or get bombed to oblivion."
If that isn't taking over a country...
And also, if they get in the way they get bombed? Bombing tends to blow stuff up.
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djrevelky1 year, 7 months ago
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You'd find out that the local government in Myanmar isn't as incompetent as that of Ray "Chocolate City" Nagin.
You would also find out that the bureaucracy and sheer amount of rules involved makes handling disasters overseas much easier than handling our own. We don't have to go through chain of command over there.
Neg away all you want, but I have talked to Gov. Harris' Chief of Staff during Katrina, you haven't. I have talked to performance auditors in LA, you haven't.
Katrina made us realize just how sluggist our response system is due to too much regulations and paperwork.
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canadianrancher571 year, 7 months ago
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jumpmaster- alot of countries do think that the U.S. should always come to aid when things like this happen and maybe it's a good thing but sometimes it makes a person wonder. In this particular case the U.S. should say that they will give aid but dictate the conditions under which it will do so then give them a set time to accept, If the answer is no then they made the decision. The people who are running this country are not ordinary people and no one should bend over backwards to help.
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hyperbola1 year, 7 months ago
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The amount of aid the US has said it will provide is SMALL compared to other countries and organizations. As such, it is no wonder that the Burmese government is unwilling to gulp down the political strings attached to it. What has struck me in much of the TV coverage is that the "dire political rhetoric" seems completely overboard compared to the pictures that accompany it.
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Cybnetic1 year, 7 months ago
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why do we as a people tolerate this kind of warmongering by incompetents!!! these people need to all be shot for not helping there own people!! OH!
I forgot there are still hurricanes victims in our country that need help.... where was the help in our country?
they can listen to your phone calls and create a database on you but oh.. your on your own if something bad happens.
maybe we need to look towards the dictatorship military control coming to our own country. you fat lazy people need to get off you asses
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Endoscopy1 year, 7 months ago
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What an idiot way of talking. Still hurricane victems in our country. Everybody looks at Katrina and New Orleans. That was flooding not hurricane damage. Katrina cut a swath up through several states that have not fully recovered. Previously Florida was hit by three hurricanes and there are still areas not recovered. It takes a long time to recover from disasters.
Then you talk about what the government was trying to intercept was international calls from to or from terrorists and turn that into listening in to local phone calls. Ignoring that police do that regularly fighting crime. All it takes sis a piece of paper from a judge.
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quackpot1 year, 7 months ago
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Even you, Endoscopy, must realize where the aid for U.S. disaster goes.
The aid goes first to the ultra rich to rebuild their businesses and rich-man communities.
Then a bit of crumbs go to the rich who wish to fight the system.
The middle class might, if they are lucky, get a few crumbs in the way of jobs from the ultra rich (tricke down) and maybe a few hundred in return for filling out endless forms.
The poor? Forgeddaboutit.
As examples:
--Look how fast aid is distributed to the destroyed casinos.
--Look how fast aid is distributed to the rich parts of the FL panhandle.
look how fast aid is distributed to large-scale home builders
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