Burmese Days
Burmese military hunting dissidents. Apparently the Bush sanctions, international appeals and U.N. diplomat’s chat did not much impress Gen. Than Shwe.
But the part that surprised the hell out of me is that we (still) have an embassy in Burma. When I was a kid, growing up next door to Burma, Burma was a no-go. Crazy anti-western socialist dictatorship where no one was allowed to wear pants. Native dress only. Slowly opened to tourists. I thought the AP reports that said the State Department doesn’t recognize the name “Myanmar” but still uses the traditional “Burma” meant we don’t recognize Burma’s murderous dictatorship, either. My mistake. Here’s an entire story about the name thing.
How can you have relations with a nation whose name you don’t officially recognize? Isn’t that kind of like addressing Mohammed Ali as Cassius Clay? Or addressing Mark Wahlberg as Marky Mark. This is how. With ongoing sanctions and condemnation, and a downgrade from ambassador to charge d’affairs, apparently. The AP designation as “acting ambassador” above would appear to be overstating the case.
Topics: asia
Posted by Jules Crittenden at 8:40 am on Wednesday, October 3, 2007
9 Responses to “Burmese Days”
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October 3rd, 2007 at 9:55 am
Not to worry, Jules, I hear that Code Pink is sponsoring a crash print job of “Free Burma!” bumper stickers, with at least 10,000 slated for delivery to the United Nations.
Solidarity, y’know, is important for the UN.
October 3rd, 2007 at 11:54 am
Jules, I don’t know why you keep posting on this. The western left and its fellow media and academy ideologues who value peace and freedom above any other consideration and who always stand for the little guy will be all over this like a Democrat on a labor strike in no time flat. So quit wasting bandwidth. Iraq Body Count will be changing its name to Myanmar Body Count, and The Lancet will be coming up with some figures and and Harry Reid will be saying the Junta has already lost and and…
Why just the other day our very own emissary of the brotherhood of man was on this website complaining that Bush had these boys over for a BBQ one time!
Hell, that’s tantamount to a deployment of the 7th Fleet and the 10th Mountain Division in Leftworld!
October 3rd, 2007 at 2:56 pm
Some things never change and the methods of tyrants are at the top of the list. Mass murder, night-time raids to round up whoever (does it matter who?), and all the other ways these tyrants are using to terrorize their own people all have a sickening deja vu about it. That there are still those who think that a good chit-chat explaining the benefits of being decent human beings is all that is required to stop this kind of thing. The more we chitchat, the bolder the tyrants become.
We find ourselves compromising with such people all over the world. It does nothing to stop them, or the spread of tyranny. What it does do is cause us to compromise our own principles. There are some things you don’t compromise with if you want to live. (Replacing ideas like free speech with “responsible speech” is only one example.)
October 3rd, 2007 at 4:33 pm
Five or ten years from now, we’ll be hearing about the Killing Fields of Burma. Someone will make an obscure movie, and the event will mentioned occasionally as one of the atrocities of Asia, without any corresponding mention of sociocommunism. The western left will ignore it, keeping silent or making vague excuses. And those ordinary people in Burma who just wanted a decent life free of misery and oppression will still be dead.
October 3rd, 2007 at 7:34 pm
Regarding the sentence “That there are….” My humble apologies for the incomplete thought. Just tack on “buggers belief” at the end.
You hit it, Rebecca.
October 3rd, 2007 at 8:36 pm
Well said, Rebecca.
October 3rd, 2007 at 9:07 pm
[...] Burmese Days – Jules Crittenden Sphere It [...]
October 4th, 2007 at 1:42 am
There seems to be a lurking thought in all of us that one of these UN civil rights –> massacre fiascos will be so egregious as to awaken it or the World’s Powers to the futility of its diplomatic time-burner dances. But no, the frog’s water has warmed to a “small boil” (that’s when all the air is driven out of solution and forms tiny bubbles all over the bottom) and a full rolling boil is imminent and unavoidable. And the frog sleeps on.
October 4th, 2007 at 4:54 am
Brian, that analogy works for our own roll down the hill towards statism.