Invade Burma?
 

Time magazing seems to think so.
http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1739053,00.html?xid=feed-cnn-topics


It is astonishing. They hold elections in the aftermath the worst disaster to strike the country in decades. Meanwhile, the locals are dying.

http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/asiapcf/05/10/myanmar.vote/index.html

Only if we get to change the name back to "Burma"

two wars at a time is enough. Let some other country do it this time instead of sitting back and criticizing us when we do it.

It is difficult calling it a Mayanmar Shave....

Or a Myanmareze python

Do they have oil?

YOU FORKING FORK HEAD!

Beat me to it.

I think it's the UN's turn (or maybe France's), but unfortunately they won't do anything.

yeah, and Myanmar Shave just does not sing like Burma Shave

Do we really have to invade?

Couldn't we put an LHA off the coast and ferry stuff in by helicopter and landing craft, has like two OR's and they have the Jar Heads racks stacked four high directly adjacent to that, so they would have a lot of beds. Would that be invading? I guess it sort of would, but what are they going to do if we drop food to people from aircraft?

I say fine and lets make it policy. At what; 3trillion in debt the US can't afford to help anyone else. Not to sound like I hate the world but come on. We need our money, men/woman, and food here.

Help starts at home.
+ who was it that helped after Katrina?

Agreed. The ROW has made it quite clear they don't want the U.S. playing "father knows best" to them, so far as I'm concerned we shouldn't.

If the citizens of that country are dissatisfied with the government, then they should be the ones to solve it. Either vote the government out, rebel, whatever.

The U.S. should start learning the meaning of the word "sovereign". It'd solve a helluva lot of our problems.

If I was President of the United States... I would be tempted to invade Myanmar to make sure that relief was distributed.

I'm sure that it would turn into a gigantic fiasco, with the aid going everwhere...but at the same time, sitting doing nothing while people starve? What the hell are you thinking?

Myanmar has 48 million people according to my atlas, which dates to 2000. General Ne Win rules the country with an iron hand that makes Joseph Stalin look like a great guy, but we are happily waxing our Porsche's in the United States of America. Why worry? Nothing we use comes from Myanmar anyway...

Have you ever flown above Myanmar? I have. It is a HUGE jungle! There is nothing down there but trees!~ I was mystified by the place, though I have to say that flying there is SCARY. The whole country works without ANY sort of control tower. Basically, when you fly over Myanmar, you approach a fix via GPS, and when you pass over it, you are required to speak over a frequency as follows: "This is Connie 915; we are at position GUNTRE, flight level 330, at time 0120 zulu. Expect position WACKO at time 0155 z, next position is THAIAM.

Even in places like far eastern Russia [where the controllers were ALWAYS drunk-!] we had no problem communicating with ground controllers. Not so in Myanmar! This place is incredible! We have a satellite phone in the 747 that I flew, and this was the ONLY way that I could have communicated with anyone at all. And Myanmar is a BIG country; it is the size of Texas!

One day, I flew for more than one hour with NO radio contact with the ground at all. All I flew over was JUNGLE. It was amazing! If I had had a raging fire on board while flying over that country...I have to tell you that I have NO idea what I would do! I would have looked for a lake, but other than that [there are none], I would have put the 747 tail-first into the jungle. My seat belts pulled as tight as can be, and I would just hold the nose up on the 231 foot airplane as long as possible. I susupect it would be about a day or two before anyone found the wreckage....pictures of the airplane, the headquarters building, me, my first officer, my second officer, and the ride on mechanic plastered all over the news. Since I have 5 coconut trees in my yard, I'm real good with with a machette and coconuts. I doubt I would have a proper machette...but I'm sure there will be plenty of sharp pieces of aluminum.

I'm sure the picture of me would be the worst that I've ever taken. Dammit!

Well, I work for Fedex now, and I am much safer than I was at that previous company. I fly over South Dakota these days. I'm basically doing a monkey's job, flipping switches, but you don't wind up over Burma with an fire at this company. Now you know why I gave up a job as Captain of a 747 to be the second officer of a 727.....

N!

Just to make it clear, we are basically discussing if we should go to war with china. There are a whole bunch of them people over there, a whole bunch.

BTW the NY times is run by idiots, but they are smarter than most of their readers ;)

What does China have to do with this?

If we have the manpower, and the budget, and we actually give a rats ass about Burma, sure, we should invade.

The only thing dumber than invading Burma would be to invade Iraq with a force woefully inadequate to the task adhering to shockingly bad planning..

Oh...wait.

He!! yes, we should invade. Bush has been getting off too easily lately and we need something else to blame him for.

But seriously, No. The world would blame us for all that has been going bad there and the next thing you know we would be getting vilified with this another example of American Imperialism. Take the extra money we have and use it to drill in ANWR and to build some more refineries and solve problems that WE have. Let the world solve their own.

I think the Western world needs to tell these a-hole countries if they don't sort their crap out or all aid will cease, including monetary aid. Australia gets criticised for being a U.S ally, but not to the extent of the U.S. It's about time America said to the rest of the world, FCUK OFF, we've helped out before and been sh$icanned for it. No more. The world would change very quickly. Just my $0.02 from an outsiders p.o.v

I would love to see something done for the people of Burma, I have been there and the people are fantastic. Its very Orwellian there, the Government in Burma has signs in Burmese and English that say things like "Oppose those acting as Foreign stooges."

The problem, however, is that if a country acts without a UN mandate, they will take a lot of flack for it, and quite possibly the mission will fail as political will dissipates. The UN, however, composed as it is of so many countries with differing ideologies, won't be able to reach the concensus it needs to take action, and so nothing changes...

Ever heard of Korea or Vietnam? Small countries in south-east Asia (very close to Burma). Fascinating history, look it up.
Seems the Chinese don't take kindly to western countries invading their neighbors.

3 ships off the coast, they have only allowed a few pallets of stuff, mostly hijacked to the military no doubt. They are really taking advantage of this fortuitous catastrophe to thin out the population a bit.
http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/asiapcf/05/14/myanmar.aid/index.html

My thoughts exactly,,
Let's save our bombs for Iran, we might need them.
T

I don't understand why this hasn't happened already. I've said that from the first day of the disaster - if they "government" is refusing aid, overthrow them. Now. They can't possible be that well organized. Get a UN force in there, get rid of the military gov't and get the aid to the people. Really, how hard can it be?

This is really sad!

Sounds like the junta is using the aid to supply the starving army so they can better defend the junta.

Mean while the peasants are getting moldy rice from the junta.


:(


This is going to New Orleans the UN.

Let them eat cake!

There are places in the world with bigger problems with more people at risk than Myanmar - Sudan (a China ally) and N. Korea (Japan and the U.S. are their largest food donors and most hated enemies) are just two examples. We can't save the world from themselves and we get nothing but contempt for even trying. Let the UN take this one. In fact, kick them out of NYC and let them sell the real estate to Trump, deduct what they owe in parking tickets and they can use what's left to rescue everyone else sans another dime of our money.

No, we should not. That country will be misery for it's unlucky inhabitants, one way or another, until the junta is removed and a humane, stable government established. We do not have the appetite for another exercise in nation-building, not to mention that other countries in the region would certainly object. So, forget it.

The US is overstretched already with its military misadventures, if you start invading every country that has a humanitarian crisis you'll have troops in every one of about 50% of the countries on the planet.

Why Burma and not a whole plethora of African nations?

Doesn't recent history in the ME provide you with enough caution in this reqard?

Sherwood

Well, if you ask me, Myanmar sounds like a GREAT place to visit... (sarcasm)

If the UN wants to invade them, fine. US is not the World Police. We need to straighten out our current messes and just be a global economic superpower.

How many casualties would you be prepared to take?

They're probably more organised than anything the UN can string together.

It is right next door to Thailand and Laos

The UN is basically paid for by the US.
Every time the UN decides to do something, the US provides most of the money and manpower.
F the UN. They cost us money and cause us grief.
Let Canada (and Christien) go invade Burma.

1 is there oil there

yes go to 2
no go to 5

2 is there more oil then it takes to invade?

yes, got to 3
no go to 5

3 are there terrorists there?
yes, go to 4
no go to 5

4 hell yeah! them's evil doers and them's got oil!!!

5 is it expensive to do so?

yes, go to 9
no , go to 6

6, easy to do so?

yes, got to 7
no, go to 8

7 can we trick somebody else to go along and get their boys shot instead of ours?
yes, go to 4 and market it as if 3 is a big yes, then proceed to 4
else, 8 it is

8 hell no

btw, if Birma is to be invaded, then why not North Korea?
might as well be consistent