Invade Burma?

[HardDrive]

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

[island911]

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

[sammyg2]

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.

[tabs]

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

[sammyg2]

Or a Myanmareze python

[Mule]

Do they have oil?

[scottmandue]

Originally Posted by Mule

Do they have oil?

YOU FORKING FORK HEAD!

Beat me to it.

[David]

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

[Tobra]

Originally Posted by sammyg2

Or a Myanmareze python

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?

[968rz]

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?

[Porsche-O-Phile]

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.

[Normy]

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!

[sammyg2]

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

[alf]

What does China have to do with this?

[m21sniper]

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.

[Lil Black Car]

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.

[dewolf]

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

[Komenda Fan]

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...

[sammyg2]

Originally Posted by alf

What does China have to do with this?

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.

[Tobra]

Originally Posted by Tobra

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?

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