Is It Time To Intervene In Burma?

The Whistler  •  May 13, 2008

Anne Applebaum asks the question in Slate, but the answer to that question for people who opposed the invasion in Iraq will pose another interesting question: If Burma, why not Iraq?
It’s the same question that can be asked of people who oppose the mission in Iraq but support intervention in Darfur. If the humanitarian crises in Burma and Darfur are so bad as to warrant American intervention, how can you argue that the situation in Iraq wasn’t bad enough to justify intervention?
I don’t think it’s an argument an honest observer of world events can make.

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  • http://Array robert108

    No Blood for Liberal Guilt.

    Here’s my take on the subject: Even if we had bipartisan support for changing despotic regimes around the world, we would still have to make a priority list on what order we would do them in, and that should be based on national interest. Burma and Darfur would still be down the list aways.

  • http://www.mementomoron.blogspot.com/ Boy Named Sous

    Neither was I; I was simply pointing out leftie hypocrisy. It’s my favorite pastime.

    But it’s so unsportsmanlike. Where’s the challenge?

  • Bat One

    While there is no reason too doubt the sincerity of Ms. Applebaum’s concern for the horror of what has happened in Burma, there is nothing she has written about the military junta that controls the country that did not apply just as well to Saddam Hussein and the Ba’athists who ran Iraq. For example,

    They are “cruel, power hungry and dangerously irrational,” in the words of one British journalist. They are “violent and irrational” according to a journalist in neighboring Thailand. Our own State Department leadership has condemned their “xenophobic, ever more irrational policies.”

    On the evidence of the last few days alone, those are all perfectly accurate descriptions. But in one very narrow sense, the cruel, power-hungry, violent, and xenophobic generals who run Burma are not irrational at all: Given their own most urgent goal–to maintain power at all costs–their reluctance to accept international aid in the wake of a devastating cyclone makes perfect sense. It’s straightforward, as the Washington Post’s Fred Hiatt put it Monday: “The junta cares about its own survival, not the survival of its people.”

    …Unfortunately, the phrase “coalition of the willing” is tainted forever–once again proving that the damage done by the Iraq war goes far beyond the Iraqi borders–but a coalition of the willing is exactly what we need.

    So now the liberal wordsmith is blaming Mr. Bush for the fact that she cannot find a more appropriate phrase for the actions she endorses than “coalition of the willing.”

    The self-righteousness of people like Applebaum is almost beyond endurance. That she is blind to the paradox is both amusing and appalling.

  • kbiel

    Take the inverse of r108′s statement and you have the answer to Rob’s question. Thought the lefties are reluctant to openly admit this, they do have an earnest reason for intervening in Darfur and Burma, but not Iraq (or Iran or Korea or Lebanon, et cetera). They are only willing to deploy troops where we have no national interest and are absolutely phobic when it comes to protecting our national interest (and, yes, that includes securing oil supplies either for ourselves or, at the least, to the exclusion of our enemies).

  • http://www.mementomoron.blogspot.com/ Boy Named Sous

    Robert108,

    Indeed. But I don’t think that Rob is really asking for a discussion of whether or not we should intervene. Rather, it’s obvious that he’s asking a rhetorical question in order to point out Applebaum’s hypocrisy, and that of many like her on the left.

    By the way, Rob, consider this a Manual Trackback:

    http://mementomoron.blogspot.com/2008/05/i-didnt-tell-you-so-but-i-could-have.html

  • http://www.wethepeopleforum.com/forum/forums.asp golfmann

    That she is blind to the paradox is both amusing and appalling.

    and more than a little dangerous to our national security.

  • robert108

    Indeed. But I don’t think that Rob is really asking for a discussion of whether or not we should intervene.

    Neither was I; I was simply pointing out leftie hypocrisy. It’s my favorite pastime.

  • http://SayAnythingBlog.com The_Whistler_ofnd

    ‘Bout time:

    His cheek
    Was rough
    His chick vamoosed
    And now she won’t
    Come home to roost
    Burma-Shave

  • http://www.dartemis.net/blog/ sayanything-42

    No Blood for Liberal Guilt.

  • http://www.bikebubba.blogspot.com/ Bike Bubba

    One peripheral note; that abject failure at diplomacy, George W. Bush, has just persuaded the Myanmar junta to imperil their rule by accepting foreign aid without severe restrictions. You mean you don’t have be an accomplished orator to get things done?

  • robert108

    The most important reason for not going into Burma is:
    We have no national interest there.

  • Steve L.

    They are only willing to deploy troops where we have no national interest and are absolutely phobic when it comes to protecting our national interest (and, yes, that includes securing oil supplies either for ourselves or, at the least, to the exclusion of our enemies).

    I think it is simpler than that. they are opposed to any intervention that a Republican initiates. It is a knee-jerk reaction on their part. Had President Bush first mentioned intervention in Burma, they would have screamed to high heaven.

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