A Call for the Invasion of Burma
bh | 11.03.2003 17:01
When oh when will the suffering people of Burma be saved from their tyrannical rulers? A call for someone, out of the sheer goodness of their hearts, to spend a few hundred billion bucks to save those poor suffering people...
You know everytime some one speaks up for the removal of Saddam by Bush I can't help but wonder why no one is calling out for the removal of the tyrants of Burma. Its a terrible place, just one of many tyrannical regimes on the planet, and I think its likely to be the case in times to come, because no one is calling out for an invasion of Burma. Sure it would cost a fortune, and Burma has no real oil that I know of, but since the Americans are now spending vast fortunes to save countries from tyrants out of the sheer goodness of their hearts I thought I would once again mention the need to spend hundreds of billions of dollars to save the people of Burma from tyranny
Now as for removing tyrants, you might notice that in Burma, tyrants though they are, they do not kill Su Ki Yee (spelling?) who is the main dissident leader in the country with growing public support, probably to win an election, assuming they ever had one. You see, even tyrants must pay attention to public opinion, and tyrants also lie all the time and spread propaganda, for the same reason. Power is an illusion.
Now consider Ceacescu of Romania. Powerful tyrant. Very Saddam like. Terrible dictator. Wound up overthrown and then shot on television. Then there was the collapse of the Soviet Union. How did it happen? Are dictators infallible? No, and once their public support crumbles to a sufficient degree they meet their downfall. No dictator can stay in power once this certain level of public consent is lost, and once that happens even the most 'invincible' seeming tyrant states collapse in ruins.
There are those who spread the myth that the only way to remove a dictator is by means of war, and history demonstrates that this is false. One of the advantage of allowing a nation to depose its own tyrants, is that, while it takes longer, and is a much more gradual process, many tens or hundreds of thousands of little kids will still be alive, whereas after being 'saved' by the Americans, they will not. This crappola about 'there being no other way to get rid of a dictator' than by use of outside military force is simply a pile of bullshit, and even an examination of the most recent history of the planet demonstrates that this is the case.
As for Iraq becoming a 'democracy' that seems unlikely, and it seems much more likely that in order to keep this feuding artificially constructed state together it will require an iron fist (Kurds in the north rebelling, Shi'ites in the south rebelling). There is a reason the Northern powers have always established and supported dictatorships in the Middle East, since each country there is deliberately carved up in the same way, a few of the Kurds in this country, a little of this and a little of that, the purpose being at the time the carving was done, was to create weakened states full of internal strife, which is exactly what resulted. Consequently such strife filled and divided artificial 'nations' like Iraq, with long held simmering feuds and resentments, will not be governed democratically. The Americans have made this abundantly clear in insisting that there will no, definitely NO KURDISH STATE in the north, and no Shi'ite state in the south, which means that eventually Iraq will be ruled by SADDAM Part Two. In the interim the country will be ruled by an American General, for the simple reason that to do otherwise and allow 'democracy' would lead to a Kurdish state in the North, 'iraq' in the middle, and some Shi'ite state in the south, and, democracy be damned, the Americans have already decided that isn't going to happen.
Now as for removing tyrants, you might notice that in Burma, tyrants though they are, they do not kill Su Ki Yee (spelling?) who is the main dissident leader in the country with growing public support, probably to win an election, assuming they ever had one. You see, even tyrants must pay attention to public opinion, and tyrants also lie all the time and spread propaganda, for the same reason. Power is an illusion.
Now consider Ceacescu of Romania. Powerful tyrant. Very Saddam like. Terrible dictator. Wound up overthrown and then shot on television. Then there was the collapse of the Soviet Union. How did it happen? Are dictators infallible? No, and once their public support crumbles to a sufficient degree they meet their downfall. No dictator can stay in power once this certain level of public consent is lost, and once that happens even the most 'invincible' seeming tyrant states collapse in ruins.
There are those who spread the myth that the only way to remove a dictator is by means of war, and history demonstrates that this is false. One of the advantage of allowing a nation to depose its own tyrants, is that, while it takes longer, and is a much more gradual process, many tens or hundreds of thousands of little kids will still be alive, whereas after being 'saved' by the Americans, they will not. This crappola about 'there being no other way to get rid of a dictator' than by use of outside military force is simply a pile of bullshit, and even an examination of the most recent history of the planet demonstrates that this is the case.
As for Iraq becoming a 'democracy' that seems unlikely, and it seems much more likely that in order to keep this feuding artificially constructed state together it will require an iron fist (Kurds in the north rebelling, Shi'ites in the south rebelling). There is a reason the Northern powers have always established and supported dictatorships in the Middle East, since each country there is deliberately carved up in the same way, a few of the Kurds in this country, a little of this and a little of that, the purpose being at the time the carving was done, was to create weakened states full of internal strife, which is exactly what resulted. Consequently such strife filled and divided artificial 'nations' like Iraq, with long held simmering feuds and resentments, will not be governed democratically. The Americans have made this abundantly clear in insisting that there will no, definitely NO KURDISH STATE in the north, and no Shi'ite state in the south, which means that eventually Iraq will be ruled by SADDAM Part Two. In the interim the country will be ruled by an American General, for the simple reason that to do otherwise and allow 'democracy' would lead to a Kurdish state in the North, 'iraq' in the middle, and some Shi'ite state in the south, and, democracy be damned, the Americans have already decided that isn't going to happen.
bh
Homepage:
http://www.awitness.org/jounal/index.html
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history
11.03.2003 19:34
As for the artificial nature of mideast 'states' this should be a well known historical fact. Last year Jack Straw, in the British government commented on the problems that this previous colonialist policy has left the modern world to deal with...
British Empire blamed for modern conflicts
The UK Foreign Secretary, Jack Straw, has blamed Britain's imperial past for many of the modern political problems, including the Arab-Israeli conflict and the Kashmir dispute.
"A lot of the problems we are having to deal with now - I have to deal with now - are a consequence of our colonial past," he said.
" The Balfour declaration... again, an interesting history for us, but not an honourable one "
Jack Straw
In an interview with a British magazine, the New Statesman, Mr Straw spoke of quite serious mistakes made, especially during the last decades of the empire.
He said the Balfour Declaration of 1917 - in which Britain pledged support for a Jewish homeland in Palestine - and the contradictory assurances given to Palestinians, were not entirely honourable.
Mr Straw blamed many territorial disputes on the illogical borders created by colonial powers.
He mentioned Iraq, the region which was governed by Britain under the mandate of the League of Nations after the defeat of the Ottoman Empire in World War I.
"The odd lines for Iraq's borders were drawn by Brits," he said.
One page that deals with this process is found here, followed by a few quotes...
In fact, the British had recognized the importance of the region's oil wealth as early as 1916 when the British secretly signed the 1916 Sykes-Pikot Agreement with France which called for the division of the Ottoman Empire into a patchwork of states that would be ruled by the British and French. The secret agreement was exposed when the Soviet government retrieved a copy in 1921, but a year earlier, the oil factor had been officially recognized in the 1920 San Remo Treaty. In 1928, the Red Line Agreement was signed, which described the sharing of the oil wealth of former Ottoman territories by the British and French colonial governments, and how percentages of future oil production were to be allocated to British, French and American oil companies.
The desire to control the region's oil wealth led to the creation of artificial states such as Kuwait, and states with mixed Kurdish and Arab populations such as in Syria and Iraq. The arbitrary creation of borders and the installation of unpopular pro-colonial leaders served the purpose of dividing the local populations and ensuring the establishment of impotent client-regimes whose administrations were subservient to colonial interests.
In 1945, when Britain was still a major colonial power, US and British coordination and cooperation were highlighted in the following memo: “Our petroleum policy towards the United Kingdom is predicated on a mutual recognition of a very extensive joint interest and upon control, at least for the moment, of the great bulk of the free petroleum resources of the world... US-UK agreement upon the broad, forward-looking pattern for the development and utilisation of petroleum resources under the control of nationals of the two countries is of the highest strategic and commercial importance.” (See: Memorandum by the Acting Chief of the Petroleum Division, 1 June 1945, FRUS, 1945, Vol. VIII, p. 54)
Two years later, the British government expressly noted that the Middle East was “a vital prize for any power interested in world influence or domination”, since control of the world’s oil reserves also meant control of the world economy. (See: Introductory paper on the Middle East by the UK, undated [1947], FRUS, 1947, Vol. V, p. 569.)
Another page on the same subject
British Member of Parliament George Galloway says that a plan for the division of the Middle East is circulating in the corridors of power on both sides of the Atlantic. In a recent interview, Galloway asserted that ministers and eminent figures in the British government are deliberating the partition of the Middle East, harking back to the colonial map-making in the first quarter of the 20th century that established the modern nation-states of the region.
You can also find info in any history book...
A book from Amazon
Yemen's modern history is unique and deserves to be better understood. While the borders of most Middle East states were defined by colonial powers after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, a single Yemeni state was not formed until 1990. In fact, much of Yemen's twentieth-century history was taken up constructing such a state, forged after years of civil war. The book is augmented by illustrations, maps and a detailed chronology.
bh
myanmar
11.03.2003 19:49
bh