Free Burma.

Everyone keeps asking how it is going here, with all the protests and news coming out of Rangoon these days. Well, if you have been watching the news, you probably know about as much as we do. And I would like to take this opportunity to rag a bit on the stupidity of everyone involved, excluding of course the brave monks and people who did the protesting. The Burmese junta is now saying that all is back to normal, which is true. The norm in Burma is that the government are a bunch of murderers and rapists. They crushed the protests by arresting all the monks, and even managed to get caught on film killing a Japanese journalist. Click Here. There have been reports of Burma army deserters telling tales of being forced to dispose of piles of dead monks deep in the jungle click here, (the junta said only 13 people were killed during the protests) and the truth is, the monastaries in Rangoon are empty. So where are all the monks?

The sad thing is, the Western world, as well as the surrounding countries and ASEAN simply allow this to happen. Oh sure, they talk a lot, send the United Nothing emmissary Ibrahim Gambari to talk with the junta, but thats it. And they talk a bit more about tougher sanctions, but thats just rubbish. The generals have proven they eat just fine under sanctions, and since Thailand, India and China still deal with Burma, they definitely won't change. So now another attempt by the people of Burma to influence their own destiny has been thwarted, and the rest of the world just sat by and watched it happen on CNN. Pathetic. As if sending the useless UN was going to make a difference. Has it ever? Until the west gets involved in Burma, by taking an active role, nothing will change. But they will keep talking about it, condemning the government, and all will stay the same.

The brave people of Burma have spoken, pleaded for help, in 1988, 1990, and now. And we in the west have ignored them. This is the kind of place we should be committing troops to, a place we should be working actively in. Or how about the Sudan. Instead we are mucking about in Iraq, losing a battle that cant be won anyway. But hey, theres not a whole lot of oil in Burma or the Sudan, is there George?