According to the Times, Myanmar's junta has allowed a US military plane - carrying not only relief supplies but also the US military's Pacific commander - to land in the stricken nation, which sounds encouraging, but only without the qualifier from the UN authorities "that the distribution of most deliveries of international relief supplies were still being blocked to the most badly affected parts of the country. They say help is reaching fewer than one-third of those in need."
Meaning that the question still hangs in the air; as TIME/CNN asks it, "Is It Time to Invade Burma?" Romesh Ratnesar seems to think a qualified yes, evoking the specter of Somalia and reminding of the diplomatic options via China, Thailand, and Indonesia that remain to be exhausted first.
The latter two points representing, I suppose, why we don't make foreign policy decisions based on emotion. Because truly, I find it next to impossible to read about this man-made anguish without wanting to carpet-bomb the junta's compounds - and not with energy-dense biscuits, either. The Times quotes a military academic in Singapore who assesses that "the four pillars of [Myanmar's ruling] military’s world view are nationalism, paranoia, self-reliance and ethnocentrism. " It is obscene to me that so many thousands will starve, drown, and suffer to preserve this perverted episteme.
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