The government has separately announced it will allow 160 relief workers from neighbouring countries to enter Burma, but it is not clear if they include the Thai medics or whether they can travel to the delta.

What kind of bullshit is this. Up to 40,000 are dead, 2 million people are left uncared for, and the gubmint allows 160 people to come in and help. How can the Burmese government possibly justify this?

Is It Time to Invade Burma?

Pretty interesting article.

The US couldn't possibly wage a war into Burma. The climate and geography of Burma is even more hostile than Vietnam's (a great deal more so, actually) and all a punitive expedition (even if it was bringing aid) would do is make the Burmese people an enemy of the free world. I hate to say it, but by doing nothing it's possible that the world is doing a great deal: The more Burmese people that die, the more likely they will be to overthrow their junta (FINALLY, it's been 40 years or more). Once the junta is gone, real aid can flood in pretty much immediately from all around the world. Burma was the richest country in Indochina in the 1940s and 1950s, but has since become the poorest in the region (I believe) since the junta took power. The only hope Burma has is to stage a coup d'etat. A popular rebellion is out of the question since Burma has a huge junta-controlled army and it would plunge the country into a civil war the generals would probably win.

That huge army is another reason a military campaign in Burma is totally inadvisable. Combined with the terrain and the fact that much of the country is unaware of how evil the Junta is (and thus highly patriotic) and you have a recipe for absolute failure. People who think the Iraq war has had a high toll on lives (US and otherwise) should realize that Burma would be like Vietnam 2 only with a much better trained and equipped enemy.

Even a military airdrop would only cause the junta to tighten their grips on their people. The accounts cited in that article, Bosnia and the Sudan, were airdrops executed into areas where the oppressing force didn't have complete control over the area. If the US dropped food from the air into Burma, the government would take control of it and either keep it for themselves or disperse it to the people as government aid, causing a boost in popularity. In addition to all this there would be the [i[retarded[/i] monetary cost, which takes a distant last place when it comes to helping people not die, but it's still there.

There are only two camps that could possibly support invading Burma; people who are totally ignorant to how wars work and people who are total warmongers and are incapable of seeing the dramatic aftereffects of any armed conflict. There is nothing to recommend an invasion. More people would die, more lives would be ruined, and more money would be wasted on war instead of humanitarian aid afterwards. The only people who would gain are the people who always gain in armed conflicts; military contractors and arms dealers. And while they are a staple of the US (and many other country's) economy, I don't think undue consideration should be given to them when weighing against the cost of human lives.