http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/idblog/2008/05/13/will-the-cyclone-bring-political-change-to-burma-where-just-last-ye/ Thoughts from the Internet and Democracy Project team at the Berkman Center for Internet and Society Fri, 09 Jan 2009 08:59:17 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.5.1 http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/idblog/2008/05/13/will-the-cyclone-bring-political-change-to-burma-where-just-last-ye/#comment-518 idteam Wed, 14 May 2008 15:04:31 +0000 http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/idblog/2008/05/13/will-the-cyclone-bring-political-chang#comment-518 Another vein of thought that seems to be emerging is that military intervention is now justified to relieve the human suffering (yikes!). This seems to have started with calls by France and others for the UN to intervene to get humanitarian aid into Burma. This morning, however, Robert Kaplan writes in the NY Times that the US Navy could quite easily intervene, so the issue is not whether the US can do it--they can, he argues, and with a 'light footprint'-- but whether its a politically smart move to do so. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/14/opinion/14kaplan.html?_r=1&ref=opinion&oref=slogin Another vein of thought that seems to be emerging is that military intervention is now justified to relieve the human suffering (yikes!). This seems to have started with calls by France and others for the UN to intervene to get humanitarian aid into Burma. This morning, however, Robert Kaplan writes in the NY Times that the US Navy could quite easily intervene, so the issue is not whether the US can do it–they can, he argues, and with a ‘light footprint’– but whether its a politically smart move to do so.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/14/opinion/14kaplan.html?_r=1&ref=opinion&oref=slogin

]]> http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/idblog/2008/05/13/will-the-cyclone-bring-political-change-to-burma-where-just-last-ye/#comment-513 sy Tue, 13 May 2008 23:43:57 +0000 http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/idblog/2008/05/13/will-the-cyclone-bring-political-chang#comment-513 There is a weird combo at work here: a resistance to outside intervention connected to a desire to stay in power (this is what the western media wish to underscore), which is not, though, precisely the same thing as wishing the people ill -- combined with, well, sheer incompetence, corruption, and incapacity. One gets the sense that even if the gov't were to say that, yes, we'll process all of the visas, for example, the procesing would still happen at too slow a rate. The flash point, if there is to be one, will involve the military rank and file. The corruption is, more and more, only lucrative for the top brass. There is a weird combo at work here: a resistance to outside intervention connected to a desire to stay in power (this is what the western media wish to underscore), which is not, though, precisely the same thing as wishing the people ill — combined with, well, sheer incompetence, corruption, and incapacity. One gets the sense that even if the gov’t were to say that, yes, we’ll process all of the visas, for example, the procesing would still happen at too slow a rate. The flash point, if there is to be one, will involve the military rank and file. The corruption is, more and more, only lucrative for the top brass.

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