[Newsbot]

<strong>Filibuster Cartoon</strong>
<strong>Title: </strong> <a href="http://www.filibustercartoons.com/archive.php?id=20071002" target="_blank">My Burma Analogy</a> (click to view)
<strong>Date: </strong> October 02, 2007

Sigh, the Burma situation... It sort of falls in and out of the news now and then, but nothing is ever done. <br> <br>For those who don\'t know, Burma is a small country in Asia that has been under military rule more or less continuously since the 1960\'s. In the late 80\'s the junta considered liberalizing and held an election, in which pro-democracy activist Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi was overwhelmingly elected prime minister, sweeping the parliament. The generals were deeply embarrassed by the vote, which they did not think they would lose. So they arrested Ms. Aung, and she remains under house arrest to this day. And military rule has continued unabated. <br> <br>Every couple of years the world pretends to care. <br>

[Sucros]

See, this is why I opposed the war in Iraq. Not because I'm a pacifist, and believe that it's possible to stop all evil dictators if we just set a good example. But because if you're going to go around invading countries with the goal of liberating them, one where a populace has been shown to be begging for democracy would be a much better place to start.

[BartSimpson]

Quote:

Every couple of years the world pretends to care.

Precisely.

[sasquatch2]

The basic problem with Burma is that it is a defacto extension of the Peoples Republic of China.

On the news the picture is obvious. Chinese trucks, Chinese style uniforms and Chinese weapons.

[BartSimpson]

sasquatch2 wrote:

The basic problem with Burma is that it is a defacto extension of the Peoples Republic of China.

On the news the picture is obvious. Chinese trucks, Chinese style uniforms and Chinese weapons.

Probably a few PLA 'advisors', too.

[Quantum_Wizard]

Heh, I love the damsels expression.

[Murray_Smith]

Is the damsel supposed to be Aung San Suu Kyi?

[Scape]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SPSsKcpxJMk[/youtube]

[Calbeck]

Sucros wrote:

See, this is why I opposed the war in Iraq. Not because I'm a pacifist, and believe that it's possible to stop all evil dictators if we just set a good example. But because if you're going to go around invading countries with the goal of liberating them, one where a populace has been shown to be begging for democracy would be a much better place to start.

See, I'm for the war partially because any start is better than none. If we'd gone into Burma, people would be bitching that Iraq was "the bigger threat" (who has Burma invaded since the '60s?).

[EmperorLiam]

Yeah, the 'world' aka US/UN will get right on that... like how we got around to freeing Tibet, or fixing Somalia, Haiti, Cuba, Cambodia, N.Korea, Columbia, etc etc

[Calbeck]

I don't know how anyone would free Tibet by any means other than going to war with China, anyways.

[CanadianJeff]

Murder isn't a good start and Bitching isn't always presenting a valid point.

Don't try to justify one action for another. Let each idea stand it's own course.

"Never think that war, no matter how necessary, nor how justified, is not a
crime."
- Ernest Hemingway

The real wars will never make the history books. Words can't caputre the true horrors of war.

[Psudo]

CanadianJeff wrote:

The real wars will never make the history books.

Can you clarify this? What "real wars"?

CanadianJeff wrote:

Words can't caputre the true horrors of war.

This is also true of many events outside of war times and war zones. Your fact doesn't advocate a banishment of war. You ignore the principle of catharsis: a lesser hurt to end a greater hurt. People choose hawk or dove based on whether they believe war or inaction is the greater hurt (or whether they will be guilty of that hurt). War is not always the greater hurt.

[Prestwick]

One thing is for sure. All of those people who went onto the streets to support the monks, those who came out with nothing to defend themselves with, those who simply want the freedom to elect whoever they want to power and say what they want, when they want, those people exhibit levels of bravery, courage and selflessness which puts us all to shame.

If we 'cannot' help them, the very least we could do is remember them.

[CanadianJeff]

There are the wars they put in the history books and the real deal. Some of the acts of war commited by the allies and the axis both during world war ii for example will never be recorded in history offically. Yet the tales that some veterans of these wars will tell those who listen is beyond horror. Boiling enemys alive on both ends for example to lower the enemies morale. Nothing like hearing one of your men screaming as he's slowly boiled alive over hours and hours during the night. As an example.

I've never seen a War were the war didn't cause greater hurt in the end using current methods. Sun Tzu has always been quick is his writing to point out the value of a good general losing as little life as possible and taking as little life as possible. The man's accomplsihments in China during the wars in that ear speak for themselves. He often got his enemies to surrender with little or no bloodshed and was highly efficent at doing so. Why becuase he followed a diffrent set of the rules of war. What he refers to as his art of war.

There is more then one way to war. The methods we are using don't follow the process of Catharsis they follow the process of murder. Like dropping the Bombs on Japan for example was considered an act of mercy since it would stop the Japanesse from continuing further war and causing more death. What wasn't taken into account was the farther reaching damage caused by radiation and how it was civilans dying instead of soldiers. Civilans who may not have even been enemies of the American people.

That is what I'm trying to put across here. Iraq in itself is not wrong nor right but what is absolutly inhuman and wrong is the motives and the way the war in Iraq is being fought. That is what makes that particular war so murderous.