Might is the only language the junta understands. The third Burmese empire only came to grief when it took on the industrial might of the British Empire in the 19th C. So far as trade and arms go, they know from experience it’s never too difficult to deal with any of the other neighbours be it India or ASEAN countries. If you won’t do it Jones will. They’ve become quite good at manipulating the players in their own region having the good fortune of Burma’s still substantial natural resources, and they are playing the China card very well. They are doing not so badly at fobbing off the UN either.

“I’d like to think that we’d be able to argue our respective cases whilst respecting each other. You and I can take a joke without joining in the ridiculous idea that the other side is just stupid.”

Imagine how boring our discussions would be if we treated each other as idiots. Mon dieu.

“It is your misfortune that you are not Scottish.”

Heh. It is at this point that I feel compelled to turn to the wise words of Dr. Johnson:

“Much may be made of a Scotchman, if he be caught young.”

or

“What enemy would invade Scotland, where there is nothing to be got?”

Sure you can speak for me. What have I been writing here for the last few years?

It’s easy for people like Morgoth to come here and lecture us on the mendacious argument that we’re backing the fascists and *he* cares for brown people by advocating cluster bombing.

This is sick joke. Worse that they feel that this is how to build liberal democracies.

It is your misfortune that you are not Scottish

If you were, and here I’m being disingenuous – to all that daft ideas that race or religion matters, when it comes down to going your own way, well, there’s a number of Asian’s that seem to do Nationalism. At least the Scottish version, is not racist.

Shucks, that came as a surprise:

It is good to have you back, but you are dead wrong about Douglas. That is just the way he and I debate; we have a healthy respect for one another, and we wouldn’t have it any other way. I consider him a friends.

Well not so much of a surprise as a fact. Whilst you and I are quite apart, politically, I have respect for a lot of what you say. Should I, therefore, treat you as an idiot? No, I should not.

I’d like to think that we’d be able to argue our respective cases whilst respecting each other. You and I can take a joke without joining in the ridiculous idea that the other side is just stupid.

I’d like to think…

It is good to have you back, but you are dead wrong about Douglas. That is just the way he and I debate; we have a healthy respect for one another, and we wouldn’t have it any other way. I consider him a friends. The three of us all hold strong views on various issues, which is great, but it is no reason to descend to calling Douglas ’scum’. You are better than that. And it’s not his fault he is Scottish.

I am quite amused. I’d consider Rumbold a friend. A misguided friend, right enough. So let’s leave that to one side. Why should the idea that I think he should be ’saved’ from the likes of the obviously raving insanity of DK?

Because I think Rumbold talks a lot of sense. And it is ’sense’ that the Libertarians seem to view as their exclusive right. Which it is not. However, it is sense wrapped up in political nonsense. You cannot be allowed to agree with an obvious statement, like:

You two would leave half the planet to fascists as long as you indulge yourselves in your juvenile anti-Americanism. You purveyors of Westphalian fetishism really are racist gobshites aren’t you? Brown people can go hang themselves as long as you can comfortably pronounce on the benefits of western liberal democracy from the safety of a western liberal democracy whilst denying people any means of getting a western liberal democracy, eh?

I cannot speak for Sid, but I think that is so much shite, I am gobsmacked. That is not what I am about, and I’d take exception to the idea that I am:

You really are utter scum, aren’t you?

maybe. maybe I am complete utter scum…

As to what, the Nelson Mandela International Peace Brigades? The UN? International Law?

Don’t make me laugh.

Your way, Douglas, is the way of accommodation with tyrannies and dictators. You’d have made a good Chamberlain, Douglas.

The way I support on the other hand, is Saddam’s head in a noose.

Compare and Contrast.

And as for Bremner, YOU are a liar. Stop getting bullshit off conspiracy websites. His first act was DeBaathification. You know, like DeNazification.

But if we’d listened to you, we’d probably have surrendered to Hitler. Or let him kill as many Jews as he wanted. You really are an utterly morally bankrupt lowlife, aren’t you?

Sid, go fuck youself. I have supported the Bosnians, the Kosovars, the Iraqis fever since I was old enough to recognise what was going on…I don’t care about their religion one jot. Fascists are fascists.

You two would leave half the planet to fascists as long as you indulge yourselves in your juvenile anti-Americanism. You purveyors of Westphalian fetishism really are racist gobshites aren’t you? Brown people can go hang themselves as long as you can comfortably pronounce on the benefits of western liberal democracy from the safety of a western liberal democracy whilst denying people any means of getting a western liberal democracy, eh?

You two deserve to fuck of to North Korea and spend a few years living under Kim’ll’Sung. See how you like what you’re condemning large chunks of the planet to…

You really are utter scum, aren’t you?

Morgoth, you are a feckless, fecked-up pathological liar. Anyone can whip themselves up into a frenzy of outraged liberal guilt, even hidebound narcissists like you. I’d like to remind you of a small contradiction in your high morals: have you forgotten your support of Daniel Pipes’ to intern Muslims in USA and Europe? I haven’t.

Having said all that, you’re absolutely right that US Marines have been outstanding as humanitarian aid workers in the Tsunami affected areas, and any number of times in the last 20 years in Bangladesh, most significantly after the 1991 cyclone when something like half a million lost their lives. The Marines are in a league of their own.

But US Marines are only effective in humanitarian work when the countries affected by natural disaster *allow* them in. What is the solution to the Burmese situation where the Burmese government is actively refusing the entry to US Naval task forces?

Your polemic, or perhaps masturbatory fantasy here:

Yes Sid, that’s why I wanted Saddam overthrown in 1991, that’s why I supported fervently both the Iraqi Shia, the Kurds, the Bosnians and Kosovars, and now the Albanians. That’s also why I support the Muslim Darfurese, why I want democracy through the Middle-East. Why I want to see Assad’s head on a pike.

My wanting an end to the fascist dictators killing muslims in vast numbers is obviously becuase I hate them, Sid, isn’ tit?

is frankly so far from any reasonable explanation of why G W Bush decided to give up on OBL and attack Saddam Hussein that I, at least, am left with cheap psychology – the failure of the father, corrected by the magic of the son.

To be honest, you have not made a case. In fact, you have never made the case. There is nothing, repeat nothing, to disagree with you on the sentiment. It is the reality, the fucked up reality, of replacing Baathist thugs with Blackwater thugs. Aided and abbetted by your chums, the US Marines. Or letting AK-47 armed idiots loose.

The boys you support are quite happy to let Muslims kill each other. No?

Which is contrary to what you are supposed to do, after you invade a country, after you disband it’s army, after you take apart it’s civil administration and replace it with a neo con nutter.

I stand by the fact that the idiot, Bremner’s first act was to ensure that Iraq oil was denominated in dollars, not euros’. That was the most important thing?

Get a grip.

Whilst most folk would prefer a liberal Middle East, it is pretty clear that invoking the US Marines is a rubbish arguement.

And yet, the likes of Clare Short would rather have people starving than admit that the US could do something positive.

“And I dispute your “If it wasn’t for Iraq…” assertion. The STWC for example, was formed in the days after 9/11″

???????

I meant that they, the US, have precious little resources to spare for Burma as they are still in Iraq.

Head on a spike is so poetic. The Nicolae Ceauşescu treatment is better and more apt.

And I dispute your “If it wasn’t for Iraq…” assertion. The STWC for example, was formed in the days after 9/11.

Anyways, even if the US wasn’t bogged down in iraq I think actual Marine landings might not help but the mere suggestion might. Shame.

Now only if the Americans had thought that pesky nation building in Iraq through there might be money and marines to help the Burmese….

Yet another reason for GWB to go back to being a drunk coke headed serial failure….. (actually I might make an exception for GWB on the spike-head issue!)

TCH

Yes Sid, that’s why I wanted Saddam overthrown in 1991, that’s why I supported fervently both the Iraqi Shia, the Kurds, the Bosnians and Kosovars, and now the Albanians. That’s also why I support the Muslim Darfurese, why I want democracy through the Middle-East. Why I want to see Assad’s head on a pike.

My wanting an end to the fascist dictators killing muslims in vast numbers is obviously becuase I hate them, Sid, isn’ tit?

Pillock.