The United Nations blasted Myanmar's military government Friday, saying its refusal to let in foreign aid workers to help victims of a devastating cyclone was "unprecedented" in the history of humanitarian work.
While the junta dithered and appeared overwhelmed by last Saturday's disaster, more than 1 million homeless people waited for food, shelter and medicine. Many crammed into Buddhist monasteries or just camped out in the open.
And so I offer this post as a mea culpa as regards my previous post quoting from The Washington Post that indicated that the junta was not only asking for help but...
"the International Red Cross, the United Nations, the European Union and a number of highly competent relief agencies were already on the ground..."
That said, I stand by my criticism of Laura Bush's ignorant use of the disaster to score political points. Given the disgusting aftermath of hurricane Katrina, nobody in the Bush family has the right to criticize a disaster response effort, no matter how poorly managed. Heckuva job Laura. Also, I will acknowledge that Alpha Male's criticism in the comments back there were accurate, we at CC headquarters believe that credit should go where it is due.
3 comments:
There is more in common with the Bush admin and the Junta in Burma.
The US authorities also held off much of the aid immediately following Katrina. The official line was that they were not organized. The whispers in the background were of national security concerns.
I have linky's somewhere still outlining that.. Canada and many countries were way ahead of FEMA.
Cuba offered Dr's even, and they were flat out refused of course.
They were refused because Big Bad America don' need no help from no feriners. Yee haw.
Translation: Our government is peopled by idiots who don't give a shit about the people who they are supposed to be serving.
You Canadians know very well that to have accepted international assistance in New Orleans would haver been to pass up the patronage opportunities Hurricane Katrina presented.
Convincing the American people in 2004 that George W., Bush was a credible candidate for president of the United States was even more difficult than it had been in 2000, because in 2000 few people had a clue how dumb George was. It takes real money to put that kind of lipstick on a pig and Bush & Cheney had a duty to show a profit on the investments made in the Bush/Cheney 2004 election campaign.
You also know that when patronage was not a factor, such as in Indonesia, and Bush was able to respond with military forces, the US is quite capable of mounting an effective relief operation. It's takes the private sector a little more time to gear up and to direct relief into the areas where your contractors have something to sell.
As far as my remarks that Laura's remarks proves that Laura is a dumb as George, I stand by my remarks as well.
Dear Leader and Big Daddy are not the only nut cases who rose to the highest levels of government in their respective countries. We rightfully expect better in the US and Canada. That should not blind us to the fact that North American has no monopoly on power mad nut cases. The problem that Laura's remarks caused is that the power mad nut cases running Burma are about as concerned about their people as Dear Leader is about the American people, and are even more paranoid, and when the Supreme Leader's wife uses the crisis as an opportunity to call for regime change in Burma, the paranoid nut cases in Burma are bound to get antsy. One would have thought a skoolmarm would have been sophisticated enough to have figured that out, but apparently not.
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