Topic: Decline of the West
The next time you happen to overhear some starry-eyed progressive nitwit blathering about the glories of the "world community," think of Bosnia, Rwanda, Darfur—and Myanmar (Burma). At least 65,000 people were killed last Saturday when a massive cyclone hit the Irrawaddy delta. And as we know from sad experience of Third World natural disasters, that number is likely to climb substantially.
UN-sponsored relief supplies began to flow into Myanmar almost immediately after the cyclone struck. Then the country's brutal, reclusive ruling military junta did the kind of thing that you can expect from that sort of government—it summarily confiscated the relief supplies. So the UN has suspended aid shipments.
Of course there has been much hand wringing over the junta's action—which isn't likely to ameliorate the suffering of the people of Myanmar. Perhaps if the world community would put the squeeze on the junta, lives could be saved. But when has a murderous or genocidal government ever stayed its hand in the face of a UN speech or a disapproving New York Times editorial?
