Redstate

By Repair Man Jack Posted in Foreign Affairs — Comments (4) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »

Human beings are conditioned to do what they get rewarded for. The Burmese government seems to understand this well. They get power and unlimited perks when they shoot any people that step in their way. Hence; the guns go blazing.

As several thousand Buddhist Monks lay dead, and the bodies are being loaded onto trucks and dumped in the jungle, the UN has sent a special envoy to chat with the fascists. This should make for scintillating conversation. The UN has arrived to negotiate on behalf of an aggrieved party that has been slaughtered in detail. Perhaps the UN can wring out a few basic concessions like an identification of the myriad dead; followed by a decent burial.

Not everyone has the gastro-intestinal fortitude to work for The Myanmar Meat-Packers. One high-ranking minister drew the line at shooting the holy men. He no longer lives or works in Burma. Nothing quite stops a career for an unethical employer like an attack of the conscience.

The most senior official to defect so far, Hla Win, said: "Many more people have been killed in recent days than you've heard about. The bodies can be counted in several thousand."

Mr Win, who spoke out as a Swedish diplomat predicted that the revolt has failed, said he fled when he was ordered to take part in a massacre of holy men. He has now reached the border with Thailand.

The aforementioned Swedish Diplomat, Mrs Lisolete Agerlid, gives a harrowing description of just how bad it has gotten.

"The military regime won and a new generation has been violently repressed and violently denied democracy. The people in the street were young people, monks and civilians who were not participating during the 1988 revolt.”

"Now the military has cracked down the revolt, and the result may very well be that the regime will enjoy another 20 years of silence, ruling by fear."

"There are extremely high numbers of soldiers in Rangoon's streets," she added. "Anyone can see it is absolutely impossible for any demonstration to gather, or for anyone to do anything.”

"People are scared and the general assessment is that the fight is over. We were informed from one of the largest embassies in Burma that 40 monks in the Insein prison were beaten to death today and subsequently burned."

The UN envoys and the Swedish diplomats will scold and denounce the junta that butchers the Buddhist Monks with aplomb and seemingly bulletproof immunity. The sleazy caudillo running the abattoir that passes for a nation state in Burma will humor the piously sanctimonious Westerners until he has heard enough of their pointless twittering. He then asks the question “Or else what?” and smugly awaits the Swedish Diplomat’s response.

If the answer to that question involves dissembling, evasion or the laughable term sanctions, the caudillo smiles warmly and thanks them for a lovely visit. Perhaps he’ll see fit to hose the blood of martyrs off the streets and have a few of his Black Shirts walk them back to the hotel. They, unlike the suffering people of Burma, will be put on a plane and flown back West.

Whichever generalissimo runs Burma, and I really could care less what the sorry human being’s name is, runs it the way Brennus briefly ran a large section of Rome. Burma, or Myanmar, as the junta seeks to name it, has a very simple code of laws. The motto “Vae Victus” should be carved into the door frame over the building that houses whatever kangaroo court the ruling dictatorship inflicts “justice” on the oppressed population from. “Woe to the conquered” describes life in Rangoon better than even the traumatized Swedish woman who saw it first hand.

So Burma fades out of the news again, the UN pulls another Rwanda-Burundi and a psychopathic dictator continues his despotic rule. With China on had to prop up the misrule and the UN on hand to “do something about the problem” and the part of the world that actually sheds a tear over a skull-cracker keeping the “crazy religious creeps in line” too busy fighting fires else where, normality returns. It seems to have gotten a tad too sanguinary, but on the whole the government did what it intuits as its job.

Far from suffering for treating the Buddhist Monks with such disdain and barbaric cruelty, the Myanmar government was rewarded. They kept power, they crushed their enemies, they enforced the law that they wrote with their swords. Someone talk the average citizen of Rangoon through how the pen is mightier than the sword. Until the junta in power stops being rewarded for callous slaughter; that old saw from Voltaire may not impress anyone east of The Road to Mandalay.