Longform Links – Myanmar, Juan Crow, Hatred towards Latinos, Babies, Immigration

by Latoya Peterson

Latoya’s Note: Somehow, my “to blog about ” list of articles crept over fifty. We don’t normally post this late in the day, but I need to start playing catch up.

New York Times – Aid at the Point of a Gun [Point]

France’s foreign minister, Bernard Kouchner, has spoken of the possibility of an armed humanitarian intervention, and there is an increasing degree of chatter about the possibility of an American-led invasion of the Irrawaddy River Delta.

As it happens, American armed forces are now gathered in large numbers in Thailand for the annual multinational military exercise known as Cobra Gold. This means that Navy warships could pass from the Gulf of Thailand through the Strait of Malacca and north up the Bay of Bengal to the Irrawaddy Delta. It was a similar circumstance that had allowed for Navy intervention after the Indian Ocean tsunami of December 2004.

[...]

The other challenge we face lies within Myanmar. Because a humanitarian invasion could ultimately lead to the regime’s collapse, we would have to accept significant responsibility for the aftermath. And just as the collapse of the Berlin Wall was not supposed to lead to ethnic cleansing in Yugoslavia, and the liberation of Iraq from Saddam Hussein was not supposed to lead to civil war, the fall of the junta would not be meant to lead to the collapse of the Burmese state. But it might.

About a third of Myanmar’s 47 million people are ethnic minorities, who have a troubled historical relationship with the dominant group, the Burmans. Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, the heroine of the democracy movement, is an ethnic Burman just like the generals, and her supporters are largely focused on the Burman homeland. Meanwhile, the Chins, Kachins, Karennis, Karens, Shans and other hill tribes have been fighting against the government. The real issue in Myanmar, should the regime fall, would be less about forging democracy than a compromise between the Burmans and the other ethnic groups.

Talking Points Memo – Asking the Tough Questions [Counterpoint]

It’s hard not to have a lot of respect for Kaplan’s willingness to play the devil’s advocate’s role and point out that our coming Burmese invasion may not be a bed of roses after all. More seriously, though, I’m surprised that it’s so easy to publish this kind of hooey as if the last five years had never even happened. Here, meanwhile, Matt Yglesias answers those pushing for an invasion by noting two big potential pitfalls in the present international context — legitimacy and sustainability, as Matt goes on to note.

But I have an even simpler idea. Why don’t we not invade any more countries for a while?

I know that will strike some as too flippant or isolationist. But it’s not meant as the former and I’m confident it is not the latter. Many of our foreign policy thinkers seem to be developing the kind of character damage suffered by children who can buy the best toy every time their parents go to the mall — the inability to distinguish between necessities, simple wants and the mere desire for kicks which is born of pervasive moral boredom. Add to this the fact that we are now managing two foreign occupations — one of which is going poorly and a second which can only be described as a national catastrophe of historic proportions — and you see the true level of the disconnect.

Alternet – Juan Crow: The Deep South’s New Second-Class Citizens

From the living room of the battered trailer she and her mother call home, Mancha described what happened when she came out of the shower that morning. “My mother went out, and I was alone,” she said. “I was getting ready for school, getting dressed, when I heard this noise. I thought it was my mother coming back.” She went on in the Tex-Mex Spanish-inflected Georgia accent now heard throughout Dixie: “Some people were slamming car doors outside the trailer. I heard footsteps and then a loud boom and then somebody screaming, asking if we were ‘illegals,’ ‘Mexicans.’ These big men were standing in my living room holding guns. One man blocked my doorway. Another guy grabbed a gun on his side. I freaked out. ‘Oh, my God!’ I yelled.”

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