Burma: catch all thread

[anonamatic]

I am not about to try to tie up the heroin problem by casting blame at the CIA. I've certainly looked at the situation closely enough in Afghanistan & Pakistan to be completely convinced that it's a problem there that is wholly derived from Pakistani tolerance of the traffic because it's the same insurgents who're using it to finance their imperialist agenda.

Worse, every time someone tries to talk about the problems in Burma, there's always some pinhead who goes off on a rant trying to blame the US for the problems. That by focusing only on the drug trade, and again tying it to poorly substantiated allegations of CIA involvement.

Since it's sure as hell not heroin dealers forcing the Thai government to treat refugees so badly, or forcing the Burmese military to engage in mass rapes, slavery, and broad amounts of wanton slaughter of civilians *today*, attempting to curtail discussion with a tired out "blame the USA" argument simply isn't going to cut it here. The countries where the heroin trade flourishes are almost uniformly pseudo-communist dictatorships, and nearly every one of them shares a border with China.

Also, antiwar.com is not at all a credible news source. It makes Fox News look fair & balanced, and Glen Beck look level headed and rational. It's the other side of coin of extremist propaganda nuttery in that respect. If you really believe that stuff, I suggest you FOIA the CIA for disclosure of related material, or contact the National Archives to see if they've got material related to it since it would now be over 20 years from the end of the Viet-Nam war & overdue for mandatory declassification.

In any case, I sure didn't post any of this stuff to give you an opportunity to go off on some jackass poorly sourced leftist rant that has nothing more going for it than your disdain for the USA.

[Steve Blair]

In any case, I sure didn't post any of this stuff to give you an opportunity to go off on some jackass poorly sourced leftist rant that has nothing more going for it than your disdain for the USA.

Let's leave the personal attacks out of this, shall we? Thanks.

[anonamatic]

Let's leave the personal attacks out of this, shall we? Thanks.

I was out of line. My apologies to everyone.

I won't retract my observation about Chinese border nations however. There's a very clear pattern there, and there's been one for quite a long time. Not a single one of the communist border states, much less some of the quasi-failed non-communist ones, are in any danger of becoming the next Hong Kong.

I think Tim Heinemann nailed this better than I could. It's part of why I wanted to focus on the conflict issues rather than narrowly on the drug trade issues. I think it's safe to say that in any modern failed state situation that it's going to be highly likely that organized crime and drug traffic will opportunistically take hold if there's an opening for it. To focus only on those issues in Burma, which has been all too common in the past, is to miss the boat.

[Backwards Observer]

I was out of line. My apologies to everyone.

Well, as you apparently intended to insult "everyone", I feel much better now.

[anonamatic]

Well, as you apparently intended to insult "everyone", I feel much better now.

Straight up I was out of line. I can be very caustic and I'm quite aware of it. That's why I normally make a lot of effort not to be. I've had the flu and when I'm ill I don't do quite as well with that as I'd wish. For me, while I'm both capable and quite comfortable in engaging in completely brutal debate, there's a lot to be said for doing so as civilly as possible. A large part of that involved not making personal attacks. It's one thing to denigrate an idea, quite another to denigrate a person. I don't seek to do the latter.

My apology was meant for you directly, but also for the silent multitudes. In my experience it isn't uncommon for people who're risk averse when it comes to free speech to form all sorts of impressions without expressing any of them. So, it makes a degree of sense to address such things a bit more broadly.

[Dayuhan]

I won't retract my observation about Chinese border nations however. There's a very clear pattern there, and there's been one for quite a long time. Not a single one of the communist border states, much less some of the quasi-failed non-communist ones, are in any danger of becoming the next Hong Kong.

The Vietnamese aren't doing all that badly, in their own way. They won't be the next HK, but they've stepped out of the basket and have a functioning economy. Still a ways to go, but that's common enough in the world. India might also be cited as a Chinese border state that has made a bit of progress.

Your observation on opium production being focused in Chinese border states is accurate enough, though it's not clear what conclusion you intended to draw from it. It would be equally accurate, for example, to observe that the vast majority of the world's opium is grown in places that were once colonies or occupied territories of a European power noted for having once run history's most successful state-sponsored drug trafficking operation. Again, drawing conclusions from that observation would be risky.

Easy to make observations; harder to move from observation to legitimate conclusion.

Certainly Burma is a conflicted place, and it's an ugly conflict. Almost seems a slice of Africa transported to SE Asia, or a throwback to the bad old days in SE Asia. The degree to which outside parties are responsible, or might be capable of forcing resolution, is debatable.

[anonamatic]

Your observation on opium production being focused in Chinese border states is accurate enough, though it's not clear what conclusion you intended to draw from it. It would be equally accurate, for example, to observe that the vast majority of the world's opium is grown in places that were once colonies or occupied territories of a European power noted for having once run history's most successful state-sponsored drug trafficking operation. Again, drawing conclusions from that observation would be risky.

Easy to make observations; harder to move from observation to legitimate conclusion.

Certainly Burma is a conflicted place, and it's an ugly conflict. Almost seems a slice of Africa transported to SE Asia, or a throwback to the bad old days in SE Asia. The degree to which outside parties are responsible, or might be capable of forcing resolution, is debatable.

I agree with you about Viet-Nam, & while they have some distance to go with governance etc. I think they're headed in the right direction.

Part of the reason why I'm making these observations is it's difficult to come to solid conclusions, more difficult to come up with potential solutions. It's also not quite that easy to see some of the patterns, and even when you can get past origins & past causality to current origins & causes, those things are only of limited use to trying to come up with solutions as they exist today. Trying to fix these problems, my god it's just not easy. When considering opium for example, one thing I try very hard not to forget is the antipathy China has towards the opium trade. It's a safe bet they dislike it more than anyone else in the area as a nation.

I think it's worth it to work on these problems. They're hard ones, and developing strategies isn't easy. It's difficult to pay attention to them amidst the drowning roar of whatever fancy the global media is piddling around with in the passing moment. I've had gnats chase me with a higher attention span than some of the major media sites seem capable of producing.

[Dayuhan]

The countries where the heroin trade flourishes are almost uniformly pseudo-communist dictatorships, and nearly every one of them shares a border with China.

Isn't something over 90% of the world's opium grown in Afghanistan and shipped through Pakistan? There are borders with China in both cases but neither can be credibly called a "pseudo-communist dictatorship" and any attempt to attribute the opium trade in these countries to Chinese machinations would be taking sinophobia to hitherto unheard of heights... quite an accomplishment given the heights sinophobia has reached in the past.

The US has a bit of a past in Burma, as do Britain, China, and others; companies from the US, France, China and others are involved to various extents today. None of these escape some level of complicity and responsibility for current conditions. It would certainly be unreasonable to blame it all on the US, the CIA, or Chevron/Total/PTT, just as it would be unreasonable to blame it all on China.