A Question For Robert Kaplan

by tristero

Yesterday, Robert Kaplan in the NY Times: discusses, in all seriousness, the possibility of invading Myanmar to get aid to the victims of the cyclone. He concludes that it’s probably a bad idea – you think? – but threatening invasion has some possibility. Uh huh, riiiight. And along the way, types this:

It seems like a simple moral decision: help the survivors of the cyclone. But liberating Iraq from an Arab Stalin also seemed simple and moral. (And it might have been, had we planned for the aftermath.)

Sigh. There are times I wonder whether something was dropped in the food supply and drove this country mad.

No, it could never have been, Mr. Kaplan. Yes, the aftermath of Bush’s invasions was the result of incompetent decision-making. But it’s all of a piece with the incompetent decision-making that led to the invasion of Iraq in the first place.

And an invasion of Myanmar is just about the stupidest idea I’ve heard since the last stupid idea that came out of the White Man’s Burden crowd.

Time to cue the Nixonlandians who’re gonna bleat, Are you suggesting that the world stand idly by while the Myanmar military junta witholds aid to perhaps hundreds of thousands of starving, homeless children? As if invasion of Myanmar was an actual choice. As if the only “choices” available are invade or do nothing.

Folks, this a bonafide childish idea. There is something truly shameful, perhaps even immoral, about the Paper of Record taking seriously an idea as batty as invading Myanmar – if only to reject it – when people are suffering horribly in the aftermath of the cyclone and could benefit from serious solutions.

Perhaps you disagree and think we should waste everyone’s time discussing the Myanmar invasion with a suitably sober mien. So Iet me pose a question to Mr. Kaplan:

Did any op-ed writer in Mexico seriously discuss the possibility of invading the US in the wake of the incompetent, maliciously negligent response of the Bush Administration to Katrina?

[UPDATE: I note that Josh Marshall takes the same attitude I did towards Kaplan’s article. Meanwhile, Matt repeats the same mistake he made before Bush/Iraq, taking seriously the idea of an invasion when it should be denounced and mocked.]

Special note: I am very aware that Kaplan is against the invasion of Myanmar. The point of this post is the abysmally low level of mainstream discourse that would even bother to raise the notion. You simply can’t have a serious discussion of the terrible tragedy of Myanmar within the context of proposing willynilly to invade the country. The cultural context that saw fit to take seriously the possibility of invasion is so juvenile and crude as to make rational discussion impossible. But we in the US take it as perfectly normal that one of the most widely-respected newspapers in the world would see fit to dignify such a puerile notion by entertaining a discussion about it.

That is how low public discourse has sunk, to the level of grammar school – sit-in-a-circle social studies. . Next topic – What did we all think of My Pet Goat?