Time Magazine endorses "Bush Doctrine" of war! (Full Version)

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FirmhandKY -> Time Magazine endorses "Bush Doctrine" of war! (6/3/2008 3:00:20 PM)


Is It Time to Invade Burma?
Saturday, May. 10, 2008
By ROMESH RATNESAR

That's why it's time to consider a more serious option: invading Burma. Some observers, including former USAID director Andrew Natsios, have called on the U.S. to unilaterally begin air drops to the Burmese people regardless of what the junta says.

...

"It's important for the rulers to know the world has other options," Egeland says. "If there were, say, the threat of a cholera epidemic that could claim hundreds of thousands of lives and the government was incapable of preventing it, then maybe yes — you would intervene unilaterally." But by then, it could be too late.

I find it amazing that Time Magazine (which hasn't exactly been a cheer leader for the war in Iraq) sees nothing wrong - and appears to think it even admirable - to suggest the unprovoked invasion of a foreign country.  Especially one that isn't a military threat to the US at all.

Perhaps it's the issue of humanitarian aid that rings a bell with the writer, and Time?

I do think this is a good example of how someone can see another's actions are wrong and immoral, but when their own morality is outraged, they adopt the same strategies that they have previously condemned.

Firm



FullCircle -> RE: Time Magazine endorses "Bush Doctrine" of war! (6/3/2008 3:10:32 PM)

Any oil? ahem I mean terrorist WMD's.[:D]



kdsub -> RE: Time Magazine endorses "Bush Doctrine" of war! (6/3/2008 3:22:28 PM)

If we feel the need... air drop or just fly in with escorts and blow the suckers away if they give us any problems...BUT

We should not invade...not our business...yet... the people themselves are responsible for their own lives... If they submit to that type of rule it is their fault not ours...Have we not learned that lesson yet!!!!

Butch



thornhappy -> RE: Time Magazine endorses "Bush Doctrine" of war! (6/3/2008 3:36:27 PM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: FirmhandKY


Is It Time to Invade Burma?
Saturday, May. 10, 2008
By ROMESH RATNESAR

That's why it's time to consider a more serious option: invading Burma. Some observers, including former USAID director Andrew Natsios, have called on the U.S. to unilaterally begin air drops to the Burmese people regardless of what the junta says.

Firm

We weren't dropping aid supplies on Iraq...they were things that went boom.

thornhappy



celticlord2112 -> RE: Time Magazine endorses "Bush Doctrine" of war! (6/3/2008 4:05:16 PM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: kdsub

If we feel the need... air drop or just fly in with escorts and blow the suckers away if they give us any problems...BUT

We should not invade...not our business...yet... the people themselves are responsible for their own lives... If they submit to that type of rule it is their fault not ours...Have we not learned that lesson yet!!!!

Butch

Regardless of what sort of payload we're dropping, if our planes penetrate Burmese airspace, that is tantamount to invasion. From a political perspective, it IS invasion. Regardless of the justification, it is unavoidably a rejection of the Burmese' government's soveriegnty.

If Iraq was a bad idea, this is a worse one.



pinksugarsub -> RE: Time Magazine endorses "Bush Doctrine" of war! (6/3/2008 4:09:57 PM)

Where the hell is Burma?  What's going on there that we'd consider invading?  Gheesh i gotta renew my subscription to Time; i'm really out of touch.
 
pinksugarsub



celticlord2112 -> RE: Time Magazine endorses "Bush Doctrine" of war! (6/3/2008 4:13:15 PM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: pinksugarsub

Where the hell is Burma? What's going on there that we'd consider invading? Gheesh i gotta renew my subscription to Time; i'm really out of touch.

pinksugarsub


Burma == Myanmar. Site of devastating cyclone a few weeks back (just before the earthquake in central China).

The government refuses to let aid and relief workers into the country--at least it did, and I believe is now grudgingly letting a few in to assist in distributing relief supplies. The Secretary-General of the UN I believe voiced a desire to compel Burma to accept foreign aid worker; basically, the UN wants to invade Burma for "humanitarian reasons".



FirmhandKY -> RE: Time Magazine endorses "Bush Doctrine" of war! (6/3/2008 4:22:34 PM)

Fast Reply:

The "anti-Bush, anti-Iraq war" media is jumping all other this one.

Now The New Republic is dancing with unilateral intervention:


Hunger Strike

by The Editors
Post Date Wednesday, June 11, 2008 (either a mistype, or a paper publishing date)

Extract:

Maybe we would be talking about deposing the Burmese regime outright; maybe we would be discussing--as Robert Kaplan did in a recent New York Times op-ed--more modest steps, such as sending U.S. Marines on boats to deliver supplies to the hardest-hit areas. But, either way, realistic options would be considered for saving Burmese lives, even if those options involved violating Burmese sovereignty. [emphasis added]

Hypocrisy run rampant.

Firm



DomKen -> RE: Time Magazine endorses "Bush Doctrine" of war! (6/3/2008 4:40:43 PM)

I'm missing the whole invade, kill a bunch of people, displace a bunch more and then steal the most valuable natural resource in the country while doing absolutely nothing to stabilise the situation or get our troops out of harms way which is the defining element of the GWB doctrine.

Looks more to me like people calling for the international community to ignore the toothless tiger that is the Burmese leadership while sending aid to those in desperate need but its possible I missed something.



celticlord2112 -> RE: Time Magazine endorses "Bush Doctrine" of war! (6/3/2008 4:51:23 PM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: DomKen

I'm missing the whole invade, kill a bunch of people, displace a bunch more and then steal the most valuable natural resource in the country while doing absolutely nothing to stabilise the situation or get our troops out of harms way which is the defining element of the GWB doctrine.

Looks more to me like people calling for the international community to ignore the toothless tiger that is the Burmese leadership while sending aid to those in desperate need but its possible I missed something.

What you're missing is the soverign right of the Burmese government to refuse outside aid. It's a shitty choice on their part, but if Burma is a soveriegn nation it is their choice to make.

I don't recall the UN threatening to invade North Korea when famine struck that country in the late '90s.....and that was quite possibly worse than the disaster unfolding in Burma (don't think we know how many North Koreans starved to death during those years).



DomKen -> RE: Time Magazine endorses "Bush Doctrine" of war! (6/3/2008 5:00:37 PM)

The difference is that Burma isn't a serious threat to any of its neighbors. Entering North Korea could have resulted in an attack on South Korea. Seoul is very near the border and risking the lives of 20+ million to save perhaps 2 million doesn't make good sense.



celticlord2112 -> RE: Time Magazine endorses "Bush Doctrine" of war! (6/3/2008 5:03:37 PM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: DomKen

The difference is that Burma isn't a serious threat to any of its neighbors. Entering North Korea could have resulted in an attack on South Korea. Seoul is very near the border and risking the lives of 20+ million to save perhaps 2 million doesn't make good sense.

So war for "humanitarian reasons" is acceptable? (Provided of course, that the enemy has only limited capacity to fight back)



popeye1250 -> RE: Time Magazine endorses "Bush Doctrine" of war! (6/3/2008 5:04:28 PM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: kdsub

If we feel the need... air drop or just fly in with escorts and blow the suckers away if they give us any problems...BUT

We should not invade...not our business...yet... the people themselves are responsible for their own lives... If they submit to that type of rule it is their fault not ours...Have we not learned that lesson yet!!!!

Butch


Agreed Butch.
We should have learned from Vietnam.
That turned into an occupation just like Iraq.
And Celticlord is right too, we can't invade a sovereign country like we did in Iraq!
The Liberals would be up in arms over that!



lally3 -> RE: Time Magazine endorses "Bush Doctrine" of war! (6/3/2008 5:05:40 PM)

even if those options involved violating Burmese sovereignty. [emphasis added]

why are they even sitting around discussing this - the burmese government is clearly run by morons and who cares what they think anyway if people need aid they need it.......... jeeze! - is it really that simple or am i missing the point too.

human rights is all up the pole - we give human rights to bastards who want to blow us up and then sit around spending perfectly good money wondering if the people of burma have sufficient human rights to be chucked a bag of rice.

of course its all on the tail of iraq and the dodgy premis that lobbed bombs at them.  sadly our politicians never learn, they just go backwards in ever frustrating circles.  when we actually vote in someone with an ounce of logic we should throw a massive party! but frankly i wont start planning the buffet any time soon.



FirmhandKY -> RE: Time Magazine endorses "Bush Doctrine" of war! (6/3/2008 5:37:45 PM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: DomKen

I'm missing the whole invade, kill a bunch of people, displace a bunch more and then steal the most valuable natural resource in the country while doing absolutely nothing to stabilise the situation or get our troops out of harms way which is the defining element of the GWB doctrine.

Looks more to me like people calling for the international community to ignore the toothless tiger that is the Burmese leadership while sending aid to those in desperate need but its possible I missed something.


I've seen estimates of the possibility of hundreds of thousands of Burmese dying due to their government's indifference and paranoia.

Would you consider it a "crime against humanity" if that many, or even perhaps a million people died, because their government did nothing, when aid was available?

Would you consider this possibly to be genocide?

Firm



dcnovice -> RE: Time Magazine endorses "Bush Doctrine" of war! (6/3/2008 5:45:12 PM)

<fast reply>

Having read the Ratnesar piece now, I have a hard time seeing the OP's characterization of it as accurate.

For starters, the piece does not endorse anything. Rather, it raises questions about how to respond to the humanitarian crisis in Myanmar. A military response by the U.S. is merely one of the options discussed. The most specific military action discussed, by the way, is an air drop--a far cry from a full-fledged ground invasion. The author is quite clear about the drawbacks as well as the benefits of a military solution.

Nowhere, moreover, does the piece mention Bush or Iraq. So the piece is not an explicit endorsement of any Bush polciy, as the OP's headline misleadingly suggests. To view it as an implicit endorsement, one needs to make a convincing case that Iraq and Myanmar are parallel situations. Neither the Time author nor the OP attempts to make that case.

Readers of Time know that the magazine publishes pieces with a variety of perspectives. Taking a single piece as emblematic of some sort of monolithic magazine viewpoint is dubious.



popeye1250 -> RE: Time Magazine endorses "Bush Doctrine" of war! (6/3/2008 5:49:32 PM)

And there's a very good case against it in that the U.S. is not the world's policeman or rescue service.



FirmhandKY -> RE: Time Magazine endorses "Bush Doctrine" of war! (6/3/2008 6:11:57 PM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: dcnovice

<fast reply>

Having read the Ratnesar piece now, I have a hard time seeing the OP's characterization of it as accurate.

For starters, the piece does not endorse anything. Rather, it raises questions about how to respond to the humanitarian crisis in Myanmar. A military response by the U.S. is merely one of the options discussed. The most specific military action discussed, by the way, is an air drop--a far cry from a full-fledged ground invasion. The author is quite clear about the drawbacks as well as the benefits of a military solution.

Nowhere, moreover, does the piece mention Bush or Iraq. So the piece is not an explicit endorsement of any Bush polciy, as the OP's headline misleadingly suggests. To view it as an implicit endorsement, one needs to make a convincing case that Iraq and Myanmar are parallel situations. Neither the Time author nor the OP attempts to make that case.

Readers of Time know that the magazine publishes pieces with a variety of perspectives. Taking a single piece as emblematic of some sort of monolithic magazine viewpoint is dubious.


Good points.  But missing the point, dc.

The writer is the World Editor for Time, and he is writing an opinion piece that recommends the morality of doing what Bush did in Iraq i.e. violating the sovereignty of a nation for what he considers "good reason".

What's the title of the piece?  Is It Time to Invade Burma?"  That's his question.  In the article itself (in the very part I quoted in the OP) he answers his own question: "That's why it's time to consider a more serious option: invading Burma."

It that doesn't clearly tell you that he is advocating the unilateral, unjustified invasion of a foreign nation, just as Bush was accused of doing, then I don't know how to make it any clearer to you.

Does the writer explicitly state that he endorses the Bush Doctrine?  No.  Not hardly.  Which is what makes it so funny.

He is using the same logic that Bush used, but, this time, since it supports his (the writer's) own agenda, that makes it ok.

He's endorsing Bush's Doctrine and thinking by applying it.

Hey .... it's a little like being pregnant.  You can't be "just a little pregnant". 

Firm



dcnovice -> RE: Time Magazine endorses "Bush Doctrine" of war! (6/3/2008 6:21:12 PM)

We'll have to agree to disagree, Firm.

I think he's raising the question of whether to consider some sort of military action, but he stops far short of advocating any particular policy, let alone a ground-troop invasion.



FirmhandKY -> RE: Time Magazine endorses "Bush Doctrine" of war! (6/3/2008 6:43:29 PM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: dcnovice

We'll have to agree to disagree, Firm.

I think he's raising the question of whether to consider some sort of military action, but he stops far short of advocating any particular policy, let alone a ground-troop invasion.


dc, it's the principle.  Whether it's 30,000 combat soldiers, or 30,000 aide workers, it's a violation of national sovereignty.

After going through all the options, the writer makes this final statement:

"But we still haven't figured out when to give war a chance."

i.e. the Burma situation is one of those times that we ought to consider "giving war a chance.", if only the world had its act together.

*shrugs*  But if you don't see the point, there is no since in arguing about it.

I've often been accused of being "blind" to the "realities" of the Iraq war.  If so, then I think the blindness may be in others's eyes this time.

Firm



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