U.S. FAILURE IN BURMA

November 2023

This has been a complete failure by the United States Government, not only in foreign policy but in pursuing basic humanitarian objectives. The people of Burma begged for help. They pleaded for the International Community to uphold its Responsibility to Protect. They asked, again and again, for the imposition of a No Fly Zone, so the junta's terrorism from the sky would end. They asked for real sanctions against MOGE. And what did they get? Nothing.

The coup occurred right after Biden was sworn in. A U.S. naval fleet was in the Bay of Bengal. He talked tough. You could feel then that - finally - America was about to do something. But then nothing. The hard talk went away.

What happened? Blinken and his staff in the State Department's East Asia and Pacific Bureau countermanded the new President. They said: "Do nothing." It's too difficult, too tricky, it's in China's sphere of influence, and probably a thousand other excuses. The one thing they did do though, and they did it extraordinarily well, is what they have done since 1962: Ignore the suffering of the people of the country. The Four Cuts against the Karen, Karenni, Shan and Kachin? Who cares? America doesn't. The Rohingya genocide? Who cares? America doesn't. The new civil war and the largest scale terrorism the world has ever seen? Terrorism against an entire nation. The worst "scorched earth" campaign in history. Who cares? America doesn't.

Never forget, my friends and colleagues from Burma: America, and Europe, abandoned you when you asked for perfectly reasonable help and which would have saved thousands if not tens of thousands of your lives.