Why not invade Burma?

POSTED BY: chrisisall
UPDATED: Sunday, March 29, 2026 18:27
VIEWED: 6407
PAGE 7 of 8

PREV PAGE 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 NEXT PAGE

PIRATECAT

Tuesday, May 20, 2008 4:21 PM

America gets the blame if we go in were oppressors if we stay out were cowards. Lets help em we did in Somalia we just stayed to long.

"Battle of Serenity, Mal. Besides Zoe here, how many-" "I'm talkin at you! How many men in your platoon came out of their alive".

HERO

Tuesday, May 20, 2008 5:43 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by PirateCat:
America gets the blame if we go in were oppressors if we stay out were cowards. Lets help em we did in Somalia we just stayed to long.

Our mistake in Somalia was we thought too small. We should have sent 150,000 (plus an international contingent of 50,000...mostly Muslims, who in 1991 were largely on our side) men with tanks and attack helicopters for a long term rebuilding project that included a permanant Naval base on the Horn of Africa.

Apparently the idea of a US base in Somalia is catching on.

http://www.somalipress.com/20080416159/somali-news/somalia-us-warships
-hailed-for-naval-base.html

H

KWICKO

Tuesday, May 20, 2008 6:36 PM

Yeah, I never really did understand what the hell went on (and went wrong) in Somalia. How the hell did a bunch of low-rent warlords armed with nothing more... well, "Technical" is the term that comes to mind ( )... technical than a couple Toyota Hilux pickups with gun mounts manage to run our boys out of the country? I never could figure that one out...

I actually like your idea of a Muslim contingent. Sure would make it a lot easier to sell it to at least SOME of the Muslim world if we included them in the plans in the future...

FREMDFIRMA

Wednesday, May 21, 2008 3:26 PM

Mike, if you ask the troops on the ground what went wrong, they all start cussing the same guy.

Which'd be Steele, at the time a Captain.
(one of my buddies actually got physically pitched out of a club by his sycophants after asking then Lt Col Steele to sign his copy of Blackhawk down as a snide joke, lol !)

I am not so sure it was wholly Steeles fault, but damned if imma argue it with anyone who WAS there, you understand.

The big problem was really that most of the locals didn't like us, and our own behavior didn't win us any real support from them, without which, you just can NOT support an engagement on that scale because they act as a supportive militia, supply line, and kind of halfass intel and insurgency as well.

You wanna pull something like that off, you NEED the locals, and you need em in your pocket solid, hands down.

Add to that the idiotic myth of american superiority and invincibility, and you're begging for a disaster - stuff like not bringing your armor (Steele, again) and hovering over a hostile neighborhood for several minutes at a time, which is just ASKING for an RPG up the ass, which is exactly what happened to that particular Blackhawk....

It was a combination of complete arrogance and stupidity among the command staff, of the exact same kind which put us up to the ass in Iraq and Afghanistan, and which would guarantee an unmitigated disaster if we tried any "humanitarian" intervention now given our well known history of subversions, coups, propped up dictator scum, and recent abandonment of even the pretense of better moral behavior given renditions and gitmo.

As corrupt as the UN may be, there's less fear that they'd overthrow your government and prop up some dickhead like the Shah to run your country into the ground for the benefit of american corporations, and are they really all that more corrupt than KBR and Helliburton ?

If we REALLY wanna help these people, simple.

Fuck all the diplomatic bullshit, right off, just do this.

Create a lightweight package of food and water with it's own parachute, and tape a small pistol like the FP-45 Liberator to the bottom along with a small american flag and a note in native language.
"From your good friends the americans!"
(No propaganda, just keep it simple)

Then load up some C-5 and C-130s to the brim with them, assign a fighter escort to make sure no one bothers them, and airdrop the things all over the worst affected regions with other useful supplies on seperate pallets.

Do that a couple times, imho a better use of tax monies than "foreign aid" to assholes like a certain country that shall not be named.

And then LEAVE IT ALONE.

They're not *that* stupid, believe me, they'll get the idea, and quickly.

Then when the NEW government takes power, make a deal with them and finish the job.

-Frem
* http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FP-45_Liberator

HERO

Wednesday, May 21, 2008 8:24 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Fremdfirma:
Create a lightweight package of food and water with it's own parachute, and tape a small pistol like the FP-45 Liberator to the bottom along with a small american flag and a note in native language.
"From your good friends the americans!"
(No propaganda, just keep it simple)

Then load up some C-5 and C-130s to the brim with them, assign a fighter escort to make sure no one bothers them, and airdrop the things all over the worst affected regions with other useful supplies on seperate pallets.

Can't say I disagree with that...although we should vary the weapons load and include assault rifles, grenades, and light anti-tank weapons. We could even include some reliable radios, talk to them and then send them some 'instructors'.

While such measures would not work everywhere, historically they did work in Burma in World War Two. Large numbers of Burmese were conscripted to fight for the Japs and did poorly. Large numbers joined US and British special forces and did very well. Not to mention regular British units like the Bhurma Rifles that fought with distinction to liberate their homeland.

Culturally the Bhurmese would be very well suited to support and prosper from substantial western intervention or even some kind of pseudo-colonization (which would involve them being an autonomous territory for a time like Liberia or the Phillipines).

H

FREMDFIRMA

Thursday, May 22, 2008 2:38 AM

Well, the key point of that strategy is self-determination.

In essence we'd be saying...
"You want em out, YOU throw em out, here, we'll even help a little, but you gotta do it yourselves."

Sure, there would be some diplomatic whinging no doubt, but we would have the defense of not having explicitly done anything but provide food, water and a means of self defense to the population, and if they wanted to pitch the bums out, hey, it's their country, let em run it how they like.

In the end it would be THEIR decision, and that would make whatever came of it a hell of a lot more stable than anything we could prop up, especially if we actively supported it once it was in place.

It's not so much that we play the game that bothers me, it's that the folks we have currently moving the pieces are so damned bloody awful at it!

-Frem

It cannot be said enough, those who do not learn from history, are doomed to endlessly repeat it

KWICKO

Thursday, May 22, 2008 2:45 AM

Frem: Thanks for the history lesson. That helps a bit. For some odd reason, I was just tuned out of the news when all that was going down. I remember troops coming into Somalia, then shots of "technicals" roaming around towns, and then... nothing. We were gone, outta there. And then some movie came out which I never saw...

I like the way you're thinking with the "care packages", too. Give 'em food and first aid, and a gun to protect it with. Simple. Effective. Warlords are effective when dealing with an unarmed populace, but push a person far enough, and then give him a gun, and suddenly there's a whole lot fewer warlords in the world.

It's just enough of a Crazy Eddie solution to work! ;)

And it MIGHT just be effective in Burma as well.

One thing to remember, though - once the shooting dies down and a government starts to coalesce, you might not necessarily like where it's headed. But if they're headed in the wrong direction, there's always more care packages to drop...

Mike

"I supported Bush in 2000 and 2004 and intellegence[sic] had very little to do with that decision." - Hero, Real World Event Discussions

I can't help the sinking feeling that my country is now being run by people who read "1984" not as a cautionary tale, but rather as an instruction manual. - Michael Mock

FREMDFIRMA

Thursday, May 22, 2008 4:17 AM

Exactly.

Although even if we don't see completely eye to eye with the new regime, we can definately parley on past kindness and lucrative trade deals, open the rest of the diplomacy toolbox which has been rusting away as the petty little cowboys stand on it and scream useless threats.

As for getting us out of Somalia, well...

Ok, it's a fact, I despised Clinton and his smiling liars clan from the moment he took office, he was a treacherous double dealing slimerag and a notoriously effective liar, and we SHOULD have sent his snake oil ass to the UN as our rep, woulda been a good use for him, but given the alternatives, well....

Anyhows, one thing I have never called that sumbitch, is STUPID, that much, he never was.

He knew damn well we'd screwed it beyond recovery in Somalia, and Mogadishu was just the icing on the cake, so he wisely decided to cut our losses and get the hell out before we were mired up to our ass in a country fulla folk that hated our guts.

Bastard didn't bother with a bunch of bullshit rhetoric neither, just cut the orders and called em back, no sense throwing good after bad on a situation that was clearly untenable, so why waste our men and resources on a situation we ain't gonna change ?

Man was a scumbag, an adulterous lech, a liar and a crook... but he was never, ever... STUPID.

All things considered, given no better options than we currently have, and excluding Ron Paul, yes, I would vote for him even knowing what he is.

But his wife can go to hell, she's as much a nutter as Tipper Gore, and deep in the pockets of Big Pharma, and I don't want her anywhere near the reins of power, not cause she's a woman, to be honest I would prefer a female president for once, but cause Billary is just plain nuts, and her plans are something even PN would sneer at.

If they ever alter things so the Governator could run, that also opens the field for Jennifer Granholm, who would eat poor Arnie alive in any debate forum you could name.

Anyhows, Clinton might have done a lot of crap I did not approve of in his presidency, but yanking us out of Somalia before we got mousetrapped in there was one of the few things he did that I was 100% on board with.

-Frem

It cannot be said enough, those who do not learn from history, are doomed to endlessly repeat it

FREMDFIRMA

Thursday, May 22, 2008 4:33 AM

Quote:
Warlords are effective when dealing with an unarmed populace, but push a person far enough, and then give him a gun, and suddenly there's a whole lot fewer warlords in the world.

Which is, of course, why some folk here in the good ole US of A are so hell fired intent on getting us all unarmed.

But there's arms and arms, you know, you'd be truly amazed at what can be turned out in the average american kitchen or garage with just a little knowhow behind it - we always were an ingenious bunch, when it comes right down to it.

-F

JAYNEZTOWN

Friday, October 24, 2025 7:29 PM

Rohingya Muslims plead for help at the UN to stop the killings in Myanmar
https://uk.news.yahoo.com/rohingya-muslims-plead-help-un-220706464.htm
l

from 2015

The fake pictures of the Rohingya crisis
https://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-trending-32979147

PREV PAGE 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 NEXT PAGE