Bloodthirsty Liberal

Serious question: why would we expect the paranoid, cruel government of Burma to behave differently just because of a thunderstorm? A very big thunderstorm, I grant you, but still—you think a stiff gale might have changed Hitler’s mind?

Pressure was mounting on cyclone-devastated Myanmar Friday to allow access to an army of foreign relief workers as the country’s isolationist military regime rejected expert help in delivering aid to victims at risk of disease and starvation.

A U.N. spokesman described the bureaucratic delays as unprecedented, while Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said the military junta in Myanmar has behaved “appallingly” by declining visas to relief workers.

…

Paul Risley, a spokesman for the U.N. World Food Program, told CNN the agency has never encountered such resistance to offers of help in such a major humanitarian crisis.

“This has never happened before,” he told CNN on Friday.

Which should tell you something about the Burmese junta.

But I question his assertion that “this has never happened before”:

North Koreans are dying because of food shortages in rural areas, and a massive famine is just a matter of time, a South Korean aid group said Friday.

The food situation was as bad as the famine that hit the country in the mid-1990s, which left as many as 2 million people dead, Seoul-based Good Friends — a Buddhist-affiliated group that sends food and other aid to the North — cited an unidentified North Korean official Friday as saying.

“So far, mass deaths have not occurred as people have become more used to starvation than in the 1990s, but famine is a matter of time,” the official was quoted as saying by the aid group.

It happens perennially. And Burma has a long way to go to catch up with North Korea.

UPDATE
The Burmese junta says “no energy bars until you finish your broccoli”:

Two planes that landed Friday morning in Rangon carrying 38 tons of high-energy biscuits, medical kits and other items were seized by officials at Yangon International Airport, said Tony Banbury.

The cargo is enough to feed 95,000 people, he said.

“We off-loaded the food, and then the authorities refused us permission to take that food away.

“We were told we needed a special letter from the Minister of Social Welfare. We hand-delivered a request to him. The answer back was ‘No, you can’t have the food.’

“That food is now sitting on the tarmac doing no good.”

Under U.N. rules, the organization must control and distribute its aid supplies.

“I’m furious. This is unacceptable,” Banbury said.

Uh-huh.

Your feelings are noted, and I’m sure everyone will do their best to accommodate them.

Why don’t you protest to the Security Council? After China threatens to veto a resolution condemning the Burmese junta, you could probably get out of there with a strong “expression of concern”. Everyone’s happy, if still a little hungry.

And ship the rest of the food to North Korea (thought I’m on record advocating to let them starve, just to make a political point). One energy bar could feed an extended family of eight North Koreans for a month.

Michelle Malkin quotes a great editorial from the Dallas Morning News:

The United States has joined other governments and independent relief agencies from around the world in standing ready to help – but short of an act of war, it cannot intervene. Myanmar’s generals now join the ranks of history’s great tyrants – despots like Stalin, Mao, North Korea’s Kim dynasty – who were willing to allow the masses die of hunger and disease rather than yield the least bit of control.

I read that we’re considering air drops directly to the affected areas. [Bleep] the junta, [bleep] the UN: you’re hungry, we’ll feed you.