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Satellite Images Used to Monitor Burmese Junta
BurmesePython writes "Human rights groups are using high-resolution satellites images to reveal the activities of Burma's junta as it gets tough with pro-democracy protesters. Apparently 'it should be easy to spot groups of monks because of their distinctive maroon robes'. Like previous efforts to use satellites to monitor the humanitarian crisis in Darfur, the hope is it will prod the UN and other international actors into putting pressure on the Burmese rulers."
What was maroon
Shows as red
In the street
Monks lie dead
- Myanmar Shave
Don't you just love it when technology developed for governments for their "reasons", whatever they may be, are then used to make the World a better place?
I prefer Flambe as apposed flamebait.
It would be nice to see the satellite pictures in question.
But so far all the articles I've seen on this either have no pictures or other pictures (such as the smuggled cellphone images of the marching monks).
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
It's just not right that governments should be under such scrutiny by citizens. It's like they can't do anything without being monitored anymore. Imagine you just were trying to do your job of restoring order and punishing disruptive monks, with Little Brother looking over your shoulder. This slide into an accountable society is terrifying.
In Burma we don't have pro-democracy protesters like in your country, I don't know who told you that.
Why is it that the Americans generally think that the UN is pointless? Because they heard it said on fox or cnn? What exactly is your rationale for thinking that the world would be better off and not worse off without the UN?
Negative moral value of force outweighs the positive value of good intentions.
I'm sure it does all sorts of things, but when you watch it rendered impotent because a Security Council member is good friends with a pack of murderous military rulers, it's hard not to be just a tad cynical about its abilities.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
How about we think the UN is useless because they haven't done a fucking thing to stop the genocide in Darfur, to name one of many world crises.
The UN to murdering governments, "Stop, or we'll stay 'stop' again."
-- Will program for bandwidth
I feel sorry for anyone who thought that was a reasonable analogy.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
UN does not have an army. It only has the power that the nations that make it up allow it to have, primarily the security council members. If the USA wanted to send the military into Sudan to stop the genocide nobody was stopping it. If the USA wanted to submit a resolution to the UN to form an international force to go in, nobody was stopping it either.
Negative moral value of force outweighs the positive value of good intentions.
I'm terrified... I mean, UN sanctions could restrict the flow of English Top 40 CDs and name-brand clothing. That's fearsome.
I like to place meaningful quotes in my sig, so people will know that I know what meaningful quotes are.
the UN needs to step up or pull the plug
sure we all want the Burmese leaders to be accountable, we want everyone to be accountable, unless it US
like when nicaragua brought charges against the us to the UN security comission
and SOMEHOW the US was able to veto their own charges
the UN is nothing but a bandaid, that keeps falling off
back in the day we didnt have no old school
Dropping weapons is one thing. Just because they're armed doesn't mean they represent an effective fighting force to take on the Burmese Army. It's a nice thought, but one which would probably only produce far more casualties, mainly on the civilian side of things.
The real solution to this is for Beijing to get off its ass and threaten to pull its support for the Junta and to publicly announce that it will abstain from all Security Council votes regarding the country.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Yeah, but every time we do, you Europeans scream like schoolgirls.'
-- Will program for bandwidth
Yes that is exactly what should happen. We should say "Fuck russia and China's vetoes" and go in there and fuck up their regime Iraq style. Sorry about the swearing but how could you think the UN could do anything with all that in-fighting?!? Oppressors of the world unite it veto doing anything on Burma.
Then again why should we care right? They're not Muslim so it's ok.
Look at Thailand's ex prime minister there is an arrest warrant out on him for stealing hundreds of millions of tax payers money and he is suspected of funding multiple bombings in Bangkok. He is a terrorist but the UK welcomes him with open arms and lets him buy a football club with Thailand's tax payers money. DOUBLE STANDARDS.
I suppose China could dump all those American dollars, and you would have to call back your armies from everywhere because, well, the US would be broke and completely dipping into a major recession.
I think it's time that Americans started boning up on their history of 4th century Rome. There's some lessons there about overextension and debased currency that some might find educational.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
It could be that the US tends to ignore what the UN says anyways. Not like they were right about Iraq or anything. And not like the US actively sanctions another nation ignoring numerous resolutions to return land acquired by force. The UN is useless because the US has shown that if you are powerful enough, you can ignore the rules.
When was the last time Europe refused to back military intervention? How's that working out for you?
Tomorrow, I may eat another house plant
I doubt I am alone in hoping for a revolution that reinstates the proper, democratically elected government in Burma.
"Empathise with stupidity, and you're halfway to thinking like an idiot." - Iain M. Banks
I'm English not American and I don't want terrorists/murderers running around free in my country just because they're rich.
We should send all Burma's diplomats packing as they have no respect for human life.
Well, if the US isn't to blame for deaths in iraq, why is the UN to blame for deaths in Darfur?
/sets up soap box
... Which is WHY the world needs a new stateless naval and military/policing force made of individuals released from their nations' "sovereignty" so that these uniformed volunteers cannot be commanded to invade some country at the behest of their own home countries.
//steps down from soap box...
OK, FINALLY, a Slashdot topic to which I can bluntly state (some of) my political stance:
Basically, the maritime police force *I* envision would "deprecate all power-projecting nations' flag-waving navies into nothing more than own-shore coastal patrol units", thereby neutering/spaying or restraining other nations.
I assume the US, Japan, and South Korea, as well as the UK, Australia and some others wont' like it, but tough. 200 years from now we have to have arrived at improvement, and I see one way, one potential way.
Suppose Chinas growing wealth is diverted to funding the construction of STATELESS (read: non-nation-owned) policing ships that pack enough punch to SINK ANY US or other vessel that DARES to sink a stateless, multi-nationally-crewed policing vessel, and then after 25 years of service, these ships are turned over to the last captains home nation. If such an entity could gain favor, it would put the US Coast Guard in charge of US border security and have the USN and similar navies looking toward (but not forward to) retirement or deprecation.
The idea is that NO EXISTING warships are eligible to be in this program. Only new, monk or rabbi or priest-blessed/etc ships constructed for the SOLE PURPOSED of being maritime police to reduce the legitimacy of claims standing-navy nations now have and use as excuses to deliver a punch to people they don't like.
Moreover, such an entity/organization would stand a better chance at demolishing regimes of massive, global waste and redundancy.
Primary missions of the entity would be:
- rescue at-sea storm victims
- rescue victims of piracy or terrorism at sea or near sea
- rescue land-based earthquake/tsunami/flood victims
- use fresh-water over-production capacity of these ships to deliver potable water to lessen water wars
- locate, apprehend and bring to justice any seafaring scofflaws/criminals
- force the surfacing of submarines lurking along coasts where they don't belong, collecting datum, and distributing that tracking data globally to ensure the obsolescence of bad-ass-wannabe subs
- other missions as arrived upon that don't involve: sinking ships, killing crews en-masse, waving national flags, propping up corrupt regimes...
And, these ships I design won't carry nukes, nor will they carry any intercontinental weaponry, just only what it takes to take out retribution against incursion faction ships of nations that can't seem to get it in their heads that if the coast is not theirs, they shouldn't be prowling or lurking or setting down lying in wait.
Humanity needs to move forward. Sure, a lot of national pride might be globally blunted, but humanity deserves better. And, if anything, it *MIGHT* help reduce terrorism aimed at specific countries.
Previously: "Linux... Toward the Sunrise..." Now: "Linux... Toward the-- No, now, part of Every Sunrise"
It's ironic that the "UN is useless" meme is strongest in USA, which stops the UN (Security Council) from doing anything that would interfere with US economic interests when those interests involve murderous rulers friendly to those US economic interests.
Or ignores the UN when USA wants to take part in an illegal invasion. Then whines that the UN isn't doing enough to clean up the mess that USA has made of Iraq.
Kinda like USA sitting out years of WWI and also sitting on its collective hands for > 2 years of WWII. Hitler not a murderous enough bastard for Americans?
Excuse me whilst I gag on "Yer with us our yer with the terrrrrrrsts" as I think back on that.
Why is it that the Americans generally think that the UN is pointless?
Oh, maybe because of little things like Libya being on the UN human rights commission?
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Yes, even though the world bank says he actually reduced corruption in the country more than what had previously been done. But I guess he reduced other peoples corruption and added his own. And bombings? Who suspects that? I mean, apart from the people behind the recent military coup of a democratically elected president?
I'm sorry, but you just seem to be someone who has completely swallowed the propaganda of anti-democrats. If you want to live like that, fine, I don't care. I just want you to know that from a bystanders point of view, you appear quite insane. If many people in Thailand shares your views, it would be very bad if the UK sent him back; he might very well be killed by a bunch of lunatics!
at least there is a human rights commission
So what? There are elections in Cuba. Both are examples of form over substance.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
As another commenter points out, the UN in and of itself has zero power. It has no army, no police, no way of enforcing its will at all. The only power it gets is from member nations.
But if the only real power involved is the power of member nations, why don't the member nations just act and cut out the UN "middleman"? This is, after all, historically the way international action has been carried out. European governments trying to cope with Napoleon, the Kaiser, Hitler or (going further back) the Mongol or Ottoman invaders didn't feel a need to create a standing bureaucracy to validate by inscribing (in five official languages) on parchment what they'd already collectively decided to do. They just acted, forming governing councils and agreements as and where they were needed -- and not otherwise.
So why don't we do that nowadays? If Darfur (or Burma) is an international outrage, and most every reasonable person agrees on what should be done, what's to stop the four or five biggest countries from just forming an ad hoc Stop The Burma Slaughter task force, assigning it 25,000 troops and a naval task force, and punching the Go button?
Nothing, really. Except that this silly imaginary "world government" called the UN exists, and because it exists the major countries are off the hook. If you ask why doesn't somebody DO something, everyone can point to the UN as the agency that should be doing the doing.
In short, the UN pretty clearly now exists as a substitute for coordinated, effective international action. It's like how, in Congress or a university, if you want to just quietly kill a proposal for action, you refer it to a committee for a report. The UN exists so that big nations can ignore sticky problems by referring them to the UN for a report...or a vote on "sanctions"...whatever. You can look like you're doing something with actually, well, doing something.
Since Americans have always tended to favor action over talk, they tend to take a dim view of an institution which effectively and efficiently functions to replace action with talk. That's not what the UN is supposed to do, of course, but that's what it actually does. Yet another illustration of the Law of Unintended Consequences: there'd be much more effective international humanitarian action if the UN did not exist.
That's where you're spot on though. All these fools who don't see how overextending ourselves in two expensive and unwinnable (militarily) conflicts isn't eroding our national security need to get off fox news and go read some history. Islamofascism (whatever that is) might be a threat, but hardly on the scale of cold-war USSR, modern-day china, north korea... or more importantly our domestic education, health-care, social security, and sundry economic problems, to say nothing of global climate change, which threatens to be a bigger threat than all of the above.
I think that too many people want to see us recapture our WW2 era success, but without any of the domestic sacrifice that that conflict required of the average citizen.
This comment is fully compliant with RFC 527.
Where's Burma? Isn't that next to Siam?
Life sucks, but death doesn't put out at all. -- Thomas J. Kopp
Just airdrop a couple hundred thousand AK-47s, ammo, and green robes and see just how long the junta lasts.
Burma's the name that the last democratic regime in the country called it. Myanmar's what the military junta renamed it in 1989. Burmese opposition groups still call it Burma because they don't recognize the legitimacy of the military regime.
You can read more about it here. Personally, I use Burma. Let a legitimate regime change the English name one ever comes around.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
"We are the strongest nation in the world today. I do not believe we should ever apply that economic, political, or military power unilaterally. If we had followed that rule in Vietnam, we wouldn't have been there! None of our allies supported us; not Japan, not Germany, not Britain or France. If we can't persuade nations with comparable values of the merit of our cause, we'd better reexamine our reasoning."
Robert McNamara, United States Secretary of Defense, 1961-1968.
But you see that is not the problem with the UN but with the nation state system. Who gets to decide which country is a good citizen (USA in your opinion? Most people on this planet would disagree) and which one is a "rights-abusing monster"?
Here are the alternatives for ya, feel free to add your own:
1. A nation state is supreme, there are no meaningful international bodies: this creates a "might is right" situation that existed for most of the history, resulting in hell of a lot of killing. A situation that UN was created to correct in the first place.
2. There is a body above the nation state that has power to tell the nation state what to do (aka World Government): Listen Burma you better clean up your act or we will invade! OR Listen USA, we the UN have decided that your death penalty and gun laws are barbaric and we order you to change them!
3. An international forum where the sovereign states, good and bad, can come together and work on things in a peaceful way. Perhaps occasionally get the interests of sufficient number of them aligned to the point of doing something useful. This is pretty much what we have today. Not perfect, but what's your alternative?
Negative moral value of force outweighs the positive value of good intentions.
The UN doesn't exist to stop massacres in Africa and Asia (or Europe/America/Australia), or to stop dictators from killing their people. It exists to try and stop the big powers from getting into another huge war, by providing a diplomatic channel which hopefully won't be closed in protest to whatever it was this week. The rest is just feel good crap that is just there for show.
It doesn't matter if the guys with the big guns mess with the little countries. Or the little countries mess with each other. As long the big guns don't get used on each other all is well. Of course as with all bureaucracies it does a whole lot more, but that's all unimportant side issues.
The world hasn't been turned into a nuclear wasteland so so far so good for the UN.
"WE THE PEOPLES OF THE UNITED NATIONS DETERMINED to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war, which twice in our lifetime has brought untold sorrow to mankind..." the rest is minor nuisance stuff (stuff like genocide in Africa, human rights abuses by everyone, etc) that simply doesn't matter in comparison with turning the planet into radioactive frozen ball.
Burma was a British colony. Let the Brits and the Commonwealth take care of the problem by themselves for once. I look forward to watching Robert Mugabe's Zimbabwe thugs forces liberating Rangoon under the Union Jack.
"The average reporter we talk to is 27 years old......They literally know nothing." - Ben Rhodes
I feel sorry for anyone who thought that was a reasonable analogy. Of course it wasn't a reasonable analogy. There wasn't a single car in it!
P.P.S. I'm doing Science and I'm still alive.
...but you've mistaken me for someone who gives a shit.
Sincerely,
UN
My problem? I was perfectly gruntled, until some numbnuts came by and dissed me.
No, they can't just dump all the dollars. Couple problems with that:
1) Most of those funds are in the form for treasury securities (T-Bills/T-notes/T-bonds). Those are promissory notes issued by the US government. Basically it says "We agree to pay you this much money by this date." Fair enough, but the value is only because the government honours that agreement. So far, US securities are one of the safest things you can buy. They have always made good and have plenty of systems in place to make sure that keeps happening. However, they could if they wanted just not honour the notes issued to China. All of a sudden that wealth is gone. China can't sell the notes if the US has made it clear they are worthless, they can't redeem them, the wealth just goes away. This would, of course, have severe consequences to the US government in terms of the ability to issue more note sin the future since people wouldn't trust them as much, but it can be done.
2) China's economy is very dependant on it continuing to grow and the money continuing to come in. A big part of that is that America continues to be willing to buy their goods. Well, if America's economy got fucked up, and if it was well known that the cause was the Chinese, that would all go away. Not only does a depression put people in to a mode where they spend little money especially on non-essentials (which is largely what China produces) but there would be extensive boycotts, and perhaps even governmental sanction, against Chinese products. That happens, all of a sudden China has factories without work, people without jobs, an upcoming middle class facing the return to what is quite literally peasantry. Revolutions have started over that, and they know it.
3) China's dollar is pegged to the US dollar. For the US dollar to rapidly change is for their dollar to rapidly change, unless they un peg it, in which case it will also rapidly change. Strong and weak currencies are relative things and there is no one that is better than the other, each has advantages and disadvantages. However rapid change is problematic as your economy isn't ready for the new dynamic. Rapidly changing the US dollar would not do them well, regardless of how they chose to manage the yuan.
The problem is you cannot look at international economies in the same way you look at something like a personal economy. China and the US dont' have a worker - boss relationship. It is a customer - distributor relationship at the closest, but still different since each controls their own currency, each has real military force such that nobody else can come in and force them to do something different and so on. It's not a case of them holding the stick and the US being in trouble, it is a case of something like economic mutually assured destruction. Yes, they have the theoretical potential to hurt the US economy, however doing so would have severe consequences to them and as such isn't a real possibility.
It is difficult to understand fully since the globalized economy we have today is very new, and since on that scale things don't follow the same rules as the small scales we personally work on. Many people fail to understand this and thus misunderstand the intricacies of the situation.
If there's one thing bad 70's TV taught me, it's that a pissed off Buddhist monk is NOT to be trifled with. The Burmese military doesn't know what it's in for.
God invented whiskey so the Irish would not rule the world.
Let's get one thing straight. I never said the UN didn't do any good (you may have me confused with many other people here). But I do think that states that are as blatantly violating human rights as, say, Syria or Zimbabwe have no business on any human rights council. The mere fact that such states could find their way on it discredits one facet of the UN, as a primary advocate body for human rights in dignity on the international stage.
It fails on many counts, and most importantly on its basic structural arrangement which has, for the most part, allowed dominant states to render it completely useless. The Soviets and the Americans pretty much paralyzed it during the Cold War, and now China and Russia are doing it.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
I think you underestimate the brutality of this regime.
most of the heroin that comes into Australia is Burmese origin. The Karen rebels try to interrupt the supply, so as to weaken the Juntas trade, but the Junta retalliate by kidnapping Karen children and have them walk in front of the soldiers as human minesweepers.
"Laugh while you can a-monkey boy!" - Dr Emilio Lizardo
Yeah, making them effectively worthless, and dropping a lot of the value that is propping up the Yuan. Oh but they could make it all back on their industrial strength.... except as you pointed out, they just plunged their largest consumer market into recession.
They could simply peg the Yuan against the Euro and call it a day. It would hurt them badly, but they've been through worse in a recent era and they have a system in place to control the situation if an economic crisis did occur (Remember the Cultural Revolution?)
The US on the other hand would be left with little money or factories to restart their economy and due to the political corruption we face, I doubt we would be able recover as quickly.
That said... China has one thing the US doesn't have, and that is patience. Its current form of manifest destiny does itself as a world power and to have a military more powerful military (and more high tech) than the US plus a space program to boot. But they don't see a need to destroy their economy in an arms race and have planned to match it with their growth. For example by 2050 their goal is to have a bigger navy and more aircraft carriers than the US. As they have been all of history, they are very inward looking and don't see the need to expand except say the Taiwan issue so unless they are provoked they would never overtly do something against us.
However... Attacking Iran (which is one of their major foreign oil suppliers) would most likely be a catalyst for such a thing.
"I am the king of the Romans, and am superior to rules of grammar!"
-Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor (1368-1437)