(Untitled)

[kamelot_amhran]

Article here.
Gist of my response: I feel it is wrong for military/armed/etc  to attack/hurt/thrown things (tear gas) at unarmed/defenseless  other people (such as would include Buddhists monks. You don't think they'd go around with machine guns, do you? Excuse me while I laugh at this concept).

Of course I have to take into account the biases of the

Comments

[ijikukeistva]

I'm not sure I understand it exactly, but it seems that the nations with interests related to oil, nuclear plants or trade (generally related to sources of energy) are more in favor of letting Burmese government(?) handle it themselves. Also those same nations are very concerned with balance. Western nations are more "let's do something". Dunno...

[kamelot_amhran]

I didn't acutally read the interests of the countries with the exception of the UK, the US and some of China and India (I think). The general impression I got was that the West had less influence on the gov't, less power to influence the gov't either way while the East could actually influence the situation one way or another. The Eastern nations might be more vague or supportive of the gov't and the Western nations more supportive of the people/monks but they have less actual influence. The US, for example, cut off all trade, oil, etc so doesn't have leeway in Burma. The US is going to "stand with" the people with implies, to me, not doing much. That is how I took it anyway.
Thank you for your response and thoughts.

[ijikukeistva]

Well, I just noticed that India for example had signed some kind of oil or power-related contract. It also sounds like there's a degree of oil/energy resources in Burma.
But yeah, that's interesting about how the people/monk helpers have less influence. Though I don't see how "standing with" the people is gonna do any good. (of course that reminds me of Ghandi so nevermind...)
Yes I'm rambling...

On top, then off....WAY off

[kamelot_amhran]

By "people/monk helpers have less influence" do you mean countries that support the people including monks or do you mean the people and monks who are helping or trying to create change? Cos I thought it was the countries with less influence. The monks actually would have high influence in the country. Burma's one of the places where people (well, men probably--don't know if they have nuns there) join the monastery for a short time then return to the world so it's prevelant in their culture. Also, monks stopped accepting things from officals with is bad because one of the main ways, in Buddhism, to obtain merit is by giving to the monks. By giving stuff away you're better off. So they're striking at an ideological/religious weak point (since many people are Buddhists). Remember reading that. Found it all amusing