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Originally Posted by Nick 0208 Ldn
The Indians are going to fire on a British or American ship attempting to deliver aid to the Burmese, surely?
And nor would even the Chinese when it came down to it IMO, they'd e able to see what was going on and the numbers and eqiupment invovled.
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They would threaten, certainly. They may not fire. There will be diplomatic consequences though, for efforts to engage both India, China, and any other country, at any point thereafter. I don't think that such consequences are worth risking for a one time injection of aid, poorly managed, hastily put together, and delivered in a haphazard manner.
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Originally Posted by Nick 0208 Ldn
There are something like 17,000 Red Cross volunteers in Burma and local staff for small NGOs, it is not as if there is nobody onthe ground to facilitate matter at all.
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Hopefully, most of these people are in the Irrawaddy delta, have the right communications equipment, and are properly organised to dispense food and materiel aid as well as medical treatment. Otherwise it might as well be as if there were nobody.
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Originally Posted by Nick 0208 Ldn
Though like Team Brian GB has said, itis so frustrating, the near impotence of the foreign policy of so many nations these days.
It has been what, 9 days now? Many areas will still be completely isolated from help, you can imagine the damage that has already been done with this neglect that has been forced upon us. Water-borne diseases must be rife.
What do you then propose spinoza, that we sit here doing pretty much nothing? Simply sending in reconnaissance teams?
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(1) Send the aid through India, China and Thailand.
(2) If you're going to waste aid by air dropping loads of it on the offchance that a small percentage gets to the people who need it, you might as well bribe the Burmese army with what was going to be wasted anyway. Some of it does trickle down to people who would need it - soldiers' families, for example.
(3) If aid is to be delivered unilaterally without the consent of the Burmese military, then it has to be done in a manner such that China, India and Russia are comfortable with it. You might even get them to do the strong arming themselves.
Sending a USN or RN battlegroup to the region without getting agreement from all the interested countries, flying bombers and transport planes over the country dropping food aid without sending people in as well, and thinking that this actually works strikes me as foolish.