To the editor:

Yesterday’s editorial about Burma [“Backup for Burma”] managed to be, at various points, arrogant, ignorant, chauvinistic and militarily aggressive — qualities that have hardly endeared the U.S. to the rest of the world during the past several years.

To begin with, you can add “vagueness” and “inanity” to your list of offenses as well. You write, “If a people want change and are willing to risk their lives to produce it, then shouldn’t we help? The answer is that we must help, and that we have may have to use force” (your emphasis). By this logic, the U.S. should threaten Israel with possible military action until it withdraws from the occupied Palestinian territories — for surely, the Palestinians want change.

But this foreign policy formula, if it can be called that, is really just meaningless. What sort of change? And how many people? By your prescription, we should aid not only the Burmese opposition but the Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka and FARC in Colombia.

We have a golden opportunity to intervene in this matter, you argue.

“Whereas the international community denounced American unilateralism preceding and during the Iraq war, it seems that the entire Western world is united behind the Burmese.” This is a blatant sleight of hand. The international community (and I very much enjoy your slip from “international community” to “entire Western world”) was, in fact, united in wanting to find a solution to Saddam Hussein in 2003; what it opposed was American unilateral military action. [Moreover,] you also fail to address the possible unwanted ramifications of an invasion, such as an escalation of killings by a desperate Burmese junta or involvement by China leading to a confrontation between it and the United States.

My heart goes out to those in Burma struggling for their freedom. No one could fail to be moved by the reports and images that have been coming out of that country, usually in defiance of the state-controlled media. Obviously, most world leaders share these sentiments. However, they have the responsibility and maturity not to flippantly argue for a military invasion, even less one based on justifications and historical accounts that do not even pass the smell test.

Matt Simonton

Ph.D. Student, Department of Classics