In the previous post on Stephen King’s The Mist, Andy left this comment:

Completely unrelated (but since I am not blogging anymore):

Am I the only one who finds it odd (sickeningly so) that we would willingly invade a sovereign nation when most of the world was against the idea (I supported it), yet now this Administration refuses to even consider airdrops of basic supplies and foodstuffs to help a dying people because the junta that rules Burma says we can’t?

I quit blogging and suddenly there’s a whole bunch of stupid in the news.  Ain’t it always the way?

I wrote a lenghty response intending to leave a comment--but the lengthiness got to the point where it just seemed a bit excessive. So, instead of a comment, it’s become a little post. Feel free to snipe away at my arguments.

If the Myanmarese government does not relent, U.S. officials are discussing other options, including bypassing the government and sending helicopters directly to the worst-hit Irrawaddy Delta, where more than 1 million people may have lost their homes.

So, yeah, apparently they actually are considering direct aid and not just limited to haphazard airdrops.

I know that we already have one US ship in the area that isn’t being allowed to deliver its aid. We have approval for a single military plane to deliver food and medical supplies. US willingness to help is unquestioned, but the ability to give effective aid is being blocked by their government.

How useful would it be to just drop giant bundles of food and medicine? Without orderly distribution, is it likely to get to the people who need it or likely to be hoarded by those who get to it first regardless of need? How effective do you really think that will be? I’m not saying that we shouldn’t, but I am saying that much of the aid would be wasted and it would be far better if we could find an official avenue for aid distribution rather than dropping stuff out of the sky and hoping for the best.

If we force aid into the country, it will be a military operation with attendant risks. That the planning and negotiating isn’t done yet isn’t a surprise. Neither is it a surprise that some people want the government to act now without proper planning, consideration, or preparation. We aren’t talking about a full-on invasion, of course, but any time you send military vehicles into another nation’s airspace or plant your personnel on the ground without their government’s permission, you face political and military risks. Part of the consideration--which, for some reason, you don’t think has happened--is whether the results are worth the risks.

So far, the UN and much of the world is also against forcing aid--and with good reason. Aid money isn’t infinite and neither are the supplies that need to be sent; any way to maximize that aid instead of wasting it is just good sense.

Meanwhile, Kouchner’s proposal of forcing aid into the country gained little traction. Confrontation would not be helpful, UN Undersecretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs David Holmes said Thursday, a stance echoed by the European Commission, China, and other nations.

“I can understand the sentiment of France’s foreign minister, but I don’t think it’s the solution,” says James Schoff, associate director of Asia-Pacific studies at the Institute for Foreign Policy Analysis in Cambridge, Mass.

“You could get to a point where [the UN] could just do drops from the air. But for the whole assessment process – I don’t see how you could do that without working with locals on the ground,” he continues.

Analysts are hard pressed to recall a natural disaster where the UN’s “responsibility to protect” – a phrase conceived in 2005 largely in response to atrocities in Rwanda and Darfur – has been invoked.

There is probably no other possibility for delivering aid to Burma right now, Mr. Schoff continues, other than slow diplomatic gains and persistence. In a few days, Burma might come around, he says.

My guess--and it is just as much a guess as your assumption that the Bush administration isn’t even “considering” airdrops--is that aid will be forced if accommodation can’t be reached in the next week or so. And if that decision comes, it could well be at the expense of international popular opinion again. Currently, naval vessels are heading to set up a base of operations to the area and planes and equipment have been moved to establish an operating base in Thailand--these are all moves that will give us the capacity to quickly deliver aid to the country whether we are officially allowed or not. Not exactly the stuff of a nation sitting back, unwilling to help people in their time of suffering.

In other words, these are I think that it is likely that not only has direct aid been considered, but plans are in the works to actually deliver that aid in the most effective possible manner if we can’t reach an agreement with their government.

I’m sorry, but I don’t share your sense of outrage.