It's time for the U.N. to forcibly do the job the Myanmar government won't do.

It's not often that I advocate that the United Nations take military action.

However, the intransigence of the Government of Myanmar, where as many as 100,000 people are believed dead from a cyclone and millions more even now at risk of dying of starvation, water-borne illness and other effects of the cyclone, may leave no other choice.

Aid workers have been turned away or refused permission to enter the country. Aid shipments have been seized by the military government. They say they will distribute the aid themselves, but from all accounts that isn't happening. Even doctors have not been allowed in, or to travel to the region. It's not like this is happening simply because of incompetence though-- the military there was quick and efficient enough to put down pro-democracy demonstrations a few months ago. I guess it is clear what the generals in charge of the government consider a crisis to be and what they don't consider to be one.

To simply allow millions of people to starve and an epidemic to start because a couple of generals are afraid that someone may talk about democracy is unacceptable behavior, and so is allowing it to happen.

I don't support unilateral action by the U.S. or any other country. Unilateral military action, even for the best of reasons, often leads to a costly engagement with unforeseen consequences (such as our ill-fated mission to Somalia a few years ago.)

For this reason intervention to feed the people should be done by the United Nations. There are concerns on the part of many nations about sovereignty, and understandably so. The history of colonialism is not all that far in the past for people in many parts of the world to have forgotten about. But while any intervention at all raises some questions about it, a U.N. force is the least likely to raise concerns about any desire to enforce a permanent occupation. The Myanmar junta has few allies in the world, but they do have one important one-- China. Of course China has a veto in the security council and has shown little concern about human suffering, but after getting a black eye earlier this year from their handling of Tibet and with the Olympics about to be underway in Beijing, I doubt if China would exercise its veto to prevent the U.N. from sending a multinational force to the Irrawaddy delta to feed people and treat disease.

Bush suggests opposing junta in Myanmar, three years after his campaign broke the law to buy campaign wear from there

Today George Bush tried to shift the focus away from his botched job in Iraq and focused on the demonstrations led by Buddhist monks in Myanmar (formerly Burma) against the dictatorship there.

I would love to see the junta go, and there is no doubt that they are among the worst violators of human rights in the world, but it is interesting that the President should discover this now.

He certainly didn't care about it in 2004, when his campaign broke the law to purchase campaign gear from Burma!

The official merchandise Web site for President George W. Bush's re-election campaign has sold clothing made in Burma, whose goods were banned by Bush from the U.S. last year to punish its military dictatorship.

The merchandise sold on www.georgewbushstore.com includes a $49.95 fleece pullover, embroidered with the Bush-Cheney '04 logo and bearing a label stating it was made in Burma, now Myanmar. The jacket was sent to Newsday as part of an order that included a shirt made in Mexico and a hat not bearing a country-of-origin label.

Poor Bush. I'd call him a hypocrite for this, but I'm not sure that's the whole story. The truth is, he's accumulated so much crap by now that he can't even keep track of it all.

Maybe they want some '08 business from the GOP too.

The military dicatorship in Myanmar announced this week that they are releasing almost 3,000 prisoners, including about 20 political prisoners.

Of course trade with the dictatorship, one of the most notorious human rights abusers in the world, remains forbidden. Myanmar (formerly called Burma) continues to periodically detain detain Nobel Prize winner Suu Kyi, who is actually (by reason of election) the legitimate President of the country.

The junta seized power after a bloody 1988 crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrators led by Suu Kyi. In 1990, junta refused to step down when Suu Kyi's party won a landslide election.

Why are they taking this step now? Well, you might recall that the Bush-Cheney '04 campaign was embarrassed by a story in which it turned out that the campaign itself had violated the boycott on Myanmar by outsourcing Bush-Cheney campaign wear to Myanmar. They apparently got around the boycott by having 'made in Burma' (the countries' old name) put on campaign gear bearing the Bush-Cheney '04 logo since the law now says that they couldn't trade with Myanmar. It would be like someone claiming they were respecting my marriage by sending romantic letters to my wife using her maiden name. But the Bush-Cheney campaign apparently thought that was OK (or more likely figured that if they did this nobody would catch them on it.) Considering that the Bush administration had invaded another country seeking to achieve 'regime change' by ousting a dictator, for them to buy campaign gear from (what is likely a sweatshop in) Myanmar is particularly hypocritical.

Remember too, that Myanmar is a country which because of the sanctions has missed out on the 'outsourcing' bonanza that has shipped millions of American jobs to other countries in Asia. So apparently they are now trying to improve their public image (though without ceding any actual control) in order to maybe get an encore from the GOP with the 2008 election season right around the corner.