Nasty Double Standards on Man-made
Catastrophes and Crimes against Humanity
by Kim Petersen
www.dissidentvoice.org/, May 19th,
2008
Myanmar has been hit devastated by Cyclone
Nargis and tens of thousands are dead, tens of thousands more
require food and medical aid.1 The Myanmar regime is accused of
blocking and delaying aid to its people.
The Myanmar regime is not a regime that
I will defend. It is a militaristic clique that has seized power
and rules by force. Nevertheless, much the same can be said about
the US regime. Unlike the US regime, however, the Myanmar regime,
basically, confines its perfidy to within its own borders.
Of course, whenever humans are in trouble,
a responsible government will see to it that those humans are
attended to, fed, and cared for.
The Myanmar government is accused by western
governments and western media of negligence and worse towards
its own citizens.
UK prime minister Gordon Brown declared:
"It is being made into a man-made catastrophe by the negligence,
the neglect and the inhuman treatment of the Burmese people by
a regime that is failing to act and to allow the international
community to do what it wants to do."
"Man-made catastrophe." Isn't
that what the UK engineered in Iraq as junior partner (poodle)
to the US? Over a million excess Iraqi civilian mortalities estimated
since March 2003 (and there is no reason to ignore the US-UK supported
UN sanctions that killed another million or so Iraqi civilians
after 1991).2 That is genocide, and genocides are always man-made.
Brown added, "The responsibility
lies with the Burmese regime and they must be held accountable."
Fine, and to be fair and honest, at the
same time, Brown and erstwhile prime minister Tony Blair must
be held accountable for their role in the murderous carnage in
Iraq.
If being accountable is to have any meaning,
then Britain must, at long last, also be judged and do penance
for its crimes, among others, in the Chagos archipelago, on the
Indian subcontinent, against the Indigenous peoples in the western
hemisphere and Oceania, throughout the Middle East, particularly
its complicity in wiping of Palestine off the map.
The Plank Stuck in the Western Eye
The Europeans are calling for a forced
intervention, and some US members of the House of Representatives
are imploring president George Bush to intervene in Myanmar.
The Europeans, US, and Canada are complicit
with Zionists in the starvation of Palestinians. This is in addition
to demolishing homes, carrying out assassinations, withholding
money transfers, destroying vital utilities, etc. in Gaza,3 and
yet they are calling for an intervention elsewhere.
French Ambassador Jean-Maurice Ripert
called for immediate action in Myanmar: "We are shifting
from a situation of non-assistance to people in need to a situation
that could lead to a true crime against humanity if we go on like
that."
One might wonder why the British and French
"leaders" wail and moan about disaster-stricken Myanmar
but are silent about disaster-stricken New Orleans. Almost three
years after Hurricane Katrina struck the coast of Louisiana, people
in New Orleans are waiting on assistance.4
The 43 US representatives calling for
intervention in Myanmar are apparently unaware of the tardy US
response to the victims of Katrina5 or that the US regime rejected
aid from certain countries, such as Cuba. 6
Venezuela, which contributed generously
to the victims of Katrina, was reportedly rebuffed initially by
the Bush administration.7 An excuse proffered by a senior State
Department official, according to the Washington Post, was that
"unsolicited offers can be 'counterproductive.'"8
And, where are the voices of British and
French government figures about the genocide Israel perpetrates
against Palestinians? Obviously, these western government figures
are selectively speaking out on man-made catstrophes and crimes
against humanity.
Corporate Media Deluge on Myanmar vs.
Silence on Palestine
A sampling of corporate media headlines
reveals an animus toward the Myanmar government:
"Aid stymied off Myanmar shores and
borders," International Herald Tribune_"Myanmar Neighbors
Seek Ways To Press Country on Cyclone Aid," Wall Street Journal_"International
Pressure on Myanmar Junta Is Building," New York Times_"Diplomats
tour cyclone zone, but Myanmar still refuses aid," Euronews.net
That the corporate media would go into
a frenzy over Myanmar while ignoring the man-made catastrophes
in Palestine and in Iraq is telling.
In the case of Myanmar, the western corporate
media is behaving as it should: criticizing a non-democratic regime
and, supposedly, putting the interests of the Myanmarese people
front and center.
But one must ask: why is this same media
falling over itself to celebrate 60 years in power by Jewish segregationists
who contrived and meted out a catastrophe (al-Nakba) to the Palestinians?
Why has this same media remained so quiescent over the travails
that still bedevil the citizenry of New Orleans? Why does the
same media collaborate in the ultimate international crime of
aggression-occupation against Iraq?
The contrasting response to cyclone-ravaged
Myanmar with other contemporary disasters - whether man-made or
acts of nature - scathingly exposes the nasty double standards
of western governments and their corporate media.
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