This past week Buddhist monks in Myanmar (Burma) marched in the streets for days to protest the military junta that rules the country. With the junta being one of the most oppressive regimes in the world and having ruled for over 19 years, many Myanmar citizens went out onto the streets as well to support the monks and criticize the government. Predictably the junta responded with armed suppression, firing on and arresting many protesters and critics. Some were even killed but the actual death toll remains unclear.
The junta even cut the nation's Internet, after images and blogs on the protests were posted within Burma, allowing the world to see and know what was going on. Some of the photos quite clearly showed the protestors as well as the troops, as these from racoles on flickr. It's very remarkable how technology can make us seem close to events yet be so far away and helpless. Also knowing the about backdrop to these protests, of the military regime and how back in 1988 thousands of Myanmese were killed in similar street protests, makes me understand how poignant and desperate the situation is.
The protestors, as well as Myanmar diaspora around the world are putting hope on the UN and the world in general, and even the US to help them overcome junta rule. To me, it seems unlikely though that the military junta will bow to world pressure and relinquish their rule, especially given they have tacit support from some neighboring countries who do a lot of trade with Myanmar for its natural resources. The junta has enjoyed a long and relatively stable rule and have endured a lot of world criticism that they do not care much about their lack of legitimacy on the world stage.

"you got rid of one Saddam and you left us with 50."

This is a good article from the Guardian on the situation in Iraq. A historian visited Iraq and not surprisingly came up with the conclusion that the Americans really messed up the invasion, ignored realities of the nation and made things much worse than it was under Saddam. This is best summed up by what one Iraqi said in the article which is both the title of the article and of this post. By ignoring skeptics, critics and informed experts on Iraq, the American Bush-led administration, as well as UK Prime Minister Tony Blair, rushed into Iraq with a simplistic and short-sighted mission to topple Saddam and take over the country. This initially succeeded but when it came to the nitty-gritty of running the country and helping Iraqis rebuild a post-Saddam society, they failed miserably. Of course, there are accusations, quite a lot of them actually, that the Americans were never really interested in helping the Iraqi people and were just interested in oil. But that's another story of course.

About the civil struggles that have broken out between Sunni, Shiite and Kurd elements, historian Charles Tripp had this to say- "...we were trying to say that there was a complex society in Iraq which shouldn't be reduced to the caricature of Saddam Hussein sitting upon the oppressed masses. The oppressed masses have their own agenda - and sometimes they're very nasty indeed."

It's getting harder to post more here, not just because of school but also because of a change of heart. I'm still interested and concerned in world affairs but more and more it seems this will decrease in the future. Anyways, for now I'll just post this on Israel's declaration of Gaza as hostile. Israel bases this decision on the firing of rockets by militants in Gaza. Since last year Gaza has been under an embargo as Israel maintains a tight grip over it. UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon says it best with this, "There are 1.4 million people in Gaza, including the old, the young and the sick, who are already suffering from the impact of prolonged closure. They should not be punished for the unacceptable actions of militants and extremists."