NEW YORK
(Reuters) - The world's major powers agreed on Friday to delay a vote on tougher sanctions on Iran until late November at the earliest, depending on reports by the U.N. nuclear watchdog and a European Union
negotiator:
Besides, it would be embarrassing to be employing tougher sanctions against Iran for allegedly attempting to develop a nuclear weapons capability [something that Israel, India and Pakistan (the latter a recruiting, rest and recuperation centre for international terrorism) have been allowed to do with impunity] while the citizens of most democratic countries want tougher action against the brutal dictatorship in Myanmar / Burma.
At the same time, apart from minimally and laughably inconveniencing a few Myanmar officials planning foreign holidays to America ...
WASHINGTON, Sept. 29 The Bush administration, tightening its pressure
on Myanmar's military junta, will no longer allow several senior junta
officials to enter the United States.
... Japan has ruled out sanctions, it is unlikely that the EU, China, Russia or India will approve sanctions against a trading partner with such oil, gas and timber resources and many respected advisers lobby against sanctions for practical and humanitarian reasons while suggesting that "giving aid to fight poverty and disease would not be a concession to power - but steps towards democracy and prosperity".
It does strike me as odd that we should give aid to a very rich country whose leaders are interested only in spending the nation's riches on themselves while their people rot. Is there a better way? Should those who trumpet their religious beliefs ignore the cross-denominational, "am I my brother's keeper" and just let their international brothers and sisters be trampled into the dirt. It's a simple matter of great complexity and so far the answer seems to be a very narrow definition of the word "brother".
I remember sanctions having some effect against the evil, murderous, brutal, dictatorship (choose your own adjectives) in Apartheid South Africa - but I suspect the active force was the level of embarrassment felt by western business interests named and shamed (by the street level anti-apartheid movement) as traders in Black South African blood.
It appears that the good will of the international community can contribute little more than the usual, "Something must be done" rhetoric while steadfastly doing nothing of substance and continuing "business as usual" with brutal tyrants (unless they happen to be Cuban and internationally powerless or like Saddam Hussein, middle eastern and threatening the USA's Dollar Hegemony Over the Global Oil Market).
I must think more about this. In the meantime, the innocent continue to suffer. What else is new?
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