UK on Burma Cyclone Disaster: Unilateral Humanitarian Intervention

Ninme called this sort of thing "unilaterally aidvading."

Here is the news story and blurb:

Britain would support unilateral humanitarian intervention in Burma if the military government’s refusal to accept foreign aid for the victims of Cyclone Nargis results in epidemics and widespread deaths, Lord Malloch-Brown, the Foreign Office Minister, told The Times yesterday.

Lord Malloch-Brown was in Rangoon, the former Burmese capital, as part of an international effort to break the deadlock which has left many of the 2.5 million victims of the cyclone bereft of food, shelter, fresh water and medical care. The United Nations’ humanitarian chief, Sir John Holmes, arrived in the city last night and Ban Ki Moon, the UN Secretary-General, will also travel to Burma this week to make the case for an aid operation fronted by SouthEast Asian nations, India and China, but containing a strong UN component.

But Britain has not ruled out supporting action under the terms of the UN’s 2005 New York declaration, which sets out the “responsibility to protect” populations from crimes against humanity using “appropriate diplomatic, humanitarian and other peaceful means”. In a radio interview on Saturday, Gordon Brown referred to the possibility of unilaterally dropping international aid to stricken areas of the Irrawaddy delta, where as many as 129,000 people are believed to have died a fortnight ago.

“As far as air drops are concerned we rule nothing out, and the reason we rule nothing out, is that we want to get the aid directly to the people,” Mr Brown told the BBC.

I had mentioned this type of idea previously. The entire idea of "responsibility to protect," coming from the UN, makes me laugh -- and not in a good way.

As usual, the conduct of the Burmese ruling junta is shocking in its wickedness, but not surprising. There is no inhumanity like that practiced by a bad ruler on his own people, in the cause of self-interest.

At the same time, "aidvading" opens up a whole other can of worms.

UPDATE: Samizdata has a piquant description of this idea as: "Invade the country -- kill the generals -- feed the people." Errrrr . . .