Tragedy In Burma

The military is openly hunting dissidents there.

Soldiers said they were hunting pro-democracy protesters in Myanmar's largest city Wednesday and the top U.S. diplomat in the country said military police had pulled people out of their homes during the night.

Military vehicles patrolled the streets before dawn with loudspeakers blaring that: "We have photographs. We are going to make arrests!"

Shari Villarosa, the acting U.S. ambassador in Myanmar, said in a telephone interview that people in Yangon were terrified.

"From what we understand, military police ... are traveling around the city in the middle of the night, going into homes and picking up people," she said.

If there ever was a country that had forfeited their sovereignty, it's this one. The difference here is that the self-proclaimed moral authority of the world has been emasculated by scandal and human rights abuses of their own. Nobody will stand up for Burmese dissidents because there is nobody with the ability to sound credible while doing so. Imperialism in the Bush Age has manifestations far beyond domestic politics or Iraq. People all over the world are paying for it.