Secretary Gates's 2 Cents

Gates Defense Secretary Robert Gates is in Singapore for the Shangri-La Dialogue Security Conference. Mr Gates announced that Myanmar's obstruction of international efforts to help cyclone victims has cost "tens of thousands of lives."

Does anyone else find it ironic in the extreme for the Defense Secretary of the United States to chastise brazenly the leaders of another nation for their inhumane policies when millions have been displaced and brutalized, and hundreds of thousands of innocents have been killed in Iraq and Afghanistan as a direct result of the criminal wars of aggression waged in those countries by Mr Gates’ own administration?

To further heighten the astonishing level of irony, Mr Gates said the U.S. has not had problems helping other countries in natural disasters while still respecting their sovereignty.

Maybe the people of Iran, Iraq and Afghanistan should pray for a natural calamity. That way the US would put the wars on hold long enough at least to send humanitarian aid to the millions in need. As for “respecting their sovereignty”, one can only shake one’s head ruefully that Mr Gates should have the audacity to utter such an outrageous falsehood considering the US invasions of Cuba, the Philippines, Vietnam, Panama, Grenada, Nicaragua, Haiti, Guatemala, Iraq, Afghanistan, etc…

http://www.iiss.org/conferences/the-shangri-la-dialogue/shangri-la-dialogue-2007/

http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5hgz0bXAym7a1ffyOuvyA-IKvnLIgD910ALNO0

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/7428916.stm