Way OT: CIA in Myanmar: Controlling the flow of oil to china

["Dude VanWinkle" <dudevanwinkle () gmail com>]

An interesting take on things, even though no RED blooded american would agree.

from http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Southeast_Asia/IJ17Ae01.html
(not for those who want a quick summary)


<snippage>
In reality the US State Department has recruited and trained key
opposition leaders from numerous anti-government organizations in
Myanmar. It has poured the relatively huge sum (for Myanmar) of more
than $2.5 million annually into NED activities in promoting regime
change in Myanmar since at least 2003. The US regime change effort,
its Saffron Revolution, is being largely run, according to informed
reports, out of the US Consulate General in bordering Chaing Mai,
Thailand. There activists are recruited and trained, in some cases
directly in the US, before being sent back to organize inside Myanmar.
The US's NED admits to funding key opposition media including the New
Era Journal, Irrawaddy and the Democratic Voice of Burma radio.

The concert-master of the tactics of Saffron monk-led non-violence
regime change is Gene Sharp, founder of the deceptively-named Albert
Einstein Institution in Cambridge, Massachusetts, a group funded by an
arm of the NED to foster US-friendly regime change in key spots around
the world. Sharp's institute has been active in Myanmar since 1989,
just after the regime massacred some 3,000 protestors to silence the
opposition. CIA special operative and former US military attache in
Rangoon, Col Robert Helvey, an expert in clandestine operations,
introduced Sharp to Myanmar in 1989 to train the opposition there in
non-violent strategy. Interestingly, Sharp was also in China two weeks
before the dramatic events at Tiananmen Square.

Why Myanmar now?
A relevant question is why the US government has such a keen interest
in fostering regime change in Myanmar at this juncture. We can dismiss
rather quickly the idea that it has genuine concern for democracy,
justice, human rights for the oppressed population there. Iraq and
Afghanistan are sufficient testimony to the fact Washington's paean to
democacy is propaganda cover for another agenda.

The question is, what would lead to such engagement in such a remote
place as Myanmar?

Geopolitical control seems to be the answer - control ultimately of
the strategic sea lanes from the Persian Gulf to the South China Sea.
The coastline of Myanmar provides naval access in the proximity of one
of the world's most strategic water passages, the Strait of Malacca,
the narrow ship passage between Malaysia and Indonesia.

The Pentagon has been trying to militarize the region since September
11, 2001 on the argument of defending against possible terrorist
attack. The US has managed to gain an airbase on Banda Aceh, the
Sultan Iskandar Muda Air Force Base, on the northernmost tip of
Indonesia. The governments of the region, including Myanmar, however,
have adamantly refused US efforts to militarize the region. A glance
at a map (click here) will confirm the strategic importance of
Myanmar.

The Strait of Malacca, linking the Indian and Pacific Oceans, is the
shortest sea route between the Persian Gulf and China. It is the key
chokepoint in Asia. More than 80% of all China's oil imports are
shipped by tankers passing the Malacca Strait.
<snip>

The article goes on, but I will leave it to those who are interested
to read further..

-JP<neither blue blooded nor red blooded american, more purple'ish
with a green tint>
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