Our heads catching up with our hearts

I have to say that I am immensely proud of the effort by Secretary of Defense, Robert Gates, and the Bush Administration in handling what is an enormously complicated situation in addressing emergency humanitarian needs in Myanmar.

World faces limits to getting aid into Myanmar

"After initially agreeing to one flight on Monday, Myanmar's leaders have opened the door to daily flights by Marine and Air Force C-130 cargo planes. As of Saturday, the U.S. military had flown 21 C-130s loaded with about 500,000 pounds of aid into Yangon from their makeshift base in Utapao, Thailand.

Another four flights left Friday from the U.S. military's emergency headquarters at Utapao Air Base, in central Thailand.

'At this time, the needs are so immense, they are so large, that we're taking some risks to hope that we can get the assistance through to the ones who are most in need,' said USAID administrator Henrietta Fore. 'There is an enormous humanitarian urgency to this effort.'

Thai and Indian military missions also have been approved, and British, French and Australian warships were converging on the area.

Still, the U.N. and the international Red Cross say that between 1.6 and 2.5 million people are in urgent need of food, water and shelter. Only 270,000 have been reached so far by the aid groups.

Malloch-Brown estimated that 24 C-130 flights a day would be needed to meet the crisis — far higher than the current level. And, so far, U.S. requests to bring in helicopters, one of the few means of reaching the worst-hit regions, have been denied.

Myanmar's government has less than 40 helicopters, most old and in disrepair, and some 15 transport planes, primarily small jets unable to carry hundreds of tons of supplies.

The lack of motion is all the more visible because of the vast resources that are available to help.

Because of an annual exercise scheduled well before Cyclone Nargis hit, the U.S. has 11,000 troops in and around Thailand, and a Marine ship capable of conducting amphibious landings and long-range helicopter operations is just 30 miles off Myanmar's coast.

The French navy ship Le Mistral was waiting some 13 miles outside Myanmar's territorial waters, hoping to go in and unload its cargo of 1,000 tons of food — enough to feed 100,000 people for 15 days. The aid also includes shelters for 15,000 people.

France's U.N. Ambassador Jean-Maurice Ripert warned Friday that the government's refusal to allow aid to be delivered to people "could lead to a true crime against humanity.'

Frustrated by the inability to use such resources, dozens of U.S. congressmen signed off on a letter to President Bush asking that the United States join any international effort to intervene in Myanmar's stricken Irrawaddy Delta region by bypassing the junta's efforts to interfere with aid.

For the time being, the U.S. military will not send in aid without Myanmar's approval. Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Adm. Timothy Keating, head of the U.S. forces in the Pacific, have publicly stated that coercive intervention is not on the plate.

'We're not going to do anything unilaterally,' said Lt. Col. Douglas Powell, a spokesman for the U.S. relief effort, dubbed Operation Caring Response.

'Our hope is that they will see we have the means and the capabilities,' he said. 'We need them to take the next step and allow us to do more.'

Aid organizations also expressed doubt that unauthorized air drops would be effective.

'At best aid air-drops can only be a partial solution, at worst they give the illusion that somehow we are addressing this ever worsening humanitarian crisis,' said Jane Cocking, a spokeswoman for the British aid group Oxfam. 'The biggest risk is that aid airdrops will be a distraction from what is really needed — a highly effective aid operation on the ground.'"

Working with the military junta in Burma is delivering in ways that operating by force never could. Americans are pressuring the junta in this situation, but is there anything where Americans or others don't pressure these days? After awhile, that makes that debate kind of moot because the variable can never be assessed fairly without alternatives, and my explanations still explain the situation better, I think. The junta does not want to be shown up by outsiders and is suspicious and does not want to allow outsiders in, but they know they and their people need the help. Working with them diplomatically is working much more effectively than coercing them or using unilateral or even multilateral force. A coalition of the willing could intervene without U.N. Security Council approval. But to do so, at this point, would be foolish.

The patient diplomacy that Robert Gates and administration officials have engaged in is very admirable and clearly much more effective than routes by force.

It also helps that everyone is on the same page with this emergency rather than squabbling and bickering between one another about who is to blame that nothing is being done. There is some agreement that Burma's military junta is to blame. But there is some realism, I think, that playing blame games doesn't get basic needs met for those who need them.

The question all of us need to be asking ourselves, right now, is "What rule made all of this possible?"

Is it international law? Is it our concern for being prosecuted for war crimes? Is it domestic laws about generosity and sharing the wealth? Is it the 10 commandments (though shalt not let thou neighbors go without emergency supplies after a cyclone)?

And if it isn't any of those things, what is it?

You know what it is?

It's our general good will. It's our decency. It's our consciences.

It's the fact that, despite all of our flaws, we are basically decent people.

And no rule could or does make that possible. It couldn't if we wanted to it to with all our hearts. It would always be our hearts that would make the difference.

It is long overdue that our heads catch up with that fact about our hearts. And stop taking our hearts and those who have big hearts for granted. And start appreciating those who care enough to make sure that such situations, like this one in Burma, get taken care of.

And I, for one, would like to thank Secretary Gates, President Bush, the entire Administration, the military folks who are transporting supplies, the people who offered up all of the things being offered to meet peoples' needs, the Thai government and those in Thailand offering up a launching pad for our operations, the French Government and all of those in France who are working to provide supplies, and all of the people around the world providing supplies and transport, the non-profit people on the ground in Burma providing help and reporting on this situation, the folks working in the United Nations to get some kind of movement on this issue, the people in Burma coordinating this effort, the journalists who have daily reported on this crisis, and everyone who has done their bit to make sure that these people, and the folks in China, and all such folks around the world, get taken care of.

Thank you. I appreciate all of your efforts.

Here's to our heads catching up, better, with the love in our hearts.

It's about goddamn time.