Sly Stallone sees firsthand Myanmar tragedy

[Bronco Bob]

LOS ANGELES - Sylvester Stallone says he and his "Rambo" sequel movie crew recently witnessed the human toll of unspeakable atrocities while filming along the Myanmar border.

"I witnessed the aftermath — survivors with legs cut off and all kinds of land-mine injuries, maggot-infested wounds and ears cut off," Stallone told The Associated Press in a phone interview Monday. "We hear about Vietnam and Cambodia and this was more horrific."

The 61-year-old actor-director returned to the U.S. eight days ago from shooting "John Rambo," the fourth movie in the action series, on the Salween River separating Thailand and Myanmar, formerly known as Burma.

Stallone said he was in Thailand for six months, most of it along or on the river.

"This is a hellhole beyond your wildest dreams," Stallone said. "All the trails are mined. The only way into Burma is up the river."

This was before the crackdown last week against the largest pro-democracy protests in Myanmar in two decades. After the government increased fuel prices in August, public anger turned to mass protest against 45 years of military dictatorship. Last week, soldiers responded by opening fire with automatic weapons on unarmed demonstrators.

For decades, Myanmar's army has waged a brutal war against ethnic groups in which soldiers have razed villages, raped women and killed innocent civilians.

The "Rambo" script, written long before the present Myanmar uprising, features boatman John Rambo — the Vietnam War-era Green Beret who specializes in violent rescues and revenge — taking a group of mercenaries up the Salween River in search of missing Christian aid workers in Myanmar. The character "realizes man is just a few paces away from savagery when pushed."

"I called Soldier of Fortune magazine and they said Burma was the foremost area of human abuse on the planet," Stallone said.

Shots were fired over the film crew's head, he said. "We were told we could get seriously hurt if we went on."

"I was being accused, once again, of using the Third World as a `Rambo' victim. The Burmese are beautiful people. It's the military I am portraying as cruel," he said.

{Okay all you right wingers who are trying to claim we invaded Iraq
to give the Iraqi people their feedom and if we left now there would
be a bloodbath. What say you about this?}

[alkemical]

a-o

[loborugger]

When questioned about Sly Stallone and his comments, one Monk responded, "yes its terrible what is transpiring in our country, no doubt. However, I would rather live thru another 30 years of this tyranny than have to watch another Rambo movie."

[Bronco Bob]

When questioned about Sly Stallone and his comments, one Monk responded, "yes its terrible what is transpiring in our country, no doubt. However, I would rather live thru another 30 years of this tyranny than have to watch another Rambo movie."

Sad. Tell us again about how Saddam was torturing and gassing his own people.

[loborugger]

Sad. Tell us again about how Saddam was torturing and gassing his own people.

OK, I'll bite...

What does a smart remark about the exceptional low quality of another Rambo movie have to do with Saddam?

[elsid13]

OK, I'll bite...

What does a smart remark about the exceptional low quality of another Rambo movie have to do with Saddam?

When US invade it destoried the next Rambo story line. It all Bush fault that we cannot see a 60 plus year guy run around in desert one handing M60 and killing badguys on the bigscreen. Damn you Bush.

[baja]

LOS ANGELES - Sylvester Stallone says he and his "Rambo" sequel movie crew recently witnessed the human toll of unspeakable atrocities while filming along the Myanmar border.

"I witnessed the aftermath — survivors with legs cut off and all kinds of land-mine injuries, maggot-infested wounds and ears cut off," Stallone told The Associated Press in a phone interview Monday. "We hear about Vietnam and Cambodia and this was more horrific."

The 61-year-old actor-director returned to the U.S. eight days ago from shooting "John Rambo," the fourth movie in the action series, on the Salween River separating Thailand and Myanmar, formerly known as Burma.

Stallone said he was in Thailand for six months, most of it along or on the river.

"This is a hellhole beyond your wildest dreams," Stallone said. "All the trails are mined. The only way into Burma is up the river."

This was before the crackdown last week against the largest pro-democracy protests in Myanmar in two decades. After the government increased fuel prices in August, public anger turned to mass protest against 45 years of military dictatorship. Last week, soldiers responded by opening fire with automatic weapons on unarmed demonstrators.

For decades, Myanmar's army has waged a brutal war against ethnic groups in which soldiers have razed villages, raped women and killed innocent civilians.

The "Rambo" script, written long before the present Myanmar uprising, features boatman John Rambo — the Vietnam War-era Green Beret who specializes in violent rescues and revenge — taking a group of mercenaries up the Salween River in search of missing Christian aid workers in Myanmar. The character "realizes man is just a few paces away from savagery when pushed."

"I called Soldier of Fortune magazine and they said Burma was the foremost area of human abuse on the planet," Stallone said.

Shots were fired over the film crew's head, he said. "We were told we could get seriously hurt if we went on."

"I was being accused, once again, of using the Third World as a `Rambo' victim. The Burmese are beautiful people. It's the military I am portraying as cruel," he said.

<b>{Okay all you right wingers who are trying to claim we invaded Iraq
to give the Iraqi people their feedom and if we left now there would
be a bloodbath. What say you about this?}</b>

Does Burma have any oil?

[alkemical]

No, but under the ocean floor there is! I say we declare war on the ocean!

[L.A. BRONCOS FAN]

http://www.bartcop.com/burma-no-oil.jpg

[Bronco Bob]

Burma: Why the West Will Do Nothing

{Except make lame jokes about people who witnessed this}

By David Warren (http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/author/david_warren/)

Looking, through the dusk screen of the media, at the events in Burma, one feels a cold and pointless rage. The vicious regime that has long enslaved that country is again winning a struggle in which they have all the weapons. With the "subtle, malign cunning" (I am quoting Kenneth Denby, writing bravely for the Times of London, from Rangoon) that is possible only to a cat with a cornered mouse, the regime has watched the nation's Buddhist monks lead the people onto the streets. It allowed them nine days to vent their grievances, and is now cutting them down.

But the cutting down has been done with much greater efficiency than after the last demonstrations on this scale, that began August 8, 1988. Perhaps 3,000 were massacred in the course of snuffing out the flame of liberty on that occasion. In this latest reprisal of government against people, it seems only a few dozen have been killed -- including the Japanese press photographer, Kenji Nagai, shot down in cold blood to send a message to the other foreign reporters.

We, who do not live under one of the world's thug-socialist regimes, should understand how they operate. Over time, it becomes necessary to kill fewer and fewer people, to keep a population cowed. Yet every generation or so, the people must be forcefully reminded that they are nothing.

The Chinese Communist massacre in Tienanmen Square, in 1989, served to remind the enslaved Chinese people that the post-Mao regime was as murderous as the Mao regime had been; another massacre on that scale will probably not be necessary for another decade or so. If it doesn't come, the regime will fall.

The Berlin Wall came down when the Soviet Communists and their clients lost their willingness to perform massacres. The purpose of popular demonstrations is, in effect, to test that will. Had the Communists been prepared to mow down the young in the streets of Berlin, Prague, and elsewhere, they might still be in power. For it is hard to believe we in the West would have lifted a finger in their defence, any higher than we had over Prague 1968, or Budapest 1956, or Berlin 1948.

In Rangoon, the memories of 1988 remained fairly fresh, and so it was only necessary for the riot police, in their swagger, "banging their batons menacingly on their shields as they advanced" (quoting Denby again), to deliver a modest "refresher course" on the nature of power.

Perhaps here is a good place to insert a little refresher course on nomenclature. Burma was renamed "Myanmar" by its generals after the 1988 massacres; Rangoon became officially "Yangon," and many other towns and districts were renamed, exhuming semi-mythical placenames from much earlier centuries. There were several motives for this, but the chiefmost was simply to spook people, in Burma and abroad, by showing them that the regime could do anything. By continuing to use such terms as "Burma" and "Rangoon," we refuse to be spooked.

Burma today is Red China's most conspicuous client in Southeast Asia. Burma's natural gas is desperately needed by China's burgeoning command economy (big pipelines in the works), and the Chinese delegation stands ready at the UN to veto any condemnation of the Burmese regime. Indeed, by allying themselves with the surviving butchers of Tiananmen, Burma's bizarre socialist generals have secured their own future, in a land that they and their predecessors have turned from the breadbasket of east Asia into the basket case we see today.

And we can do nothing but watch, as we watched Tiananmen, in cold powerless rage.

We could in fact do far more, but we haven't the will or courage for it. The Burmese regime could hardly survive a direct military strike. And, in the person of Aung San Suu Kyi, and in her NLD Party -- victorious in the only semi-free election the Burmese generals ever staged -- we have a plausible alternative regime to install. I think such a strike could be justified as merciful, in the same way one justified sending the U.S. and Australian navies to relieve victims of the 2004 tsunami. The further effect of such a bold act would be to chasten the far more worrisome generals of China.

But this would require a West assured of its own ideals and principles, generous and willing to make sacrifices for them; a West not debilitated by layer upon layer of "politically-correct" self-doubt. And that simply isn't on the table.

otiosus@sympatico.ca

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2007/10/why_the_west_wont_act_to_save.html

[elsid13]

interesting piece, while military action in the form of air strike might bring around a regime change it won't happen because of the Chinese angle and the freaking UN. It would be far easier and more practical if the US and Western Europe froze the general bank account like happened in N Korea chance. But this Burma and Darfur are case were the US and western democracy have failed the people of the world.

The UN has no power because there is no consequences if Burma choices to ignore the envoys.

[Smiling Assassin27]

Hell, if we ain't gonna provide legitimate help to Darfur, why would we do anything here? But just because we deposed Saddam for his wanton killing and bizarre form of justice in Iraq, doesn't mean we are obligated to jump into every situation like it. Should we? Yeah, we probably should...but not without a real coalition and not as some maverick nation hell bent on imposing our form of justice around the world. The apathy of the world to the Darfurs and Myanmars of the globe is truly a sad sight.

Report: Burma Plans to Wipe Out Christianity

A leaked secret document claims to reveal plans by the Burmese military regime to wipe out Christianity in the southeast Asian country.

Tue, Jan. 23, 2007 Posted: 16:36:01 PM EST


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

A leaked secret document claims to reveal plans by the Burmese military regime to wipe out Christianity in the southeast Asian country.

The document, titled “Program to Destroy the Christian Religion in Burma,” was shown to the U.K.-based Telegraph newspaper on Sunday by human rights groups.

Inside the memo were detailed instructions on how to force Christians out of the country, according to Telegraph.

Instructions included imprisoning any person caught evangelizing, capitalizing on the fact that Christianity is a non-violent religion.

“The Christian religion is very gentle,” read the letter, according to Telegraph, “Identify and utilize its weakness.”

Burma, also known as Myanmar, has a Christian population of about four percent, according to the CIA World Factbook. Persecution against Christians have come in the form of church burnings, forced conversion to the state religion of Buddhism, and banning children of Christians from school.

Attacks against Christians are part of the government’s larger campaign against ethnic minorities, according to human rights groups. In eastern Burma, over 3,000 villages have been destroyed or abandoned in the past 10 years, according to the human rights group WITNESS. In the past year, an estimated 27,000 members of the predominantly Christian Karen tribe were forced from their homes in eastern Burma, according to Telegraph.

The Burmese regime has denied drafting the document, but has made no public attempt to renounce its contents, reported the U.K. newspaper.

Burma expelled most of its Christian mission back in 1966 and the repressive military regime continues to this day to control religious activities in the country.

[Rohirrim]

Someday, we will wake up and realize the Chinese are a far more dangerous enemy of the United States than Islamic extremists will ever be. Meanwhile, Coca Cola and KFC are making boodles of money over there and our children are enjoying their lead painted toys.

[alkemical]

Someday, we will wake up and realize the Chinese are a far more dangerous enemy of the United States than Islamic extremists will ever be. Meanwhile, Coca Cola and KFC are making boodles of money over there and our children are enjoying their lead painted toys.

oh please Ro - ;D

Coca Cola is just using "private contractors":

http://www.forbes.com/newswire/2004/04/19/rtr1336993.html

UPDATE 1-Coca-Cola named in Colombia death squad lawsuit

ATLANTA, April 19 (Reuters) - Coca-Cola Co. (nyse: KO - news - people) should be held responsible for the death of a worker murdered by paramilitary forces at one of the soft drink maker's bottling plants in Colombia, a U.S. human rights group said on Monday.