Shaun Kenney

Gee… why haven’t we read this in the MSM?

TIME Magazine asks an interesting philosophical question, whether a nation has the unilateral right — or obligation — to offer coercive humanitarian aid:

That’s why it’s time to consider a more serious option: invading Burma. Some observers, including former USAID director Andrew Natsios, have called on the U.S. to unilaterally begin air drops to the Burmese people regardless of what the junta says. The Bush Administration has so far rejected the idea — “I can’t imagine us going in without the permission of the Myanmar government,” Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Thursday — but it’s not without precedent: as Natsios pointed out to the Wall Street Journal, the U.S. has facilitated the delivery of humanitarian aid without the host government’s consent in places like Bosnia and Sudan.

A coercive humanitarian intervention would be complicated and costly. During the 2004 tsunami, some 24 U.S. ships and 16,000 troops were deployed in countries across the region; the mission cost the U.S. $5 million a day. Ultimately, the U.S. pledged nearly $900 million to tsunami relief. (By contrast, it has offered just $3.25 million to Burma.) But the risks would be greater this time: the Burmese government’s xenophobia and insecurity make them prone to view U.S. troops — or worse, foreign relief workers — as hostile forces. (Remember Black Hawk Down?) Even if the U.S. and its allies made clear that their actions were strictly for humanitarian purposes, it’s unlikely the junta would believe them. “You have to think it through — do you want to secure an area of the country by military force? What kinds of potential security risks would that create?” says Egelend. “I can’t imagine any humanitarian organization wanting to shoot their way in with food.”

Wasn’t Iraq ultimately coercive humanitarianism (sans NBC weapons)? If the liberation of Iraq was indeed moral and just, and I would argue it was, why not the liberation of Burma?

Of course, there are a few reason to the contrary. Iraq was playing footsie with a 1991 cease-fire agreement, Iraq destabilized a large portion of the Middle East, Iraq was actively supporting terrorism, Saddam Hussein was a brutal tyrant guilty of murdering hundreds of thousands of people, Iraq refused to come clean on it’s WMD program, etc.

Then there’s the flip side of the coin: Coercive humanitarian aid involving unfriendly natives doesn’t exactly create the best environment. If the goal is not regime change, then the source of the unrest will continue unchecked and unabated. Images of dropping tons of food from C130s on suspecting Kurds comes to mind… then there’s the whole “no blood for (fill in the blank)” crowd.

The Iraq/Burma parallel is interesting to draw. Thankfully, it’s done in an article that doesn’t mention Iraq once… so I’m free to draw my own conclusions, rather than have them imposed.

We’re still a long ways from making social media work. Beyond political campaigns, most online fundraising doesn’t seem to work without a strong earned media component.

Hence the reasons why political types and people who jump in front of the train (petitions and such) seem to catch the wave. It’s not just building the storefront either… Obama spent nearly $800,000 priming the pump with online banner ads while using both earned media and an aggressive e-mail strategy (76 e-mails in 28 days???) to committed activists, only to watch his e-mail subscribers drop off the map dramatically.

Obviously there’s great potential online, but how do you reach those online donors without burning out your base? For smaller campaigns, this will continue to be a problem, whereas smaller organizations with brand names to protect will not be able to counter burnout with positive earned media.

Campaigns will have to find a way to take care of their e-mail subscribers by using information, inside baseball, and opportunities for activism. Organizations willing to use online fundraising may find out that in the end… campaigns or single initiatives will be the trick to riding the online fundraising wave.

Burnout seems to be the watchword. Moments of brilliance seem to be the key to the “money bomb”; more tactics than strategy.

Jim Riley breaks his open neutrality in the Virginia U.S. Senate race and has endorsed Bob Marshall for U.S. Senate:

I know some Virtucon contributors support Marshall while others support Gilmore and yet others won’t support Marshall even if he is the nominee. I respect and understand everyone’s reasons. Do I agree with Bob 100 percent on things? No. But my compelling reason isn’t taxes or social issues. Rather, it is Marshall is simply a great candidate on transportation issues. He doesn’t advocate paving Maryland as I would, but he does support connecting I-95 through DC right up to College Park, something I have long advocated.

Riley joins the other veterans of the Virginia rightosphere over at Bloggers 4 Marshall.

Obama is posting a lead, but truth be told, if the DNC actually seats the Florida and Michigan delegates who voted for Hillary, there is only a 30 delegate difference between the two candidates: 1920 to Obama and 1890 to Hillary.

Since this is the case, with myDD is reporting 55 superdelegates as “uncommitted” and 518 delegates still left up for grabs, one small legal challenge could up-end the entire apple cart.

It would appear as if Hillary’s path to victory is still very much alive, despite how the press and the Obama camp are spinning the current state of affairs. Worse news? Polls seems to indicated that McCain edges out Obama in a head to head contest, but Hillary edges McCain…

Click here for the coolest picture you’ll see all weekend.

…unless you see a McCain/Cantor ’08 announcement.

I’m just sayin’.

Big news!

…well, big for some folks. Read on!

“It will take someone like [Marshall] to excite the Republican base, which he will do not just on the firearms issue,” according to Macy. “At the moment, Republican voters are disillusioned because they do not see politicians taking their issues seriously.”

Amen to that.

Time to sign somebody up for remedial reading classes, as D.J. McGuire takes the Gilmore bloggers to school — AGAIN.

Curiously, this is being done by a Gilmore camp convinced (or trying to convince others) it has the nomination wrapped up. You only go negative when you’re losing folks…

Just a bad thunderstorm at the moment… seems like it passed us over.

Top of the driveway coming home this evening… a loose cow.

Great.