Read This – "Let Us Not Praise Coups"

In addition to Andrew Walker’s inventory of some of the surprising accomplishments of the Thai state in achieving its Millenium Development Goals, this post by wonderful journalist Awzar Thi (a pseudonym), over at his blog, Rule of Lords is today’s must-read.

Responding to Paul Collier‘s half-baked, militarist suggestion that what countries in crisis (specifically, Zimbabwe) should hope for are military coups, Awzar Thi runs down the actual history of coups, and shows how awful they are for those over which they rule, no matter the high hopes of the populace (and international imperialists), nor the horrendous state of affairs prior to the coup. He concludes

Let us not praise coups, and let us certainly not wish them upon people who are already acutely suffering their iniquities. They are not a way out of trouble but a way into more of it. No better advertisement of this exists than Burma today.

Please, go read it.