While we're on the subject of nukes and the continuing escalation of speculation thereabouts, (if you're brilliant and have nothing better to do you'll have read deep into yesterday's post and know all about this), the indefatigable Aung Zaw writes in his exile magazine, the Irrawaddy, of the long history preceding the current talk of nuclear ambitions. It's a strong corrective to that trait symptomatic of intel-deficient countries who are quick to black out their diplomatic channels and then wonder at the impertinence of the xenophobic pariah regime when it suddenly seems armed to the teeth. To that, one is inclined to impertinently reply -- no, duh.
Recipe for nuclear ambition: enthrone an almighty but mightily paranoid general with an added penchant for astrology and psychological warfare atop a fat mountain of oil, gas, jade and teak; attach a strategic mouth to the Andaman Sea; squeeze between resource-greedy, overpopulating developing states and a vast empire with an enormous military, a disinterest in human rights and an increasing capacity to call on its millennial sense of global self-importance; add a craving for scattering the windfalls of said natural resources on futile projects that vaguely recall the "lifeless things" of Ozymandias' colossal wreck; compound with a bloated military that swallows an estimated 40% of the government budget; then isolate isolate isolate and watch the arms souffle as it grows before your very eyes. Which is not to blame the US for Burma's "sudden" nuclear program, only to suggest that better intelligence might've removed the element of surprise.

Then a question arises about the timeliness of all this. Nuke revelations and a show trial, simultaneously? One presumes even Stalin had enough showmanship to stagger his acts. Perhaps some high-ranking astrologer, perching up a coconut tree somewhere near Naypyidaw (probably growing sideways then upside down from inside a North-Korean-made tunnel), stared at a pattern in the stars and took the tail of a comet for a sign of manifest destiny best implemented through a missile launch coupled with a fresh dose of bullying the local scapegoat. It would at least offer a distraction for Sen. Gen. Than Shwe as the world abroad writhes in the stink of its own impotent rhetoric. Unlikely, but the world seems suitably discombobulated by the weirdness of one (trial) and the wickedness of the other (nukes). And so it stands by, paralyzed, scrambling for strongly worded non-binding UN resolutions or trading condemnation.

But I tell you the penguins are still swimming with perfect nonchalance in their little air-conditioned playpen in Naypyidaw's Royal Zoo. Perhaps they know something the rest of us don't.