UN engages in collective punishment in Myanmar

By the definition of the international community, the UN has engaged in collective punishment against a poor and starving people who are suffering from a humanitarian crisis:

The World Food Program said Friday it stopped shipping aid to cyclone-ravaged Myanmar after the government impounded the program's first delivery.

The U.N. unit said the military junta seized tons of aid sent to help victims of Cyclone Nargis, which killed tens of thousands, and left millions homeless, the BBC reported.

"It is sitting in a warehouse. It is not in trucks heading to Irrawaddy Delta where it is critically needed," WFP spokesman Paul Risley said.

The aid included high-energy biscuits that could feed 95,000 people, WFP said.

"It should be on trucks headed to the victims," said WFP regional director Tony Banbury told The Daily Telegraph. "That food is now sitting on a tarmac doing no good."

While aid has resumed since this morning, it would be nice to know the UN's justification for doing something to limit aid to Myanmar - when the UN isn't even being attacked daily by that nation?

Nah, it isn't hypocritical. Insisting for Israel to do something that even the UN is queasy about must be justifiable, because of occupation, or settlements, or something.

(h/t David)