Comment I tried to leave on Irrawaddy site --

I agree with you, John Jackson. (That there are some "academics" who waste time and worse criticizing Daw Suu)

I spent my life up to 1997, "being an academic" i.e. studying, but I don't think the purpose of study is to provide fuel for groundless attacks on victims of the regime such as Daw Suu and the NLD.

I spent the last 6 months and 2001 - 2004 helping the NCGUB prepare a democratic transition plan for Burma. It is not true that the democracy movement "has no vision."

Over the course of all this time, I read dozens of reports, some commissioned, some from inside Burma, that pin-pointed the problem.

The junta is the problem.

So called "academics" who deny this fundamental truth cannot be true scholars.

That's why activism is the only answer.

Alas, it has not been in fashion among a certain set. Meanwhile SPDC is more vicious.

As someone wrote recently, "maybe the junta did not get the new engagement memo."

I've been to a zillion conferences where XYZ would come up to me and say "I was just in Rangoon" and then spout some nonsense.

Enough said.

K