Mission Aborted
Insight Myanmar5 Huhti 2025

Mission Aborted

Episode #330: “When President Bush called that morning and said, ‘Pull back [away from Myanmar],’ I just couldn't compose myself. I broke down in front of all the Marines, and so I had to run into the bathroom and I just cried and cried,” says Mie Mie Winn Byrd. “I knew we had all the capability to help them, to relieve suffering and provide aid, but there was nothing I could do.”

In a powerful and emotional reflection, retired U.S. Army Lt. Col. Mie Mie Winn Byrd recounts her role in Operation Caring Response, a U.S. humanitarian relief mission following Cyclone Nargis in 2008, which killed over 135,000 and displaced millions. Born in Burma, Byrd brought vital regional expertise to the U.S. effort. Yet despite American readiness to help, Myanmar’s military regime blocked aid access, allowing only limited deliveries of critical supplies, which it then left to rot on—or disappear from—the tarmac.

Byrd draws clear and direct parallels between Cyclone Nargis and the recent earthquake in Myanmar, underscoring the military’s pattern of paranoia, cruelty and obstruction. Byrd calls the junta not a legitimate government, or even a legitimate army, but rather a Mafia-like, organized crime syndicate.

In contrast, she finds inspiration in Myanmar’s civil society and diaspora, whose grassroots response has saved lives despite immense hardship. She urges international donors to bypass the military and support trusted, local actors: “They open up their hearts, their purse, and [are] doing it again.”

Jaksot(507)

Fragmentation

Fragmentation

Episode #390: The exhibition Fragmentation, hosted earlier this year at Bangkok Art and Culture Center and co-organized by SEA Junction and A New Burma, presented haunting photographs of displaced tea...

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The Will To Fight

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Episode #389: Mie Mie Wynn Bird, a retired U.S. Army officer and defense strategist runs leadership and capacity-building workshops for Myanmar’s pro-democracy movement. In this episode, she argues th...

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The Spirit of Disobedience

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Episode #388: “Every day in Myanmar, people are living in constant fear, fear of air strike, fear of artillery, fear of arbitrary arrest, fear of extra judicial killing. As long as the military is in ...

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Long Walk to Freedom

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Episode #387: “I think vipassana has always been a response to crisis, not just a quest for spiritual purity,” says Gustaaf Houtman, anthropologist and author of Traditions of Buddhist Practice in Bur...

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Barely Breathing

Barely Breathing

Episode #386: Maw Htun, Deputy Minister for Electricity and Energy in Myanmar's National Unity Government (NUG), has navigated a path defined by personal tribulation and transformation since the 2021 ...

28 Elo 20252h 19min

Return to Nowhere

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Episode #385: Minna Fredriksson, human rights advisor at the Swedish development organization Diakonia, describes her humanitarian work and critiques the humanitarian aid field based on her years of w...

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Dark Signals

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Episode #384: “As a journalist, you always hope for consequences. I mean, otherwise our reporting is meaningless,” says Bjørn Nordahl, a Norwegian investigative reporter who led a two-year probe into ...

25 Elo 20251h 31min

Heritage and Hope

Heritage and Hope

Episode #383: The 4th International Conference on Burma/Myanmar Studies (ICBMS) was hosted at hosted by Chiang Mai University. This major event brought together many scholars and experts to discuss My...

23 Elo 20251h 6min

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