Connecting the global crusade for control of oil and the faction within Washington called the Neo Cons is fairly simple today. Thus, there is no surprise that Anne Applebaum makes a case for intervention in Burma. She is an operative of the American Enterprise Institute (AEI).

The AEI is the leading Neo Con think tank in Washington and includes ceos and chairmans of major companies such as DOW and ExxonMobil, but also Paul Wolfowitz, architect of the invasion of Iraq, PNAC signatory, World Bank chairman, and Neo Con mastermind; Richard Perle, another Neo Con mastermind; John Yoo: counsel to the president who penned the torture directives; Michael Ledeen, a GOP operative who participated in the Iran-Contra scandal in high treason against the US Congress; and AEI founder Irving Kristol is the father of Bill Kristol, the co-founder of the Neo Con rag Weekly Standard and co-founder of the Neo Con American imperialism think tank: Project for A New American Century (PNAC).

<link>

Neo Con movement is represented in the major industries, the strategic industries such as energy, in politics ecspecially the Defense Dept. Their common foreign policy agenda is that America must advance its interests abroad even by force through military means, but also through non governmental means, thus using NGOs like the Endowment for Democracy which would likely include other NGOs for intelligence.

But this is not so important or dire for American interests in Burma because American companies are already working in Myanmar/Burma, like a joint venture of Chevron and Texaco. In fact, its proposed US oil firms remain in Burma in order to secure America's influence in its oil and gas reserves to the exclusion of India and China, who are both hungry for oil and are willing to do business with Burma were America to pull out.

<link>

the US Congress passed a Burma Freedom and Democracy Act in 2003 and has annually renewed it, putting sanctions on imports from Burma, freezing Burmese financial assets, and more. Then there was the Saffron Revolution of 2007 where monks and activists were protesting for democracy and the junta cracked down killing 100s. Congress and the Bush admin condemned this and strongly advocated the Pacific and Asian nations to crackdown on Burma eventhough America would be the first benefactor of a democratic Burmese government given American firms continued presence there and America's leading influence against the junta. So the GOP Congress and Bush admin, largely under the leadership of the Neo Con foreign policy agenda, have been at the forefront of dismantling the Burmese junta with American interests being the immediately rewarded, likely gaining increased rights to Burmese oil reserves.

In effect, the Neo Con agenda has used various pretexts for intervention throughout the world. WMDs in Iraq. A multitude of justifications, ecspecially 9/11 in Afghanistan. National liberation in Lebanon. I don't even recall the justification for overthrowing Aristide in Haiti since he was democratically elected and supported by the Clinton admin. Applebaum and her Neo Con ilk would be far more blustery for intervention and invasion for humanitarian efforts were it not for the debacle in Iraq- she essentially admits this. And under all of this is oil, energy, positioning of American global primacy in strategic areas that contain oil. Burma is such an area. As we Afghanistan, Iraq, and even Chad and the Darfur of Sudan.

So it is no surprise that Neo Cons are at the heart of America's interventionism throughout the world no matter the pretext.