Capital Move, Old Chap

So, a few weeks ago the military government of Myanmar (formerly Burma) decided to up and move its capital city. Despite its developed infrastructure, Yangon (formerly Rangoon) will no longer be the capital city. Instead, the Myanmarese government will build whole new capital, Pyinmana, in an undeveloped mountainous area in the middle of the country. Why, you might ask, would a poor country go to the huge expense of building a brand new capital when the old one works just fine?

Nobody knows. The Myanmarese often find the ruling military junta (the State Peace and Development Council) as odd and inexplicable as outsiders do. And the BBC reports that this is one of those times. Outside experts are having a good time guessing. Some experts believe that Pyinmana's more central location is designed to give the SPDC a better chance of controlling the populace. Some think the move has military motivation--an inland loaction would be easier to defend than coastal Yangon, and the SPDC is always claiming that the US is about to invade Myanmar. Some say the military government wants to be able to operate in greater secrecy, both from its own people and from foreigners. (Foreign embassies, apparently, will remain in Yangon.) Some say that the government, as it often does, is acting on the advice of fortunetellers.

See, this is more proof that foreigners are crazy. In America, we don't pour billions of dollars into some lunatic project just because our paranoid military regime consults fortunetellers and discovers that we need to move the capital city in order to avoid an imaginary attack on it.

Because, you see, Americans are normal. And normal people pour hundreds of billions of dollars into a lunatic invasion and occupation of some other country's capital because our paranoid military regime consulted neocon oracles and his "heavenly father" and discovered that we had to invade Iraq in order to avoid an imaginary attack on our capital.