"By tolerating strong-arm tactics elsewhere, Washington is sending Rangoon a mixed message... When US President George W Bush signed the Burma Freedom and Democracy Act of 2003 into law in late July, he declared that the US was enacting sanctions on the ruling junta to provide "strong incentives for democratic change and human rights in Burma." Bush did not elaborate on the litany of anti-democratic maneuvers and human rights abuses perpetrated by the Burmese military government, but they are well known. Retaining power after a military coup, holding opposition figures and others in detention without trial and violently suppressing ethnic insurgents are among the acts he could have listed. Today, the US sends Rangoon a mixed message by tolerating the same actions by its Asian allies in the war on terror. It seems that the Americans want other countries to be more like Burma, but Burma less like itself..."