Hapless Burma Isn't Harmless

If you're interested in international security, I strongly recommend that you check out a new documentary titled Burma's Nuclear Ambitions. The film comes from the Democratic Voice of Burma (DVB), an Oslo-based nongovernmental organization that has made a name for itself as a source of good independent reporting on events inside that benighted country. The reporters at DVB spent the past five years collecting the material for this project, which makes a persuasive case that the generals who run Burma (aka Myanmar) have spent vast sums on a program to develop weapons of mass destruction. Robert Kelley, an ex-U.S. nuclear scientist and former U.N. nuclear inspector who collaborated with the filmmakers, told me that their effort offers a unique opportunity to blow the whistle on a rogue state's nuclear plans earlier rather than later. "This is a small program at early stages," he says. "I hope that by releasing this information we're letting the cat of the bag, and that no one can put it back now. There should be a public debate."