Word: webbe
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...addition to representing the state of Virginia, U.S. Senator Jim Webb has penned novels featuring swashbuckling Americans seeking adventure in exotic backwaters. But even he might not have imagined a scenario in which a U.S. military aircraft flies him to the heavily fortified Burmese capital, Naypyidaw, to meet the country's reclusive military leader and secure the release of an American prisoner...
...novels of U.S. Senator Jim Webb (D-VA) - the ex-Marine starting writing fiction long before he went to Washington - has depicted swashbuckling Americans seeking out thrilling adventures in exotic locales. Still even he might not have imagined a scenario in which the Vietnam-war-veteran-turned-politician jetted in on a U.S. military aircraft to the heavily fortified Burmese capital to meet with the reclusive leader of the country's ruling military junta. On Aug. 15, Webb, who serves as chair of the Senate Foreign Relation's subcommittee on East Asia and Pacific Affairs, became the first top-level...
...Webb also met with detained democracy activist Aung San Suu Kyi. The inspirational leader of the opposition National League for Democracy (NLD), Suu Kyi was sentenced to 18 months of house arrest on Tuesday after a bizarre case in which an American swam to her lakeside villa in commercial capital Rangoon. According to the junta's judiciary logic, the appearance of an uninvited guest at the Nobel Peace Prize laureate's home meant that she had contravened the terms of her previous house arrest. (Suu Kyi has been locked up for 14 years of the past two decades.) This month...
...Webb's visit occurred at a moment when the Obama administration has been making noise about a possible shift in the U.S. position on Burma. During President George W. Bush's tenure, Washington strengthened economic sanctions against the Burmese regime, which has maintained an iron grip over the country since 1962, and ruled out any talk of engagement. But earlier this year Secretary of State Hillary Clinton acknowledged that such trade barriers weren't having an effect on the junta's behavior. (Shortly after the Suu Kyi verdict, the European Union announced the tightening of its own sanctions against...
...Nevertheless, the State Department has made it clear that Webb was not acting as an official emissary during his Burma trip. As speculation over the rationale for the Senator's trip grew, some Burma-watchers wondered whether Webb was traveling to Naypyidaw in order to secure the release of John Yettaw, the American who embarked on the midnight swim to Suu Kyi's home in May. Like Webb, Yettaw is a Vietnam-war veteran. Earlier this week, Yettaw was sentenced to seven years of hard labor by a Burmese court. Over the past decade, Westerners who have been handed harsh...