It was painful to watch peaceful Buddhist monks brutally crushed in Burma. Too painful. Pacifists (and the related "conflict resolution" people) who are against all violence must have especially hated seeing how well pacifism works as a strategy when you're not Mahatma Ghandi, and the enemy does not consist of sentimental British rulers who believe that their "religion of peace" really is supposed to be that.

A lot of good it does to yell that violence is never the answer. What happened in Burma should surprise no one, and I don't think it really has. However, it makes a lot of people uncomfortable, so there's a collective "the less said the better" mentality. We should move on, and focus on real issues. Forget about the Burmese Junta crushing a peaceful religious protesters, because that's only a "distraction" from the most important evil of today, which is of course George W. Bush and his attempts to brutally crush the religion of peace. It helps to be selective when you believe in the peace paradigm.

Few pacifists are willing to grapple with whether pacifism is an effective way to deal with war. At Students for a Free Tibet, Frida Ghitis of the the Miami Herald shares some thoughts:

Some of my best friends are pacifists. Some are even militant pacifists. Truly, I respect their conviction and their idealism. I must confess, however, that I am less than impressed with the results that their methods have been producing.

A few years ago, I had the unforgettable privilege of visiting two nations, Tibet and Burma, whose people have spent decades struggling for freedom by following the spiritual and political guidance of their pacifist leaders. The leaders of the quest for freedom in Tibet and Burma (renamed Myanmar by its despotic military rulers) are two of the most extraordinary human beings alive today. The Western world has recognized their cause and their integrity, honoring Tibet's Dalai Lama and Burma's Aung San Suu Kyi with the Nobel Peace Prize. They have gained worldwide fame and have brought attention to the suffering of their people. And yet, they and their followers have failed miserably in achieving their goals.

The Dalai Lama, Tibet's religious leader and the head of its government-in-exile, has spent more than four decades trying to muster diplomatic support in his quest to secure Tibet's independence from China. By now, he doesn't even ask for independence, having lowered his demand to mere autonomy for Tibet under Beijing's rule. We still call them demands but, even as he travels the world with a popularity that eclipses major rock stars, his political muscle has faded along with the bleached Tibetan flag bumper stickers on American cars left over from more optimistic days.

China represses Tibet

As China pushes ahead, quickly becoming an economic superpower, the people of Tibet endure under Beijing's repressive rule, and Tibet's culture within its traditional Himalayan highlands shrinks, making way for China's mighty economic engine. The Dalai Lama, it seems likely, will have to wait until his next incarnation before achieving his and his people's dream of a free Tibet.

The situation in Burma is even more depressing. The country was once the rice-basket of Asia. Today, after decades of despotic military rule, poverty, hunger and disease -- especially AIDS -- are rampant. The country is now one of the poorest in the world.

The remarkable woman who has led her people's determined push to break the shackles of dictatorship, Aung San Suu Kyi, is the only Nobel Peace Prize winner in the world currently under arrest. Fifteen years ago, when Burma's generals inexplicably allowed elections, Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy won 80 percent of the seats in parliament. The generals immediately rejected the result and placed Suu Kyi under arrest, where she has spent most of the time since the election, as have many of her supporters.

As the Burmese people languish under a regime whose well-documented practices include forced labor, rape, torture and execution of opponents -- even for nonviolent activities -- the world has attempted a number of strategies to bring about change. After multiple special envoys, scattered sanctions and many, many speeches, the result, according to a recent State Department, is that the prospects for reform continue to decline.

Amazingly, the forces of peace and non-violence did not prevail over the forces of violence.

The problem is, a lot of people on the left (and a majority of antiwar activists) desperately want to believe in the pacifist narrative. (One especially angry wealthy pacifist yelled at me last year over dinner that "war is an outmoded paradigm!" and that the new peace paradigm would win. My skepticism infuriated her, and she didn't look very peaceful. I'd be willing to bet that she doesn't want to think about Burma in relation to the "new" paradigm.)

Because Burma gives the lie to narrative, it will fade.

With the peaceful demonstrators having been crushed, Burma is reported as "tidying up" for the UN peace envoy:

Barricades that were erected last Wednesday in front of the Shwedagon Pagoda, where riot police and soldiers beat back monks with batons and tear gas, have been removed and the debris cleaned up.

"They are tidying up for Gambari," said one Rangoon resident, in reference to visiting United Nations special envoy Ibrahim Gambari. Gambari, on an assessment mission in Burma after the country was rocked by its worst violence in 19 years, arrived on Saturday. He was allowed to meet with Nobel Peace Prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi for an hour on Sunday.

Gambari was in Naypyidaw, the junta's hideaway capital, situated about 350 kilometres north of Rangoon, on Monday where he had sought a meeting with the regime's chief Senior General Than Shwe.

There is great skepticism about what Gambari's mission will achieve.

"The United Nations has been sending special envoys to Burma for the past 18 years and they have no real mandate, so nothing is likely to happen," said Bertil Lintner, a Burma watcher and author of several books on the country. "They just issue reports and that's it. Only the UN Security Council can issue binding resolutions."

Not that the UN Security Council is about to do anything so drastic as issue a binding resolution.

Wouldn't want to create conflict.

After the dead bodies have been burned (some of them reportedly while still alive) and the blood is washed away, maybe the Peace Studies and Conflict Resolution folks can come in and listen to both sides.

MORE: Accdording to the latest reports, thousands are dead in a government massacre:

Thousands of protesters are dead and the bodies of hundreds of executed monks have been dumped in the jungle, a former intelligence officer for Burma's ruling junta has revealed.

The most senior official to defect so far, Hla Win, said: "Many more people have been killed in recent days than you've heard about. The bodies can be counted in several thousand."

Mr Win, who spoke out as a Swedish diplomat predicted that the revolt has failed, said he fled when he was ordered to take part in a massacre of holy men. He has now reached the border with Thailand.

MORE: Glenn Reynolds links this Pajamas Media roundup, which is bleak. I agree with Rand Simberg:

If there is a solution to tyranny and dictatorship, it does not lie in passivity and non-violence.