GeoCombat2050

What is more important for a developing country? Is it to assure that citizens can freely cast a ballot and quietly return to their shanties? Or is it to lift millions of citizens out of poverty, create a modern industrial economy, and become competitive in the world economy?  Democracy and Economic Development The US and its allies would have us believe that political freedom trumps all other considerations. Give people the right to vote and establish a democratic system, and they will be well on their way to "modernity."  That ideology has been applied worldwide, with mixed results, however. At one extreme, Iraq's democratic system, imposed by the US after the 2003 invasion and toppling of the dictator Saddam Hussein, is synonymous with failed state and instability. One saying reflects the rampant corruption in in the federal parliamentary republic: "We used to have one Saddam Hussein, now we have a thousand." Similarly, twenty years of airborne democracy and

Pablo Picasso and Christopher Columbus -- two household names in all four corners of the world. One is a twentieth-century Spanish artist whose painting, La Guernica, stands as a universal condemnation of war atrocities. The other an Italian explorer, credited for discovering the New World in 1492. Discussing these two men here seems to do justice to neither one of them. What would Picasso, widely admired for his artistic talents, have anything to do with Columbus, a controversial figure lauded or despised for his actions? Despite their differences, these two European men share something in common: Their hubris, that is, their conviction that what they did represented humanity, and their neglect of people that do not belong to the same race. Prominently featured in Picasso's painting La Guernica is the killing of innocent women and children in wars. Despair, suffering, and death fill the gray, black, and white canvas, which shows a screaming woman in front of a house on fire, anoth

Athenian democracy f rom the 5th to the 4th century BCE h as been regarded as the model of modern democratic systems. Equal political rights, freedom of speech, participation in politics and governance all came from ancient Greece. Rather than doomed to oblivion, its three branches of government - the Citizens' Assembly, the Senate, the  Executive Committee, and the courts  have become the norms all over the world. When visiting Greece in 2016, President Obama lauded Greece "for the most precious of gifts: the truth, the understanding that as individuals of free will, we have the right and the capacity to govern ourselves."  Even non-democratic regimes have a semblance of separation of power and citizens' representation and "guarantees" political rights and freedom of speech.   But  Athenian democracy is far from perfect. Although its flaws are well-known, modern democratic leaders tend to deemphasize them while glorifying its political achievements. The tru

The US is not only the dominant economic and military superpower but also the self-proclaimed beacon of freedom, denouncing human rights violations throughout the world.  Intensifying its criticisms of China's mass internment of Uighurs in Xinjiang, the US government has called it a genocide. This is another case of US moral imperialism. What has happened in Xinjiang is not genocide, and if it is, then there is not a doubt whatsoever that the US committed genocide against Native Americans.  According to the UN Genocide Convention in 1948, the definition of genocide must meet at least two criteria. The first one is physical extermination. In Xinjiang, the Chinese government incarcerated about a million Uighurs in reeducation camps. No evidence of mass killings has been unearthed. The US and its allies themselves have not produced any incriminating pictures or credible witnesses of mass killings. And, most importantly, the Chinese government does not aim at physically destroying th