Little to say, except that perhaps countries that side with repression and murder (which is all "extra-judicial killing" is) rather than freedom aren't ready to join international communities that embrace the latter and repudiate the former. This vote doesn't mean democracy doesn't work, it's just a reminder the bulk of the world isn't really that democratic. I don't hold with Dulles Democracy at all (in fact, I think it was a horrible and malignant error in judgement with enduring damage to both the nations controlled and the nation controlling them). However, it seems reasonable, logical, to tell nations that disenfranchise or even dehumanize large portions of their own populace that until all their people are represented in their government their NATION literally cannot have full international representation. Does the Turkish Ambassador to the UN speak for the millions of Turkish Kurds? Does Chinas Ambassador speak for the millions of Tibetans, Christians and Muslims his government oppresses daily? They rarely speak OF them; how can they represent them? That means they don't represent nations or people, they represent ideologies, and ideologies don't merit UN Ambassadors.

Nice try. There will be multiple sides, true. I don't think Russias current government much better than Chinas though, and the EU is so prepared for uncompromising conflict that genocide on its doorstep must be stopped by the US and NATO, or not at all. This makes the situation more dangerous rather than less, because if China is allowed (as it seems it will be) to absorb all of Southeast Asia it will upset the balance of power and demand a Russian response. I share a border with them now, and try not to think about the implications of direct competition for the European energy market if EU-Russian relations collapse. Yet even if China and Russia don't confront each other directly, large scale Chinese expansion will provoke a response from Russia, probably in Mongolia, Eastern Europe or the clusterf--k that is Afghanistan (where you can still be executed for homosexuality; we've really accomplished a lot there. ) Since oil goes for more per barrel than yak milk, my bet would be Afghanistan or Eastern Europe, with perhaps a little Norway on the side. The two things Norway has to deter invasion are snow and distance, and neither will deter Russia.

All that aside, the polite fiction nationalism and warfare are obsolete meets harsh reality in China, where nationalism is in a renaissance and the military mushrooms. They didn't commission their first aircraft carrier for show. Sure, there are other players, but I don't expect military aggression from Brazil or India, and it is military aggression, not economic or political influence, that worries me. China is in the best position to establish hegemony, and, unlike almost all other rising economic powers, is gaining the necessary military might. That would be accompanied by a level of repression few in the West can still imagine, if only because Western individualism has never had much place in China. Saying these things meets the same skepticism that Iranian and North Korean nuclear weapons program received: Chinese manifest destiny and fanatics with nukes are better than agreeing with the US. On this very board it's been suggested that American nuclear weapons legitimize Iran and North Koreas. Thus I see real world symbolism in TLotR.

My sympathies are more with Boromir, whatever that implies. Perhaps gratitude for Americans who've lost life and limb keeping the Free World just that for decades is too much to ask, but the common, PERVASIVE, resentment is as unwelcome here as our protection is overseas. A Watchful Peace built on denial will profit the world no more than it did in the '30s. China is buying time, and we will pay the price.