This is such a wildly naive and orientalist view of the Middle East. If you actually studied the modern history of the region you would know that since the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire western powers have ceaselessly meddled in the affairs of the people there.

They’ve supported coups in order to overthrow democratic governments. They funded right wing jihadis including the precursors to and allies of the Taliban and Al-Qaeda. They’ve enabled war crimes left and right. They even invaded Iraq and Afghanistan and continues to bomb the whole region with an extensive and secretive drone program. Even now the west continues to defend authoritarian and genocidal regimes like Saudi Arabia or Israel as long as they serve their western interests regardless of their destabilizing effect.

The reality is you have no idea what a Middle East would look like without western intervention. To pretend that you do only reveals your complete ignorance and racist arrogance.

Unfortunately AI models like this one often never make it to the clinic. The model could be impressive enough to identify 100% of cases that will develop breast cancer. However if it has a false positive rate of say 5% it’s use may actually create more harm than it intends to prevent.

This is a wild take. The Chiang Kai-shek’s KMT did not have any more legitimacy than the CPC. He was a straight up fascist and after fleeing to Taiwan he politically repressed native Taiwanese people by having them massacred. You can oppose Xi and the CPC without having to pretend the KMT was at all legitimate.

It’s for all of the journalists, aid workers, and their families.

The die was cast long before that when the US decided to fund the mujahideen to fight the Soviets. That destroyed the possibility of a secular Afghani state. The US later found that the easiest way to pacify the country was to simply bribe Taliban aligned warlords. Once the money spigot was turned off, a Taliban resurgence was inevitable. Every administration from Reagan to Biden shares some blame in what is happening today.

This nihilistic right wing nonsense is just an excuse not to attempt to build something better. It’s lazy thinking and deeply unscientific.

There’s no evidence Hamas beheaded children. IIRC that was a rumor originating from the IDF which remains unsubstantiated.

What’s the difference?

Bush sued to stop a recount in Florida that would have likely led to Gore winning the 2000 presidential election. A conservative Supreme Court majority sided with Bush and stopped the recount. It makes Trump’s whole “STOP THE COUNT!” look amateurish in comparison. Bush actually was able to stop the count and got away with it.

Gore didn’t want Americans to start questioning the legitimacy of our democracy so he conceded. The rally around the flag effect after 9/11 helped quash any further criticisms of how Bush came to office.

Okay but Bush actually stole a presidential election.

Bush is objectively worse on every level. They’re both terrible and the people in their administrations were both soulless gouls. However, Bush’s administration was far more effective in carrying out their repugnant agenda.

People will say Trump tried to steal an election. That’s true. But Bush ACTUALLY stole the election in 2000. Bush also gave us 2 wars which killed in total over a million people and led to the rise of ISIS. Trump’s admin tried it’s best to get the US into a war with Iran but couldn’t make it happen. Bush’s administration also helped get the US into the Great Recession from which the American working class has never truly recovered. Trump doesn’t hold a candle to the kind of damage Bush inflicted on the US and world.

They have a much higher false negative rate now than they used to. Thats probably due to changes in the virus itself and lower viral load as people have higher levels of immunity now. However if you test positive you can still be pretty certain you have covid.