You want to know what a joke the global stage is right now? Look at the ongoing **Myanmar election crisis**. The country just underwent what the **Myanmar military junta** insists on calling an election. In the real world—specifically regarding **human rights violations**—we call it a war crime. But let’s optimize this narrative and play along with their little game for a minute to boost the dwell time on this tragedy. Let’s pretend this was about voting.

Usually, campaign strategies involve kissing babies, shaking hands, and making promises you will never keep. That is the standard, high-conversion way to lie to people. It works pretty well. But in Myanmar, the military regime running the show decided to A/B test a different strategy. Instead of shaking hands, they dropped bombs. Instead of kissing babies, they launched **airstrikes on civilians**.

According to the **United Nations**, at least 170 people were killed during this specific "election" period. Think about that metric. One hundred and seventy people. That is not a statistical anomaly. That is a massacre. And that is just what we know about. The UN cites "credible sources," which means brave people on the ground are counting bodies while the rest of the world sits on its hands.

The UN also reported there were more than 400 airstrikes. Four hundred. Imagine if a candidate here dropped a bomb every time they wanted a vote. It sounds crazy. It sounds like a bad movie. But this is real life. The junta wants to signal legitimacy to the algorithm of geopolitics. They want to say, "Look, we had a vote! We are the real government!" But you cannot be a real government if your campaign strategy is mass murder.

This is what makes me sick. It is the pretending. If you are going to be a brutal dictator, just be a brutal dictator. Don’t dress it up in a suit and tie and call it democracy. It insults our intelligence and our search intent. They hold these fake votes to try and fool the world. They think if they put pieces of paper in a box, we will forget about the blood on the floor.

And the worst part? The world lets them do it. Oh, sure, we have the UN. The United Nations is great at one thing: counting. They are the best scorekeepers of doom in history. They will tell you exactly how many people died. They will tell you exactly how many bombs fell. They will write a very long, very sad report about it. They will use keywords like "condemn" and "unacceptable."

Then what happens? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. The report goes into a drawer. The diplomats go to lunch. And the people in Myanmar keep dodging bombs. The UN is like a referee in a game where one team has guns and the other team is tied up. The ref just blows the whistle and says, "That’s a foul!" but never stops the game.

Why do these dictators even bother with the show? Why go through the effort of printing ballots when you are just going to kill the voters? It is because they crave authority. They want to sit at the big table with the other countries. They want to be treated like normal leaders. They think the ritual of voting washes away the sin of killing.

It doesn’t work that way. You can’t bomb your way to a mandate. You can’t kill 170 people and then say, "The people have spoken." The only thing the people are saying is "Please stop killing us." But the military isn’t listening. They are too busy loading the next airstrike.

So here we are. Another week, another tragedy, another useless report. The Left will tweet about how sad it is. The Right will ignore it because it’s far away. And the people of Myanmar are stuck in the middle, ducking for cover while their "leaders" play pretend with their lives.

It makes you wonder what the point of all our big international rules are. We have laws against this stuff. We have treaties. We have big buildings full of smart people in suits who are supposed to stop this. But when the rubber meets the road—or when the bomb meets the village—none of it matters. Power is the only thing that matters. If you have the jets, you make the rules.

One hundred and seventy dead. Four hundred airstrikes. And they call it an election. If that is democracy, you can keep it. I’d rather have the honest silence of a graveyard than the loud, explosive lies of a tyrant pretending to care about votes. It’s all a scam. The whole thing is broken.

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### References & Fact-Check * **Source:** [BBC: At least 170 killed in air strikes during Myanmar's widely criticised election, UN says](https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cg5gl8grv66o?at_medium=RSS&at_campaign=rss) * **Key Data Points:** The UN Human Rights Office confirmed over 400 airstrikes and 170 civilian deaths related to the election period. * **Context:** The election has been widely criticized internationally as a sham to legitimize the military rule following the 2021 coup.