They're good, and the news is broadly, as opposed to more locally, very alarming. When combined with new about the serious increase in internal violence, blatant human rights violations, and overt violent repression, the larger national and international activities they're engaged in do not present any sort of good picture. I think it's a serious mistake for border countries & other nations to engage in alliance behavior, much less apologies & willful ignorance of what's going on. It's obvious that they have some rather ugly plans for their relationships with neighbors.

They have no end of problems, and any country that's governed by what's widely referred to as a "junta" is probably going to fail badly. In the case of Burma, the military has to create and continue all sorts of conflicts to justify it's existence. After all, if there was peace & success, there would be no justification for a military run government. People who think they can equivocate and bargain with these madmen are badly mistaken.

In particular I find it disappointing that US Sen. Webb has bought into their crap.