Welcome! This is an unapologetic, agenda-free zone. Just commentaries on current events that’ll move you to think, laugh, rage, and even cry.
Iraqi Kurds demonstrated on Monday that they are as determined to be independent as black slaves were to be free. But, ominously, Iraqi leaders are demonstrating that they are as determined to keep Iraqi Kurds in Iraq as Confederate leaders were to keep black slaves on the plantation. The Iraqi government escalated its confrontation with… Read more.
The U.S. will slow the pace of its troop drawdown in Afghanistan, leaving 8,400 troops there when President Barack Obama completes his term, Obama announced Wednesday in a blunt acknowledgment that America will remain entangled there despite his aspirations to end the war. In a statement at the White House, Obama said the security situation in… Read more.
I have been venting exasperation with President Obama’s Bush-Lite war on terrorism almost from day one of his presidency – as such commentaries as “Obama Saluting War Dead Will Be Defining Image of His Presidency,” October 30, 2009, and “Demystifying ISIS: Case against Obama’s Bush-Lite War on Terrorism,” September 10, 2014, attest. I have been particularly… Read more.
U.S. Secretary of Defense Ash Carter announced Monday the United States will send 217 additional troops to Iraq to serve as advisers and trainers… The new forces, which will raise the U.S. troop presence in Iraq to more than 4,000, will be allowed to advise at the battalion and brigade level, rather than be restricted… Read more.
The U.S. Army’s outgoing chief of staff warned Wednesday that reconciliation between Shiites and Sunnis in Iraq is becoming harder and that partitioning the country ‘might be the only solution…’ General Raymond Odierno, who once served as the top U.S. commander in Iraq and retires Friday after nearly 40 years in uniform, said the U.S.… Read more.
Nothing has bedeviled U.S. nation-building efforts in Afghanistan and Iraq quite like the determination of Sunnis and Shiites to fight each other instead of Islamic jihadists. Now, Turks and Kurds are fighting each other instead of ISIS, thereby complicating ongoing efforts in Iraq and bedeviling efforts to prevent Syria from becoming the Somalia of the Middle… Read more.
Remarkably, U.S. politicians act as if Americans have a greater duty to govern, defend, and sustain Iraq than Iraqis themselves. Only this explains their reaction to thousands of Iraqi troops fleeing Ramadi to escape hundreds of ISIS fighters last week. For, instead of damning these Iraqi cowards, U.S. politicians blamed U.S. commanders for not being there, on the ground,… Read more.
Whenever former VP Dick Cheney criticizes President Obama’s foreign policies, he comes across like a condemned man pleading for political absolution; no time more so than with respect to Iraq. Never mind that his criticisms are invariably about as credible as those of an arsonist criticizing the way firemen are putting out the inferno he ignited.… Read more.
Richard Haass is president of the Council on Foreign Relations, which promotes itself as “an independent, nonpartisan membership organization, think tank, and publisher dedicated to being a resource to help people better understand the world and the foreign policy choices facing the United States and other countries.” Unsurprisingly, Haass is a mainstay on TV talk shows,… Read more.
I urge you to listen carefully for anything that convinces you that his war on terrorism (against ISIS) will be any more successful than Bush’s ill-fated war on terrorism (against al-Qaeda). Just be mindful that JFK convinced the American people that his war on communism (in Vietnam) would be more successful than his predecessor Truman’s war… Read more.
