Welcome! This is an unapologetic, agenda-free zone. Just commentaries on current events that’ll move you to think, laugh, rage, and even cry.
Syria’s rebel leader Abu Mohammad al Julani is promising to build a secular, inclusive society that respects minority rights. Western leaders are eating it up. They’re salivating at the chance to snatch Syria from Russia’s autocratic axis and parade it as a new democracy. President Biden is so impressed he scrapped the $10 million bounty… Read more.
Earth Day 2020 saw reports of less industrial pollution, less car pollution, less noise pollution, and even less litter on streets. Hell, even India reported pollution so low that blue skies were seen in some cities for the first time in over 10 years. But all of that just raised the obvious question: How will… Read more.
It is making the mass migration John Steinbeck dramatized in The Grapes of Wrath look like a giddy gold rush. In fact, it’s often difficult to tell these days whether Europe is trying to cope with a migration or fend off an invasion. The EU refused to prepare for a predictable rekindling of the migration… Read more.
President Trump on Sunday announced that Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the elusive Islamic State leader, died during an American military operation in Syria, a major breakthrough more than five years after the militant launched the group’s self-proclaimed caliphate. ‘Last night the United States brought the world’s Number One terrorist leader to justice,’ Trump said in a… Read more.
The Middle East is a perennially fractious region. And the combatants are as familiar with each other’s motivations and capabilities as, well, Cain was with Abel’s. This is why the maneuvers afoot in Syria are only playing out according to script. This includes Russia proving itself a far more reliable ally than the United States.… Read more.
The portrait of desperation was captured on Monday by the journalist Julia Le Duc, in the hours after Óscar Alberto Martínez Ramírez drowned with his 23-month-old daughter, Valeria, as they tried to cross from Mexico to the United States. The image represents a poignant distillation of the perilous journey hundreds of thousands of migrants face… Read more.
My views on treating allies with respect and also being clear-eyed about both malign actors and strategic competitors are strongly held. Because you have the right to have a Secretary of Defense whose views are better aligned with yours on these and other subjects, I believe it is right for me to step down from… Read more.
It’s demeaning enough that President Trump plans to travel all the way to Singapore just to “get to know” the genocidal dictator of North Korea, Kim Jong-un. But it seems Kim is willfully insulting Trump. For only this explains Kim making such a show of fraternizing with the genocidal dictator of Syria, Bashir al-Assad, with… Read more.
Trump’s egomaniacal stunts are such that he will probably order bombs to begin landing on Syria this Sunday night. Because that’s when ABC News has scheduled what all of Washington anticipates will be a blockbuster interview with former FBI director James Comey about his dealings with “Mafia Don” Trump. That interview will be based on… Read more.
Sadly, there’s no denying the groundhog-day spectre of this tragedy. Dozens of Syrians choked to death after a suspected chemical attack struck the rebel-held suburb of Douma, east of Damascus, with aid groups on Sunday blaming President Bashar al-Assad’s government for the assault. … Mr. Assad’s allies in Moscow and Tehran dismissed allegations of a… Read more.
