The iPINIONS Journal: Commentaries on the Global Events of 2015—Volume XI

By Anthony Livingston Hall

Anthony L. Hall takes aim at the global events of 2015 with a unique and refreshing perspective. Here are some topics in this eleventh volume of his writings:

Migrants dying in Mediterranean Sea

“Admonishing migrants not to flee conditions so dire is like telling occupants not to flee a house on fire.”

Narcissism of tweeting condolences

“The expression of such sentiments these days is intended more to draw attention to the person tweeting them than to comfort the person (who should be) receiving them.”

Only authoritarian regimes can govern Arab countries

“Show me an Arab country governed by a democratically elected government and I’ll show you one that is an ungovernable mess.”

Putin as world’s most powerful leader

“Hailing a despot like Vladimir Putin as the most powerful politician in the world makes about as much sense as hailing a drug lord like Joaquín ‘El Chapo’ Guzmán as the most powerful businessman.”

The mess in the Middle East

“It’s complicated; which explains why cocksure, warmongering neo-cons—who goaded Bush into invading Iraq—are the only ones criticizing Obama for not having simple military strategy for dealing with the mess in the Middle East. You’d never know that these are the same folks who stirred up the hornet’s nest of sectarian violence the world has been trying in vain to contain ever since.”

Black women dominating swimming championships

“Black women can’t swim? They used to say white men can’t jump. Ha!”

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Mar 23, 2016
• ISBN: 9781491790564

Anthony Livingston Hall

Anthony L. Hall is a Washington-based lawyer who is licensed to practice in a number of foreign jurisdictions. He hails from The Bahamas and Turks & Caicos Islands and was educated at some of America’s best schools, including Williams College. Hall is also a syndicated columnist and the author of The iPINIONS Journal, a weblog of enlightening and entertaining commentaries that provide a refreshing take on current events. He lives in Arlington, Virginia. http://ipjn.com

Book preview

Copyright © 2016 Anthony Livingston Hall.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

iUniverse

1663 Liberty Drive

Bloomington, IN 47403

www.iuniverse.com

1-800-Authors (1-800-288-4677)

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

ISBN: 978-1-4917-9054-0 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4917-9055-7 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4917-9056-4 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2016904669

iUniverse rev. date: 03/21/2016

Contents

100178.png

Acknowledgments

Introduction

AFRICA / MIDDLE EAST

African Migrants Turning Mediterranean into Vast Cemetery

Africa compounds migration shame by refusing to resettle its own

Political Confession (or Dying Declaration…?) of Mugabe of Zimbabwe

Black farmers: bring back white farmers

Yemen Falls Apart … Too

Time to Partition Iraq? No Sh*t!

US defense secretary rebukes Iraqi cowards. VP apologizes?!

Moderate Muslims too busy fighting each other to fight extremists

US military finally calling for political solution

Remembering the Chibok Girls (and Boys)

Egypt Sentences Morsi to Death; Exposes Fecklessness of U.S. Middle East Policy

Abetting Sudan’s Bashir Betrays All That’s Wrong with African Leaders

Obama’s Historic Trip to Kenya

Obama: Why do African leaders refuse to leave office?

Millions in South Sudan Eating Leaves and Grass … Like Cows

Zuma Doing to South Africa What Mugabe Did to Zimbabwe

‘Zuma must fall!’ Cry, South Africa

Mocking al-Qaeda, Fighting ISIS

Obama Amassing Coalition to Do in Syria What Bush Did in Iraq/Afghanistan

Obama gives up on training Syrian opposition…

Why Isn’t Combat against ISIS Combat? Er, Because Obama Says So…?

ISIS Blows Hole in Putin’s Rank as Most Powerful Person Alive

Bombing ISIS Smacks of Masturbatory Violence

Israel: Trolling Iran, Goading U.S.

Chutzpah: Israeli PM to Address US Congress

Republicans: Netanyahu more trustworthy than Obama

Netanyahu’s Call for Jewish Exodus more Sharpton than Moses

Republicans Send ‘Mutinous’ Letter to Iran

Israel Votes to Become more Like (Old) Apartheid South Africa

Netanyahu Condemns Framework for Peace with Iran as … Path to War?

US-Style Racial Protests Erupt in Israel

Obama Leads World to Historic Nuclear Deal with Iran

While US dithers and Israel bickers, China grooves and Russia moves

Netanyahu Blames Palestinian for Getting Hitler to ‘Burn Them’

AMERICAS / CARIBBEAN

‘Fatal Assistance’ to Haiti. Oxymoron Intended.

French forgiving Haitians like Germans forgiving Jews

U.N. peacekeepers preying on helpless Haitians?! Yes

Summit of the Americas: Obama Teasing CARICOM; Testing Cuba; Trolling China

After 54 years, Cuba reopens embassy in Washington

Ten-Point Rebuttal to Demands for Reparations

Cameron rejects CARICOM demands … and rightly so

Canada Continues to Reckon with Its Own Legacy of White Supremacy

Justin Trudeau, the Canadian Barak Obama, wins landslide victory

Chávez Chavismo: More Robbing Hoodlum than Robin Hood

Venezuela finally awakens from Chavismo nightmare

ASIA

‘The Search for MH370: One Year On’

RIP Thailand Democracy

Acknowledging and Commemorating Armenian Genocide

Earthquake Devastates Nepal

Buddhists Religiously Cleansing Myanmar of Muslims

Suu Kyi courting totalitarian power at expense of democratic principles

EUROPE

Croatia v. Serbia in re Genocide: A Plague on Both Your Houses

Germanwings Clipped in the Alps

Shocking: co-pilot suicide?! … mass murder?!

Holy Matrimony! Catholic Ireland Becomes Trailblazer for Gay Rights

Gay marriage, now law of the land in U.S.

DSK: Call Me Randy or Even John, but Never Pimp

Terror In Paris

Avenging Jihadists Attack ‘Charlie Hebdo’

Media covering manhunt more as entertainment than news

Take Your ‘Je Suis Charlie’ and Shove It

Now Copenhagen under attack

Doonesbury Slams Charlie Hebdo

Jihadists Attack … Again

Global outpouring for Paris makes Beirut feel ‘forgotten’

Greece, Greece, Greece

Greeks Want to Have their Euro and Spend It Too

EU calls Greece’s bluff … finally

Greek Referendum Proves a Poisoned Chalice

Russia, Russia, Russia

Russia to Ukraine: Be My Valentine or I Kill You

Fated Assassination of Opposition Leader Boris Nemtsov

Flexing Military Muscles: more Regional Bully than Global Superpower

Putin’s Military Maneuvers Just Mercenary Distractions?!

Earth to Putin: He-Man Stunts Make You Look Stupid, Not Strong

In Putin’s Russia Even Athletics Is a Criminal Doping Enterprise

Hail, Britannia!

BBC Puts Brakes on ‘Top Gear’

BBC to Clarkson: You’re fired!

Conservatives Shock the World (but Not Me) in UK Election

69-Year-Old Lord Exposed as Britain’s Charlie Sheen

London: Bankers Who Thief No Better than Bank Thieves

Pedophile Ring of British Elites Rivals that of Catholic Priests?!

Hail, Jeremy Corbyn! The Bernie Sanders of British Politics

Corbyn wins Labour leadership

Europe’s Migration Crisis

Germany Sowing Seeds of Unintended but all too Foreseeable Consequences

Humanitarian Remorse Hits Germany

Merkel Betraying Policy that Won Her ‘Person of the Year’

UNITED STATES

Happy Presidents’ Day

Boston Marathon Bomber Guilty! No Sh*t

Death!

Common Core

Alas, Bush Still Being Misled/Goaded by Cheney

ABC’s Stephanopoulos Still Serving as Clintons’ Political Hack…?!

On Matters of Sex, Republicans Continue To Be Hoisted with Their Own Petard…

US Putting Woman on Wrong Dollar Bill

Obamacare … Again; Same-Sex Marriage … Too

Court rules same-sex marriage legal nationwide

Bernie Sanders: The Democrats’ Ron Paul (Remember Him?)

Black Lives Matter ‘activists’ bum-rush Bernie

Malibu Billionaires Forced to Open ‘Private Beach’

Chattanooga Massacre Shows NRA Is Lone Wolf’s Best Friend

Roseburg: another day, another school shooting

Now San Bernardino…

Planned Parenthood: Peddling Fetal Body Parts…?

G.O.P Presidential Debate: How Was the Rubbernecking for You…?

The point of Ben Carson’s presidential candidacy…?

A Prayer for Jimmy Carter

Media Frenzy Over Hillary’s E-mails Missing the Point

Obama: from Community Organizer to Geopolitical Grandmaster?

Failure to communicate the ironic regret of Obama presidency

Paid at Last, Paid at Last, Black Farmers Are Paid at Last

Race Still Matters

NY Post: Rev. Al Sharpton Is a Shakedown (Con) Artist

Observing MLK Day

DOJ: No Charges Warranted in Zimmerman Case

Justice for Michael Brown? Just show us the money!

Commemorating Selma, Recognizing Ferguson: Never Forget, Never Again!

Shooting Police to Protest Police Brutality? Idiots

If Championing Michael Brown Was ‘Mistake,’ Why Champion Martese Johnson?

Starbucks Now Offering Conversations on Race? No Thanks

Clarion Call for Body Cameras to Check Bad Cops

Michael Eric Dyson vs. Cornel West: Mania in Academia

Baltimore Apes Worst of Ferguson

Why NAACP Must Fire White Staffer for Passing as Black

Whites welcome, liars not!

Racially Motivated Terrorist Attack Shocks Charleston, SC

Suspect apprehended

Rallying Cry to Take Down the Confederate Flag

Black Lives Matter? Sandra Bland Is an Example, Not a Martyr

Officer Tensing charged with murder

Farrakhan’s ‘Justice or Else’ Ponzi Scheme

White Male Cop ‘Brutalized’ Black Female Student? I Beg To Differ.

Black students protest in support of white officer

Tyshawn Lee: Excuse Me, Which Black Lives Matter?

Black Football Players Force U of Missouri President and Chancellor to Resign

Donald Trump for President…?

NBC to Trump: ‘You’re Fired!’

Trump: No More Black Presidents

Hip-Hop Mogul Pens Fawning Letter Chastising/Cheering Racist Trump…?

The Putin-Trump Bromance

THE GLOBALSPHERE

From Washington to Davos, Calls to Stop Rich Getting Richer Just Hot Air

Hail, Marx! Capitalist and communist economies now indistinguishable

Australian Police Kill more Terror Hostages than Terrorists Do

FCC: Long Live Net Neutrality

Hey Stupid, Personal Tweet Is an Oxymoron

Yet more websites banning public comments

Amanda Knox Not Guilty and Free … Finally

Noam Chomsky Slams Google Spying, Useless Twitter

It’s High Time to Legalize Drugs

Why All the Hoopla about Pluto When Mars Proved Such a Cosmic Dud…?

Homo Naledi: Desecrating Ancient Graves in the Name of Discovery…?

Love the Pope, Not His Message…?

Francis shows papal fallibility on homosexuality

Hurricane Joaquin Leaves Death and Destruction from Bahamas to Carolinas

Global Fight against ‘Extreme Poverty’

Obese Passengers Should Pay Extra…

Australia Bans British Honours. Other Commonwealth Countries Should Too

‘All the World Is at War’ Hardly Means World War III

Paris Talks on Climate Change to Avert an Apocalypse? Hardly…

Pioneer climatologist calls Paris deal ‘bullsh*t’

Snowden Fallout Continues

Unlike NSA Leaks, HSBC Leaks Actually Serve Public Interest

HSBC apologizes

Snowden Wants In from the Cold

If not U.S., Switzerland will do

NSA Reform: From the Fraying Pan into the Fire

More Evidence Snowden Leaks Undermining Global Security…

SPORTS

Hail, Serena!

Wimbledon’s all-white tradition the Confederate flag of Tennis

And Wimbledon makes 21…

Serena gets cold feet…

Black Women Dominate at NCAA Division 1 Swimming Championships?!

Manny vs. Floyd Mayweather: Good vs. Evil…?

Evil triumphs … again

FIFA—Soccer’s Federation of Imbeciles, Fraudsters & Autocrats

Soccer shocker. Blatter resigns!

Sexism explains media disinterest in Women’s World Cup

USA defeats Japan

American Pharoah Wins Triple Crown in ‘Sport of Kings’

Lewis Hamilton, Formula One Champion … Again

Hail, Simone! New Queen of Gymnastics

NCAA/NFL Football

Buckeyes Trample Ducks to Win NCAA Championship

WTF! Cardale stays in school…?

NFL Conference Championship Sunday

Patriots caught in ‘deflategate’

Super Bowl XLIX: Patriots Deflate Seahawks 28-24

NFL Investigation: Brady’s a Liar and a Cheat

Slap on the wrist

Judge overrules NFL

Off-Field Menace of FSU Quarterbacks

Kicked off team

Sam Is Gay. Too Bad He Can’t Play

God Has Forsaken Tim Tebow. Hallelujah!

Steroids: Peyton Manning Caught on the ‘Dark Side’?

NCAA/NBA Basketball

Endgame for Kobe Bryant

Kobe to retire

Duke—NCAA Men’s Champions … Again!

UConn—NCAA Women’s Champions … Again!

LeBron Wins Second Chance to Become a Real Champion

Redemption deferred—Warriors win NBA championship

Hail, Becky Hammon! First Female to Coach an NBA Team

The NFL follows suit…

Tiger’s Back?!

But He’s Brown, Not Black…?

Tiger Misses the Cut

Tiger’s Back, but His Back Won’t Let Him Play?! Puhleeze

Tiger and Lindsey Call It Quits. Duh…

Phil Mickelson Has a Tiger-Like Problem

ENTERTAINMENT

‘Selma’ Defames LBJ to Make MLK Look, What, Even Better?

Oscar snubs ‘Selma.’ Good!

Discovery Channel Promises Fact Instead of Fiction

The Grammys? A Friggin’ Snoozefest!

Who knew Lady Gaga could sing?! Actually, I did

Why is any self-respecting adult still watching the VMAs?

The Oscars: My Picks

And the Oscar goes to…

Madonna Kiss Causes Drake to Retch…?

A Black James Bond? Part II

First Marvin Gaye’s Tune, Now Pharrell Is Singing Mine

Oh Adele, I will always love you … too

Filmmaker Quentin Tarantino Defends Use of N-word with Middle Finger

Eddie Murphy, King of Comedy, Finally

POTPOURRI

Forget Mount Everest, Try Climbing El Capitan

Harper Lee: To Milk a Mockingbird

Dr. Seuss, et al: the mercenary phenomenon of newly discovered masterpieces

Lee’s Watchman unworthy of publication

Wither Agatha Christie’s reputation too

Publisher peddling Lee’s Watchman for $1,500?!

Brian Williams Pinocchios His Career

Replace retired Stewart with suspended Williams … and vice versa? Noooo!

Holt replaces Williams. Told ya!

I enjoyed The Daily Show with Jon Stewart too. But…

Elton John Exposes Flimsy, Fleeting Nature of Hashtag Protests

My Good Friday Sermon

Happy Easter … Monday

France Bans Skinny Models

Dr. Oz: more Wizard than Physician

CBS, Is Lara Logan Finally Okay…?

Beware Makeup Morphing ‘Ugly Ducklings into Swans’

Makeup covers up marital fraud

Men: ‘The Weaker Sex’

Women in combat: hail ‘woman power’ rangers

Down goes Rousey! Down goes Rousey!

No Tobacco Litter!

Bill Cosby Caught Testifying about His M.O. as Sexual Predator

Kim Kardashian on ‘Rolling Stone’?! Is Nothing Sacred…?

Boycott Cosmopolitan magazine!

Kardashians rush to comatose Lamar Odom … with cameras rolling

Aping Trump, Murdoch Tweets Obama Is Not a Real Black Man

EXTRA! EXTRA! Playboy Will Stop Showing Nudes!

MJ: ‘The Kid Is Not My Son’ (Nor Is the Girl or the Other One)

Oscar Pistorius Guilty of Murder… Duh

Harvey’s Miss Universe Gaffe Godsend for Miss Philippines and Miss Colombia

Happy Festivus!

IN MEMORIAM

Alecia Lightbourne-Morris (aka My Aunt Titt)

Lee Kuan Yew, the World’s Most Admired Authoritarian Leader

Omar Sharif, Prodigiously Talented Prodigal Actor/Gambler

Bibliography: Notes on Source Materials

About the Author

To

My big brother Christy

Whose strong mind and kind soul

Belie his disabled body

Acknowledgments

95925.png

Thanks to my production and design team for their unfailingly professional and personable support. One of my pet peeves is finding typos in published books. But I have come to accept that, no matter how keen the editing, there’s no avoiding them. Acclaimed authors like Tom Wolfe, Henry Miller, and Kurt Vonnegut—whose books have the dubious distinction of appearing on the dreaded Corrigenda List of Book Errata—know this all too well. Therefore, please forgive me if you find any typo that makes this book a candidate for that list.

Thanks to my group of extraordinary friends for their continued interest in my commentaries. Never mind that their support these days amounts to little more than suggesting trending topics, which I invariably ignore. This is why I’m sure I risk causing no offense by singling out my dear friend Mary Lauture for a special note of thanks. She is easily my most devoted reader.

Thanks to my darling Katherine—whose unconditional love has sustained me in all my endeavors for the past 30 years. She has a pretty sharp editorial eye too.

Last, but by no means least, thanks to you, my readers. You may be relatively few in number, but you inspire appreciation beyond measure.

Introduction

95905.png

This is my eleventh volume. It covers the major events of 2015. The topics are as eclectic as ever. They include the tower-of-Babel efforts to defeat ISIS; the downfall of FIFA, soccer’s governing body; the outing of Bill Cosby as America’s most prolific rapist; the historic deal to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons; the Republican presidential nomination featuring ringmaster Donald J. Trump; the race for sports story of the year between American Pharoah and Serena Williams; the Syrian refugees swarming Europe; the Black Lives Matter protesters leading a new civil rights movement; the growing fallout from Snowden’s NSA leaks; the peddling of discarded manuscripts by Harper Lee and others as newly discovered masterpieces; the NFL’s Deflategate; and the death of notable people—to name a few.

I have left the commentaries in their original form—as posted on my weblog, The iPINIONS Journal. This not only gives you a better sense of time and place, but also lends authenticity to my thoughts on unfolding events in real time. But this volume contains many updates not posted on my weblog, which add value.

I quote extensively from previous commentaries. I do so not just to show how current events vindicate them, but also to distinguish myself from commentators whose opinions seem no more rooted than the trending topic of the day. One formatting note is that I use two block quotation styles throughout: shorter quotations are usually italicized, while longer ones (aka excerpts) are in plain text and set off with lines above and below.

I hope that, for posterity, this volume proves a reliable source for reflection on the most important and noteworthy events of 2015. And I hope these commentaries serve as a provocative, informative, and even entertaining antidote to the 140-character tweets that pass for public debate these days.

Interestingly enough, a potentially transformative change is afoot in this respect. The January 6, 2016, edition of the Wall Street Journal reported on it under the headline Twitter Weighs 10,000-Character Tweets. Perhaps its CEO has become conscience-stricken over the way his network is facilitating the dumbing down of public discourse, worldwide. That Twitter is considering this change vindicates my long-form commentaries. But getting its snarky, emoji-loving users to write in full sentences will be like getting barbarians to eat with knives and forks. I fear the backlash will force Twitter to reconsider, reinforcing the coarsening and dumbing down of public discourse.

-—ALH

January 17, 2016

AFRICA / MIDDLE EAST

95953.png

African Migrants Turning Mediterranean into Vast Cemetery

February 12

History is replete with episodes of people migrating in droves from one place to another in search of a better life. And, in far too many cases, their migration challenged them to make it through a known hell to get to an uncertain heaven. Hispanics and Haitians migrating to America blighted the twentieth century in this respect. Africans and Arabs migrating to Europe seem destined to blight the twenty-first.

I have written many commentaries on both. More to the point, though, I wrote this foreboding lament two years ago, after hundreds of Africans drowned in the Mediterranean Sea trying to make it to Europe.

Political dysfunction, economic stagnation, and civil strife on the Dark Continent are such that Africans will continue to risk life and limb to seek a better life. For, just as no legal barrier or risk of drowning in the Caribbean Sea has stemmed the tide of Haitian migrants setting off for America, no legal barrier or risk of drowning in the Mediterranean Sea will stem the tide of African migrants setting off for Europe.

(Lampedusa Tragedy Highlights Europe’s ‘Haitian’ Problem, The iPINIONS Journal, October 7, 2013)

Now comes this:

Some 300 migrants, who tried to cross the frigid Mediterranean in open, rubber boats, were reported missing Wednesday by survivors as the U.N. refugee agency and other aid groups sharply criticized the new EU rescue operation as insufficient and costing lives.

(Associated Press, February 11, 2015)

In fact, BBC World News reported yesterday that 3,500 migrants died trying to cross the Mediterranean in 2014. One wonders how many others perished without a trace.

In any event, this latest tragedy affirms my foreboding that the bobbing crucible at sea will never deter Africans from trying to escape their living hell at home. The slogan African solutions for African problems has gained considerable currency in recent years. Well, no African problem needs an African solution more than living conditions that compel so many Africans to migrate, come what may. The abiding shame is that African leaders show no interest in even trying to solve this problem.

Meanwhile, European leaders are accusing each other of not doing enough to rescue African migrants adrift at sea, fleeing the abject misery African leaders have wrought. Indeed, no less a person than Pope Francis has entreated all European leaders to do more—the enabling specter of neo-colonial be damned. Here, according to Reuters, is the edict summoning their noblesse oblige, which he issued during an address before the European Parliament on November 25, 2014:

We cannot allow the Mediterranean to become a vast cemetery.

Alas, the Mediterranean has already become a vast cemetery … where many others seem bound to meet their maker.

UPDATE

Africa compounds migration shame by refusing to resettle its own

November 12

It speaks volumes that not even £1 billion in resettlement aid from their former colonial masters could induce African leaders to resettle some of the migrants now swarming Europe.

The European Union has been forced to drop controversial plans to deport failed asylum seekers who do not have passports after African countries blocked the move.

European leaders offered more than £1billion in aid in a bid to persuade their African counterparts to take back tens of thousands of illegal migrants.

But a migration summit in Valletta, Malta, descended into farce after the Africans rejected the EU plan.

(London Daily Mail, November 12, 2015)

Instead, African leaders insisted that they would use this aid to foster stability, promote economic opportunities, and manage migration, particularly in countries like Senegal, Eritrea, and Libya whence most African migrants are fleeing. Except that this £1billion is on top of the £20 billion the EU wastes every year trying to help Africa redress chronic poverty, ethnic conflict, infectious disease, political dysfunction, and other such maladies that compel migration. So only a fool can believe this additional aid will do anything to stem the tide of African migrants washing up daily on European shores. Talk about throwing good money after bad!

That said, it shall redound to America’s eternal shame that it refused entry to Jews seeking refuge from the Holocaust in Germany. By instructive contrast, it shall redound to Europe’s eternal salvation that it is trying to assimilate Africans seeking refuge from all manner of strife in Africa. Especially considering the even more heroic efforts Europe is putting forth to assimilate Arabs seeking refuge from sectarian wars in the Middle East. And, this salvation is assured notwithstanding some eastern European countries (like Hungary) building walls of xenophobic resistance.

Hence, it shall redound to Africa’s even greater shame that it is refusing re-entry to Africans needing resettlement. Never mind that shame is a corrective emotion Africa seems completely bereft of. Apropos of which, I cannot overstate this:

I just hope the damning irony is not lost on any proud African that, 50 years after decolonization, hundreds of Africans (men, women, and children) are risking their lives, practically every day, to subjugate themselves to the paternal mercies of their former colonial masters in Europe.

(Lampedusa Tragedy Highlights Europe’s Haitian Problem, The iPINIONS Journal, October 7, 2013)

This compels me to end by noting that, despite (or, dare I say, thanks to?) the centuries of slavery and discrimination our forebears endured, blacks throughout the Americas cannot help but look on Africa today and say: There but for the grace of God go we.

Political Confession (or Dying Declaration…?) of Mugabe of Zimbabwe

March 3

You would be hard-pressed to find a non-African (or even a non-Zimbabwean) who has decried President Robert Mugabe’s rule more than I. Here is an illustrative quote from Zimbabweans Pray for Liberation from their Liberator, Robert Mugabe, March 29, 2005:

The Mugabe government of Zimbabwe is the most corrupt, dysfunctional, and incompetent in Africa. And on a continent that has the most corrupt, dysfunctional, and incompetent governments in the entire world, Mugabe’s achievement in this regard is a truly dubious distinction…

Like his plan for black economic empowerment, Mugabe’s plan for land reform has been an abject failure: Five years ago, Zimbabwe was the breadbasket of Sub-Saharan Africa; today, it’s a basket case of starving people. Five years ago, there were 4,000 white-owned farms in Zimbabwe; today, there are only 400—mostly unproductive—farms left.

This is why I was so unmoved by a BBC report about Mugabe admitting that his farm policies have failed, abysmally:

Zimbabwe’s President Robert Mugabe has admitted failures in the country’s controversial land reform programme.

‘I think the farms we gave to people are too large. They can’t manage them,’ the 91-year-old leader said in unusually candid comments.

(BBC, February 27, 2015)

Too large?! No, Mr. Mugabe, the problem was giving farms (of any size) to people who clearly intended to use them for anything but farming. Not that anybody expected these congenitally selfish SOBs to farm, mind you. After all, it was too easy for them to buy their food on the black market, despite the threat of economic sanctions—just as corrupt ruling elites from Iran to North Korea had been doing for decades?

The poet George Eliot is credited with coining the maxim:

It’s never too late to be what you might’ve been.

She was wrong. Because, in Mugabe’s case, it’s much too late to be the black liberator he might’ve been.

To be fair, though, far from being just another amoral ploy to elicit sympathy and extract financial aid, this might be Mugabe’s way of confessing his sins before he meets his maker. Indeed, at 91, chances are that the only things he hears loud and clear these days are the Grim Reaper’s footsteps drawing nigh. Except that this is a man who based his nearly 40-year rule on blaming Western countries for executing neo-colonial policies, which he claimed not only undermined Zimbabwean independence, but starved millions of its people to boot. This, notwithstanding that those countries provided the only food millions of Zimbabweans got for many years, thanks to his confiscatory farm policies.

Therefore, to give himself the best possible chance of being escorted through the Pearly Gates, instead of the Gates of Hell, it behooves Mugabe to admit that demonizing the West for his catastrophic policies was also mistake.

Meanwhile, apropos of mistake, Mugabe seems intent on anointing his wife, Grace (49), as his successor. Granted, he would only be emulating the democratic precedent President Néstor Carlos Kirchner of Argentina set in 2007, when he effectively anointed his wife, Cristina Elisabet Fernández (62), as his. Incidentally, Mugabe and Grace seemed to be tempting fate when they threw a 91st-birthday party for him last month that was truly worthy of King Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette. For not since Claude Baby Doc Duvalier and Michele threw the last of their notoriously lavish parties has a dictator displayed such galling and wanton contempt for his chronically impoverished people. (For what it’s worth, that Duvalier party in 1986 proved to be the final straw for his dictatorial rule.)

More to the point, though, nothing indicates how short his wife’s grace period would be quite like members of Mugabe’s own ruling ZANU-PF party already decrying her ambition and mocking his dotage. Not to mention the scramble for survival (or power) he set off recently when he:

… fired his deputy, Joice Mujuru, and seven government ministers, his cabinet secretary … in the latest twist in a power struggle over the choice of his successor.

The move took place days after Mugabe … publicly rebuked Mujuru, who was seen just months ago as the most likely to take his place when he dies or retires.

(Reuters, December 9, 2014)

Mugabe proffered the plainly spurious (if not paranoid) claim that his deputy and others were conspiring to overthrow and assassinate him. But whispers dismissing him as just a doddering old fool doing his wife’s bidding have become so loud that he prevailed upon The Herald, his state-owned newspaper, to publish a report on Friday under the headline, I’m still in charge, which included this telltale sign that he’s not:

She is not the power behind my throne. She has come into politics in her own right.

Interestingly enough, this dying declaration (politically speaking) came on the heels of an incident, which not only saw Mugabe fall from grace, literally, but caused him to sow seeds of fateful resentment among the bodyguards who have protected him all these years:

[Twenty-seven] bodyguards of Zimbabwe’s President Robert Mugabe have been punished for failing to prevent him falling down the steps from a podium, in an incident that drew widespread mockery online

The 90-year-old dictator was captured on camera as he stumbled on a red carpet and fell to his knees after addressing supporters who gathered to welcome him back from a trip to Ethiopia at Harare airport last week.

(International Business Times, February 10, 2015)

Mugabe spent nearly 40 years cultivating an image as an iron-fisted strongman. Yet the irony seems completely lost on him that this image—of a doddering old fool, trying desperately to anoint his trophy wife as his successor—is the lasting one Zimbabweans will have of him. What’s more, having declared his intent to be re-elected in 2018, when he’s 94, Mugabe will only reinforce this image by withering away in full public view.

NOTE: Nothing demonstrates what a statesman and class act Nelson Mandela was quite like juxtaposing his career and character with Robert Mugabe’s.

UPDATE

Black farmers: bring back white farmers

September 16

Even Mugabe’s cronies are finally realizing that farms without farmers are like cars without engines.

Fifteen years ago, the government began seizing property from thousands of white farmers and giving it to blacks as recompense for the abuses of colonial rule. But now, as agricultural output stalls, black landowners are quietly reaching out to white farmers who were thrown off their land.

‘The problem now is that we have the land, but they have the experience,’ said Mutinhiri, a black landowner.

(Washington Post, September 14, 2015)

Of course, the wonder is not only that it took these would-be farmers 15 years to admit their incompetence, but that they never bothered during all of those fallow years to acquire the knowledge and skills to become competent farmers. The latter, I respectfully submit, speaks volumes about why whites owned so much farmland in the first place (i.e. notwithstanding colonial rule).

Meanwhile, Mugabe continues to manifest the mental defect that gave birth to his ill-fated land reforms and should have caused his removal from office at least 15 years ago. You can be forgiven for thinking that I’m referring to this pitiful spectacle:

Zimbabwe’s 91-year-old president Mugabe read the wrong speech at the opening of a new session of parliament on Tuesday, repeating an address he gave to the legislature last month.

The veteran leader read the 25-minute-long speech through to the end, apparently unaware that he was delivering the same text he presented during his state of the nation address last month.

(London Telegraph, September 15, 2015)

But I am not; not least because it says far more about his yes-men than it does about a plainly senile Mugabe. Instead, I’m referring to this equally pitiful utterance:

‘We can’t have another war to liberate a country we have already liberated,’ Mugabe said last month, speaking about the increasing number of white farmers now advising or managing black-owned farms.

(Washington Post, September 14, 2015)

Sadly, Mugabe’s dementia is such that he does not remember the SOS he himself sounded earlier this year for these white farmers to return. Nor, evidently, does he have the mental capacity to appreciate why Zimbabwe’s liberated are praying for liberation from him, their liberator. Never mind that Zimbabwe’s long-suffering people have been doing so for most of his 35-year rule.

Yemen Falls Apart … Too

March 26

Yemen’s embattled president was pushed deeper into crisis Wednesday after fleeing a last-ditch refuge as advancing Shiite rebels seized a key air base to add another prize to their expanding territory.

The whereabouts of Western-allied President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi was not immediately clear.

But any further disintegration of Hadi’s power would tip Yemen closer toward a civil war involving various factions, including a powerful branch of al-Qaeda.

(Washington Post, March 25, 2015)

No kidding!

I have pooh-poohed every new strategy (i.e., troop deployment) President Obama has announced to combat Islamic terrorists (from Al-Shabaab in Somalia to ISIS in Syria).

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 on communism (in Korea). And beware that a stupid war by any other name (like ‘a counterterrorism operation’) would still prove as stupid….

(Demystifying ISIS: Case against Obama’s Bush-lite War on Terrorism, The iPINIONS Journal, September 10, 2014)

Nothing validates (or vindicates) my cynicism quite like ISIS actually growing in strength since Obama launched his master plan six months ago to degrade and ultimately destroy it.

In Demystifying ISIS…, I delineated the only sensible strategy Obama should execute. It leaves Muslims to fight their own sectarian and existential wars, uses aggressive surveillance to gather intelligence, and relies on drones and Special Forces to launch strategic strikes against terrorist groups—whether in Middle East or Africa.

This is why I hope I can be forgiven for just rolling my eyes in disgust when Yemen began falling apart a few months ago, despite Obama’s best efforts to portray it as his proverbial city upon a hill in the Middle East. I wrote it would be thus in such commentaries as Obama’s Mission Creep in Iraq Channeling JFK’s Mission Creep in Vietnam, November 12, 2014. But even I was dumbfounded that, even with the writing so clearly on the wall, Obama had hundreds of U.S. marines still trying to put this Humpty Dumpty of a country back together again. Unsurprisingly, this set up the inevitable spectacle of these marines retreating in the face of Shiite rebels (aka Houthis) in Yemen this week, in a manner embarrassingly similar to the way U.S.-trained and equipped Iraqi soldiers retreated in the face of Sunni rebels (aka ISIS) in Iraq last year. In fact, the symmetry of this spectacle is such that fleeing marines left behind even more sophisticated U.S. armaments for the poorly equipped Houthis to exploit than the fleeing Iraqis infamously left behind for ISIS to exploit.

The Pentagon is unable to account for more than $500 million in U.S. military aid given to Yemen, amid fears that the weaponry, aircraft and equipment is at risk of being seized by Iranian-backed rebels or al-Qaeda, according to U.S. officials.

With Yemen in turmoil and its government splintering, the Defense Department has lost its ability to monitor the whereabouts of small arms, ammunition, night-vision goggles, patrol boats, vehicles and other supplies donated by the United States. The situation has grown worse since the United States closed its embassy in Sanaa, the capital, last month and withdrew many of its military advisers.

(Washington Post, March 17, 2015)

Frankly, I couldn’t create such a conflagration of follies if I tried. All I can do is reiterate my call for Obama to leave the various Muslim factions across the Middle East and in parts of Africa to their own devices. I hasten to clarify that, despite warmongering media reports, none of their sectarian fighting has ever posed any threat to the national security of the United States. Indeed, let us not forget that Sunni Iraq and Shia Iran fought an eight-year war during the 1980s, which most Americans were not even aware was going on. Again, the United States should deploy Special Forces to those regions only to protect areas of vital strategic interest, like Saudi oil production and international shipping lanes.

This is why I was so dismayed on Tuesday, when Obama compounded his 2009 decision to surge more troops into Afghanistan by announcing a one-year extension of their deployment at the behest of new Afghan president Ashraf Ghani. After all, and I cannot belabor this point, it is abject folly to think that 10,000 U.S. troops can do a better job of training Afghan troops in one year to defend their country from Taliban fighters than 100,000 U.S. troops did in ten years. Apropos of folly, nothing is more so than the United States trying to prevent Shiite rebels from overthrowing a hapless Sunni president in Yemen, while the putatively powerful and predominantly Sunni kingdom of Saudi Arabia sat idly by, right across the border, with a military arsenal worth hundreds of billions just becoming sand infested. This is why I was so heartened yesterday, when the Saudi ambassador to the United States announced that his country has finally begun launching military strikes against Houthi rebels in Yemen.

Incidentally, it might be helpful to know that 85 percent of the world’s 1.6 billion Muslims are Sunnis. Therefore, if Sunni Saudi wants to forfeit leadership of them to the marauding band of Sunni psychopaths—who are now trying to form a medieval Caliphate in Syria and Iraq, what business is that of the United States? Moreover, if Sunnis want to forfeit the soul (or political control) of Islam to the 15 percent of Shias, led by Iran, again, what business is that of the United States? Except, of course, that there’s probably no conflict on planet Earth defense contractors and their congressional pawns would not declare of strategic interest to the United States. For this is how they justify the unconscionable amount of taxpayer dollars budgeted each year to feed the Frankensteinian military industrial complex, which former President Dwight D. Eisenhower famously warned about over 50 years ago. Hell, you could be forgiven for thinking that every politician who comes to Washington pledges as an article of faith that what’s good for defense contractors is good for U.S. national security.

Mind you, I still urge the United States to use its good offices and regional influence to try to broker peace between Sunnis and Shias, just as it has been doing to broker peace between Israelis and Palestinians. Notwithstanding that the prospect for peace in the former case (with shifting alliances among far too many Muslim clans to count) is probably even dimmer than in the latter. In any event, this would/should not require military intervention of any kind. Only misguided neo-imperialism and unconscionable corporate greed would necessitate that.

Time to Partition Iraq? No Sh*t!

March 31

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, providing purportedly visionary and authoritative commentary on all manner of political developments across the globe. Such was the case on Sunday—when he appeared on CNN’s Fareed Zakaria GPS to discuss the internecine struggle between Sunnis and Shiites. This, of course, is the struggle that has been threatening for millennia to blow not just Iraq but the entire Middle East asunder.

Here is how Haass replied when Zakaria asked about partitioning Iraq—where the United States remains hostage to so many vested interests—as a panacea:

Iraq is effectively breaking up … [into] an Iranian Shia version of Iraq … a Kurdish Iraq [and] a Sunni Arab tribal Iraq.

And I think to the United States the real question is, when do we give up the game?

Except that, almost a decade ago, some of us declared partition the inevitable consequence of the U.S. invasion of Iraq. It was self-evident that Sunnis (who compose 20 percent of the population) and Kurds (who compose 17 percent) would never consent to be governed by a central government dominated by Shiites (who compose 60 percent). This is why we urged the United States to give up the game of nation building among them way back then.

I fail to understand (not that Bush’s critics have even bothered to explain) how changing control of Congress or firing Rumsfeld will improve conditions on the ground in Iraq. And it’s probably too late to execute what I thought was the only way to rebuild Iraq’s infrastructure and form a viable federal government: Namely, to implement a Marshall Plan (a la post WWII Japan) under martial law enforced by the ‘several hundred thousand U.S. troops’ the truly visionary Gen. Eric Shinseki said would be needed in postwar Iraq.

I fear the only hope now is to partition the country into Kurdish, Shiite and Sunni zones and leave them to defend their own borders and barter (or fight) for a share Iraq’s oil wealth.

So, here’s to the triumph of opportunistic politics over failed military strategies.

(At Last, Rumsfeld Becomes a Casualty of the Iraq War, The iPINIONS Journal, November 9, 2006)

Alas, I fear it’s too late now to partition Iraq. Not least because this was only feasible when the United States wielded de facto colonial authority over the entire country and could compel sectarian leaders to the table. But the new, Shiite-dominated government has not only kicked the United States out, but invited Iran in. And, Iran is now wielding the kind of influence the United wasted thousands of lives and nearly a trillion dollars to acquire. More to the point, the last thing the Persian Mullahs who rule Iran want is for their Shiite brothers to cede any part of Iraq to Sunnis Arabs. But, to better appreciate Shiite enmity towards Sunnis, consider that the only people these Mullahs hate more than Jews are the Sunni royals who rule Saudi Arabia.

It’s complicated; which explains why cocksure, warmongering neo-cons—who goaded Bush into invading Iraq—are the only ones criticizing Obama for not having simple military strategy for dealing with the mess in the Middle East. You’d never know that these are the same folks who stirred up the hornet’s nest of sectarian violence the world has been trying in vain to contain ever since.

Again, Sunnis and Shiites are waging a never-ending war for the soul (and control) of Islam. Their latest bone of contention stems from the belief among Iranians that Saudis have been proselytizing a medieval and perverse form of Islam called Wahhabism, which has inspired nobody body but jihadi terrorists who find salvation in ISIS/al-Qaeda-style crusades.

In any event, I cannot overstate that the United States should leave the warring Islamic factions across Africa and the Middle East to their own devices. It should merely warn whichever one emerges as the governing authority that it will suffer a Taliban-like fate too if it harbors terrorists within its borders. In other words, with apologies to J.R.R. Tolkien:

One Drone to find them all, One Drone to watch them,

One Drone to bomb them all, and from the skies contain them,

In the Land of Babylon where the Dark Ages loom.

All else is folly, including Johnnies-come-lately (like Haass) playing visionary pundits TV.

RELATED

US defense secretary rebukes Iraqi cowards. VP apologizes?!

May 27

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, to stiffen their spine.

To be fair, the United States spent 12 years, lost 4,491 soldiers, and wasted $2 trillion trying to build a Jeffersonian democracy in the heart of the Middle East. I suspect a despairing wish to validate or vindicate this tragic record of futility is what motivates these politicians. The problem is that they seem afflicted by the same delusion that compels a drunken gambler—who has already lost everything except the clothes on his back—to play one more hand, hoping against hope for a reversal of fortune. Not to mention the warmongering neo-cons agitating for U.S. boots back on the ground. They seem oblivious to the fact that Iraqi Sunnis and Iranian Shiites fought an eight-year war during the 1980s, and have been baying to go at it again ever since … if only meddlesome Americans would get out of their way. I say, get out of their way, America!

In fact, ever since the days of shock and awe in 2003, I have been agitating for America to leave holy warriors in Iraq and across the Middle East to their own devices—as such commentaries as The Shotgun Convention of Sunnis, Shias, & Kurds to Frame an Iraqi Constitution, August 22, 2005, and Civil War in Iraq Is at Hand, March 20, 2006, attest. I agitated for this cause notwithstanding that leaving would violate the famous, even if apocryphal, Pottery Barn rule: You break it, you own it! No doubt you recall the then secretary of state, Colin Powell, invoking this rule to give pause to America’s march of folly into Iraq. This fateful irony, of course, is that he ended up making the case for immediate recourse to war. Specifically, during his infamous UN address in March 2003, he presented what he claimed was proof Iraq possessed WMDs … only to have that proof prove bogus after the die was cast.

In any event, even though America broke Iraq, it could never own Iraq. More to the point, given all America has invested trying to put Iraq back together again, I hereby invoke this Humpty Dumpty rule: If you spend ten years trying to sow seeds of democracy and nothing blooms, you can stop trying, without loss of face or favor, especially if those you’re trying to democratize are continually shooting your people in the back, literally. But I digress….

The point is that, if President Bush had withdrawn all troops after declaring Mission Accomplished on May 1, 2003, he would have spared the United States 90 percent of the wasted years, blood, and treasure cited above. In the Mission Accomplished speech Bush should have delivered, he could have said that he’s ordering the immediate withdrawal of all combat troops because, while they can liberate Iraqis from their dictator, U.S. troops cannot impose democracy upon them.

Meanwhile, Iraq is a country beset by general administrative incompetence, endemic corruption, and sectarian strife. It is mired in a culture of dependency so pathological that local leaders are still looking to Americans to not only clean up their messes, but fight their battles too. In fact, Iraq’s surreal state of affairs has become so absurd that Iranians are now calling Americans cowards. Ironically, like U.S. politicians, they also blame U.S. commanders for standing by and watching as U.S.-trained and equipped Iraqi soldiers hightailed it and ran from ISIS fighters in Ramadi last week. This, after standing by and watching as their Iraqi soldiers did the same in Mosul last June.

Don’t get me started on the absurdity of U.S. commanders claiming to be shocked, shocked by the fecklessness of Iraqi soldiers. After all, these soldiers displayed similar cowardice in 2003, when they hightailed it and ran from the battlefield, thereby enabling invading U.S. troops to look like they were on a military parade to honor Saddam Hussein, instead of a military offensive to overthrow him. Beyond name calling, though, there’s the more consequential spectacle of Iraqi leaders now looking to Iranian-trained Iraqi militias to fight existential battles against ISIS fighters—battles U.S.-trained Iraqi soldiers seem unable or unwilling to fight. Got that?

This is why, apropos of hope, I had a glimmer of it on Sunday, when U.S. Defense Secretary Ash Carter finally called this spade a spade:

What apparently happened was that the Iraqi forces just showed no will to fight … they vastly outnumbered the opposing forces, and yet the failed to fight…

We can give them the training, we can give the equipment, but we obviously can’t give them the will to fight…

We can participate in the defeat of ISIL but we can’t make Iraq run as a decent place for people to live … only the Iraqis can do that.

(CNN, May 24, 2015)

Unfortunately, within hours of Carter’s rebuke, VP Joe Biden made it clear that, instead of signaling an American awakening, Carter was just going rogue:

Vice President Joe Biden is reassuring Iraq’s government of U.S. support in the fight against the Islamic State group, telephoning Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi with thanks for ‘the enormous sacrifice and bravery of Iraqi forces’ one day after Defense Secretary Ash Carter questioned the Iraqi military commitment.

(Washington Post, May 26, 2015)

Even though a billion times more tragic, this is every bit as foolhardy and indulgent as a school principal telephoning the mother of a failing student to reassure her that he’s doing well.

In explaining his policy towards Cuba, Obama ridiculed his critics by invoking the Einsteinian definition of insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. Therefore, he of all people should appreciate how insane it is for the United States to keep trying to make Iraq run as a decent place for people to live. After all, the United States has been trying to no avail to do just that for over 12 years now.

NOTE: Carter’s authoritative, albeit belated, rebuke pertains to Afghanistan as well, notwithstanding Biden’s apology.

Moderate Muslims too busy fighting each other to fight extremists

July 31

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 East (i.e. a failed state).

Turkish tanks shelled a Kurdish-held village in northern Syria overnight, wounding at least four fighters, according to Kurdish forces and a monitoring group.

In a statement, the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) said Turkish tanks hit its positions and those of allied Arab rebels in the village of Zur Maghar in Aleppo province, Syria.

(London Guardian, July 27, 2015)

And:

Turkey began bombing PKK [Kurdish] camps in northern Iraq last Friday in what government officials have said was a response to a series of killings of police officers and soldiers blamed on the Kurdish militant group…

Turkey’s NATO allies have expressed unease about the operations aimed at the PKK, since the Kurds have been a crucial ally in the fight against Isis both in Syria and in Iraq.

(London Guardian, July 29, 2015)

In other words, fighting Islamic jihadists is becoming the military equivalent of building the Tower of Babel. I get why God confounded mankind’s unity of purpose to build a stairway to heaven. But I don’t get why He’s confounding our unity of purpose to defeat religious terrorists. Not that the moderate-Muslim foot soldiers we’re relying on have shown much willingness or ability to fight this good fight, mind you:

An al-Qaida affiliate abducted an American-trained rebel commander and seven of his fighters in northern Syria just days after they deployed in the war-torn country.

The mid-week kidnapping is seen by analysts as a setback to Washington’s effort to shape an insurgent force able to combat Islamic State extremists, and it is likely to complicate plans for a safe zone in northern Syria currently under discussion between U.S. and Turkish officials.

(Voice of America, July 30, 2015)

Honestly, I’m not sure which makes more of a mockery of U.S. efforts: U.S.-trained and equipped Syrian fighters allowing themselves to be kidnapped by al-Qaeda fighters, or U.S.-trained and equipped Iraqi fighters fleeing like cowards from ISIS fighters. Either way, this latest development further vindicates the strategy I laid out in Demystifying ISIS: Case against Obama’s Bush-lite War on Terrorism, September 10, 2014.

US military finally calling for political solution

August 14

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. focus for now should be on defeating the Islamic State, the jihadist group that has seized large portions of the country.

But in a valedictory news conference he took a pessimistic view about the underlying conflict between Shiites and Sunnis that brought the two communities to brink of civil war in 2006.

(Agence France-Presse, August 13, 2015)

Frankly, the U.S. military conceding this point comes too many years, too many billions, and above all, too many deaths too late.