Our failure in Iraq

It has now been more than seven years since the invasion of Iraq, and it’s getting harder and harder to hang onto any shred of hope that this is all going to turn out well. Where do we stand today? Well, 84 people were murdered and hundreds more were wounded today in attacks across Iraq. It has been more than two months since the March 7 election, and not only does Iraq not have a new government, it doesn't even have final results of the balloting. The closest thing they have to an emerging government came to the fore last week, when it was announced that two Shiite blocs have allied with hopes of running the country. Those would be the two Shiite blocs supported by none other than Iran. And it gets worse. The two groups have signed a deal that would give Shiite clerics the final say in political disputes between the blocs. Isn’t that just great. Thanks to George W. Bush, Dick Cheney and the other chickenhawks in that administration, a secular dictatorship that did not allow fanatic Shiites to gain a foothold is now on the brink of becoming an Islamic theocracy. Nice work, George. I'm not trying to argue that Saddam Hussein was a lovely man, but he certainly provided a counterpoint to Iran's strength in the region. Now, Iran may be running Iran and Iraq. And let's not forget that the waging of this war of choice in Iraq was accomplished only by virtually abandoning the war in Afghanistan. Now Iraq seems very much on the brink of descending into bloody chaos, and our prospects of ever turning things around long-term in Afghanistan appear almost as bleak. If these misadventures had come with little cost to the United States, that would be one thing. But we have spent hundreds of billions of dollars we can ill afford on the war in Iraq. And Bush can scrub his hands 24/7, but he can’t wash off the blood of 4,000 American servicemen, servicewomen and Department of Defense civilians. That stain should haunt him always.

How should we deal with a dangerous lunatic?

The game that is known as diplomacy with North Korea has been in full swing again lately, and yes, it seems like a blow-by-blow repeat of past misadventures. North Korea ramps up tensions, the rest of the world replies with sanctions, and North Korea responds to that with threats of mass destruction toward its enemies. Then, the rest of the world typically bows down to North Korea by offering aid, and the North Koreans agree to stop their offensive practices, whether it be creating nuclear fuel, testing nuclear weapons or test-firing missiles. Then, the whole diplomatic dance begins again a few months down the road. Right now, the United States, China and Russia are trying to push North Korea back into multi-nation talks, but President Obama is letting it be known that recently approved U.N. sanctions will be strictly enforced. That prompted North Korea to announce that it will unleash a "thousand-fold" military response if pushed too far. The question is, what could we do differently? It's not as if we can talk rationally with North Korea's leader, because Kim Jong Il is a nut case. And now, he's talking about turning over control of the backward, starving, military-controlled nation to his youngest son, who is all of 26 years old. An all-out, unilateral attack on North Korea by the United States certainly wouldn't be looked on with approval from China and Russia, and one can only guess what the fallout, literally and figuratively, would be from such a move. We could try to enforce a blockade against North Korea to stop outside goods from reaching the country, but one can be sure that Kim and his military would not be the ones to suffer from a resulting shortage of food and other products. We could always hope for a coup led by the military, but as we've seen in the past, you never know what you're going to get when that happens. The new military leader could be a person who cared about the plight of his people and was open to good relations with other nations, but history shows us that is highly unlikely. You're most likely just trading one despot for another. But, all things considered, maybe an internal meltdown is our best bet. It's hard to imagine the next guy being any worse.

Do we care?

Consider this information that was gleaned from a single view of the AP wire on Wednesday:

- Katy Phiri, who is in her 70s, picks up single corn kernels spilled from trucks that ferry the harvest to market. She says she hasn't eaten in three days.
Rebecca Chipika, a child of 9, prods a stick into a termite mound to draw out insects. She sweeps them into a bag for her family's evening meal.
These scenes from a food catastrophe are unfolding in Doma, a district of rural Zimbabwe where journalists rarely venture. It's a stronghold of President Robert Mugabe's party, and his enforcers and informants are everywhere.

- Rebels took up arms in Sudan's western Darfur region in 2003, citing neglect and marginalization by the central government. So far, 300,000 people have died and 2.7 million have been displaced.

- A court in military-ruled Myanmar sentenced a student activist to six-and-a-half years in jail on Wednesday, a week after his father received a 65-year prison term for his own political activities and a decade after his grandfather died in custody. ...
In an intensive crackdown on the country's pro-democracy movement, at least 70 activists have received prison sentences in the past two weeks, many after being held for more than a year before being tried. The courts' actions would keep many of the activists in prison long past a general election set by the junta for 2010. ...
Amnesty International and other human rights groups say the junta holds more than 2,100 political prisoners, up sharply from nearly 1,200 before last year's pro-democracy demonstrations.

We've had a ridiculous embargo in place for decades against Cuba and now claim that going to war with Iraq was worthwhile because we removed a brutal dictator, but we do next to nothing about these humanitarian and human rights disasters. Should we feel a moral duty to do more in these areas, or should we continue with empty talk while thousands die? Do we want to be the world's policeman, or do we continue to pick and choose what outrages us enough to use force?