The Score Abroad

In 2008, due to the troop surge advocated by Senator McCain at some political peril, planned by General Petraeus, and executed by the world's finest military force as it advances stability in Iraq, the US brought the insurgency down to manageable levels. Ironically, McCain's efforts brought the success that allowed national security to slip from the front pages and facilitated the rise of Obama. In Afghanistan, the US may be leaving the first round in a draw, an untenable situation exacerbated by the cowardice of and failure to engage by some of our NATO allies who if they permit their troops involvement at all only allow them in safer areas. The West must win even if it means confronting Pakistan which has continued her double game with support for Jihad but with hopes that the fanatics they sponsor will direct their wrath on India over Kashmir. India and Pakistan may be about to embark on a conflict of their own. The inventory of terrorist atrocity expanded with the madness in Mumbai, and India must be seen as stamping out the roots of this barbarism. If Pakistan closes training camps, arrests, tries, and punishes ringleaders and purges her intelligence service and military of bad actors war will be prevented and the world will be better off. Pakistani nuclear proliferator A.Q. Khan's mischief must still be confronted in North Korea and Iran. Iran is led by an end-time fanatic and like-thinking theocrats and continues to be the globe's main exporter of terrorist menace backing Hizbullah, Hamas, and the Iraqi Shia insurgency that still exists though the Sunni al-Qaeda threat has been largely vanquished. Hamas or its proxies pounded Israel and Israel finally responded to almost universal condemnation. The expansion of the Israel conflict is inevitable with Hizbullah likely to start trouble along the Israel-Lebanon border and Iran will back this to the fore and may try to use a nuclear weapon against the Jewish state. Hugo Chavez continues to export revolution in Latin America and tries to be the constant thorn in America's side. The Venezuelan villain is joined by Evo Morales in Bolivia, Rafael Correa in Ecuador, Daniel Ortega in Nicaragua,and the dying Castro brothers in Cuba in trying to thwart capitalist democracy in Latin America. Africa is riven with strife as the Congo bleeds, Zimbabwe starves, and Somalia turns back into a failed state and the home of sea piracy not seen since the Barbary banditry and receiving the notoriety of the Spanish Main. Dissent feeds street riots in Greece and destabilizes Thailand. Active Islamic insurgency ravages the Philippines, Thailand, Chechnya, and India where Maoists also ply their evil work. China, Burma, and Vietnam remain slave states. Kurds and Tibetans are not free. Iceland is bankrupt and the world economy on the verge of collapse. The world did quake in 2008 and more shaking is certain in 2009.