As I start writing this post this evening, I have only one good foreign policy news story: in a short story posted on the Wall Street Journal’s web page, we are told that, “Egypt’s administrative court on Saturday dissolved the political party of the banned Muslim Brotherhood and ordered its assets liquidated….” Yes, despite our government’s attempt to put the Muslim Brotherhood in power in Egypt, the better people in that country continue to marginalize their “Freedom and Justice Party,” whose leaders, we are told, “had already been accused, and in some cases convicted, of murder and inciting violence.”
Apparently, while our former President, Jimmy Carter, is calling for the recognition of a terrorist organization, Hamas, as a legitimate political entity, Egypt is declaring their former president, Mohammad Morsi, to have been himself part of a terrorist organization. And while their former President sits in a jail cell facing charges that include “conspiring with foreign groups to destabilize Egypt,” our former President, who has done quite a bit to destabilize–in fact, destroy–our country, goes around getting free air time and, no doubt, large speaking fees, to spread utter bile and help finish the job.
Egypt is pretty much a news oasis in the Middle East at the moment. In Iraq, a group of savages known as “Islamic State” (also ISIS or ISIL) “has captured large swaths of Iraqi territory” in just a couple of months, engaging in brutal executions of innocents and, according to reports, threatening to bring death and destruction all the way to the White House. President Obama, who this week authorized air strikes and other aid to Iraqis in the fight against ISIS, has indicated a “likelihood of an enduring U.S. military involvement in Iraq.” Because it worked out so well the last time we had an enduring military involvement there. The combination of Bush’s and Obama’s policies in Iraq have helped produce ISIS. I can only imagine what a purely Obama orchestrated military involvement will produce there.
I was hoping that I’d read something in Israeli Prime Minister’s Benjamin Netanyahu’s latest interview, or in news reports about his visit to the United States, that amounts to good news. But unfortunately Netanyahu–whose main concern should be the defense of his country–is apparently having to spend time pleading with U.S. lawmakers to help make sure Israel is not hauled before an international body for “war crimes.” As I’ve said many times, I agree with Yaron Brook, who reiterated the point on my show last night: insofar as there are deaths of innocent civilians in Gaza, those deaths are the fault of Hamas, the aggressor in this conflict. I wish Netanyahu, who is defending his military operation as “proportionate,” would speak more like Joan Rivers.
For more good news this evening, we must leave foreign policy. My usual go-to subject for good news is the world of technology and innovation, but tonight this story from Copenhagen caught my eye. When I was a kid, I was fascinated with pedestrian bridges and the like. In Copenhagen, according to Wired, they have just made it easier for those who commute on bicycle–over half the population!–to traverse a portion of their route near a waterfront shopping area. The “Cycle Snake,” as it is being called, is an attractive, spacious, elevated cyclist roadway. In terms of functionality, safety and aesthetics, it would be enough to get even me, a lover of fossil-fuel-powered vehicles, to try commuting by bicycle.
News Sandwich 