Prayers for Somalia.
Today, exhausted doctors are struggling to keep their eyes open. They are frantically attending to screaming patients, many burned beyond recognition, who are continuously entering and exiting the hospital like a horrific revolving door.
They are the victims of a double truck bombing that occurred on Saturday on a crowded street in Mogadishu. It is the deadliest attack in Somalia, claiming over 300 lives and counting.
Sub-Saharan Africa has not seen this level of violence since the U.S. Embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998.
Somalia’s government is blaming the Al Qaeda linked al-Shabab extremist group for the bloodshed.
The Shabab, which once controlled most of the city, have lost much of their territory in the area thanks to the Somali Army and American counterterrorism operations. Despite these efforts, they remain a deadly threat to the people of Somalia. Hundreds of people have been killed or wounded in attacks on the capital this year alone.
The Somali president commented on the carnage, “This horrific attack proves our enemy would stop nothing to cause our people pain and suffering. Let’s unite against terror. Time to unite and pray together. Terror won’t win.”
Terror won’t and can’t win. The good guys win. The Shabab are not good guys. It will always be challenging fighting against an evil ideology that is widespread all over the world. But we, and the people of Somalia, should take comfort in the fact that good will win in the end. Prayers go out to the people of Somalia today.
Jimmy Kimmel is getting attention for the wrong reasons.
Jimmy Kimmel seems like a pretty likable guy. I’ve definitely laughed at some of the segments on his late-night show. But these days he’s been getting more attention for his political views than his jokes. He had some interesting things to say about that yesterday on CBS Sunday Morning:
When asked how he feels about Republicans turning off his show, he said, “I probably won’t want to have a conversation with them anyway.”
That is the biggest takeaway from the interview. That is the problem --- on the Left and the Right --- not being willing to have a conversation.
Kimmel can have all the political opinions he wants and because of his celebrity, he’ll have opportunities to talk about them. But, on his show, he should stick to the comedy.
These late-night hosts might be surprised how much the audience would appreciate them for simply doing their job --- bringing smiles and joy to people who need a break.
How to curb Iran's nuclear program.
The Iranian nuclear deal is the most overly hyped and talked about piece of diplomacy in the history of overly hyped and talked about diplomacy. Ever.
The Obama administration did everything in its power to convince us this deal was a miracle; that it was the product of some diplomatic genius. As if Obama channeled the ghost of Winston Churchill through John Kerry to wow the Iranians at the negotiating table, forcing them to bend to our will.
All that talk of this deal as the diplomatic move of the century was actually the equivalent of a twenty-yard punt on first down. Obama didn’t want to have to deal with Iran, so he punted the football to another president. You see, that’s all the Iran deal really is. It’s an elaborate delay tactic that was overhyped by an administration looking for legacy points.
On the campaign trail, Trump kept the hype train rolling by making the Iran Deal one of his talking points. Sure, it’s a bad deal, but the President has little say in actually doing anything about it. On Friday, Trump did what little he could do and announced he’d decertify the deal when it comes up for review this week.
What does that actually do? It means Congress gets to decide whether to keep holding back sanctions or start them up again. Sure, this may mean that Iran pulls out of the deal, but really what difference does it make? This masterstroke of diplomacy allows Iran to restart their nuclear program legally in about seven years anyway.
Trump’s biggest announcement Friday on Iran didn’t have anything to do with the over-hyped nuke deal, it came with his call to place the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) on the terror sanctions list. This move, above everything else, actually has the ability to curb Iran’s behavior.
The IRGC is spread out all over the Middle East. Iran is using it to bend and reshape the region in its image. They command militias asserting control all over Syria and Iraq. Last night, these militias --- along with the Iraqi Gov --- used U.S. hardware to invade Kurdish territory and seize one of their cities.
The joint Iranian and Iraqi war on the Kurds has begun, but you probably won’t hear much about that today. As one of our allies is under attack, all the debate and talk will be on the most overly hyped and talked about “deal” in modern history.
