Globe Trot: Five years after Bin Laden's death, U.S. has much to learn

PAKISTAN: Today is the fifth anniversary of the raid that killed Osama bin Laden, and the CIA has been criticized—to the tune of thousands of comments on its Twitter feed—for “live-tweeting” a re-enactment of the raid yesterday (in real time).

Prior to the raid in 2011, current CIA director John Brennan said:

“Our strategy is … shaped by a deeper understanding of al-Qaeda’s goals, strategy, and tactics. I’m not talking about al-Qaeda’s grandiose vision of global domination through a violent Islamic caliphate. That vision is absurd, and we are not going to organize our counterterrorism policies against a feckless delusion that is never going to happen. We are not going to elevate these thugs and their murderous aspirations into something larger than they are.”

Interesting, now that there is an Islamic caliphate, the United States is committing forces to fight it, but the administration is still taking the position that to fight them would be to give them more credit than they deserve.

IRAQ: Hundreds of protesters stormed the Green Zone (now officially called the “International Zone”) Saturday, overrunning parliament and clashing with lawmakers to demand reforms supported by Islamic Shia cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. They retreated Sunday but vow to return this Friday if steps to appointing a new cabinet aren’t taken satisfactorily.

The protests should be “a jarring alarm bell” for the United States, writes Emma Sky, political adviser to former U.S. commander in Iraq Ray Odierno:

“Under the right circumstances, Iraqi forces, with U.S. support, can smash the Islamic State. But Washington should not kid itself: If the root causes that created the conditions for the rise of the Islamic State are not addressed, then some son-of-ISIS might emerge in the future—and the cycle will continue.”

SYRIA: Security cameras are unflinching witnesses to the bomb blast last week at Al-Quds hospital in Aleppo, which killed the city’s last remaining pediatrician.

CHINA: The “Troublemaker” for the Chinese Communist Party, Harry Wu, died last week at age 79. Wu spent 19 years in a Chinese labor camp and taught the world most of what it knows about China’s laogai forced labor system. I interviewed Wu in the United States shortly after he returned in 1995 from another imprisonment in China for daring to go back to expose the prison camps. He trained up a new generation of Chinese activists, but faced protests and ongoing threats as he spoke out, even on U.S. soil.

DOMINICAN REPUBLIC: Catholic Bishop Victor Masalles is accusing the U.S. ambassador to the Dominican Republic of “abusing power,” using his position to advance “the LGBT agenda” in upcoming elections. Ambassador James Brewster, who was appointed by President Barack Obama in 2013 just after he married his partner, is reportedly funneling funds from the U.S. Agency for International Development to gay rights groups.

BELGIUM: Who promotes their product by claiming “no sales” and “no advertising”? Soft drinks are the new tobacco, and Europe’s soft-drink association is touting its beverages by not touting them.