Globe Trot: Iraq recalls turmoil on 25th anniversary of the First Gulf War

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IRAQ: Sunday marked the 25th anniversary of a ceasefire in the 1991 Gulf War. Even as President George H. W. Bush announced to the American people, “Iraq’s army is defeated,” there were troubling signs he had spoken prematurely—a political move that would haunt, and be repeated by, his son—and the rest is history. As The New York Times reported at the time:

“The question the American soldiers ask as they board planes for home after seven months in the desert is the same one that worries the politicians that live in the region as they turn from preoccupation with military problems to the concerns of civil life. Will we have to do it all over again?”

FRANCE: Facing resistance and vandalism as authorities clear out a troubled sector of a migrant camp in Calais know as “The Jungle,” riot police have been called in.

Sources nearby say the problem wasn’t initially violent migrants—now including African mafia, prostitution rings, and human smugglers—but a socialist mayor acting under the socialist government of President François Hollande. For the sake of tolerance and some entrenched nongovernmental organizations working in the camps, local authorities have looked the other way while violence and disorder has grown. Media coverage by the BBC and other European outlets, though, focuses on lack of services provided by the government, rather than lack of governance and law enforcement. This is a problem in UN camps as well, and it feeds the perception that all refugees are criminals: War victims who have lost everything aren’t helped by lawlessness.

HONG KONG: Three pro-democracy dissidents, including 19-year-old Joshua Wong, went on trial this morning for organizing rallies that virtually shut down the Chinese-controlled, semiautonomous city for two months in 2014. The organizers have pleaded not guilty to urging protesters to call for free elections of Hong Kong’s next leader. They did not win concessions from the Beijing-backed government.

ISRAEL: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu may not make a trip to the United States for the annual conference of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee because it takes place the same time President Barack Obama will be traveling to Cuba (the first such trip of a U.S. head of state there in 88 years). Vice President Joe Biden will be in Israel in early March.

VENEZUELA: Here’s more on shortages in post-Chavez Venezuela, plus a video of store shelves I meant to include Friday.

Mindy Belz

Mindy, a former senior editor for WORLD Magazine, wrote the publication’s first cover story in 1986. She has covered wars in Syria, Afghanistan, Africa, and the Balkans and is author of They Say We Are Infidels: On the Run From ISIS With Persecuted Christians in the Middle East. Mindy resides in Asheville, N.C.

@MindyBelz