Mali exists mostly to itself. Few people go there. Few Malians leave. Most of Mali's 13 million people live, and seem to live quite happily, off the rice, corn and millet they grow and the long-horn cattle and goats they keep.
The Syrians are better suited to sort out their internal divisions than anyone else.
The people of Gaza are trapped. Israel has sealed the border, and they have no way to leave the Gaza Strip to do business.
Assad's regime helped ISIS grow by attacking other opposition forces and rarely targeting ISIS.
The Taliban may pine for a pre-industrial society, but most Afghans do not.
Shaped like Texas, but twice as big, Mali is one of the poorest countries in the world. It exports almost nothing - mostly just cotton, gold and livestock - and doesn't have enough money to import much of anything, either.
The Muslim Prophet Mohammed was a big believer in charity and firmly established helping those in need as a basis of the religion.
We're all bloggers and punks and rebels with cameras. There is absolutely no respect for career journalists anymore.
Some Iraqi troops aren't willing to fight for their government. But many Shiites appear willing to fight for their religious leaders.
Osama bin Laden organized an attack that was carried out against the United States, New York, Pentagon, and the other aircraft, with 19 attackers, 19 guys with box cutters. An attack that probably cost almost nothing.
Many governments are quick to condemn Assad, but a dwindling number of them would celebrate a rebel victory in Damascus.
Kidnapping is always a threat in this life of reporting on men hurting one another because of religion and politics.
I don't think I'm invincible.
There was an insurgency under President Hosni Mubarak in the 1990s. Egyptian police and soldiers fought weekly battles with Islamists in the sugarcane fields and thick reeds along the Nile in rural southern villages like Minya, Sohag, Enna and Assiout.
ISIS controls a territory roughly the size of Maryland where 8 million people live. If it's attacked and toppled, who will fill the void?
Bin Laden is dead, and most of his friends are dead. But did it need to cost a trillion dollars and two land wars, including one that didn't have to do with Al Qaeda? Probably not.
I don't think you're going to be seeing the U.S. employing large army divisions to deal with small terrorist groups again. I don't think they're going to be occupying foreign nations in order to dry up terrorist groups within them. I think that lesson has been learned.
A lot of Iran's empowerment is a result of the war in Iraq.
I think war should be illegal.
I'm basically a pacifist.
