… here’s what they haven’t been watching:

• The civil war in Syria, which is a total mess, thanks in part to our Smart Diplomacy™ led by our C-minus Secretary of State. If you’ll remember, we were against the rebels when some of them were secular freedom-lovers, and tilted towards Boy Assad. Then, we were for the rebels, once Boy Assad had cleaned those guys out and the only rebels that were left in quantity were extremist Islamists. The ones that are left range from Hamas clones at the most reasonable, to savages one step up from cannibalism at the least. But Boy Assad was so weakened that his hollow army has been replaced by a coalition of Hezbollah terrorists and Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps mercenaries. The defeated? The people of Syria itself, except for the relatively small number who have escaped to newly built, enormous refugee camps in what has always been the most stable nation in the region, Jordan. 150,000 Syrians are dead (mostly civilians).  Ann Barnard notes in the NY Times:

The government bombards neighborhoods with explosive barrels, missiles, heavy artillery and, the United States says, chemical weapons, then it sends in its allies in Hezbollah and other militias to wage street warfare. It jails and tortures peaceful activists, and uses starvation as a weapon, blockading opposition areas where trapped children shrivel and die.

The opposition is now functionally dominated by foreign-led jihadists who commit their own abuses in the name of their extremist ideology, just last week shooting a 7-year-old boy for what they claimed was apostasy. And some of those fighters, too, have targeted civilians and used siege tactics.

There is no possible outcome that is good for US interests, or for the Syrians themselves. The status quo ante, with Boy Assad’s terror-exporting regime at least controlling its own population and borders, was better. But Boy can’t control the forces he’s unleashed on his own side, and he’s become a figurehead in his own dictatorship. Hezbollah, meaning Iran, has the steering wheel now.

• Then, there’s Libya where something broadly similar is taking place, far away from the jaded eyes of the Beltway commentariat. When you have a falling-out among guerrillas, the one with the fewest scruples and inhibitions oft rises to the top of the heap. There are few groups among the many in fragmented Libya that are anything but worse for US interests, and for the Libyans themselves.

• Somalia is still violent and ungoverned. Ditto Sudan. And Mali and Chad are hanging on by their fingernails. The Congo has been in an intermittent state of war for over 50 years and shows no signs of letting up. Zimbabwe is still on track to return to the State of Nature.

• Afghanistan is still violent and ungoverned. A US pullout planned by the Administration will make it another hive of Jihadi terrorists. For those with longer memories than the C-minus Secretary of State or the C-minus VP, you’ll recall that that was the reason we invaded in October, 2001.

• The Iranian nuke problem. Our Smart Diplomats™ wanted a deal, and they got a deal. It’s just a crying shame that it does not constrain Iran in any way, and that Iran is already systematically violating it. Hey, but we have the signature on the paper, and “it is peace for our time.”

• Crimea, and the Ukraine in general. How’s that “reset” working out? And despite that, these same losers who think everything can be solved with soft diplomacy, want to hand the Russians another nuclear-arms reduction treaty.

• Closer to home, Venezuela, where the Administration supports the Maduro (formerly Chavez) dictatorship, is exploding, and as usual the foggy thinkers (or “pragmatists,” they call themselves) at Foggy Bottom are on the wrong side of freedom.

• And, to circle back to the Middle East, there’s the Israeli-Palestinian thing: the US is currently putting all the pressure on the Israelis, to the point where Sec. Kerry now denies that Israel is a Jewish state.  The US’s tilt toward the Palestinians does nothing but destabilize every nation in the region cursed with the presence of Palestinian perma-refugees, including the region’s only stable nation, the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan.

Oh, and about the airplane, Malaysia 370, and all the wooly-headed conspiracy theories eating up the airtime? It’s on the bottom of the ocean, where it’s been since the day of its departure, most likely in a million pieces — pieces that will give up the flight’s secrets if and when they are found. All else is arrant speculation, and worthless.