Ferguson reminder about race in America

Police in riot gear confront protesters in Ferguson, Mo. The fatal police shooting of an unarmed African American teenager on Aug. 9 inflamed racial tensions in the St. Louis suburb. /Image via npr.org

Many Americans want racially charged issues to go away.

But the final steps in the country's 400-year-long journey through the pitfall-strewn landscape of racial injustice have yet to be taken.

Whether it fits into your view of the United States or not, the racially charged violence sparked by the police shooting of 18-year-old Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo., is an ugly reminder about the country's struggle to overcome centuries of bias against African Americans.

As long as African American teenagers walking down the street are at high-risk of being shot to death, America has more steps to take.

As long as white men think it is acceptable to drive around in their pickups with battlefield Confederate flags flying from the truck bed, America has more steps to take.

As long as nearly half of the people incarcerated in the United States are black, America has more steps to take.

Iraq War: Surge II decision looms after U.S. election

Marines maneuver in Umm Qasr during a hot phase of the Iraq War for U.S. forces. /U.S. Department of Defense photo

The Iraq War is far from over.

In yet another journalism tour de force, Frontline has laid bare the folly of two American presidents in Iraq. From George W. Bush's bumbling occupation of the country to Barack Obama's ill-fated rush to find an exit, successive U.S. administrations have been poking a hornet nest in the heart of the Middle East.

The Iraq War smeared Bush's legacy. As Iraq's bubbling cauldron of sectarian animosity between Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds threatens to explode, Obama's standing in the eyes of history now weighs in the balance.

If Obama is not pondering renewed intervention in Iraq, he should be.

With the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS) threatening to overrun the central government in Baghdad, al-Qaeda and other groups openly hostile to the United States and its allies in the region are flourishing in the Fertile Crescent country.

The current occupant of the White House faces a challenge dripping with irony: Obama inherited the Iraq War from his predecessor, and he has wanted to disengage from Day 1 of his administration. Now, he faces the prospect of launching his own war in Iraq.

The clock is ticking.

If Obama intervenes to rescue Iraq from chaos, he would likely doom many Democrats running for Congress in November. The Iraqi state could meet its doom any day.