A black man, born into a dirt-poor family in a dirt-poor town in the Deep and segregated South beats the odds, the obstacles and the bigots to become one of America's most consequential legal thinkers, and an authority on the Founders' vision. You might expect such a story to be told in every grade school and college in the country.

You'd be wrong. I'd wager that most young people, black or white, know little or nothing about the man to whom I'm referring. Of those who do, most probably don't admire him. Many would revile him.

Their minds might be changed were they to watch the soon-to-be-released documentary "Created Equal: Clarence Thomas in His Own Words."

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At a rally for Bernie Sanders in Minneapolis on Sunday, Rep. Ilhan Omar told a cheering crowd that she was excited to campaign for a presidential candidate who "will fight against Western imperialism and fight for a just world."

What do you suppose she has in mind? Last I looked, Italian Somaliland and the Belgian Congo were long gone. Is she outraged that America is preventing Kim Jong-un from uniting the Korean peninsula?

I haven't the foggiest. What I do know: Right now, people in Hong Kong, Iraq and Lebanon are putting their lives on the line in struggles against oppressive empire builders. Ms. Omar, Mr. Sanders and others who fancy themselves anti-imperialists show not the slightest concern for them.

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The elimination of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi is a battle won. But it is not, by any stretch of the imagination, the end of the "endless war." Islamism, in all its fury and diversity, goes marching on.

Five years ago, Baghdadi was proclaimed (by his followers) the caliph — successor to the Prophet Mohammed. Even Osama bin Laden was never so audacious.

The Islamic State in Iraq, a splinter from al Qaeda, had been organized in 2006. Eight years later it re-branded as the Islamic State — successor to the Ottoman caliphate which collapsed less than a century ago, an historical blink of the eye.

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"They're not angels." That was President Trump's characterization of the Kurds last week. He's right, of course, but which nation is? I'd like to pay a visit.

Also true: Angels don't make great soldiers. And the Kurds, with American training, assistance, advice and combat air support, were enlisted to fight the Islamic State, also known as ISIS, a barbaric enemy of Americans, Kurds and other civilized nations.

This partnership stripped the self-declared caliphate of the territories it had conquered, in the process eliminating thousands of terrorists, mass murders, serial rapists and slave raiders.

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Whatever might be said about Donald Trump, I always figured him for a savvy New Yorker who knew a good deal when he saw one.

A prime example was in Syria where the commander in chief, despite understandable misgivings about foreign entanglements, had deployed a small contingent of highly skilled troops to accomplish a mission vital to America's national security.

In military jargon, President Trump was employing "economy of force." In the context of recent history, he had adopted what might be called a Goldilocks Doctrine.

In 2003, President Bush sent 177,000 troops to Iraq to overthrow a mass-murdering, anti-American dictator. That was too much.

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