After sixteen months of mal- and mis-government by Joe Biden and his team, it’s hard to believe that they haven’t run out of things to do to damage our economy and our national security. But Biden & Co. seem to always find something more.

The background for this week’s round of bad decisions is the stock market’s worst week since 1932 during the Great Depression. (House Speaker Wile E. Pelosi once wondered what made the Great Depression so great. It was its severity and length, not its wonderfulness, Nancy.)

If we consider this week’s actions on the World Health Organization, Somalia, and Ukraine it’s obvious that there is an inventive imagination motivating Biden’s cabinet and White House staff.

The World Health Organization (WHO) is a UN agency which, like all the others, looks for ways to expand its power and deny the truth. From the beginning of the COVID pandemic, WHO is an advertiser of Chinese propaganda. It helped China conceal what was almost certainly a leak — intentional or accidental — from the Wuhan Institute of Virology that led to the COVID pandemic.

WHO’s director, Dr. Tedros Ghebreyesus, insisted that the lab leak theory was nonsense and echoed Chinese propaganda at every opportunity. He repeatedly praised China for its speed and transparency, both of which were nonexistent. It was almost a year later that Ghebreyesus said that it was “too early” to discount the lab leak theory but by then the Chinese had destroyed whatever evidence existed of the WIV’s responsibility.

There is no treaty governing the U.S.’s participation in WHO, but one has been proposed that is likely to be approved in a meeting this week. Even without a treaty — which would have to be submitted to the Senate for ratification — WHO exerts considerable influence through its international health regulations (IHR).

In January, Biden’s administration proposed amendments to the IHR that would give WHO the sole power to declare outbreaks of disease in any nation — including the United States — by eliminating the requirement for consultation with the nation affected. Last week, Team Biden again gave those changes another endorsement.

It’s highly appropriate for anyone, including many conservatives, who have objected to these IHR changes because they invade American sovereignty. A treaty would be a clear submission of our sovereignty to the UN agency.

Any treaty Biden proposes to give WHO that power would certainly be shot down in Senate confirmation. Biden doesn’t care because there’s little or nothing that congressional Republicans can do to prevent the Biden’s changes to the IHR.

Remember, please, that Obama didn’t submit his 2015 nuclear weapons deal with Iran to Senate ratification because it obviously wouldn’t have been approved. Obama sent it to the UN Security Council which, of course, approved it. Biden is performing the same sort of back-door maneuver by proposing and endorsing the IHR changes. And then there’s the mess Biden is re-creating in Somalia.

Somalia is a Muslim nation that has been a failed state for decades. Its current (and former) president, Hassan Sheikh Mohamud, wants to secure its capital, Mogadishu, from al-Shabab, which his forces are unable to do.

In December 2020, then-president Trump ordered the withdrawal of all U.S. troops from Somalia. Biden is obsessed by the idea of reversing every decision Trump made. Perhaps he is trying to look tough and recover some credibility after his debacle in Afghanistan.

Last week, Biden ordered a new deployment to Somalia of around 500 troops. A National Security Council spokeswoman “explained” the action saying, “The decision to reintroduce a persistent presence was made to maximize the safety and effectiveness of our forces and enable them to provide more efficient support to our partners.”

What that means is that U.S. troops would again engage in combat operations against al-Shabab, an Islamist terrorist group that has established its base in Somalia.

Al-Shabab is allied to al-Qaeda but it lacks al-Qaeda’s international reach. Its terrorist attacks have, so far, been confined to the African continent.

Biden’s deployed force will be unable even to secure Mogadishu. That force consists of too few men to accomplish anything except expose itself to danger. Some will die.

America has tried to defeat terrorists in Somalia since 1992 when President George H.W. Bush sent more than 25,000 troops there. They were withdrawn after their mission failed, but President Clinton ordered them back. The result was the infamous “Blackhawk Down” disaster when U.S. troops tried to capture warlord Mohamed Farrah Aideed. In that operation eighteen U.S. soldiers were killed. The last U.S. soldier to be killed by terrorists in Somalia died in 2017.

In none of these attempts to pacify Somalia did we succeed, nor did any of the lives lost benefit U.S. national security in any way. Biden’s troop deployment to Somalia will accomplish nothing more.

As faithful readers know, this column has always insisted that U.S. troops should not be sent into harm’s way unless vital U.S. national security interests are at stake. We have no such interests in Somalia. Biden overlooks the other point this column always makes. We cannot defeat terrorism anywhere, including Somalia, without defeating the Islamist ideology. Biden’s mistake will do nothing except cost American lives.

During his three-day jaunt to Asia, Biden signed the latest aid package for Ukraine. It amounts to $20 billion in military aid and the rest goes to humanitarian aid and State Department toy projects.

How much of that aid will be wasted? We’ll never know. Libertarian Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) tried and failed to establish a special inspector general to oversee how it will be spent.

Paul was right in his attempt to create a new IG to see how the money is spent, but his objection — based on the amount of money, not how it can and should be used — was entirely wrong. We can afford to support Ukraine’s freedom fighters but we can’t afford to see the money we’re spending go to waste. When Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer offered Paul a vote on his proposed amendment, Paul backed down.

Ukrainian forces clearly need the weapons we will be sending. They are reportedly running out of some of the key munitions that have enabled their defense of their nation. How much of that money should have been spent on renewing U.S. stockpiles of weapons such as the Stinger and Javelin missiles which have reportedly been nearly exhausted?

My pilot pals always talk about “situational awareness,” which means the pilot’s ability to keep track — second by second — of other aircraft around, approaching threats, altitude, speed, fuel, and munitions.

Biden’s approach amounts to situational obliviousness. He doesn’t know, and doesn’t seem to care, that our economy is headed toward a deep recession, how his open borders are damaging the nation, or about how other nations perceive his comprehensive weakness. The year 2024 can’t come soon enough.