Good morning, Netizens…

David Horsey’s cartoon this morning attempts to depict the status quo of President Barack Obama and, although Horsey hits the target, the cartoon leaves the some readers with the same sense of ambivalence that might be responsible for President Obama’s withering polls. According to Fox News, hardly an objective news source when it comes to anything associated with President Obama, the latest Gallop Poll shows Obama has fallen to a 47% job approval rating. If this piece of demography is true, it places President Obama at a lower job approval rating than any of his recent predecessors, including former President George Bush.

The underlying question seems to be what do we do about Afghanistan?

On one hand, if we “stick it out” and continue the battle for dominance over the warring cultures of Afghanistan and Pakistan, if history is our mentor, we will most likely lose, as no one has won a war in that region. As I have said several times, bring me the head of Osama Bin Laden and for my part, the war with Afghanistan is over.

That, too, may be a simplistic and overly idiotic view of world affairs. On the other hand, attempting to wage a war which has, in President Obama’s own words, a predetermined end is inviting our opponents to simply wait us out.

That, our lackluster economy, and now the hotly-contested debate about global warming, the number and diversity of the fires heating up President Obama’s kettles may be even more than the sum of Afghanistan.

Of course, your results may differ.

Dave

Good morning, Netizens…

It’s another wonderful day in the frigid Northwest this morning and cartoonist David Horsey is painting a picture of the obvious after President Barak Obama’s Tuesday night speech on the War in Afghanistan. Until that speech it could easily be said that Obama inherited the Afghan war from his predecessor which, although a thin line of rationale, is a line nonetheless.

However, now that President Obama has tentatively agreed to send more troops to that Stygian wasteland called Afghanistan, he has put his fingerprints all over the war he inherited.

The real questions now as when the war began are:

Where is the head of Osama Bin Laden?

When will we capture or kill him so we can finally see closure for the victims of 9/11?

So as I step through the frost this morning, I cannot help but wonder what others think of President Obama’s plan?

Dave

Good evening, Netizens…

David Horsey makes a minor point appear quite innocuous while he overlooks one stark fact that somehow has eluded most of the policy-makers in Washington, DC. As far as I know nobody has won a war in Afghanistan. Perhaps I made a minor error in stating this, but thus far, I have not yet found a victor. None.

So if, as Mr. Horsey so aptly put it in his cartoon this morning, Obama is bugged by the Taliban insurgency, so be it.

We either have to discover a viable means of obtaining victory in a country where no one else has, or simply lick our wounds and retreat. Which will it be?

Dave

Good morning, Netizens…

I have read rather extensively about life in Afghanistan from a remarkable number of scholarly authors, and in each new book I have read, I have heard how culturally isolated the entire country lives. If you take the modern-day convenience such as television, and compare the number of televisions per citizen, you will realize that once you leave the major cities, televisions, and thus from them, news reports are at best, word-of-mouth. Thus you will see how the people live.

Thus, David Horsey’s cartoon this morning is closer to reality than perhaps we might think.

Then you add the rugged terrain, the number of times Western Civilization has broken promises to the Afghanis and the number of countries who have attempted to defeat them in war unsuccessfully, and then add their dismal employment numbers, you have a country that truly is living in midieval times.

What is truly frightening, however, is through their neighbor Pakistan, they may gain access to atomic weaponry. Stone-age cultures should never have access to such things. Of course, since I cannot speak for the US State Department, and thus speaking from my own opinion, your results may differ.

Dave

Good morning, Netizens…

What is the light at the end of the tunnel in Afghanistan?

Some say it is the elimination of the Taliban. Several nations have made valiant attempts at rescuing Afghanistan from itself and failed. Although President Obama inherited the war in Afghanistan, is there a clear pathway leading us to closure there?

Have we started a war with no logical end, or is Afghanistan the modern-day version of Vietnam?

Dave

Good morning, Netizens…

We take a lot for granted in our great country. Most people reading this probably ate at least one good meal yesterday; even our homeless can eat a good meal occasionally. We can worship our Gods in a church of our choosing, and ostensibly have a democratic government elected by the people.

In today’s David Horsey cartoon, however, we see an aspect of women’s lives in Afghanistan which simply put, would not be tolerated here in the United States, that being women’s rights.

During the rule of the Taliban (1996 - 2001), women were treated worse than in any other society. They were forbidden to work, leave the house without a male escort, not allowed to seek medical help from a male doctor, and forced to cover themselves from head to toe, even covering their eyes. Women who were doctors and teachers before, suddenly were forced to be beggars and even prostitutes in order to feed their families.

Since the fall of the Taliban in 2001, the plight of Afghani women has dramatically improved, but with only cursory examination you can see where a lot still needs to change.

Granted, women have been allowed to return back to work, the government no longer forces them to wear the all covering burqa, and they even have been appointed to prominent positions in the government. Despite all these changes many challenges still remain. That is just inside the cities.

If you travel into the rural areas, the repression of women is still prevalent where many families still restrict their own mothers, daughters, wives and sisters from participation in public life. They are still forced into marriages and denied a basic education. Numerous school for girls have been burned down and little girls have even been poisoned to death for daring to go to school.

Some basic facts:

Every 30 minutes, an Afghan woman dies giving birth, as the health care system is nearly nonexistent.

Nearly 87% of Afghan women are illiterate, although this number is slowly dropping.

Only 30% of young women have access to education.

1 in 3 Afghan women have experienced physical, psychological or sexual violence.

The life expectancy for Afghan women is 44 years of age.

Nearly 80% of Afghan women still face forced marriages.

We never see nor hear much about this here in Spokane. That, too, seems to be a shame on us all.

Dave