Iraq persists...

I can barely remember life prior to American involvement in Iraq. And yet, the war continues to be the most prevalent news generator (and rightly so). The war has been taxing on our manpower and, for many, disturbing to our impression of the government.

Reading Dima's post, I found many of the same Iraq related opinions and issues that I have observed in the United States. It seems that the constant war images that invade our news and entertainment are numbing to many and scalding to others. The jury on our success in Iraq is still out, but I'm not sure that Bush will ever be considered the country's ultimate liberator. That task will fall within the next administration's realm. The "spectacle" of the toppling of Saddam's statue was certainly filled with media hype and was primarily symbolic. It will be the political and diplomatic moves that create great change.

Jeff Huber points to the unknown of our timeline for troop involvement in the country. The reality that we are only now working on setting up a hard schedule for pulling out our troops is disturbing. How long have we been in Iraq without a plan? I understand that we can't just harshly remove ourselves, but we need to at least have a plan to prevent what appears to be our present "blank check" situation.

Of course, troops are still needed. Violence persists as fighting amongst religious groups continues as explained by Healing Iraq both in photos and in posts. How can we pull out troops when such hideous acts as honor killings and their subsequent retaliations persist. Is this our cultural war to fight? Leaving such an act free to occur should eliminate the clean conscious of our government and provide reason for involvement focused on stability progress.

Afghanistan...

Over the past week or so, I’ve spent some significant time looking at blogs surrounding ongoing issues in Afghanistan. I drew a lot from my readings, but the primary thing that I’ve discovered seems to be a sense of confusion and instability for the redevelopment of the country.

The first thing that pushed me this way was a post by Sanjar in which he explained that potentially half of the aid in Afghanistan ends up in the wrong hands. He points to the police as a major source of the corruption. This seems like quite a challenge… do the police need corrupt funds to keep the people safe? Or is there an element of greed here preventing the lives of everyday people from improving? The later may make more sense as it is claimed that the police have sold vehicles that they're expect to use....

Other sources may confirm this as Carl Robichaud says that 60% of Afghans feel that the country is the most corrupt it has been in the past two decades. Only 45% of these people say that this corruption has had little effect on them. So how is this compounding corruption ended? The situation is certainly complicated…

Later, I read Frida’s post about issues within Afghanistan. She points out the severity of life there after the death of a six year old and the injuries of a four and a twelve year old when a group of US and Afghan soldiers were attacked. More and more scenes like this show that violence is still a pressing issue in Afghanistan. The numbers again confirm this to be true and depressing in terms of civilian casualties.

The most recent news comes from the capture of several journalists by terrorists. After Daniel Mastrogiacomo, an Italian reporter, was exchanged for several captured Taliban, many individuals protested the lack of release of Afghan journalist/interpreter Ajmal Naqshbandi. This act seems to have demonstrated some sense of nationalism or at least a need for the Afghan government to protect its people equally.

So what’s next for the Afghans? How will the country continue to grow and develop? From a bigger picture, it seems that more and more people need to be intellectually won over to stopping violence. This violence allows for much of the corruption that exists and ending it (absolutely much easier said than done) may be the key to the future for Afghanistan.