Afghanistan: Progress or Mess? 18OKT10 & Wake Up, America! War Off the Radar, Congress Fails 19OKT10

FOR  a nation that is supposedly so pro military and all gung-ho for supporting troops so little is done to provide for the needs of the troops in combat zones and when they return. People think forwarding moving e mails about the troops, God and country shows support. I am tired of them, they do nothing. If people are really concerned, and really support our troops, they will take the time to contact the president and their congress people to make sure the troops are supplied adequately in combat zones and that they make sure they receive the support and care they need when they return. AND they will do this more than once, they will keep the pressure on our elected officials and the DOD to do right by our troops. This from MOJO about the real state of affairs in Afghanistan (we need to get out of there NOW), followed by a piece about the lack of care and concern for our returning troops by Paul Rieckoff , head of IAVA
 
The headline above could have been used for any sum-up of the Afghanistan war over the past years. This has become the United States' longest war, and there have yet to be any decisive turns. On Saturday, The Washington Post ran a story headlined, "U.S. military, civilian officials claim progress in Afghan war." The opening:

KABUL - With a year-end report card coming due, top U.S. military and civilian officials in Afghanistan have begun to assert that they see concrete progress in the war against the Taliban, a sharp departure from earlier assessments that the insurgency had the momentum.
Despite growing numbers of Taliban attacks and American casualties, U.S. officials are building their case for why they are on the right track, ahead of the December war review ordered by President Obama. They describe an aggressive campaign that has killed or captured hundreds of Taliban leaders and more than 3,000 fighters around the country in recent months, and has pressured insurgents into exploring talks with the Afghan government. At the same time, they say, the Afghan army is bigger and better trained than it has ever been.

Sounds like a major progress, right? But halfway through the article, there's this:

Yet even as U.S. officials here echo [Defense Secretary Bob] Gates's [optimistic] assessment, they have offered relatively little evidence to back up their claims of progress, and many still hesitate to say that successes against the Taliban in certain pockets add up to the war's pendulum swinging their way. Indeed, one week last month broke the nine-year war's record for violence, as the Taliban sought to ambush parliamentary elections: NATO forces logged more than 1,600 attacks nationwide, 500 more than in the previous worst week.

In other words, never mind. So we have talk of progress, but no concrete signs of progress. Perhaps this should have been the central point of the article, not the unproved claims of advances.
Meanwhile, there's hard evidence of what's not going well. The recent parliamentary elections were chock-full of fraud, and Afghan and Western officials estimate that nearly one-quarter of the votes will have to be trashed. Anti-corruption efforts are lagging. And US soldiers accused of murdering Afghans for sport have said they were merely following orders from a commander who fancied collecting body parts as trophies.
The real question at hand is how much improvement can there be between now and next July, when Obama's promised downsizing in Afghanistan is supposed to start. Crunch time is fast approaching.

If You Liked This, You Might Also Like...

• The Long War: Year Ten in Afghanistan

  Lost in the desert with the GPS on the fritz.

• In the Land of the Stoner Cops

  On the front lines of Obama's campaign in Afghanistan.

• Afghanistan's Other War: Army vs. Police

  Classified reports released by WikiLeaks show that Afghanistan's security forces are often at war with each other.

Wake Up, America! War Off the Radar, Congress Fails by Paul Rieckhoff

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/paul-rieckhoff/wake-up-america-war-off-t_b_769099.html?utm_source=DailyBrief&utm_campaign=102010&utm_medium=email&utm_content=FeatureMore&utm_term=Daily+Brief

After nearly a decade in Iraq and Afghanistan, over 2 million Americans have served, a trillion dollars have been spent and yet only 3 percent of Americans have war on their radar this election.
And where's Congress? Spinning on the campaign trail, scrambling for last-minute endorsements and as Tom Brokaw rightly noted in The New York Times this week, still doing nothing to wake up the country about the surge of veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan.
In 2009, Congress came out swinging for vets. They pushed several major legislative victories to the President's desk. They passed Advanced Appropriations, mandatory mental health screenings for every returning servicemember, and landmark legislation for caregivers and female veterans.
Then everything went downhill in 2010.
This year, veterans' calls for VA disability reform, new GI Bill upgrades, and veteran employment initiatives all fell on deaf ears. After months of making promises, Congress suddenly stopped paying attention, skipped out on votes and dropped out. 

On November 2nd, Americans will head to the polls and every voter should ask themselves: did my members of Congress show they have the backs of new veterans?
With the launch of IAVA Action Fund's 2010 Congressional Report Card, it's easy for voters to find out in just a few clicks.
The nonpartisan Report Card grades every Senator and Representative on his or her voting record and leadership on key issues for new veterans. Across political parties, exceptional leaders on veterans' issues were few and far between. This year, only 20 legislators out of 535 earned an A+ on veterans' issues--an 87 percent decline from 2008 when 150 Members made the top grade. More alarmingly, nearly a third of our elected officials on Capitol Hill failed to take any real action for Iraq and Afghanistan veterans, earning Ds or Fs.


If Americans really want to have the backs of our nation's veterans, they should do their homework on the Report Card and Tweet their Representatives about their voting records.
Unlike Congress, our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan don't have the luxury of quitting before their mission is complete. They can't cut out early when lives are on the line. For a country in the midst of two wars, Washington's recent commitment to ensuring these men and women have the tools to successfully transition home has been half-hearted.
Back in their districts, Members of Congress might spend the next week spinning tales of a "banner year" on veterans' legislation. But Iraq and Afghanistan veterans and their families deserve real leadership and action on Capitol Hill, not empty promises and cheap rhetoric. Each day that passes without a break in the gridlock in Washington, veteran unemployment will continue to outpace the national average, the VA disability backlog will continue to climb and suicide rates will continue to skyrocket.
If Congress considers this an acceptable future for our nation's veterans, they definitely don't make the grade.

To download IAVA Action Fund's full report card, click here.