"A Unknown War"

The US war in Afghanistan is having its most deadliest month for the American troops, since arriving in late 2001. With over 55 soldiers killed this month, it has been a very hard toll to pay for the country, especially with no end in site. We have over 35,000 troops in Afghanistan, and another 3600 waiting to be deployed. Is it worth the money and lives? Should our government be putting this all out there to win this war? As Dan Rather quoted “wars are won with fire power, will power and staying power.” The question is, are we ready to stay in Afghanistan for the long haul?

The people we are fighting, our enemy at war, has a very strong will to fight. A country that has no education system, no healthcare or clean water and that knows nothing else but to fight as a way of living. They have the will power to continue to fight. Even with the new presidency, we still need to ask ourselves is it worth it to fight in a country where an empire tried and could never defeat the afghans. One unnamed source says that Afghanistan is unknown as “The grave yard of empires, From Alexander the Great, to the British army and over 20 years ago the afghan soviet war.”

Washington policy makers only seem to have a few options of what to do. Should we can just leave, should we be concerned with counter insurgency or counter terrorism? Unlike the soviets we don’t want to colonize Afghanistan, but to eliminate the terrorist. The tough issue is also how many more groups and people have the Taliban recruited or established. It is very tricky with Pakistan being a pathway for these groups to move in and out.

With this war going on we are seemingly getting more and more information on what is going on in Afghanistan, unlike what we saw with Iraq. President Obama stated, “Iraq took to many resources of what was going on in Afghanistan and spent on the Iraq war.” I believe that this conflict is not being talked about or even shown to the public interest as much as it should be. I believe the general public needs to be in discussion about it, rather then everything being hush. We dedicate more and more resources to a war that isn’t being won. Hasn’t history showed us of what could be the outcome? We are fighting a long waged war that may never be won and could cost America billions of dollars. We may not establish colonies or American lifestyles there, and we, as the public need to be more in the loop. The question has been ask to the men in charge of the Afghan war, if victory can be achieved, and there is hesitation in their response. Even with Washington wanting to keep perusing the war on terror, we are in for the long haul in Afghanistan.

Health Care Reform

Anne Coulter, is a conservative, right wing, opinionated commentator who has won many fans as well as enemies with her racy, and controversial beliefs. In the blog that I read, she goes on the attack of President Obama’s health care reform. There are very many things that Ms. Coulter presents in the entry that I disagree with. First, she attacks the governments involvement into private insurance companies, stating that the best way to have insurance companies compete is to allow states to open up interstate commerce which would allow insurance companies to act like a car insurance or home owners insurance company. Now her idea sounds like a great one, but does not fix the problem that everyone should have insurance coverage, especially when as a country we rank 26^th in the world for healthcare. I believe the government needs to step in and take action because insurance companies deny so many people everyday of health insurance. Insurance companies deny coverage to many different individuals because of a health condition or a preexisting condition they may suffer from. The government’s plan would work to end this, and allow anyone the opportunity to get healthy at a reasonable price. She then goes onto explain that in her opinion if you were to move across states, you would still qualify for the luxuries of the proposed insurance reform and would be able to obtain car and home insurance, hairdressers, baby sitters, dog walkers, computer technicians, cars, houses, food and every other product and service not heavily regulated by the government. Now even if Ms. Coulter’s opinions were true and everyone in America would move to take the benefits, I think the reform would prevent American’s from taking advantage of the new system. If you read the presidents fine line it states that there would be a tax credit for insurance and this would only be for healthcare not home or car insurance. Now, I do believe bigger companies should be slapped on the wrist for not covering their employees; Ann goes on the attack saying larger companies should not be penalized for not offering coverage to their employees. I think health coverage for employees is important; I worked for a company when I first moved to Austin who decided health coverage for most of its employees was not necessary, and it was taken away from us. I was shocked when I learned that the company would not cover me medically, and all of my doctor visits, medicines would have to come out of my pocket. Of course weeks after learning about the end of my health coverage I was diagnosed with shingles and had to pay for everything doctors visits, tests, and expensive medication with the little money I got from my paycheck. Health insurance is important for everyone, large companies should be penalized if they can’t cover their employees, but in reality it just makes more sense to find a proper system that would allow coverage for everyone.

In the editorial from the New York Times, it talks about the high cost of inmates on death row and how much states are spending on these cases. I agree that we need to make a better push to solve this issue. With states spending millions of dollars on death row executions such as California did with spending over 114 million dollars on death row inmates and spending almost $250 million on executions since 1976. Also the state of Maryland spent over $186 million on 5 executions and that of over 8 million dollars a year spent on trials and appeals and more then the execution itself. That is way too much money per year for the execution of a criminal. With appeals processes, going between 15-20 years there has to be a better way to solve this issue through not only states but the government law makers as well. The government has talked about abolishing the death penalty but law makers will not do so almost leaving it up to the states themselves. Eight million dollars a year could be spent on many more things then executing 4 people. Kansas is trying to get inmates with life without parole, yes this would be a good thing, but keeping inmates in jails especially on death row still comes with a price. The high cost of keeping people on death row is getting more and more expensive especially with the over crowding of prisons in the United States. This issue is leading to states cutting programs such as parks, rest areas, schools and healthcare. The price of an education for students is worth more then a prisoner on death row. I agree also that we could use a lot of the money spent on death row inmates could go to police or solving crimes to totally abolishing capital punishment. New Mexico last year abolished and stopped executions, also the appeals process and trial cost can cost states an absurd amount of money.