The BBC reports that NATO is calling the Taliban attack on a prison in Kandahar - releasing 900 inmates, under half of them members of the Taliban - is an “isolated incident.” One supposes that this probably is better for Taliban morale, and from their point of view, might be thought a “major tactical breakthrough” or a “show of strength.” More from the BBC report after the jump: Continue reading →

The Post World War II G.I. Bill paid 100% of tuition for veterans. Plus other benefits. Now it maxes out at $800 month. As U.S. Senators Jim Webb and Chuck argued in “A Post-Iraq G.I. Bill,” The New York Times, November 8, 2007: “[i]t is hardly enough to allow a veteran to attend man community colleges.

“In terms of providing true opportunity, the World War II G.I. Bill was one of the most important pieces of legislation in our history. It paid college tuition and fees, bought textbooks and provided a monthly stipend for eight million of the 16 million who served. Many of our colleagues in the Senate who before the war could never have dreamed of college found themselves at some of the nation’s finest educational institutions.

Frank Lautenberg of New Jersey went to Columbia on the G.I. bill; John Warner of Virginia to Washington and Lee and the University of Virginia Law School; Daniel Inouye of Hawaii to the University of Hawaii and the George Washington University Law School; and Ted Stevens of Alaska to the University of California, Los Angeles, and Harvard Law School.

College costs have skyrocketed, and a full G.I. Bill for those who have served in Iraq and Afghanistan would be expensive. But Congress has recently appropriated $19 billion next year for federal education grants purely on the basis of financial need. A G.I. Bill for those who have given so much to our country, often including repeated combat tours, should be viewed as an obligation.

We must put together the right formula that will demonstrate our respect for those who have stepped forward to serve in these difficult times. First-class service to country deserves first-class appreciation.

Senators Jim Webb and Chuck Hagel, A Post-Iraq G.I. Bill , The New York Times, November 9, 2007.

I’m sorry I hadn’t learned of The Conjecturer until today. A blog - on initial reading - mostly about public affairs and political science by Joshua Foust and Dan Allen. I was moved by an excerpt from, and Foust’s review of, Rosanne Klass’s Land of the High Flags: Afghanistan When the Going Was Good.

From Klass:

What was lost could never be truly restored. The land had been depopulated, its people were dead, fled, or enslaved… The scholars were gone, the artists were gone, the poets, the heroes, the kings were gone, the land was stripped of life, the fields were ruined and barren. My horrors die with me, yours with you, but such horrors as these are ineffaceable, and heal, when they heal, like an amputation.

From Foust’s post:

What comes out the strongest, perhaps unintentionally, is grief. As the above passage indicates, Afghanistan has a particularly tragic past, an almost continuous record of horrendous loss and catastrophic destruction over the history of Man—what’s worse, such devastation was wrought by the hand of Man, and not Nature. It is the story of a land eternally torn back and forth by its more powerful neighbors (except for the brief, glorious Moghul empire), even if the first three-quarters of the 20th century were particularly calm.

Equally strong in Ms. Klass’ book, however, is the overwhelming sensation of beauty. Afghanistan is, she says, the face of the world—it’s people are of all colors and ethnicities (though, of course, Gul Baz Khan is worthy of particular merit). The landscape is unforgiving and painstakingly beautiful; at one point her endless commentaries upon the “glittering crystal landscape” of the mountains outside Jalalabad after a snowstorm prompt her husband to harshly rebuke her in recognition of the very real danger they were in of plummeting off a cliff to their deaths. Her description of the Buddhas of Bamiyan are of a similar ilk, as were the recordings of her trips into Paghman, Laghman, the Hazarajat, Charikar, and Bagram. Even in desolation, Afghanistan is a land of haunting beauty.

Foust is also a regular contributor to Registan, which “covers Eurasian politics and news, seeking to draw more attention to issues and news rarely covered in much depth, if at all, by Western media. Our focus is primarily on the former Soviet Republics of Central Asia and the Caucasus, with an eye to domestic politics, relations with with rest of the world, and foreign policy as well as the occasional report on pop culture.”

From The Conjecturer.