BAD NEWS FROM AFGHANISTAN

BBC Radio ran a piece last night on a study on rape and assault of female U.S. soldiers by their male comrades in Afghanistan. Sorry I have not yet found the cite. According to the study, over 30% of female soldiers in Afghanistan are assaulted or raped by other soldiers. This is shocking and an outrage. These female soldiers are just trying to do their job in the military, and then the Army allows them to be subject to abuse among their own platoon or company. Apparently no woman is safe from rape in the U.S. military. We need to hear from Barack Obama and Robert Gates on this reprehensible situation.

Second. C.J. Chivers reports today in The New York Times on the U.S. ambush of 13 Taliban fighters in the mountains of Afghanistan. All were killed. Is this the purpose of U.S. troops in Afghanistan to kill local militants? The U.S. has wasted thirteen lives, probably of very young men, resisting a foreign occupier in their land. Do we count this as a "victory" or a "defeat"? For each Afghani life taken in this ambush, how many more local village boys will volunteer to get revenge on the Americans? And how about the U.S. soldiers in this story? Having shot men and boys at close range, will these soldiers ever get over the psychological trauma that a firefight inflicts?

There is no good reason why the U.S. sends American soldiers to Afghanistan. All that results is bad, from the rape and assault of female soldiers to the wanton killing of Afghani men and boys, not even mentioning the purposeless death of American soldiers in pursuing this madness.