Tuesday, October 27, 2009

IT'S TIME TO LEAVE AFGHANISTAN

ACCORDING TO MATTHEW HOH, IT IS TIME TO LEAVE AFGHANISTAN

According to a riveting Washington Post article published Tuesday, October 27, 2009, by Karen DeYoung, Matthew Hoh just became the first U.S. official to resign his post in protest over the Afghan war. A 36-year-old foreign service officer in Afghanistan and former Marine captain who served multiple tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan, Hoh received citations for uncommon bravery and respectful words of praise from his fellow foreign service officers, even as he tendered his resignation. In his own words, Matthew Hoh said, "but the truth is that the majority" [of insurgents] are residents with "loyalties to their families, villages, valleys and to their financial supporters.” Hoh's doubts increased with Afghanistan's Aug. 20 presidential election, marked by low turnout and widespread fraud. He concluded, he said in his resignation letter, that the war "has violently and savagely pitted the urban, secular, educated and modern of Afghanistan against the rural, religious, illiterate and traditional. It is this latter group that composes and supports the Pashtun insurgency." With "multiple, seemingly infinite, local groups," he wrote, the insurgency "is fed by what is perceived by the Pashtun people as a continued and sustained assault, going back centuries, on Pashtun land, culture, traditions and religion by internal and external enemies. The U.S. and NATO presence in Pashtun valleys and villages, as well as Afghan army and police units that are led and composed of non-Pashtun soldiers and police, provide an occupation force against which the insurgency is justified." American families, he said at the end of the letter, "must be reassured their dead have sacrificed for a purpose worthy of futures lost, love vanished, and promised dreams unkept. I have lost confidence such assurances can be made any more." You can now add my name to the list of Americans who have profound respect and admiration for the courage and dedication shown by Matthew Hoh in calling attention to the intractable issues involved in sustaining an armed conflict in Afghanistan. If it is patriotism that you want, look no further than this man who unselfishly proclaims that "I have lost understanding of and confidence in the strategic purposes of the United States' presence in Afghanistan." Hear, Hear, Matthew! May you live long and prosper! Thank you for saying what needed to be said with a credible, precise and wise voice.

Mark Overt Skilbred

Friday, October 23, 2009

THE V.A.--AN AMERICAN HEALTHCARE SYSTEM THAT WORKS

THE V.A.--AN AMERICAN HEALTHCARE SYSTEM THAT WORKS

I just finished watching the video “Health, Money and Fear” that was made by members of the U.S. healthcare system who are presenting some viable alternatives to the notion that the solution to our healthcare crisis is to simply throw more money at the system we already have in place. They quite rightly point out that this would only reward a failing system and ensure that conditions will go from bad to worse. I was especially intrigued with the high praise that is given to the Veterans Administration, as presenting a viable alternative to the current healthcare system. As the video points out, the VA gets much higher marks than our current healthcare system in several areas—quality of primary care, medical-record-keeping, affordability, accessibility, patient satisfaction, and other areas. This flies in the face of those who assure us that only our current system can provide the level of care demanded by our citizens, and offers credible evidence that existing government-administered VA care is far better and more affordable than what currently passes for healthcare among the civilian population. Those who claim that government cannot properly administer or provide a high quality healthcare alternative to our current healthcare system should carefully study the VA model and acquaint themselves with the reality of VA healthcare across this country. Certainly, if Medicare were to require all of its recipients to seek care in VA-provided healthcare facilities, it would strain that system beyond its current abilities. However, a government healthcare option which patterned itself after the VA system and made use of VA administrative models and parameters would certainly present a better and more viable alternative than our current system provides. Let’s encourage our government to pursue efforts to model our healthcare system after a system which has proven its ability to provide better and higher-quality care at a more reasonable cost than its counterparts in the civilian-administered and profit-driven healthcare system. Any who doubt that government is capable of providing high-quality healthcare should ask friends in the military which system they prefer—the VA, or ours—and listen carefully to their responses. You will be amazed by their answers and better-able to dialogue with government-detractors. Give government-administered healthcare a chance—it deserves a chance, based on its record with the VA system, as so many of our veterans will gladly testify.

Mark Overt Skilbred