[Grovenet] Reflections on the high holy season for Christians and a New Year for all...

[Ron D'Eau Claire]

"The Afghan boy crouched near a wall in this remote village, where the
Taliban's strength has prevented the government from providing services. His
eyes were coated by an opaque yellow sheath. 

"Sgt. Nick Graham, an American Army medic, approached. The villagers crowded
around. They said the boy's name was Hayatullah. He was 10 years old and
developed the eye disease six years ago. "Can you help him?" a man asked.

"Sergeant Graham examined the boy. He was blind. There was nothing the medic
could do. 

"A second man appeared, pushing a wheelbarrow that held a hunched child with
purplish lips and twisted feet, problems associated with severe congenital
heart disease. Sergeant Graham listened to his heart. Without surgery, he
said, this stunted boy would probably die.

"A third man turned the corner from an alley, leading a girl, Baratbibi, by
the arm. She was 7 years old. She turned her ruined eyes toward the
afternoon sun without blinking. They were more heavily coated than
Hayatullah's. Sergeant Graham sighed. 

"'We could use an entire hospital here,' he said.

"Throughout early December a company of paratroopers from the 82nd Airborne
Division patrolled the Nawa District of Ghazni Province, an isolated region
near Pakistan where the Taliban operate with confidence and the Afghan
government's presence is almost nonexistent.

"Each patrol was a foray into villages regarded as Taliban sanctuaries. Each
began with tension and the possibility of violence. But the Taliban did not
confront the heavily armed paratroopers, and within minutes the mood of the
patrols shifted. 

"Once the villagers realized that the platoons were accompanied by medics,
they pushed forward sick children and pleaded for help. 

"A catalog of pediatric suffering quickly formed into queues: children with
grotesque burns and skin infections, distended scrapes and scorpion and
spider bites, bleeding ears, dimmed eyes or heavy, rolling coughs. Some were
bandaged in dirty rags. Others were in wheelbarrows because they lacked the
strength to walk. 

"In one village, Zarinkhel, the villagers begged Capt. Christopher J.
DeMure, the commander of B Company, Second Battalion, 508th Parachute
Infantry, for vaccines. Seven children had died of measles in the last three
days, they said, including two the morning the patrol arrived.

"Afghanistan remains hobbled by underdevelopment, poverty and illiteracy, a
legacy of decades of war. The population's health problems are acute. But
the problems in areas like these villages, the residents said, have been
aggravated by the continuing insurgency and the harsh edicts of the Taliban,
whose rule survived in such remote places even after it lost control of
Kabul, the Afghan capital, late in 2001.(1)"

Bringing a better life to Afghanistan: a challenge we paid lip service to
but chose not to complete. Not because we couldn't, but because we chose not
to. 

What was it that we were doing at home that was so important? 

"The United States is falling when it comes to international education
rankings, as recent studies show that other nations in the developed world
have more effective education systems. 

"In a 2003 study conducted by UNICEF that took the averages from five
different international education studies, the researchers ranked the United
States No. 18 out of 24 nations in terms of the relative effectiveness of
its educational system. 

"Another prominent 2003 study, the Trends in International Mathematics and
Science Study, shows a steady decline in the performance of American
students from grades 4 to 12 in comparison to their peers in other
countries. 

"In both studies, Finland, Australia, Belgium, Austria, Hungary, Netherlands
and the United Kingdom beat the United States, while the Asian nations of
South Korea, Japan and Singapore ranked first through third, respectively.

"The UNICEF report finds that educational success or failure is not directly
linked to funding, and that there is no clear link between
student-to-teacher ratios and test results. 

"By international standards, the United States spends a lot of money on
education, and in terms of class sizes, a lot of countries that do well have
larger class sizes than the United States, Marsh said. "(2)

"Although nearly 70 percent of Americans surveyed said the ability to read a
map was absolutely necessary in today's world, more than a third could not
pick out the westernmost city on a map or calculate the distance between two
designated cities, given a mileage scale." (3)

No child left behind? All American children have been left behind. Compared
to the developed countries, our children are ignorant and uneducated. Those
children have become adults and are now raising more uneducated children of
their own.

The cost of Iraq war could surpass $1 trillion (4). Can we afford it? Was it
worth sacrificing our future and the future of our children for, considering
the results we've achieved because we choose not to do what it took to
achieve our goals? 

According to a variety of sources, with that 1 trillion we could have
provided: 

1) Health care for every American.

2) Education for every American through college, including the primary
education needed to prepare for college.

3) Dramatically increased research into cancer, heart disease and in
programs to improve the health of everyone.

And we would have had loose change left over. 

But the 1 trillion isn't the full cost of America's war with Iraq.

"Besides the direct military spending, I'm including the gas tax that the
war has effectively imposed on American families (to the benefit of
oil-producing countries like Iran, Russia and Saudi Arabia). At the start of
2003, a barrel of oil was selling for $30. Since then, the average price has
been about $50. Attributing even $5 of this difference to the conflict adds
another $150 billion to the war's price tag, Ms. Bilmes and Mr. Stiglitz
say." (5)

Why is it we're willing to send what's left of our dollars to Iran, Russia
and Saudi Arabia? 

The effect of our choices these past 8 years on ourselves and our neighbors,
including our neighbors in Iraq, is something to consider as we celebrate
these Holy days and the days of renewal and hope that follow.

The military isn't understaffed because it refused applicants. It doesn't
get applicants. The White House hasn't run amok because the American people
were powerless, it has run amok because the American people accepted what it
was doing. We can wonder why we have passively accepted the President and
his administration, and we should. 

Some people say they are afraid of demonstrations like we had during the
Vietnam war. I say that we've chosen something far worse today than those
demonstrations. 

I submit that, in this season of renewal and reflection, we remember there
are no hard questions, only hard answers.

Many pundits see the above list as a roster defeatism and discouragement. I
see it as a long list of opportunities.  

What will we do for our nation, especially our children, and to the people
Iraq, Iran and Afghanistan be in 2008? 

In December 2008, what will we have to be proud of? 

Ron D'Eau Claire 

 

(1)
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/12/world/asia/12afghan.html?_r=1&th&emc=th&or
ef=slogin

(2) http://kapio.kcc.hawaii.edu/upload/fullnews.php?id=52

(3)
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=940DEED8143AF93BA15754C0A96E9
48260

(4) http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11880954/

(5) http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/17/business/17leonhardt.html