Division is easy, unity is difficult. What shall we choose?

Today’s Washington Post is running a story concerning the deep partisan divide among Americans relative to continuing the Afghan War. Democrats basically want it to end, Republicans want it to continue. The story is here.

This is not a decision that the President can make in a bi-partisan manner, that much is now obvious. He is going to need to search his heart and decide what is in the best interests of the country and then execute his decision. Good luck Mr. President.

In this article we learn that Senator Kerry spent over twenty hours in exhaustive conversations with President Karzai of Afghanistan in trying to convince him that allowing a runoff election in Afghanistan was necessary for continued U.S. support. Karzai was resisting all the way up to the television news conference announcing his decision to allow the new election to proceed. The story is here.

I felt morally obligated to include this story. There has been an awful lot of Israel bashing on this web site in the past week or two so I thought it only fair to let you read this. It seems that Muslims from North Africa are braving treacherous journeys through Sudan and Egypt in order to get a chance to settle in Israel where they can work and live in peace. You read that correctly. The story is here.

In this story, a State Department bean counter has been arrested and charged with fraud. He was placed in charge of construction projects in Iraq and he was awarding the construction projects and the federal money to Iraqi firms for kickback money. The story is here.

I am shocked. This is the first time I have read about this sort of conduct from a federal worker – today.

In today’s New York Times foreign observors are questioning whether or not a new vote in Afghanistan will be anymore fraud free than the first vote was. They have their doubts. Great. That story is here.

In another story here, it seems that the Pakistani Army is attempting to find allies (read that as bribe) among the Taliban they do not fear in order to strike at the Taliban that they do fear. Odd. But it only reinforces my view that constantly referring to the Taliban as "terrorists" only confuses the issue. It is a lot more complicated than that and we need to start to recognize this.

In an incredibly insensitive set of circumstances involving blatant anti-Semitism by two public office holders in South Carolina we can see how easy it is for office holders to abuse their status in order to take cheap shots at groups that they consider less than ideal. This pretty much says it all. The story is here.

As informed veterans who are aware of what is going on around us, we can intelligently contribute to the national debate on where our country should be headed.  I hope you share my passion for being informed.  It gives us power.

CWO3 Tom Barnes, USCG (Ret.)