Subsequently, MC and NC representatives working with other medical schools and hospitals in Afghanistan and Iraq contacted the UCLA MAA in search of much needed medical materials. The association’s scope and significance has increased by volumes through the participation of other American medical schools, such as University of California, San Diego and medical center libraries, such as Providence St. Joseph Medical Center. As of August 18, 2008, over 13 tons of medical textbooks and journals have been distributed throughout Afghanistan and Iraq.
Also: The U.S. military’s role in health capacity building in Afghanistan through the U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) has been to develop the health care systems of the Afghan army and police. The U.S. military has embedded medical professionals that mentor Afghan military teams, and also has medical personnel on civil-military Provincial Reconstruction Teams that build sustainable capabilities at the community level. DoD has further helped the Afghan Military Medical School develop a standardized, competitive program.
In an ongoing effort to work in a united fashion with other government agencies and international organizations to improve the health care sector of Afghanistan, the MHS convened an important conference in mid-May called, “Building Health Security in Contemporary Afghanistan.”
That’s the thing about being a middle-distance runner. You have to decide which race you wish to run, which mark you want to meet. I used to think, when I was younger, that you had to push yourself until you were the best, better than everyone else. But that was a long time ago, and I’ve seen how that kind of drive comes at a cost. I am starting to think I will be okay without losing who I am. That seems the thing most worth fighting for.
In reality, we have had many successes in which NATO forces have partnered successfully with Afghan forces to achieve surprising successes. In Kapisa, they did that in Alasay until Kabul’s politics ruined their force structure (and they’re trying again this year). In Khost, they did that until units rotated and plans shifted. In Helmand, they’ve never even tried—and they’ve only seen, at best, ephemeral success and mass population transfers.
So we know what works, and we know what doesn’t, and we know why what works never continues past the RIP/TOA (new units, new plans, no room in the OER for leaving well enough alone). Yet, it’s somehow this bizarro mystery at the top levels of the military leadership what’s going on, and their civilians advisers’ response seems to be an earnest wish for more unicorns in the form of suddenly competent and westernized security forces. – Registan (Joshua Foust)
I know all the objections: it’s too stagey and it’s too old-fashioned. But, there is something so desi-ish about all the matchmaking and silliness. It makes me laugh.
1. How beautiful the Afghan children are (and how very dry and rough their skin looks because of the elements and nutritional deficiencies). And the clothes! Such vivid colors!
2. The stark beauty of the land, which, in some photos, reminds me a tiny bit of the area in northern India where I was born (and there is a farm that has been in my father’s family for many, many years.) It’s the cornfields and the mud walls that remind me, a little, of Haryana.
3. Perhaps because of the superficial similarities, I feel a sort of ‘tug at the heart’ whenever I view photos from Afghanistan. I had a neighbor, years ago, who used to quote a poem that contained the line “a blood remembering”. It’s kind of like that.
And, here is the bill at OpenCongress, via the site linked above. Read the bill, read the bill, just read the bill, will you? Or, at least, parts of it. Sadly, it’s more than many of our dear politicians have done…
June did not please her, not here, in this heat. She wanted the ocean, its dotting of islands, and a lighthouse throwing its lonely light across the bay. She wanted to feel the way she had when she was twenty, as though the world were glowing, and even the dirt on the sidewalk took on a distinction, as if she had simply put on a new pair of glasses and everything danced up, finite and unutterably beautiful. She wanted to walk the streets of New York filled with the excitement she’d felt then, the crowds that pushed her out of the way and the strange little corner eateries with their Formica counters and yellow Naugahyde stools, the smell of hot pastrami permeating the sidewalks, rising a little, like a haze over the streets.
Overwritten? Or beautiful? I tend toward the latter, but I’m a sucker for Edna O’Brien-ish musing…..
Update: I know I’ve excerpted this before: It is dark, inside and out, but the hour will come when the black light will stubbornly give way to a gray and then to a grayish-blue and maybe at last, toward morning, near the aurorate, a pink and orange light will invade the heavens and it will for a moment or a series of moments disseminate itself and I will see a lit up pane, burnished, and to say to myself, All is not lost, all is not bleak, and the heavens and the earth can still spring their little surprises on me and flood the world with radiance. – Edna O’Brien, Night. Reading a true original sort of leads to shivers, doesn’t it?
The departure of top talent in technology and science may also undercut the prospects for a recovery in the U.S., many economists say. These immigrants often start companies and come up with technological breakthroughs, creating new job opportunities for all.
It’s recession related, according to the article, but I think the growing Asian economies and a sort of ‘tipping point’ of heavy taxation and regulation on entrepreneurs in the US is a part of it, too. I dunno.
