Tag: opinion
Our Troops In Afghanistan Deserve Attention And Respect

Our Troops In Afghanistan Deserve Attention And Respect

OPINION — Master Sgt. Luis F. DeLeon-Figueroa and Master Sgt. Jose J. Gonzalez. Those names might not be that familiar to most. But their families, friends and fellow soldiers won’t forget them. The two Americans were killed in combat in Afghanistan last week, U.S. officials said, which brings the total killed this year to 14, one more than all of last year.

This is the news that disappears quickly from the headlines, as politicians and pundits try to make sense of just what happened at the G-7 meeting in France, for instance, and the latest chaos at the top. When the Amazon is burning, and the president of the United States skips the climate change meeting, as his buddy Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro takes time to insult the wife of the host country’s leader, it’s more distracting than usual.

But it is still astonishing how little attention the 18-year American engagement in Afghanistan seems to attract in the country’s consciousness and conversation. Perhaps that’s because the volunteer military allows so many to put that particular kind of service out of mind.

The families of the men and women who choose to serve don’t have that luxury.

However, even those who don’t have a loved one deployed to a hot spot should be paying attention for what is and is not happening. Negotiations continue on an agreement that would bring U.S. troops home if the Taliban promises to cut al-Qaida ties, and to prevent terrorist groups from gaining a foothold. Sticking points have reportedly been over U.S. demands for a Taliban cease-fire and a pledge for talks with Afghan officials. Though usually a Trump supporter, Sen. Lindsey Graham wants to ensure America’s national security is not jeopardized.

Active-duty military and veterans are also being drawn into the politically contentious issue of immigration. Sweeping changes in immigration policy announced this summer include a review of the “parole in place.”

“Parole in place enables a soldier serving in Afghanistan, for instance, not to worry that a spouse at home who entered the U.S. illegally might be thrown out of the country while the soldier is deployed,” reported NPR. “The procedures are changing as the U.S. government ramps up enforcement proceedings, including against veterans and their family members — sometimes in ways that violate the government’s own procedures.”

Changes in the “public charge”rules, which make attaining status more difficult, even for legal residents who use certain government programs, also could affect veterans and their families. Pro Publica reported that “the rule is so sloppily written that it ended up treating immigrants who are married to U.S. citizens more harshly than immigrants married to noncitizens.”

“Active-duty service members who are immigrant noncitizens are allowed to use benefits without having it weigh against them as a ‘public charge’ in the future. So are the family members of active-duty immigrant service members. But immigrants who are the spouses or children of active-duty service members who are U.S. citizens are not included in the exception, meaning their use of benefits while their spouses were on active duty could jeopardize their future in the U.S.”

You don’t have to speculate about the effect of such worries on military readiness for those who already have plenty to be concerned about.

The military has been one institution that has represented the diversity of the country. The Council on Foreign Relations last year reported 2016 figures that among enlisted recruits, 43 percent of men and 56 percent of women were Hispanic or a racial minority.

It’s a tribute to their patriotism that minorities, since this country’s founding, have chosen the military despite discrimination they may face in society or service. There is a cost in morale and more when division and partisanship seem to infect every corner of the American political scene.

Stories about the latest additions to a sad casualty list honored the lives of the two Green Berets. DeLeon-Figueroa, 31, of Chicopee, Massachusetts, leaves his fiancée, two young daughters and a step-daughter. He was described as “good-natured,” and someone who “overcame challenges.” Gonzalez, 35, of La Puente, California, is survived by his wife, Brenda, and two children, according to a verified GoFundMe campaign set up in his honor; he was a veteran of seven deployments and was previously wounded.

“It was an honor having them serve within the ranks. … They were a part of our family, and will not be forgotten,” said Col. John W. Sannes, 7th Group commander, in a statement.

America owes it to them, and all who serve bravely despite the risks, to resist the distraction – and remember, too.

Mary C. Curtis has worked at The New York Times, The Baltimore Sun, The Charlotte Observer, as national correspondent for Politics Daily, and is a senior facilitator with The OpEd Project. Follow her on Twitter @mcurtisnc3.

Why ‘Fearless Girl’ Works — As A Publicity Stunt

Why ‘Fearless Girl’ Works — As A Publicity Stunt

“God, I hate art,” my late friend The Doctor used to say.

The man had his reasons, and he was only half-kidding. The Doctor’s first wife had been an artist, and an argumentative one at that.As my friend was also inclined to be rather firm in his opinions, marital debate had a tendency to become spirited.

Once a woman had played the art card, he’d complain, a man absolutely couldn’t win. To persevere rendered him a cad, a bully, and an oaf of deficient sensibility. Particularly when she’d started the fight to begin with.

I was reminded of The Doctor during the recent absurd public controversy over the “Charging Bull” vs. “Fearless Girl” in the New York financial district. Absurd because as in virtually all disputes about public art, inherently subjective differences of opinion led many combatants to become dogmatic and contemptuous toward persons holding different views.

“What mighty contests,” Alexander Pope wrote “rise from trivial things.”

The whole thing started last month of the eve of International Women’s Day, when a statue of a little girl appeared in the New York financial district, boldly confronting a six ton bronze bull long seen as a global symbol of Wall Street.

Hands on her hips, skirt blowing in the wind, the child seems to be staring the bull down—exactly as her creator, sculptor Kristen Visbal intended.

Commissioned as an advertising gimmick by State Street Global Advisors, the Boston-based investment giant, and its New York advertising firm, the “Fearless Girl” statue supposedly symbolizes “girl power.”

A plaque at the child’s feet reads: “Know the power of women in leadership. SHE makes a difference.”

“What this girl represents is the present, but also the future,” a State Street representative told the New York Times. “She’s not angry at the bull—she’s confident, she knows what she’s capable of, and she’s wanting the bull to take note.”

Yeah, well at the expense of being a literal-minded bumpkin personally acquainted with a number of actual bulls, let me say this: Bulls do not take note of little girls, big girls nor even Donald Trump. While cattle can be outwitted by people who understand their behavior, you absolutely can’t stare them down or outrun them.

We used to own a Simmental bull named Bernie that my wife—aptly deemed a “bold child” by nuns at “Fearless Girl’s” approximate age–would feed apple slices out of her hand. (Over the fence only.) He was a calm, easygoing fellow with big horns that weighed around 2300 pounds.

One afternoon when Bernie thought I was being too slow bringing his feed bucket, he slipped up behind me, lifted me effortlessly off the ground, carried me about six feet to the trough and carefully set me down. I never turned my back on the big rascal again.

It follows that in the artistic scenario as depicted, the child is capable of nothing. What “Fearless Girl” symbolizes to me is an act of sheer folly. Somebody needs to sculpt an electrified barb-wire fence before the kid gets trampled. Nothing against women, even Wall Street women, but the deep message of female empowerment is lost on me.

Your mileage may differ.

Of course, bronze bulls can’t move at all. Nor is an artist necessarily an unerring guide to his own work. Even so I can sympathize somewhat with Arturo Di Modica, the Italian sculptor who says that the intended meaning of his (to me quite striking) bull statue—“freedom, peace, strength, power and love” has been irrevocably lost by what he sees as an act of esthetic vandalism.

Alleging copyright infringement, he has asked the city of New York to move the smaller statue somewhere away from his work.

Mayor Bill de Blasio has instead extended its city permit for a year, tweeting somewhat churlishly that: “Men who don’t like women taking up space are exactly why we need the Fearless Girl.”

I’m guessing de Blasio, a canny politician, may have glanced at the comment lines in local newspapers, where the debate quickly degenerated into what New York Post columnist Andrea Peyser aptly described as “a kind of feminist Rorschach test.”

Scores of posters assailed the sculptor for the intolerable offense of being a man, and an old man at that. One “Vannessa” wrote that “Di Modica–like so many men of a certain age–wants the girl to sit down and shut up. Not anymore, dude. Not anymore.”


Another went all Bernie Sanders on the poor guy: “Whatever Mr. Di Modica meant the Bull to mean 30 years ago, today it stands a symbol of the corruption, greed and implacable immensity of a destructive financial sector…

The Bull now represents something that is fundamentally evil. The Girl is a response to that, a necessary response and counter.”

Actually, it’s more on the order of a successful publicity stunt: a three-dimensional cartoon.

Arab World Sours on Obama

Despite beginning his term with a boost in Arab opinion of the United States and a well-received reset of U.S./Muslim relations in Cairo in 2009, President Obama has taken a major hit in the region over the last year or so; the U.S. actually polls worse than it did during the last year of George W. Bush’s “crusade” presidency:

When President Bush left office, 9 percent of Egyptians had a favorable attitude towards the United States. After Barack Obama was elected, that number jumped to 30 percent. But today, only 5 percent of Egyptians surveyed said they have a favorable opinion of the United States and its president. Similar figures in Morocco, Jordan, and the United Arab Emirates illustrate that the initial optimism in the region has been eclipsed by a widespread sense of disappointment.

Hard to know if this is because of the stubbornness of Israel’s government vis-a-vis settlement construction and making a deal–which even though Obama has pressed it for changes, nonetheless appears to the world, mostly accurately, to have unquestioned U.S. backing–or rather the continued massive American military presence in Afghanistan, Iraq, and now, to a lesser extent, Libya.