May I suggest an amazing book for those of us who are unaware

[Paper Roses]

of what real life is like in Afghanistan? A neighbor suggested this after I told her I just read Seven Years in Tibet.(also amazing)

It is called 'The Places In Between'.

This book, by Rory Stewart is about his walking journey across Afghanistan. It will leave the reader in awe of his courage but also with a better understanding of the people who live in that section of the world.

As I read this book, I had that awful feeling that no matter what we do in the mid-east, we will never be able to be victorious in our efforts to change thousands of years of life and culture so foreign to our own. The current state of affairs seems no different than it was a few years ago when his journey was accomplished. I cannot imagine we would even try if we studied books like this.

It was published first in 2004 by Harcourt. I bet it is available from your local library.

As I read, all I could think of was these surroundings for our troops, with the hope that they are out of there very soon. My feelings have not changed. We do not belong in Iraq or Afghanistan.

[EFerrari]

1. Thanks for the recommendation and I'll trade you one -- a video

from BookTv where the argument for withdrawal from both Iraq and Afghanistan is argued very well without histrionics.

Panel on Withdrawing from Iraq and Afghanistan

Ivan Eland; Peter Galbraith; Charles Pena

About the Program

From the Independent Institute in Washington, DC, a panel discussion on the merits of withdrawing from Iraq and Afghanistan. The panelists - Ivan Eland, Peter Galbraith, and Charles Pena - also talk about what did and did not work in Iraq and President Obama's plans for Afghanistan. Includes audience Q&A.

http://www.booktv.org/Program/11188/Panel+on+Withdrawing+from+Iraq+and+Afghanistan.aspx

There is a little more information about the participants at the link. The program is over an hour but well worth the investment for people interested in the topic. :hi:

[C_Lawyer09]

4. Darned good book, as is The Kite Runner

While I felt the book illuminating, and very explanatory of the Afghan complexities, I don't think it explains away our national security strategy and/or foreign policy. A book I've recommended several times, that I feel contributes to a broader understanding of our continued involvement in Afghanistan is: "Seeds of Terror" by Gretchen Peters. Although a small fraction of the 20% of the worlds Muslims are radical jihadists, if we relax our forward lean, we, and other nations will become more vulnerable. I've actually recommended several books over the last couple of months, that more fully explain a more involved description of the many and various implications and possibilities of reversing our current strategy. If we are simplistic and categorize involvement in Afghanistan and Pakistan as solely resource driven, obviously it is a horrible policy. If we acknowledge the complexity of nuclear security, and prevention of future catastrophic terrorist acts, our involvement becomes more understandable. Especially as opium poppy production directly impacts financing of terrorist groups. Also, it is important to differentiate between Islamists who pose an internal threat, as those in Southern Thailand, or Muslims who are consolidating toward posing a threat to non-Muslim people, and/or societies that are considered infidels.

[asjr]

2. Thanks for the information. When my library

opens again next week I will surely go. I agree with you. I have always felt we should never have gone into either country.

[panader0]

3. Rec'd

I'm just finishing 'Trinity' by Leon Uris, A book that has explained the "troubles" to me. I'll be looking for this book when I'm done.

[sarge43]

5. Another one worth a look

Into The Land of Bones: Alexander the Great in Afghanistan, Frank L. Holt. It's a horrific read because much of it sounds like AP bulletins.

[timeforpeace]

6. The fact that it requires a foreigner to tell us about "real life" there says it all.

[amborin]

7. "The Checklist Manifesto"

snip

in a hospital, human error seems all but inevitable. How can any one individual, or even any one team of individuals, keep all the tasks straight and anticipate all eventualities 100 percent of the time?

But Dr. Peter Pronovost, a critical care specialist at the Johns Hopkins medical center in Baltimore, thought he knew how to minimize human error. It was, as Dr. Atul Gawande describes it in his provocative new book, “The Checklist Manifesto,” an idea so simple that it seemed downright loopy.

In 2001 Dr. Pronovost borrowed a concept from the aviation industry: a checklist, the kind that pilots use to clear their planes for takeoff.

In an experiment Dr. Pronovost used the checklist strategy to attack just one common problem in the I.C.U., infections in patients with central intravenous lines (catheters that deliver medications or fluids directly into a major vein).

Central lines can be breeding grounds for pathogens; in the Hopkins I.C.U. at the time, about one line in nine became infected, increasing the likelihood of prolonged illness, further surgery or death.

Dr. Pronovost wrote down the five things that doctors needed to do when inserting central lines to avoid subsequent infection:

wash hands with soap; clean the patient’s skin with chlorhexidine antiseptic; cover the patient’s entire body with sterile drapes; wear a mask, hat, sterile gown and gloves; and put a sterile dressing over the insertion site after the line was in.

“These steps are no-brainers; they have been known and taught for years,” writes Dr. Gawande, a surgeon at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston and a staff writer at The New Yorker, where a version of “The Checklist Manifesto” first appeared in late 2007. “So it seemed silly to make a checklist for something so obvious.”

But Dr. Pronovost knew that about one-third of the time doctors were skipping at least one of these critical steps. What would happen if they never skipped any? He gave the five-point checklist to the nurses in the I.C.U. and, with the encouragement of hospital administrators, told them to check off each item when a doctor inserted a central line — and to call out any doctor who was cutting corners. As Dr. Gawande relates it, “The new rule made it clear: if doctors didn’t follow every step, the nurses would have backup from the administration to intervene.”

The nurses were strict, the doctors toed the line, and within one year the central line infection rate in the Hopkins I.C.U. had dropped from 11 percent to zero. Two years after the checklist was introduced, Dr. Pronovost calculated, it had prevented 43 infections, avoided 8 I.C.U. deaths and saved the hospital approximately $2 million.

Based on this success, Dr. Pronovost and his colleagues wrote up checklists for other situations in the I.C.U., like mechanical ventilation. (Were antacids prescribed to prevent stomach ulcers? Was the bed propped up 30 degrees to keep the windpipe clear of saliva?) The average length of stay in the I.C.U. dropped by half, and 21 fewer I.C.U. patients died than had died the previous year.

The story of the Hopkins I.C.U., and many other stories from “The Checklist Manifesto,” will be familiar to loyal fans of Dr. Gawande’s amazing New Yorker article

snip

..... the complexities of technology in the 21st century may be best handled by the simplest solution. “We may admit that errors and oversights occur — even devastating ones,” he writes, referring here primarily to his fellow surgeons, a group not known for modesty. “But we believe our jobs are too complicated to reduce to a checklist.”

snip

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/24/books/24book.html?em