Indie Army Wife

Taliban stone couple for adultery in Afghanistan - Yahoo! News

KABUL, Afghanistan – Taliban militants stoned a young couple to death for adultery after they ran away from their families in northern Afghanistan, officials said Monday.

via news.yahoo.com

Afghan Women's Writing Project

"As I understand, the rate for one vote is the equivalent of two and a half dollars. For example, if I need 10,000 votes, then I have to give them at least $25,000. Impossible! First of all, I will not buy votes because it is fraud." Continue Reading »

via www.awwproject.org

Our Only Existing Jobs Program Is the Military - | AlterNet

America's biggest -- and only major -- jobs program is the U.S. military.

via www.alternet.org

Hundreds of PTSD soldiers likely misdiagnosed - Yahoo! News

WASHINGTON – At the height of the Iraq war, the Army routinely fired hundreds of soldiers for having a personality disorder when they were more likely suffering from the traumatic stresses of war, discharge data suggests.

via news.yahoo.com

The Moral Argument for the War in Afghanistan: Then and Now » Afghanistan

The moral argument for the invasion and War in Afghanistan used to be that of liberal interventionism—the claim that intervening in the domestic politics of a country is justified if it delivered the people of that country from the clutches of illiberality and coercive governance. Further the claim went that if offered a chance, the people of that country would choose a liberal and free society, motivated by humane capabilities and free market trade and through their collective politics would deliver mutual advantage stability and security to the U.S. and its international allies, which would play well politically back home.

via afghanistan.foreignpolicyblogs.com

Moral Logic And Military Force | Law and Security Strategy

A comments section conversation about WikiLeaks between myself and my FPA-o-sphere colleague Patrick Frost has morphed into a conversation about the morality of American military force.  Patrick wrote:

via lawandsecurity.foreignpolicyblogs.com

In Photos: American troops' daily life in Afghanistan - Yahoo! News

Dust-bowl camps. Dining in a quonset hut. Makeshift memorials for fallen comrades. Endless lines of tents, and Black Hawk helicopters parked in the dust.

via news.yahoo.com

Secret Assault on Terrorism Widens on Two Continents - NYTimes.com

WASHINGTON — At first, the news from Yemen on May 25 sounded like a modest victory in the campaign against terrorists: an airstrike had hit a group suspected of being operatives for Al Qaeda in the remote desert of Marib Province, birthplace of the legendary queen of Sheba.

via www.nytimes.com

Amazing Photos from Afghanistan: Thru Afghan Eyes Blog

I stumbled across this blog, ThruAfghanEyes and was mesmerized by the photographs.... I must have spent an hour looking through the whole blog.

The photos were taken by Fardin Waezi, a photojournalist in Kabul and they amazing. You really should check it out.

Afghanistan is not a land that many Westerners know that much about, except that our soldiers are there fighting. The culture, steeped in war, is a mix of tribal and modern that is really fascinating. One of the things that irks me most about the True Believers I come across daily is that "Kill the towel heads" attitude. If you think that this war is that simple you're either too stupid to grasp the complexities of the situation or just too ignorant to care. Spend an hour looking through some of these photos and you'll be as entranced as I was!

Moving on Post and Impending Motherhood

That's right - we're moving on post. I swore up and down I would never live on post. I would never be part of that whole True Believer scene, would never live in the fishbowl of post. In ten days we're moving on post. Why? We thought long and hard about it, because in reality neither one of us wants to. But in the end we decided that it's better for DS to live on post than off.  On post she will have access to all the great kids programs the Army offers, she'll go to on post schools which are far better than any local school, and she can make friends that live nearby.  More than that she can ride her bike on our street and I won't have to worry about her. She will have her own yard to play in, and the sense of security that comes with having a house, instead of an apt, to call 'home'.

I'm still very, very leery of it but I'm trying to keep an open mind and an open heart and see what happens. The transition to full time motherhood will be much harder :/ I'm a little upset that I was never given any choice in whether or not I was ready to be a full time parent, but that's just how it goes I guess. SD has to get out of the situation she's in, immediately. She arrives two weeks from today. Yep, we move in 10 days, and SD arrives in 14. It's going to be a bumpy couple of weeks......