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A detailed account of how the American airstrikes in Farah province look from the ground. CIvilians who may not have much to do with the Taliban get caught in these strikes, and burned bodies of women, girls, children are to be found along with destroyed homes. It only creates new volunteers among the young for the Taliban and legitimizes anti-American feelings after bombings of this kind. Its also exactly as the Taliban intended it, as they hid among the civilians with this in mind. US soldiers outnumbered in difficult terrain and vast spaces call in airstrikes after ambushes and difficult fights. The US has to do some serious problem solving on this one, or risk losing the support of ordinary Afghans , and with it the war. These are some of the tough choices in this war, with what kind of air support to fight this war. One that is pinpoint and based on accurate intelligence and in skirmishes in the open, but avoiding the kind that gets close to civilian areas. And finding other ways to tackle the problems. Having popular support is critical, and providing security is critical, which calls for more feet on the ground, more aid workers on the ground, and more to show for these efforts in reduced casualties and better lives of the people in each area. ...

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Dexter Filkins says corruption in the Afghan government may prove more dangerous than the Taliban. Western officials may say is alright and have low expectations, but this may not be true for the ordinary Afghan people. Filkins points to this as a reason for the people turning to the Taliban.

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Samuelson points to the risks to the American economic growth from excessive health care costs. This is hurting take home pay and shows up in consumer spending. It is hurting government spending in other areas such as needed infrastructure spending and efforts to reduce the deficit. This hurts private capital investment to create jobs because of lower demand from constricted consumer spending. The U.S. budget has as its largest single expense 27% on health care compared to 20% on defense the next largest expense, with growth in health care spending taking this to one third of the budget in coming years. Without addressing health care, says Samuelson, the Supercommitte in Congress even if successful at deficit reduction will basically have failed to do its job, and it did not have the time, resources or conviction to do this. According to a new study from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), U.S. healthcare spending per person is $7,960 per person in 2009. This compares with Norway $5,352, Britain $3,487, France $3, 978, an OECD average of $3,233. Life expectancy in the U.S. is 78.2 years, compared to Japan 83 years, OECD average of 79.5 years. Chile and the Czech Republic have life expectancy equal to the U.S. Except for cancer care where the five year survival rate is 89.3% in the U.S. and the OECD average is 83.5%, the U.S. lags far behind in much needed critical areas such as diabetes and asthma. Rates of emergency hospitalization for asthma are 3 times that in France and 6 times that in Germany and Italy. The U.S. has fewer doctors per thousand population and higher cost per medical procedure- with more frequent use of the costliest procedures- creating a supply shortage that induces higher prices, and less preventive and early action care through physician visits. The number of practicing U.S. doctors is 2.4 per thousand population in the U.S. compared to 3.1 per thousand for the OECD average; and number of annual doctor consultations 3.9 per capita in the U.S. versus 6.5 for the OECD average. Appendectomy cost $7,962 in the U.S., $5,004 in Canada and $2,943 in Germany. Coronary angioplasty cost $14,378 in the U.S., compared to $9,296 in Sweden, and $7,027 in France. Knee replacement cost $14,946 in the U.S., $12,424 in France, and $9,910 in Canada. Knee replacements, angioplasties and MRI exams are twice as common in the U.S. compared to the OECD countries. ...

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Manuel Barroso, president of the European Commission, tells Italian newspaper La Repubblica on September 1, 2014, that Russian president Putin made some abnormal remarks in a phone conversation. Responding to Barroso's question about whether Russian troops had crossed into eastern Ukraine, Putin is reported to say: "That is not the question... But if I wanted to, I could take Kiev in two weeks." The WSJ editorial on September 3 referred to an earlier editorial on "Putin Bonaparte," giving some idea of how such comments by Putin are seen in the media, and how Putin's actions in Ukraine are creating new tensions with the NATO alliance and the U.S.

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The shift of voters from the Democratic Party to the Republican Party in the South such as Georgia and South Carolina, and the Deep South such as Mississippi and Alabama, started in the sixties with the civil rights movement. Reagan tapped into it by making his first post convention trip to Alabama, where George Wallace had already worked up white southern voters on segregation in the way Trump is doing today on immigration. Strom Thurmond was one of the high profile southerners shifting from Dixiecrat Democrat to Republican in South Carolina. After Thurmond in the fifties the Republican formula was to mix cultural issues with economic conservatism, with Nixon, then Reagan, and then Bush. Reagan added religious conservatives to the cause. Now says Emory University Prof. Joseph Crespino, this is changing as the more educated college educated white collar professionals that Goldwater once appealed to shifting in 2016 to the Democratic Party in places like Georgia and South Carolina. This is a result of the rhetoric of Trump resembling that of George Wallace and Thurmond in the Deep South. With demographic changes there is also new infusion of people from the North to the South in major urban areas. The result in 2016 is that the South no longer appears the way it once was. ...

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February 1, 2011, the day when a million demonstrators were expected to come out on Tahrir Square in Cairo, the Washington Post makes a call for a democratic transition in Egypt. The Post says unfortunately the debate has been affected by considerable misinformation and mistaken ideas. It singles out three for correction. The protestors have no platform, that the radical Islamists are likely to assume power, and that the US has little power to influence the change. The April 6 Movement is a principal organizer of the protests and is run by young people. The party of Mohamed El-Baradei and the Muslim Brotherhood have joined together with the young protestors movement to have a common platform. And in a country where an estimated two thirds of the population is under 30 years, the older leaders in the El-Baradei party and the Muslim Brotherhood are deferring to the younger leaders. The movement is middle class, centrist, and its main grievance is the yearning for liberty. Eliott Abrams, the deputy national security advisor to former President George W. Bush, and Mr Bush on C-SPAN, have come out in favor of the Egyptian people's struggle for freedom. See Abrams column in the Post. The Muslim Brotherhood is unlikely to win anything more than a minority of seats in any elections, because the overwhelming influence in the protests is secular, middle class, and seeks the democratization and modernization of Egypt. For the American people this is an opportunity to support the aspirations to freedom and a modernized economy for the Egyptian people....

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A Peking University economics professor who believes that China should take the best of western institutions not just its technologies and management makes his views public on the internet. He will be removed form his teaching position at Peking University by the end of this year. He is offered a teaching position at Wellesley College in Massachusetts in the U.S. Other Amercan Universities with ties to Chinese Universities have remained silent on his situation, says Xia Yeliang. His wife continues to work in accounting at the University. China's leaders see it as acceptable to work within the system to make improvements but not make the views public in the western media because this creates a bad impression of the party and the country, as Xia Yeliang is told by the party chief at Peking University.