The GI Bill of Rights for the 21st Century (S.22) is expected to be on the  Senate floor this week, and America's veterans need your help. S. 22 would  make sure that veterans who served on active duty after September 11, 2001  have education benefits that measure up to the needs of today’s veterans.

 Since the first GI Bill was signed in 1944 benefits have been scaled back  while tuition has skyrocketed. Currently, it covers only 60-70% of the  average costs of a four year education at a public college. The House of  Representatives has already passed similar legislation, so please call the  US Capitol at (202) 224-3121 and urge your Senators to support our veterans  by passing the GI Bill of Rights for the 21st Century (S.22).

In the United States, there's a large and growing problem of elites not serving in the military and, at the same time, the military becoming an institution dominated by the lower middle classes and by families who have a tradition of service.  Although America has lower social mobility and lots of hereditary wealth, in Britain, they have a real royal family.  But Britain's royals have a long tradition of military service.  Prince Andrew, Charles' brother, served as helicopters pilot in the Falklands. And Prince Harry, brother of Prince William and third-in-line to the throne, is serving in the British Army. 

Even though he's a royal, he's just a normal soldier and for the past ten weeks, he's been serving in Afghanistan.  But we didn't hear about until a few days ago, when the Drudge Report broke the story.  It turned out the British government got all the major media outlets in a room and requested that they not report that Harry was in Afghanistan, so he wouldn't endanger his fellow soldiers.  The embargo was broken and now Harry is probably going to the Persian Gulf.  But was it a good idea for the media to essentially be the lapdogs of the press?  I think so.

I've been watching this story very closely and am relieved by the latestet development.

A senior government official in Afghanistan said that student journalist Najib Manalai will not face exectution for distributing articles on women's rights. He was found guilty under sharia law for insulting Islam.

Since the Afghan diaspora first discovered it, Khalid Hosseini's landmark debut novel The Kite Runner has managed to be one of the most loved and loathed pieces of cultural art ever. Everyone had their opinions on the novel and its companion film -- was it good for Afghans or just "lifting your skirt over your head" as Afghans would say?

Now, the same questions are being asked of Hosseini's second novel A Thousand Splendid Suns. Having recently read it in its entirety in a single 24-hour period I can say that A Thousand Splendid Suns is indeed good for Afghans, and more importantly for Americans wanting to understand historical and political situation that created the current state of affairs in Afghanistan.

Shortly after the events of 9/11 Afghanistan, the Taliban, Al Qaeda, and Osama Bin Laden dominated the news, as if they all naturally went together and the Afghans had control or even a true engagement with the post cold war politics of Afghanistan.

That question isn't a hypothetical anymore.  I'll be interviewing the Afghan Ambassador to the U.S. next week and I want to ask him the questions that matter to you.

From the war on terror to the war on drugs, Afghanistan illustrates a myriad of U.S. foreign policy successes and failures.  It remains a strategic ally as the stability of the country becomes a growing concern with the increase of militant Islam in Pakistan and the consequences of the war in Iraq.

Please post your questions in the comment section below or e-mail them to me at publications@campusprogress.org.

An in-depth front page article in the New York Times yesterday lays out clearly how the war in Iraq has compromised success in the war in Afghanistan and how the Bush Administration's policy has snatched defeat from the jaws of victory.

The article lays out that once President Bush shifted focus from Afghanistan, a country harboring Al Qaeda, the terrorist organization that actually attacked us on 9/11, to Iraq, a country that had nothing at all to do with 9/11 and was kept in check by UN sanctions, the situation in Afghanistan began to deteriorate.