Just Mention The Name Afghanistan. . .

and the media immediately slips into a Bush Derangement Syndrome seizure as proved by the following headline:

Bush ignores Afghan school violence

This Associated Press article states:

"KABUL, Afghanistan - In his State of the Union address, President Bush called Afghanistan a young democracy where children go to school and Afghans are hopeful. But he didn't mention the violence that has killed 147 students and teachers, and closed 590 schools in the last year — almost as many as the 680 the U.S. has built."

Yes, I agree. It's absolutely horrific that children are dying trying to pursue educational opportunities in a war-torn country, but I think that number and others need to be put into perspective.

According to a 2005 study by the Journal of School Health, between the years 1999 and 2001 over 400 students between the ages of 15 and 24 died from school related violence in my home state of Mississippi. And oddly, we aren't at war with anyone. This fact calculates to a death toll of 137 students per year. I guess he is ignoring that too.

How about another stat from the AP article:

"But there's an even more worrying trend: The number of students and teachers killed in Taliban attacks tripled in the past year, to 147, Hanif said, while the number of students out of class because of security has hit 300,000 since March 2007, compared with 200,000 in the previous 12 months. The number of schools closed has risen from 350 to 590."

Our nation, in 1999, had a dropout rate of 4.7% of all 10th, 11th and 12th grade students, which was approximately 520,000 students, according to a report by the U.S. Census Bureau. Trying to look on the bright side of things in Afghanistan, at least they really WANT an education and are willing to die for it. Must be that Bush again, ignoring everything.

One last tidbit from the AP article:

"More than 6,500 people — mostly militants — died in insurgent violence last year, the highest since the 2001 U.S.-led invasion, according to an AP count based on official figures."

Using the FBI's methodology of computing violent crime rates per 100,000 inhabitants, guess what the "murder and nonnegligent manslaughter rate" of Afghanistan turns out to be? About 2 deaths per 100,000 people. And the US in 2006? Over five deaths per 100,000. Again, we are not at war with each other.

Oh, one last thing. . .all those deaths in Afghanistan according to the article were "mostly militants." Isn't that a good thing? At least that can be directly correlated to George Bush's ACTIONS. He must be paying attention to something.