I agree 100% with Dr. Barry. President Obama has promised release of his decision on troop levels in Afghanistan on next Tuesday. Based on the leaks of what we can expect (an increase of about 30,000) I am already sad. Fighting the Afghans is a lose-lose situation. When will our Presidents begin to think for themselves when it comes to war? I have a weak hope that Obama will see the handwriting on the wall. I read Qaugmire, Quagmire, Quagmire!

What a dismal article. Not only is it condescending it’s pathetically two faced. Where is the blame for the Australian, Canadian and English governments in this one sided trivia. Now I would be the first to call no drama Obama ineffective but would not disguise it in the terms of simplistically placating the dead of a country that only knows war as a political solution.

Kathleen Barry,
The fact that you used the word empathy eleven times suggests an abnormal degree of fixation on the concept.
That’s fair enough, but from where do you derive the Obama/empathy association?
Is it from the Sotomayor nomination, where Obama indicated that he considered empathy perhaps the primary qualification for a Supreme Court Justice (apart from being non-white, non-male and non-originalist of course)?
It surely cannot be from his track record as an Illinois senator where he determined that born-alive abortion survivors should be left to die in dirty linen rooms or dumpsters.
That’s living, breathing, crying infants we’re talking about, not cell clusters.
Obama talks empathy, but he doesn’t possess empathy, or if he does it is very selective.
Where was he on Fort Hood?
Giving shout-outs, denying any terrorism link and then off to Camp David for the weekend, while George and Laura Bush quietly showed...empathy.
That must stick in your craw.
For Obama, American soldiers, whether dead or alive, are merely photo-ops.

I’m guessing your expertise is gender studies and googling confirms this.
Your “definition of female sexual slavery breaks away from traditional distinctions between 'forced' and 'free' prostitution and between wives and whores”.
I object to you calling my wife a whore.
She would probably object too, if I wanted to know her opinion and if I permitted her the freedom to object to anything.

Furthermore, I would have thought that any possibility of emancipation from the sexual slavery of Islamic fundamentalism for the women of Afghanistan and Pakistan would be welcomed by people such as yourself.
It must be a dilemma when feminist ideology and multicultural ideology collide with Islamic reality. That's where the "only 100 hardcore Taliban" fairytale comes in to reconcile the cognitive dissonance.

Let me guess.
You’re one of those feminists who fights for the right of a woman to wear a burqa?

Affirmative action university tenures;
Affirmative action presidency;
Where will it end?

Mr. Yutic, I tried to follow your post with little success. Sarcasm is fine if it leads to some defined or understandable information but you jumped around so much I could not follow your trend of thought. What do the following statements have to do with the article in question?
"Let me guess.
You’re one of those feminists who fights for the right of a woman to wear a burqa?

Affirmative action university tenures;
Affirmative action presidency;
Where will it end?"

Are you suggesting that Mr. Obama was given the Presidency because of "Affirmative Action"? Give me a break sir, join the 21st Century. Your ideas are pathetic.

Joe in the U.S.
If you don’t think Obama is getting a free pass because he’s an African American of politically correct persuasion, you should take your blinkers off.
His book Dreams from my Father was ghost written by Bill Ayers and the legacy media won’t even cover the story while they endlessly pick fault with Sarah Palin’s memoirs.
Even Christopher Andersen’s matter-of-fact assertion that Obama passed on his collected history to Ayers to string together is wilfully ignored, but nowhere denied, in the reviews of Anderson’s book “Barack and Michelle”.
This is consistent with the way that Obama’s dark past was ignored by the media while they decimated Palin, who was only running for VPOTUS.
Every criticism of Obama is met with cries of racism.
Abandoned by his father first and then his mother, Obama somehow managed to receive education at an elite Hawaii school.
Obama’s self-admitted “marginal report cards” nevertheless gained him entry to Columbia university and then Harvard, without even achieving honours at Columbia.
Obama has spent vast amounts of money on lawyers’ fees to stop anyone from accessing his academic records from any of these institutions.
Call me stupid, or pathetic if you will, but how do you explain the above?
Are you claiming that Obama's successful candidacy for president was based on his experience?
How bizarre is it that proponents of affirmative action for the “disadvantaged” then turn around and claim that those who have reached high office did so on their own merit?
The fruits of affirmative action are incompetence, Obama provides the proof and the American people will be wearing it for generations to come.

Yucic, It's ludicrous to discuss intellectual or academic rigor with anyone with your opinionated views.