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Just another week in paradise ... heres a look back at the week that was.

The big story this week is Thursdays vote in the House of Representatives passing the most odious, cruel, and the politically suicidal pieces of legislation in modern American history. The GOPs American Health Care Act would strip away health insurance coverage for at least 24 million people. We dont know the more precise number because Republicans didnt bother to wait until the Congressional Budget Office scored the bill before voting on it.

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Calling this legislation a health care bill is a bit of a misnomer because there is nothing caring about it. The AHCA will reduce Medicaid spending by nearly $900 billion over the next 10 years and take away the subsidies that allowed millions of Americans to afford health insurance for the first time under Obamacare. It would also cut special education funding, potentially bring back lifetime caps on care, and remove protections so that things like having a C-section, postpartum depression or being raped would be considered a pre-existing condition and thus charged at a higher premium.

Its all very strange because who could imagine that the people in this picture would treat women so badly.

It is not an exaggeration to say that many Americans, perhaps thousands, even tens of thousands are going to die if the GOPs American Health Care Act becomes the law of the land.

Its up to Republicans in the Senate to be the responsible members of their party and stop this legislation in its tracks.

YOU DONT hear much about the US war in Afghanistan, which at 16 years and counting is the longest US conflict in the nations history. Seven and a half years ago, the Obama administration authorized a surge of 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan bringing the total US commitment to approximately 100,000 soldiers. At the time, the administration, the US military and its enablers in the think tank and punditry worlds argued that Afghanistan was a vital national interest and that a further influx of US soldiers would break the momentum of the Taliban and strengthen the US-backed Afghan government.

How is that working out?

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According to the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan, not so well.

Here are just some of the lowlights of their latest quarterly report.

Conflict-related civilian casualties in Afghanistan rose to the highest levels since 2009. Security incidents through 2016 and into 2017 are at their peak levels since 2017.

More than 660,000 people fled their homes in 2016, which is a 40 percent increase over 2015.

The Afghan government controls approximately 60 percent of the countrys districts, while the Taliban is dominant in about 11 percent and 29 percent is contested. Sixty-two percent of the countrys budget is reliant on outside donors, drug use among Afghan women and children is one of the highest in the world and half of all married women in the county between ages 15-49 report being victims of physical, emotional or sexual abuse.

Remarkably, the United States has now spent $117 billion on reconstruction in Afghanistan and while there have been some notable improvements in public health, school enrollment, and female empowerment, its hard to argue that Afghanistan is in dramatically better shape than it was 16 years ago when the US war there began. Moreover, its now clear that the surge did little to slow the Talibans momentum or put Afghanistan on the path to stability.

While the US presence in Afghanistan has fallen to 8,400 troops, the Pentagon is reportedly preparing a request for between 3,000 and 5,000 more soldiers. On one level its hard to countenance abandoning the Afghan people with the Taliban clearly remaining a viable insurgent force. But its also hard to see what is gained by putting more US soldiers in harms way for a conflict that few Americans are even paying attention to.

Whatever the right answer, its also clear that US policy in Afghanistan has been an unmitigated failure. Try to keep this in mind the next time some politician or pundit says the United States has the responsibility or capability to intervene militarily in a foreign hot spot. Indeed, the same people who were arguing the United States must do something in Syria earlier this year have had little to say about the policy disaster and thousands of needlessly lost lives that has been the U.S war in Afghanistan.

AP Photos/Massoud Hossaini

A damaged US military vehicle at the site of a suicide attack in Kabul, Afghanistan, Wednesday, May 3.

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IN OTHER NEWS, the president of the United States doesnt know why the Civil War was fought.

The secretary of states thinks human rights like freedom, dignity and the way people are treated are US values and that if you condition our national security efforts on someone adopting our values it really creates obstacles to our ability to advance our national security interests, our economic interests.

I know the State Department is a bit short-staffed these days but perhaps someone in Foggy Bottom could show Rex Tillerson a copy of this: the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Tillersons tenure at State is a useful reminder that appointing oil executives with no experience of grounding in international affairs brings with it drawbacks: like a failure to grasp that democratic countries that uphold human rights and treat their citizens with respect are less likely to go to war and more likely to be effective trading partners for America. Anyone who tells you that standing up for universal human rights values is an obstacle to advancing Americas economic and national security interests is simply wrong.

I know it seems tough out there these days, but rest assured, America, even in the face of rampant White House corruption and nepotism, along with allegations of foreign meddling in the U.S. presidential election the chairman of the House oversight committee, Jason Chaffetz is focused on the real issues.

More here:
The week that was: Cruel health care bill, failed Afghanistan policy, and why was the Civil War fought? - The Boston Globe