The Pew Research Center released a study this week examining attitudes about the ongoing wars, one of which is celebrating a grim little birthday this week. The war in Afghanistan is turning ten, and showing no signs of letting up. Yet the study shows that maybe a third of the American public is actually following the wars. For most people, it’s like a reality show that has lost its luster; there is really no more profound an investment in the enterprise than that. This is, some have pointed out, the longest continuous conflict the U.S. has ever been involved in, and certainly (I suspect) the most serious war “we’ve” ever fought that didn’t involve some kind of conscription. Less than one percent of Americans have fought in these wars, and none of them have paid any higher taxes to underwrite them.
It’s hard to imagine how a war this difficult to justify could last a decade or more on the backs of anything other than an all-volunteer force. If there’d been a draft, these wars might never have started. If the true costs were passed along to taxpayers, they certainly wouldn’t have lasted as long as this. Our nation’s war making power has been effectively insulated from public involvement and, consequently, from meaningful public input as well. America’s wars are now self-contained and self-perpetuating; they are fought by a separate nation of military families – one that bears every burden, pays every price, while we continue our normal lives, only vaguely aware of the catastrophe our elected leaders are visiting upon these unfortunate men, women, and children.
So I say unto you, on this ten year anniversary of our invasion of Afghanistan (Bush’s first war of choice), don’t simply thank a soldier; apologize to them for not doing more to stop this war. That’s a start, anyway.
Knox out. Amanda Knox was freed, as I’m sure you heard. Fortunate for her that she is not a black man wrongly accused of murder in the state of Georgia; she might have been put to death, exculpatory evidence be damned. I’ve heard a lot of tut-tutting about Italy’s justice system from this side of the pond, but what the hell – look at Troy Anthony Davis and tell me how those commentators have a leg to stand on. Our system is a disgrace, and the killing of Davis a crime. Would that he had stood before that Italian judge – he might still be with us.
luv u,
jp
