Pain of Bush's War seems lost on many Americans

[Algorem]

http://www.toledoblade.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060929/COLUMNIST13/609290317/-1/NEWS

A SERIES of recent developments concerning the Bush War in Iraq

should have Americans rioting in the streets.

But as bad as these events and revelations have been, many if not most Americans have more important things to worry about, such as work and what's on TV tonight. The reason citizens aren't rising up in Bastille-like revolt against the Bush Administration is numbers. The majority of us have no personal connection to the bloodletting in Baghdad.

We are a country of nearly 300 million. About 1.4 million people, or half of 1 percent of the population, currently serve in the armed forces. An estimated half a million Americans are on active duty with 142,000 deployed in Iraq and 21,000 in Afghanistan. Some 3,000 troops are also stationed in Bosnia and 37,000 more are stationed in South Korea.

But overall, the military numbers involve a tiny fraction of U.S. citizens. Chances are your son or daughter, husband or wife, is not in uniform or fighting for his or her life in desperately violent war zones. Chances are the same goes for your neighbor and everyone on your street or suburban cul-de-sac...

Perhaps the numbers and devastating record of a Republican-run government will finally add up with the masses by the midterms.

[fencesitter]

1. so true.

[MISSDem]

2. This is so depressingly true. I talk to people all of the time who

don't read the newspapers and just scan the headlines on the internet. They don't even know what is going on and don't seem to care to find out. I get so down over the whole thing. These same people look at me like I'm some kind of nut for bringing it up.

[Karenina]

3. What goes around, comes around

and karma is a bitch.