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Who wants to talk about that? It’s boring, old hat, ‘so what’ stuff. It hardly even makes the paper’s Section A, let alone the front page. And when is the last time it took up five minutes on the evening news? And the Sunday talk shows about what is happening in the world? Never a word. Every now and then there may be a report of some American soldier being killed, or a score of them destroyed when a helicopter is shot out of the air. But who cares?
l'll tell you who cares. The family and friends of these almost unnoticed casualties! That’s who cares! Thousands whose lives have all but been destroyed and who lie in Veterans hospitals. The masses of vets who are homeless, sick, addicted and jobless. That’s who cares! Every now and then somebody will say to a person in uniform, “thank you for safeguarding America,” knowing that the thousands killed and the tens of thousands maimed have had little to do with safeguarding America, unless that means our right to oil.
Even if the argument can be made that these are necessary wars, not wars of choice, the fact that they are being fought almost out of sight is a national obscenity. If someone were to write a book titled, “How Not To Wage a War,” they would have perfect examples.
You start with an all-volunteer army, so that very few in the upper strata of society are affected. You don’t have a draft because you know that would bring unpopular wars to a halt in short order. You take these young mostly unemployed kids and you send them back three, four, five times. You make sure no civilians are affected. Nobody is asked to pay any taxes for the wars. It is all put on the tab, and thus starts the downward decline of the American economy and the escalation of the national debt.
Instead you have the President suggest that the American people, “go shopping---go to Disney World.” As Colonel Andrew Bacevich, a powerful anti-war critic, said, “The country basically goes about its business as if there is no war.” You get in a war in which the enemy has an unlimited supply of roadside bombs that, according to Bacevich, “each one costs about as much as a pizza,” while you throw hundreds of billions of dollars into weapons systems none of which are useable.
Let me quote Bacevich in a Bill Moyers interview.
“What have been the costs…Some project $2 to $3 trillion… How else could it have been spent? For what? Who bears the burden? Who died?...Who’s in the hospitals? Who’s suffering from PTSD? And was it worth it? There are plenty of people who are going to say, ‘Absolutely, it was worth it. We overthrew a dictator.'”
Bacevich is not an unconcerned pundit. He is a lifelong military hero. His son was killed in Iraq. But his is a lonely voice in a nation that had forgotten—and perhaps wants to forget—that these wars are still going on, and America’s kids are still dying. There are a few other voices but they are on the fringe. On one side is Ron Paul and on the other side Bernie Sanders—both of whom are almost totally ignored. In my community every Friday afternoon, there are a few senior citizens and a handful of veterans who stand on the four corners of a busy intersection holding signs calling for an end to the wars. But there is no public fury. The wars won’t even come up in the upcoming political debate. Who cares? I guess not enough of us. In the meantime our children will die and be maimed, and the great sucking sound will still be heard draining America’s diminishing wealth, while a hundred thousand teachers will be fired, the infrastructure continues to collapse, jobs are almost non-existent, and the rich are getting richer.
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