In a very recent poll, only 3% of American voters considered the war in
Afghanistan the "most important" problem facing the country. Now, you may
say, well, that doesn't mean a lot of voters don't consider it somewhat
important. I would suggest that the fact that only 3% consider it the most
important (consider that way more people think there really are witches), that it is a dead issue.
So, ten years after this war was considered so urgent, so important, so vital to the security interests of the United States that
thousands of people would die for it, and billions of dollars of weapons would be deployed for it, it now
doesn't even register on the radar. Is there a lesson here?
Sure there is.
- Americans have a very, very short attention span. If you can distract them for a few days, you too can be a Senator or Congressman or president.
Do not worry your pretty little head about the consequences of your decisions five years down the road.
- Number 1 explains why so many state and city pension funds are bankrupt. Apparently, American politicians are almost uniformly
irresponsible or stupid or both. Don't blame them: the same voters keep
putting them back into office because they promise to be patriotic, religious,
and heterosexual.
- Americans can be fooled over and over and over again. We are about to see an entire new crop of idiots thrust into political office where,
God help us, they may get their hands on Social Security, Medicare, and the Education system. God help us again.
- Those large segments of America's deeply religious communities who claim to be pro life? Shameless liars, all of them. Life is cheap.
Life is shit. People are dying in a war no one cares about. These people
never actually save anyone's life, but they are more than happy to kill for
cheap oil.
- Those nations who sign on to America's wars? Do you realize
that your soldiers are also dying for a war that barely registers in the
consciousness of the population of the country that talked you into
this?
- Obama, I guess, would love to walk away. The fact that Karzai
is now talking to the Taliban about an accommodation of some sorts
speaks volumes about where this is going. How lovely to be a
Republican: you convince Americans it will be clean and simple and
decisive, you start the war, you wage the war, you lose the war (make no
mistake about it: it is lost), you borrow the money to finance the war,
you reduce taxes on the rich so they don't have to pay for it ever, then
you walk away from the disaster. Then, in the next election, you
run on a platform of a government that is less intrusive and more
fiscally responsible.
