Reality is Depressing

While we consider that we have at least two more years of this war, and that any Democrat we put in the White House while likely continue the Iraq war for at least a year or two (lest they appear weak), while McCain or Guiliani not to mention Gingrich will keep it going indefinitely, let's also consider the cost of the war.


Random Goblin forwarded an article on the human destruction caused by the Iraq war on the families of American soldiers and reservists being sent to fight it.

It's a pretty high cost we are asking them to absorb.

One passage stood out to me.

Even many active-duty military families, used to the difficulties of deployments, are reeling as soldiers are being sent again and again to war zones, with only the smallest pause in between. The unrelenting fear of death or injury, mental health problems, the lack of recuperative downtime between deployments and the changes that await when a soldier comes home hover over every household.

And unlike the Vietnam era, when the draft meant that many people were directly touched by the conflict, this period finds military families feeling a keen sense of isolation from the rest of society. Not many Americans have a direct connection to the war or the military. Only 1.4 million people, or less than 1 percent of the American population, serve in the active-duty military.

Since we don't have to pay the cost and we might not even know anybody who is paying that cost, I guess we (as a whole, I mean) don't feel any urgency in stopping this war. Depressing. And of course that's not including the cost being paid by the Iraqi people for our intervention.