Soldiers suffer. America sleeps

War rages. Soldiers suffer. America sleeps

October 19, 2010 - How is it possible for a country to be at war on two fronts for nearly a decade and not be plunged into constant fits of epic soul-searching? Whatever trick of light makes it possible to pretend "We, the People" have nothing to do with wars waged in our name overseas also blinds us to its tragic legacies at home.

In a little more than two weeks, a nation suffering from willful amnesia about Iraq and Afghanistan will either vote for new representatives who share their myopia -- or retain those incumbents most skilled at exploiting it.

If polls are to be believed, these wars are too low on the list of voter priorities to prompt much turnout on Election Day. Although more than a trillion dollars has been spent on the wars, that's an unthinkable abstraction to the vast majority of us.

If we could see it as the most obscene example of the hijacking and theft of government revenue in American history, there would be historically high turnouts in the midterms and for every election after that for at least a generation. {read rest}