War is the new normal
originally by: Truthdig
1st June 2011
Remember the war, the one in Afghanistan? The recent Memorial Day weekend forced the news media to briefly focus on it. But otherwise the war and its heavy toll have faded from our national consciousness, leaving President Barack Obama free to continue the combat without much pressure to get out.
Just how forgotten the war has become is revealed in the latest news coverage report of the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism. The project gives its findings in a nonjudgmental, just-the-facts manner, no how maddening they are. The Afghanistan War didn’t make the top five stories covered in newspapers, online or on cable and network television for the period May 16-May 22.
I wish Pew would go a step farther in these monthly reports. I’d like a few paragraphs on the harm being done to the United States by the longest war in our history, both to the country as a whole and to the women and men fighting it.
The war costs grow, adding to a national deficit estimated at $1.5 trillion this year. The website Cost of War reported that the Afghanistan War has cost $418 billion. Iraq’s $781 billion brings the figure for war costs to $1.2 trillion for a nation that won’t pay for decent health care for all, is firing teachers and has become resigned to a 9 percent unemployment rate.
