Public awareness of the number of American military fatalities in Iraq has declined sharply since last August. Today, just 28% of adults are able to say that approximately 4,000 Americans have died in the Iraq war. As of March 10, the Department of Defense had confirmed the deaths of 3,974 U.S. military personnel in Iraq.
In August 2007, 54% correctly identified the fatality level at that time (about 3,500 deaths). In previous polls going back to the spring of 2004, about half of respondents could correctly estimate the number of U.S. fatalities around the time of the survey.
How sad is this? The war in Iraq, just now passing its five-year anniversary (now there’s something to celebrate….), seems to have become just so much background music. Most Americans no longer appear to even be paying attention. This is undoubtedly a huge step forward in Our Glorious and Benevolent Leader’s © drive to achieve what can only be described as a permanent state of war. How long before we go to war against Iran? We’ve got something like 150,000 soldiers right next door in Iraq; it would take virtually no effort to order them into Iran. And then there’s Syria. How long before our military becomes a traveling road show just waiting for discover it’s next destination?
Are we really becoming OK with the idea of Americans coming home in flag-draped boxes? Look, they did choose to become soldiers, right? No one promised them a Rose Garden (and how’s that for a cheap, meaningless cliche??). Besides, what good is being the most powerful nation in the world if we can’t subjugate uncooperative regimes to our will? It’s all about creating markets for American business to exploit.
Yes, I understand that the tanking US economy is now issue #1 among voters, especially with an approaching Presidential election. With the escalating price of gas, food, and…well, just about everything, really…the middle class really is taking it in the shorts. That’s immediate and personal, and I understand that the impact of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are tangential and abstract at best. Even so, you’d think the American sheeple would have room for more than one issue in their point li’l haids.
(Yeah, American soldiers are dying…but damnit, I’m paying close to $4 for a gallon of gas. What’s up with that??)
Everyone clucks about the tragedy of it all when someone from their hometown returns in a box, but no one in Congress seems to possess the moral courage to stand up and scream “ENOUGH ALREADY!” The Decider © knows that when push comes to shove, Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi will prove themselves moral invertebrates, devoid of anything even remotely resembling moral courage- never mind the ability to stand up to this sorry excuse for a human being President. Meanwhile, a nation is being lulled to sleep as the Mainstream Media moves on to other issues…as if anything could be more immediate and tragic than our lifeless sons and daughter being shipped home in flag-draped boxes. Just as long as it’s someone’s loved one who’s coming home in that box, eh?
Seriously, y’all…if this were a Democratic President we were talking about, don’t you think he (or she) would have long ago been impeached and removed from office? Then again, The Worst President EVER © IS a resolute man of God, no?? (Somehow, Josef Goebbels is ROTFLHAO….)
Congratulations, America; you have EXACTLY the quality of leadership- execrable- that you deserve. STILL GLAD YOU VOTED REPUBLICAN? DON’T YOU WISH EVERYONE WOULD??
