War-weary US is numbed to drumbeat of troop deaths in Afghanistan

[rug]

Each week at war has a certain sameness for those not fighting in Afghanistan. Yet every week brings sorrow to those who learn that a son or daughter, brother or sister, was killed or wounded.

By Robert Burns, Associated Press / September 9, 2012

WASHINGTON

It was another week at war in Afghanistan, another string of American casualties, and another collective shrug by a nation weary of a faraway conflict whose hallmark is its grinding inconclusiveness.

After nearly 11 years, many by now have grown numb to the sting of losing soldiers like Pfc. Shane W. Cantu of Corunna, Mich. He died of shrapnel wounds in the remoteness of eastern Afghanistan, not far from the getaway route that Osama bin Laden took when U.S. forces invaded after Sept. 11, 2001, and began America's longest war.

Cantu was 10 back then.

Nearly every day the Pentagon posts another formulaic death notice, each one brief and unadorned, revealing the barest of facts – name, age and military unit – but no words that might capture the meaning of the loss.

http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Latest-News-Wires/2012/0909/War-weary-US-is-numbed-to-drumbeat-of-troop-deaths-in-Afghanistan

[lonestarnot]

1. Because those children/sisters/mothers/fathers/brothers/children belong to someone else?

PigliCONs sent everyone elses' kids.

[earthside]

2. I'm very sorry and sad for the individual and their family ....

.... of those Americans killed or wounded in Afghanistan.

However, I am increasingly of the opinion that anyone stupid enough to go to Afghanistan cannot be pitied.

No American military personnel is fighting in Afghanistan for the liberty and freedom of U.S. citizens; they may feel they are doing their duty to the nation, but only the military-industrial complex knows why they are really there these days.

It is indicative of the rightward tilt of the country that even the left has become so solicitous of the gigantic and extremely powerful military establishment that they don't question these kinds of senseless deaths and the tremendous waste of money for these wars.

The best thing would be for young people to stop signing-up and if already in the military to refuse to go to a place like Afghanistan.

Alas, the military has become an employment program for many young folks and a corporate welfare scheme for weapons and other 'defense' contractors.

So, sad for anyone getting killed or wounded in Afghanistan ... it is a tragedy. But the U.S. has no business being there, and certainly not the ones being killed over there.

[rug]

3. There ae people who were 10 on 9/11 killing people who were 5 on 9/11.

This must stop now.

[knitter4democracy]

5. They don't exactly get to say no.

Our neighbor's husband is on active duty tour number 3 or 4, his second to Afghanistan. He's doing what he can when he gets home to make it so he doesn't have to go back, but we're so strapped that they're sending people who normally would be safe and not have to go.

It is an employment program for the poor and lower middle class. I see it every day in my classroom, kids who can't afford college but want to get out of poverty who decide that their way out is the military. If our economy weren't so wrecked by the 1%, it would be different. I can't exactly blame them--go into the military or starve working part-time jobs.

[pinboy3niner]

4. Yesterday the NG armory in my community was re-dedicated in memory of a KIA

Army National Guard Sgt. Carlo F. Eugenio was killed in the Rhino bus attack in Kabul last October shortly after the 756th Transportation Co. deployed to Afghanistan. The unit returned from deployment last month.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

6. Dying, maimed, forgotten, in a lost war fought for PR is not glorious.