On Tuesday, the New York Times was full of disturbing headlines. A couple dealt with Rep. Todd Akin’s remarks on “legitimate rape” and the Republican’s somewhat nonsensical decision to announce an anti-abortion platform plank as they denounced Akin. Another was a grim milestone: the death of 2,000 Americans in Afghanistan. Unfortunately, there’s only so much outrage one person can muster.
If you take the time to find out what is going on in the world, it’s hard to know what to do next. This would be an appropriate time for remarks about how Americans forget the wars they send other people to fight and how we should “support the troops,” but how?
I think, now that Osama bin Laden is dead and Al Qaeda is no longer a threat to the United States, we should extricate ourselves from Afghanistan. President Obama thinks likewise; he’s said on multiple occasions that he is working on getting our troops out. Unless your name is John Rambo, it’s hard to speed up the process.
By the same token, should one pay less attention to the abortion debate, especially when one party makes a major political move, because it is less important than one of the nation’s longest wars? Regardless of how you feel about abortion, if you feel strongly about it, it’s hard to ignore something like Akin’s comment, or the Republican anti-abortion plank.
I can see why some people don’t bother voting. In November, the Republicans will either be rebuked or confirmed, and both sides will be reminded about Afghanistan, but what do we do until then? Argue amongst ourselves?
These issues are much larger than any individual, but that can be pretty overwhelming for said individual.
Ilium Gazette 
#1 by dmill96 on September 17, 2012 - 4:34 pm
I predict we will accelerate the departure from Afghanistan after the election. While I don’t believe it was all for political reasons the anticipated Repug charge, echoing the attacks on Truman, Obama has to avoid the “who lost Afghanistan” thing. I believe Obama understood that much of Afghanistan is about India and Pakistan (India has meddled in Afghanistan a lot, to create a second front against Pakistan) and so more global considerations applied. But the policy has failed. The Kabul government is as rotten as all the South Vietnamese governments were (they’ll be on planes out of the country faster than our troops will) and so any illusion that the Taliban can be beaten is over. Pulling out will be the fall to the Taliban (so will staying, however) and once the election is over Obama will be willing to take the heat on that and will do the right thing.