April Fools

On the 5th anniversary of the Iraq invasion, nearly 4,000 of our troops had been killed and most Americans didn’t know.

A Pew poll found that only twenty-eight percent of those surveyed knew that approximately 4,000 of our service members had died in Iraq. Almost half thought the death toll was 3,000 or less, and twenty -three percent thought it higher. Last August, more than half of those surveyed knew how many Americans had died in Iraq.

The poll found public awareness of what’s going on in Iraq had dropped as the news media paid less attention to the war. For example: during the last week in January, thirty-six percent of people surveyed said the story they were following most closely was the political campaign. Fourteen percent said it was the stock market. Twelve percent said it was the death of actor Heath Ledger. And only six percent said the story they were following most closely was the war in Iraq.

Since, there isn't a draft most American aren’t paying attention to what’s going on in Iraq. Therefore, they aren’t outraged by the lost of more than 4,012 young American or the almost 30,000 of our troops who have been seriously wounded, or the more than 1 million Iraqis that have died, or that we are spending $720 million a day in Iraq.

The cost in lives doesn’t seem to matter to most Americans. Nor, do they care that we’re $9.3 trillion in debt, which will cost $400 billion in interest payments this year alone.  They might pay more attention to the monetary cost of the war, were they aware that our exploding national debt has brought about a devaluation of the dollar, which has resulted in everything costing more.

“We have met the enemy and he is us.”-Pogo