[Mb-civic] Who's Paying for Our Patriotism? - Uwe Reinhardt - Washington Post

[William Swiggard]

Who's Paying for Our Patriotism?

By Uwe E. Reinhardt
Monday, August 1, 2005; Page A17

President Bush assures us that the ongoing twin wars in Iraq and 
Afghanistan are worth the sacrifices they entail. Editorialists around 
the nation agree and say that a steadfast American public was willing to 
stay the course.

Should anyone be surprised by this national resolve, given that these 
wars visit no sacrifice of any sort -- neither blood nor angst nor taxes 
-- on well over 95 percent of the American people?

At most, 500,000 American troops are at risk of being deployed to these 
war theaters at some time. Assume that for each of them some 20 members 
of the wider family sweat with fear when they hear that a helicopter 
crashed in Afghanistan or that X number of soldiers or Marines were 
killed or seriously wounded in Iraq. It implies that no more than 10 
million Americans have any real emotional connection to these wars.

<>The administration and Congress have gone to extraordinary lengths to 
insulate voters from the money cost of the wars -- to the point even of 
excluding outlays for them from the regular budget process. Furthermore, 
they have financed the wars not with taxes but by borrowing abroad.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/07/31/AR2005073101080.html?nav=hcmodule 

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