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What are US soldiers dying for?
Americans deeply admire their troops, but interest in what they are
doing in Afghanistan is shallow.
Gary Younge
Most of the stories told about Benjamin Moore, 23, at his funeral started in a bar and ended in a laugh. Invited to testify about his life from the pews, friend, relative, colleague and neighbour alike described a boisterous, gregarious, energetic young man they had known in the small New Jersey town of Bordentown since he was born. "I'll love him 'til I go," his granny said. "If I could go today and bring him back, I would."
Shortly before Moore left for Afghanistan, he sent a message to his cousin that began: "I'm about to go into another country where they hate me for everything I stand for." Now he was back in a flag-draped box, killed by roadside bomb with two other soldiers in Ghazni province.
There is a reverence for the military in the US on a scale rarely seen anywhere else in the West that transcends political affiliation and pervades popular culture. On aeroplanes the flight attendant will announce if there are soldiers on board to great applause. When I attended a recording of The Daily Show, Jon Stewart made a special point before the show of thanking the servicemen in the audience.
But while the admiration may be deep and widespread, interest in what they are doing and why they are doing it is shallow and fleeting. During November's midterm elections it barely came up.
In September just 3 per cent thought Afghanistan was one of the most important problems facing the country. When Pew surveyed public interest in the war over an 18-week period last year, fewer than one in 10 said it was the top news story they were following in any given week, including the week Stanley McChrystal the four-star general commanding troops in Afghanistan, was fired.
The country, it seems has moved on. The trouble is the troops are still there.
"The burden for this war is being carried by such a small slither of society," explains Professor Christopher Gelpi, who specialises in public opinion and foreign policy at Duke University.
"Unless you know someone in this war, live near an army base or know of someone who has died, then it is possible for the public to ignore it. People are very disconnected from it."
And when they do pay attention, they do not like what they see. Polls in December reveal that 63 per cent oppose the war, 56 per cent think it is going badly (with 21 per cent believing it is going very badly), and 60 per cent believing it was not worth fighting. Indeed opposition to the war is now on par with Iraq.
This statistical data chimes with Gelpi's qualitative findings about people's attitudes towards the war. In a study he conducted in last spring, he found that people know very little about the war but "view it through the filter of Iraq".
"Those who have made up their minds about Iraq," he concludes in the paper, The Two-Front Homefront, "appear to extrapolate these views to Afghanistan and are reluctant to attend to new information on the conflict."
A different problem
But while that popular elision is understandable no sooner had the war in Afghanistan been launched than the war in Iraq was being touted it is problematic. Afghanistan is not Iraq. Indeed, in many ways, the lessons from Afghanistan are more profound, ingrained and urgent.
Globally speaking, opposing the war in Iraq was not even remotely contentious. Significant majorities in almost every country, with the exception of the US, were against it. Before it was inept it was already illegal, and before it was illegal it was already illogical. It was wrong on its own terms, and its own terms were rooted in a lie.
But there were relatively few lies told in the selling of the Afghanistan war.
When it was launched, many claimed parentage; in its failure, it is an orphan. "It's not become a political issue because the Republicans are more supportive of the war than Obama is," explains Gelpi. "So all he has to worry about is a rebellion from his left."
The potential for such a rebellion certainly exists. But its likely potency, at this stage, remains suspect.
As the principal retaliatory response to the terror attacks of 9/11, it has failed. It hasn't brought liberty, democracy or stability. It has killed untold thousands of civilians: untold because they are regarded as expendable. And not only has it not captured the perpetrators of the terror attack, there are far more acts of terrorism globally today than there were in 2001.
Elsewhere in the country, small communities weep every week without respite as bodies from a global conflict return to become a local tragedy without, apparently, altering the national mood.
Back in 1971, during the Vietnam war, John Kerry famously testified before the Senate foreign relations committee. He put the question: "How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake?" Forty years later, the answer appears to be that you simply stop paying attention to their deaths.It seems American soldiers are not so much dying for their country, but because of it.
Gary Younge is a feature writer and columnist for the Guardian
based in the US.
Americans deeply admire their troops, but interest in what they are
doing in Afghanistan is shallow.
Gary Younge
Most of the stories told about Benjamin Moore, 23, at his funeral started in a bar and ended in a laugh. Invited to testify about his life from the pews, friend, relative, colleague and neighbour alike described a boisterous, gregarious, energetic young man they had known in the small New Jersey town of Bordentown since he was born. "I'll love him 'til I go," his granny said. "If I could go today and bring him back, I would."
Shortly before Moore left for Afghanistan, he sent a message to his cousin that began: "I'm about to go into another country where they hate me for everything I stand for." Now he was back in a flag-draped box, killed by roadside bomb with two other soldiers in Ghazni province.
There is a reverence for the military in the US on a scale rarely seen anywhere else in the West that transcends political affiliation and pervades popular culture. On aeroplanes the flight attendant will announce if there are soldiers on board to great applause. When I attended a recording of The Daily Show, Jon Stewart made a special point before the show of thanking the servicemen in the audience.
But while the admiration may be deep and widespread, interest in what they are doing and why they are doing it is shallow and fleeting. During November's midterm elections it barely came up.
In September just 3 per cent thought Afghanistan was one of the most important problems facing the country. When Pew surveyed public interest in the war over an 18-week period last year, fewer than one in 10 said it was the top news story they were following in any given week, including the week Stanley McChrystal the four-star general commanding troops in Afghanistan, was fired.
The country, it seems has moved on. The trouble is the troops are still there.
"The burden for this war is being carried by such a small slither of society," explains Professor Christopher Gelpi, who specialises in public opinion and foreign policy at Duke University.
"Unless you know someone in this war, live near an army base or know of someone who has died, then it is possible for the public to ignore it. People are very disconnected from it."
And when they do pay attention, they do not like what they see. Polls in December reveal that 63 per cent oppose the war, 56 per cent think it is going badly (with 21 per cent believing it is going very badly), and 60 per cent believing it was not worth fighting. Indeed opposition to the war is now on par with Iraq.
This statistical data chimes with Gelpi's qualitative findings about people's attitudes towards the war. In a study he conducted in last spring, he found that people know very little about the war but "view it through the filter of Iraq".
"Those who have made up their minds about Iraq," he concludes in the paper, The Two-Front Homefront, "appear to extrapolate these views to Afghanistan and are reluctant to attend to new information on the conflict."
A different problem
But while that popular elision is understandable no sooner had the war in Afghanistan been launched than the war in Iraq was being touted it is problematic. Afghanistan is not Iraq. Indeed, in many ways, the lessons from Afghanistan are more profound, ingrained and urgent.
Globally speaking, opposing the war in Iraq was not even remotely contentious. Significant majorities in almost every country, with the exception of the US, were against it. Before it was inept it was already illegal, and before it was illegal it was already illogical. It was wrong on its own terms, and its own terms were rooted in a lie.
But there were relatively few lies told in the selling of the Afghanistan war.
When it was launched, many claimed parentage; in its failure, it is an orphan. "It's not become a political issue because the Republicans are more supportive of the war than Obama is," explains Gelpi. "So all he has to worry about is a rebellion from his left."
The potential for such a rebellion certainly exists. But its likely potency, at this stage, remains suspect.
As the principal retaliatory response to the terror attacks of 9/11, it has failed. It hasn't brought liberty, democracy or stability. It has killed untold thousands of civilians: untold because they are regarded as expendable. And not only has it not captured the perpetrators of the terror attack, there are far more acts of terrorism globally today than there were in 2001.
Elsewhere in the country, small communities weep every week without respite as bodies from a global conflict return to become a local tragedy without, apparently, altering the national mood.
Back in 1971, during the Vietnam war, John Kerry famously testified before the Senate foreign relations committee. He put the question: "How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake?" Forty years later, the answer appears to be that you simply stop paying attention to their deaths.It seems American soldiers are not so much dying for their country, but because of it.
Gary Younge is a feature writer and columnist for the Guardian
based in the US.
