"All the 'support the troops' stuff is bumper sticker deep."

Americans tune out as Afghan war rages on
By Deb Riechmann
The Associated Press
Posted : Tuesday Aug 21, 2012

KABUL, Afghanistan — It was once President Barack Obama's "war of necessity." Now, it's America's forgotten war.

The Afghan conflict generates barely a whisper on the U.S. presidential campaign trail. It's not a hot topic at the office water cooler or in the halls of Congress — even though more than 80,000 American troops are still fighting here and dying at a rate of one a day.

Americans show more interest in the economy and taxes than the latest suicide bombings in a different, distant land. They're more tuned in to the political ad war playing out on television than the deadly fight still raging against the Taliban. Earlier this month, protesters at the Iowa State Fair chanted "Stop the war!" They were referring to one purportedly being waged against the middle class.

By the time voters go to the polls Nov. 6 to choose between Obama and presumptive Republican nominee Mitt Romney, the war will be in its 12th year. For most Americans, that's long enough.

Public opinion remains largely negative toward the war, with 66 percent opposed to it and just 27 percent in favor in a May AP-GfK poll. More recently, a Quinnipiac University poll found that 60 percent of registered voters felt the U.S. should no longer be involved in Afghanistan. Just 31 percent said the U.S. is doing the right thing by fighting there now.

Not since the Korean War of the early 1950s — a much shorter but more intense fight — has an armed conflict involving America's sons and daughters captured so little public attention.

"We're bored with it," said Matthew Farwell, who served in the U.S. Army for five years including 16 months in eastern Afghanistan, where he sometimes received letters from grade school students addressed to the brave Marines in Iraq — the wrong war.

"We all laugh about how no one really cares," he said. "All the 'support the troops' stuff is bumper sticker deep."
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Every month I am amazed at how many hits this blog gets considering how little reporting is done by the major news stations. Cable news long ago abandoned reporting on what is happening in Afghanistan but it didn't happen when you may think it did. It happened as soon as troops were sent into Iraq. Then they dropped reports on both.

What made all of this worse is they don't seem interested in any of them when they come home either. The only time they are a topic of a report seems to be when one of them gets into trouble and then everyone reports on it as if that is what they all end up doing. Considering there is nothing to compare bad reports to, that is all the general public gets reminded of. The real information is there or this blog wouldn't be here. I'd have nothing to post about.

There are really good reporters doing a fantastic job because they care but they are in small markets so what happens in one state isn't know by another. There are really great stories out there but again, the major markets want to focus on politics and tell us what they want us to pay attention to. Well, readers of this blog have a different set of values and we focus on the troops and our veterans.

It is just really sad that they feel as if they have been forgotten about while they are risking their lives and then come home to even less attention.