You CAN blame Obama for this: US numb to drumbeat of troop deaths

It was another week at war in Afghanistan, another string of American casualties, and another collective shrug by a nation weary of a faraway conflict whose hallmark is its grinding inconclusiveness.

Obama is Commander-in-Chief. That means a hell of a lot more than simply sitting atop America’s military apparatus. He’s charged with leading the nation’s civilian population, too. He alone is in the best position to effect any synergy between the two.

 

But Obama doesn’t want to talk about the war. He doesn’t want to really talk about the deaths that regularly come under his watch. His political base wouldn’t like it.

So, instead, he has rhetorically abandoned the cause, while sending good men and women off to die under his command, barely acknowledged by the nation. If he didn’t want to pursue it, he has that option open to him, as well. But he doesn’t have the political courage to do that, either. And so it goes on, not even in the background of most American’s minds. And for all we know, not even in his.

After nearly 11 years, many by now have grown numb to the sting of losing soldiers like Pfc. Shane W. Cantu of Corunna, Mich. He died of shrapnel wounds in the remoteness of eastern Afghanistan, not far from the getaway route that Osama bin Laden took when U.S. forces invaded after Sept. 11, 2001, and began America’s longest war.

via the AP.