There are about 250,000 troops in Iraq and Afghanistan at the moment. Lets assume that each troop has about fifty close friends and relatives. That puts the number of people directly affected by the war at about 12.5 million people. The rest of the the population which is 280 million plus is not directly affected. Among this large group of unaffected people there are probably 5-10million who feel socially conscious and feel it in their heart to do their part in trying to end the war. So a majority of the population which is about 270 million are oblivious to the effect the war is having on this country and the rest of the world. However we have a number of polls suggesting that almost 70% of the people are opposed to the war. These 70% people do not like the war but they are not calling their senators and congressmen to put pressure on them to end it. The senators and congressman see these polls in favor of ending the war but their offices are not bombarded by emails, phone calls and letters by their constituents demanding the same. There are few activists who do pursue members of Congress constantly but they are branded as far left fringe elements and they are not taken seriously. If people honestly want the war to end they must take a proactive role to end it. If we polled people on whether they want to loose weight I am sure we would hit a 70% or more. The people who are taking proactive steps to realize that goal would be very less. It is a similar situation with the Iraq War; 70% don’t like it but a very small percentage are taking proactive steps towards ending the war.

The frenzy with which the Anna Nicole story was covered on the cable news channels tells us all how disconnected the media and the public are about a deadly war. Military families must have been fuming around this time as they watched their TV screens. There is a war going on in Iraq where 20yr olds are getting blown up and the focus of our news coverage is Anna Nicole; this is pathetic. People call to vote for “American Idol” and “Dancing with the Stars” but cannot pick up the phone to call their senator or congressman with tough questions about the war. The people are totally disconnected with the war in the middle east; it feels like a reality show that lost its audience but is still on the air.

The military families cannot be happy with the current situation. They should make their stories heard in the media. The Walter Reed story and Bob Woodruff’s story about the state of veteran’s care did arouse a lot of people but all has cooled down now. The media should bring more stories like this to the fore front and make people realize the terrible costs of this war. One way in which the war would end sooner if the draft is reinstated. When people realize that their teenagers could be thrown in the middle east to be blown up by an IED, they will wake up and end the war. One other way is that people become socially conscious and wake up to the realities of this futile war in which a number of American soldiers as well as Iraqi civilians are being needlessly sacrificed. The neocons who like this war policy must be dropped in Baghdad to do the fighting. The policy of this administration seems to be WAR and More WAR.

People must realize that just putting democrats in the majority in congress cannot magically end the war. Bush is still president and he can veto all efforts aimed at ending the war. Both republican and democratic members on capitol hill must be pressed by their constituents to find an end to the Iraq quagmire. Then the congress can vote on legislation that is veto proof and that will end the war. So the ultimate power to end this war lies with the American People. Today we are in the fifth year into this war and I hope more people take proactive steps to stop it.

I read this article in Rolling Stone called “Beyond Quagmire“. It is a compilation of opinions from a formidable panel of experts.(generals, anti-terrorism experts etc.) It is a great read and it is worth checking out. This article surmises that the best case scenario in the Iraq war is continued civil war and a strengthened Al-Qaida. The most likely scenario will be decades of ethnic cleansing and a war with Iran. The worst case could be world war III.

Anybody who has followed this war closely knows that it is a lost cause. Even the neocon objective of securing America’s interests in the middle east appears to have failed. The domino theory of a democratic Iraq spawning democracies in the middle east was divorced from reality when it was first floated and unimaginable today. The public already believes that the war is not winnable. Due to the diversion of resources the country is loosing the war in Afghanistan. If defeating terrorism was our only priority we must have successfully caught Osama bin Laden and obliterated the Taliban. The reality is the Al-Qaida is regrouping and thriving in Afghanistan and the Taliban is back making preparations for a spring offensive.

Over the weekend I saw the documentary “Why we Fight”. It illustrates that when war becomes profitable, there will be more it. The military industrial complex that President Eisenhower warned of is thriving today. The majority of the public is against the war in spite of the absence of the draft and sanitized versions by the administration. If the draft was alive this war would have ended long time ago. There are 300million plus people in America. There are 150,000-200,000 serving in Iraq and Afghanisthan. If we assume each of these service men have 10 close friends, and 10 close family members; it puts the number of people directly feeling the pinch of the horrors of war at 4 million. That made the Iraq War a reality show for an overwhelming majority of the people. Even this majority of unaffected people are beginning to see the reality and have stopped buying the conservative spin.

The Iraqi civil war does not seem to have any end in sight. We can restore temporary order but we can never eliminate the hatred they feel amongst one another. Civil war is the reality in Iraq. The soldiers are policing this civil war and more and more people even among military families are not in favor of this role. I am hopeful that people bring enough pressure on their elected representatives to bring this nightmare to an end. The reason more people are not being proactive is because they don’t feel the direct pinch and are more focussed in calling “American Idol” instead of calling their congressman or senator.