Far too quiet on the homefront (CSM opEd)

[Catchawave]

http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0325/p09s01-coop.html



By Jerry Lanson

LEXINGTON, MASS. – It was the first day of spring, the second anniversary of the Iraq war, the fourth day of the NCAA tournament. At the liberal church I was attending near Boston this Palm Sunday, the minister mentioned the tough winter that had dumped 108 inches of snow on the area. He said not a word about the 1,524 American soldiers killed in Iraq, at last count.

<snip>

I can't tell whether America is in denial or despair over events in Iraq, but I suspect it's some of each. The denial comes amid a flurry of flag-waving that's followed Iraqi elections and the Bush administration's insistence that peace is breaking out all over because of its own aggressive actions. Conventional wisdom this month is that the president is right. Conventional wisdom has turned an already meek press corps into church mice. But conventional wisdom in this war has been wrong many times before.

The despair, I suspect, keeps many people who are bitterly opposed to this war at home - and deflates turnout at those underpublicized and undercovered antiwar rallies.

<snip>

At some point, Americans will need to reengage in this conflict (and conflict it clearly remains, if one reads the battle-and-bombing stories often buried inside the daily news). If they don't, Iraq, like an earlier war in Southeast Asia, will just keep dragging on.

• Jerry Lanson is an associate professor of journalism at Emerson College.

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[Mary in KC]

1. What good does it do to engage?

It just makes you crazy. This whole lunatic thing is just going to play itself out no matter what we try to do.