Quote Originally Posted by poobert View Post
What people don't seem to understand is that we are at war. We've got men and women still fighting and dying in Afghanistan and Iraq, and now this crap looming with Syria. Almost the entire civilian population has been so well-insulated - and certainly, entirely unscathed - from the war this past decade they bitch about delays at the border and their irresponsible recreational boating habits. The war is so distant and often abstract that apparently it doesn't seem real. However, it is.

I guess the Federal Government is indeed "spooked." After the USS Cole, 9-11, the Underwear bomber, Benghazi, and numerous diplomatic assassinations, it almost makes you think that we're being deliberately targeted by foreign extremists.
Touche'. I absolutely agree that all the current wars have very little domestic impact. Perhaps a war tax should be implemented on all residents to make at least the financial impact of the war felt. Maybe that would make people pay closer attention to a conflicts realities and be more vocal with their representatives about war. I am worried that our constant military involvement overseas creates more foreign extremists rather than eliminating them. I also worry, and this is what my post did a poor job of stating, that we slowly slip into a world where we see enemies all around us all the time and begin to insulate ourselves from our closet neighbors.

I'm not an isolationist, but constant low grade warfare around the globe cannot be a long term positive for the United States.