Watching the news it seems that nearly all of the focus is on the U.S. economy and the stimulus package (or its inability to stimulate if you’re a Republican Congress person on national media), and this is such an important topic to discuss. After all we are about to have signed tomorrow by President Obama the largest economic package in our country’s history. So it deserves great attention. However it does frustrate me that our media, and country at large, has little to no ability to multi-task. We should concentrate on the economy, but we should also continue to be thinking about the two wars that we as a nation find ourselves in.

Looking at the latest numbers on icasualties.org, there have now been 58,684 people killed in Iraq and Afghanistan. This number includes both military and civilian deaths. It scares me that I can look at that number and not feel anything at times. It also terrifies me to think that one day we will have to offer an answer for our reasons for these wars, the cost in human lives for these wars, and the ultimate outcomes of these wars. I hope that the economy improves and that jobs are saved or created. Yet I also hope that we as a nation can think about what it looks like to be a humble people and a responsible, accountable government in the present and for the future while learning from what seems to be a more and more painful recent past. We are still in a war, don’t grow numb to that reality…