Doug Thompson: The fading of 9/11

Politics of 2016 show little interest in attacks on nation

Tomorrow is the 15th anniversary of 9/11. The war that's raged ever since isn't even a serious topic in this presidential election year. The proof of how distracted we are is right here at home.

State Sen. Jim Hendren, R-Sulphur Springs, has tried for more than a month to get some elected official or candidate to appear at a public forum somewhere -- anywhere. He wants to debate budget priorities and the need for maintenance, repair and replacement of worn-out equipment and relief for over-extended American troops. He's in the Air National Guard and gets deployed to the Middle East. He has a son on active duty in the Air Force.

The very Republican Hendren would grill Grover Norquist himself or any other of the "cut spending!" crowd if they would accept his challenge. He'd surely grill any Democrat on their congressmen's insistence that no increase in military spending come without a domestic increase. That very issue is locking up the federal budget right now.

Hendren can't get anybody to pick this gauntlet up. Ponder that. We send people to war and this guy can't even find somebody to debate how long we can keep doing so. We're at the height of campaigning during a race for president and on the anniversary of 9/11.

Ever since Baghdad fell and too few people cheered us as liberators, we've resented being stuck. One side thinks we do more harm than good and should just leave. The other side says we should up and leave but carpet bomb the whole region first. In the meantime, we tell whoever is president to do the best he can but keep those costs down.

And the war goes on and on and on and on. When we beat ISIS, we'll face the same core question we did when Baghdad fell: Now what?

But we have other needs? Yes, of course. Imagine some kid in Arkansas needing anything -- or everything -- the government can provide. Suppose he has rotten teeth, drinks dirty well water, and has a lousy school to go to and few good prospects. Imagine the worst situation such a child can be in.

That's not the worst.

Nobody is flying a helicopter into his Aleppo neighborhood at night and dropping barrels of chlorine. The stuff works -- against civilians who don't have gas masks, or even cotton padding moistened with the right chemicals to put over their mouths and noses. The attackers drop these barrels at night because, in the dark, people can't see the greenish fog chlorine makes when air hits the liquid and it vaporizes.

This gas is heavier than air. It spreads out not-too-far from the ground. The vapor flows down into cellars and basements where people who are worried about shelling and gunfire like to sleep at night. Breathe in enough and you start coughing up stuff. That "stuff" is melted lung tissue. Sometimes, people choke to death on the goop in their throats while they still have some lungs left.

I went to see my toddler grandson in Austin over the Labor Day weekend. I can't stand imagining him dying like that, but couldn't get the image out of my mind.

People die that way in the chaos we helped create. I wish we'd never gone to Baghdad, but we did. I wish we had helped the Syrians when they did what we always wanted the Iraqis to do -- rise up against the evil dictator on their own, but we didn't.

And Gary Johnson, Libertarian candidate for president, said in an interview Thursday morning: "What is Aleppo?" At the Commander-in-Chief Forum the night before, GOP nominee Donald Trump claimed -- boldly and falsely -- he had opposed the Iraq invasion. Hillary Clinton, the Democrat, had to spend a third of her time dealing with repeated questions about emails.

What a sad commentary on this race. Johnson's blunder did more to get the situation on the ground in Syria some attention than anything the other candidates have done deliberately.

Some things matter more than the great Blue vs. Red game. We have an overarching responsibility to the people of Iraq and Syria -- not to mention Afghanistan, among other places. That includes responsibility to our people who we keep sending over there to fix this, or at least keep a lid on it.

"You may not be interested in war, but war is interested in you," as Leon Trotsky said, sort of, in his most famous but badly translated quote. There are no other issues that compare. None.

Commentary on 09/10/2016

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