PERRY: The War on Terror is still killing us despite what ineffectual politicians say

Despite what so many craven members of Congress say with all the aplomb of a staggering drunk at an AA meeting, taxes are not the priority for our nation. It’s war.

Now if you’re like too many of us, you’re thinking war between the Tea Party and the progressives, the war on drugs, war on gun control, or the war to grab the U.S. steering wheel.

I mean the forgotten war in Afghanistan, Iraq and other parts east that has stolen the lives of 6,518 American soldiers and so many more. I mean the war that has stolen upwards of $5 trillion from American taxpayers. I mean the war that has pushed the suicide rate of American military personnel to near plague-like levels.

Even before President Barack Obama was finished outlining in his State of the Union Address what he thinks the country should focus on this year, my email box began filling with the predictable response of his critics. No new taxes, no new regulations, no gun control, no jobs bill, no minimum wage hike, no, no, no.

But Aurora Congressman Mike Coffman — himself a vet — was the lone voice in my box of ether bites saying he appreciated that Obama talked about his plan to begin drawing down our force of 68,000 soldiers in Afghanistan, a population bigger than that of Grand Junction.

Sadly, I’m often appalled at what my fellow Americans say and do when it comes to how they treat each other and our corner of the planet. I get nauseated watching people wrap themselves in an American flag so they can divert attention from the fact that they’re just bigots wanting to prevent others from having the same rights they enjoy. I get crazy from how selfish, greedy and short-sighted so many people are, and how quickly they will step on others to get ahead, even as others step on them.

But nothing has made me crazier since Americans elected George W. Bush than how cavalier and insensitive we are about the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. It’s as if they not only never really happened, but that they aren’t still raging.

Here’s what you may have overlooked:

• 4,488 American soldiers were killed in Iraq since the war there began, 3,627 of those soldiers were killed after we turned control of the country back over to the Iraqis.

• 2,177 American soldiers, in addition to another 1,080 non-American coalition soldiers, have been killed in the war in Afghanistan.

• More than 300,000 American soldiers in these two wars suffer from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, and it costs about $8,300 the first year to treat each one.

• Estimates of the cost of these two wars is between $4 trillion and $5 trillion, and that doesn’t include what we will spend treating wounded soldiers for the rest of their lives.

• About 50,000 American soldiers have been shot or maimed from the so-called “War on Terror” in Iraq and Afghanistan.

• It was conclusively determined that executed Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein never had the so-called weapons of mass destruction that President George Bush and others so famously claimed that he did.

• Despite the massive loss of American lives and money in Afghanistan, we and the government we installed there are currently negotiating control of the country with the Taliban, whom we deposed in October 2001 when all of this started.

• By far, roadside bombs, or IEDs, have been and remain the biggest cause of death and critical injury for U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan.

• The United States has paid defense contractors more than $3.3 trillion since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

• More U.S. soldiers have died from suicide than from battle, a rate that alarmingly rocketed during the past few years. About 400 soldiers kill themselves each year.

• There are sill more than 300 American troops in Iraq, in addition to the massive guard assembled for the U.S. embassy there.

• The unemployment rate for U.S. soldiers who served in Iraq or Afghanistan is still about 10 percent, a whopping 20 percent for female soldiers.

• Soldiers critically injured in Afghanistan almost never make the news.

Despite complaints about our national debt, the price of gas and whether we should be able to own assault rifles, Americans have been dying in a war that’s gone on for more than a decade. The time to pay attention is now.

Reach editor Dave Perry at 303-750-7555 or dperry@aurorasentinel.com