Archive - Feb 2007 - Blog entry

A week ago, Taliban militants took over a town in southern Afghanistan. Around 200 fighters rushed the Musa Qala and neutralized local police authorities. The group held hostages during the first days of the town’s capture.

After a NATO airstrike on Sunday, in which the local leader was killed, there is confidence that the Afghan government will regain control of the town. Beside help from the International Security Assistance Force, national militia will be aided by the resistance of the people.

The most regrettable certainty to develop in the seven years since America’s election of George Bush is that handfuls to hundreds die with every sun that rises in Iraq. Every morning, newspapers in the United States serve as death toll bulletins for that day’s rash of violence. The AP reports mirror the emotional connections that a majority of American citizens have to the sectarian conflict. There is, I sense, a considerable detachment on our parts.

But it isn’t complacency or comfort that cut the cord to our sentiment. It’s habituation.