Arianna Huffington: You’d think a ten-and-a-half year war would be a major issue in a presidential campaign — especially a war going as badly as the one in Afghanistan. But our political and media establishments seem to regard being in a constant state of war as simply part of the “new normal” (to go along with over 8 percent unemployment). The first rule of military action should be: do no harm to your own national security. But right now we are doing a lot of harm, losing hearts and minds every day and making our country ultimately less safe as a result. “War is destructive of the human spirit,” military scholar Andrew Bacevich said recently. “War compromises our humanity.” This one is now compromising our humanity, our national security, our standing in the world, and our claim to the moral high ground.
…Maybe if the administration proposed funding a Planned Parenthood clinic in Kandahar, the war might get the place it deserves in the national conversation.