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> But for the majority of people living in the US, what changed? Everyone of a certain age knows at least one of their schoolmates or college friends that died

> But for the majority of people living in the US, what changed? Everyone of a certain age knows at least one of their schoolmates or college friends that died in the war. The US government used the occasion to assassinate American citizens abroad with drones with no due process. Everything you say or do on the Internet is tracked not only by advertisers but by the US government itself. Trillions of dollars spent and hundreds of thousands of Iraqi and Afghani civilians are dead thanks to the war and sanctions conducted by the US. This ended up being a complete waste in Afghanistan due to the Taliban immediately retaking the country. If you can't see these as impacts then it's because your separation from them is a privilege.

lkbm 3y ago
> Everyone of a certain age knows at least one of their schoolmates or college friends that died in the war. What age? As I said, I was 19 at the time. For Americans, we're looking at ~2500 for Afghanistan and another ~5000 for Iraq. That's several times fewer than the number of high schools. A lot more were wounded. There's a good chance most people knew someone wounded in one of the wars. But "someone I know was killed" is true with or without the wars. If the number of fatal car accidents increased by 5%, would you say this was a major change to our day to day life? That would take about three years to exceed the total US deaths from both the Afghanistan and Iraq wars over their entire many-year time span.
- dgfitz 3y ago
  It’s not about just the dead. Think about all the people who deployed, leaving family and friends behind. Kids didn’t see their parents for months to years at a time. People got divorced. PTSD is a very real thing. To couch your arguments in a death count is quite lazy.
  - lkbm 3y ago
    Reminder: this is the thing I'm responding to: "Everyone of a certain age knows at least one of their schoolmates or college friends that died in the war." I didn't come up with deaths as the metric. Notice that only one comment mentions people being wounded: mine.

lkbm 3y ago

> Everyone of a certain age knows at least one of their schoolmates or college friends that died in the war. What age? As I said, I was 19 at the time. For Americans, we're looking at ~2500 for Afghanistan and another ~5000 for Iraq. That's several times fewer than the number of high schools. A lot more were wounded. There's a good chance most people knew someone wounded in one of the wars. But "someone I know was killed" is true with or without the wars. If the number of fatal car accidents increased by 5%, would you say this was a major change to our day to day life? That would take about three years to exceed the total US deaths from both the Afghanistan and Iraq wars over their entire many-year time span.

dgfitz 3y ago
It’s not about just the dead. Think about all the people who deployed, leaving family and friends behind. Kids didn’t see their parents for months to years at a time. People got divorced. PTSD is a very real thing. To couch your arguments in a death count is quite lazy.
- lkbm 3y ago
  Reminder: this is the thing I'm responding to: "Everyone of a certain age knows at least one of their schoolmates or college friends that died in the war." I didn't come up with deaths as the metric. Notice that only one comment mentions people being wounded: mine.