Are We Better Off?

At Women on the Verge of Thinking, Barbara asked the question, "Are we better off today than we were 6 years ago?" It's a good question, and it got my mind off of my present situation, which is definitely a good thing. Though I wonder if the question should have been, "Who is better off than they were 6 years ago?" My response to Barabra's question was as follows:

We are not better off today. I have a friend there who keeps trying to tell me tha FOX news is giving the most accurate picture of the war. My other friends who are there think Fox news is in the pocket of Lord Bush and his Cabal. I guess it depends on who you ask. My major concern is that we still don't know for sure why we're there, four years after the war began. The original reasons have all been lies, and the American people have NOT demanded to hear the real ones.

As American citizens, don't we deserve to know the reasons why we are at war? Shouldn't we demand that those reasons be explained to us? We have lost an average of 1.5 American soldiers a day to a cause that we are unsure of, and no one cares. We are so wrapped up in our own lives, our own concerns, and our own complaints over the price of gas that we have forgotten that young men and women are dying, and we have no idea WHY. There is speculation, there is the whole "this war is over oil" thing or the "Hussein tried to kill our President's daddy" thing that we spout with nonchalance, but do our soldiers, the people who have vowed to protect this country and our freedoms, really deserve that kind of indifference to the reasons why we have allowed them to be put in harm's way?

My friends overseas have been telling me for years that Americans are egotistical and selfish. As long as something doesn't effect them directly, they don't give a damn. For years I have been defending my country and its people, but I'll be damned if this war an our reaction to it doesn't give them the exact fuel they needed to stoke this argument. It's not about the government, it's not about the President. We are still involved in this war and our soldiers are dying for one reason and one reason only: the complete and total apathy of the American people.