Retired lieutenant colonel (USAF) William J.  Astore has a great piece up on Asia Times Online about why it is so hard for Americans to grasp the horror, the savagery, and the sacrifice of the wars being fought in their name:

A new isolationism is metastasizing in the American body politic. At its heart lies not an urge to avoid war, but an urge to avoid contemplating the costs and realities of war… Marked by a calculated estrangement from war’s horrific realities and mercenary purposes, the new isolationism magically turns an historic term on its head, for it keeps us in wars, rather than out of them. [Emphasis added.]

Check out the rest here ^[1].