The current political unpleasantness has finally killed the possibility of serious, fact-based, discussions of the nation’s problems. We are probably doomed, so take solace in this…

When our current elections are over there must be a national debate about Afghanistan. Not a Congressional debate, a national debate.

Afghanistan is our other interminable war.

Iraq is the first one, but it’s been defined as over now and has dropped completely off the national radar. Never mind that 50,000 trainers, peace keepers… whatever… are still there adding to the $900 Billion cost of the war so far; it’s a negligible additional expenditure in lives and money.

With that war and all its successes out of the way we are now ramping up for a longer engagement in our ten-year expenditure of money and lives in Afghanistan.

“We’ll be out by 2011” has slid by stages to withdrawals as conditions permit. In the meantime, the rate at which the Defense Department is pouring money into hardened forward operating bases, combat outposts, and other military bases doesn’t suggest that they’re planning to be gone any time soon.

In a detailed article appearing in Tomdispatch.com, and republished at AlterNet.org, Nick Turse writes:

In fiscal year 2009, for example, the civilian U.S. Agency for International Development awarded $20 million in contracts for work in Afghanistan, while the U.S. Army alone awarded $2.2 billion — $834 million of it for construction projects. In fact, according to Walter Pincus of the Washington Post, the Pentagon has spent “roughly $2.7 billion on construction over the past three fiscal years” in that country and, “if its request is approved as part of the fiscal 2010 defense appropriations bill, it would spend another $1.3 billion on more than 100 projects at 40 sites across the country, according to a Senate report on the legislation.”

Forget for a moment the “debates” in Washington over Afghan War policy and, if you just focus on the construction activity and the flow of money into Afghanistan, what you see is a war that, from the point of view of the Pentagon, isn’t going to end any time soon. In fact, the U.S. military’s building boom in that country suggests that, in the ninth year of the Afghan War, the Pentagon has plans for a far longer-term, if not near-permanent, garrisoning of the country, no matter what course Washington may decide upon. Alternatively, it suggests that the Pentagon is willing to waste taxpayer money (which might have shored up sagging infrastructure in the U.S. and created a plethora of jobs) on what will sooner or later be abandoned runways, landing zones and forward operating bases.

What this means, in the end, is that what looks like a policy of long term occupation is being effectively decided by the Defense Department and a small group of industrial interests. It is for this reason that we need a public debate coming to grips with what we, as a people, want for our nation.

You’ve got to wonder how much good they do. Major intersections are cluttered with them and they’re little more than distracting eye-catchers. This late in the campaign it’s hard to believe they’re really game changers.

Hope springs eternal in the conservative breast though, which probably explains the late arrival of the black and white anti-Giffords signs declaring that Giffords forced Obamacare on me or that she doesn’t approve of SB1070.

Those signs preach to the choir. Maybe they energize the Tea voters but no one not already decided, and seeing those signs, is going to say, “Oh my God…I didn’t know that. What a wicked woman…she certainly won’t get my vote!” It’s loony.

In the meantime the choir in the church across the street is saying, “Health care reform is a great idea. Let’s have more of it!

And thank you very much, Gabby.

There is some point to campaign signs at the very beginning of a campaign… they’re a way of announcing the beginning of hostilities and introducing the hostiles. Jesse Kelly thought they were important enough to put his up a month before it was legal to do so…but, hey, he had a primary to fight. Now with one week to election they still keep popping up— like an intractable yeast infection.

Probably the reason for that is that it is emotionally satisfying to put up a sign. After you’ve done all you can you think, “Well I’ll show folks where I stand, I’ll put up a couple of signs.” It’s sort of like Luther nailing 95 theses to a Wittenberg church door…”Take this, wicked political opponent!”

So I marched out and put up two signs, one for Giffords and one for Goddard.

When the election is over it takes forever for political signs to disappear. The clutter lasts until the first chaste signs announcing Holiday Boutiques take their place.

Happily that’s not going to be a problem for me, since some helpful citizen has already taken mine away. Makes you wonder who could have done that.