{"id":2026,"date":"2021-08-19T16:16:35","date_gmt":"2021-08-19T20:16:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/takomatorch.com\/?p=2026"},"modified":"2021-08-19T16:16:39","modified_gmt":"2021-08-19T20:16:39","slug":"americas-long-period-of-not-worrying-about-afghanistan-finally-comes-to-an-end","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/takomatorch.com\/index.php\/2021\/08\/19\/americas-long-period-of-not-worrying-about-afghanistan-finally-comes-to-an-end\/","title":{"rendered":"America&#8217;s Long Period of Not Worrying About Afghanistan Finally Comes to an End"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"683\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/takomatorch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/takomatorch_afghanistan.jpg?resize=1024%2C683&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-2027\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/takomatorch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/takomatorch_afghanistan.jpg?resize=1024%2C683&amp;ssl=1 1024w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/takomatorch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/takomatorch_afghanistan.jpg?resize=300%2C200&amp;ssl=1 300w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/takomatorch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/takomatorch_afghanistan.jpg?resize=768%2C512&amp;ssl=1 768w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/takomatorch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/takomatorch_afghanistan.jpg?resize=1536%2C1024&amp;ssl=1 1536w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/takomatorch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/takomatorch_afghanistan.jpg?resize=1222%2C815&amp;ssl=1 1222w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/takomatorch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/takomatorch_afghanistan.jpg?resize=922%2C615&amp;ssl=1 922w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/takomatorch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/takomatorch_afghanistan.jpg?resize=675%2C450&amp;ssl=1 675w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/takomatorch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/takomatorch_afghanistan.jpg?resize=360%2C240&amp;ssl=1 360w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/takomatorch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/takomatorch_afghanistan.jpg?w=1920&amp;ssl=1 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1000px) 100vw, 1000px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>After nearly two decades of almost never thinking about Afghanistan, Americans were recently forced to finally start worrying about the war-torn country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;My heart really aches right now,&#8221; said Sarah Graham, wearing a 9\/11: Never Forget shirt. &#8220;I vaguely recall the whole capturing of Osama bin Laden thing &#8211; whenever that was &#8211; but now I&#8217;m torn over how to craft the perfect Facebook post that expresses both anger and empathy over a topic I know absolutely nothing about, you know?&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Many Americans, annoyed that Afghanistan occupies their thoughts again, blame the media for reminding them about the harsh realities of war, such as twenty years of spending $275 million per day, a figure that sounds outrageous because it is.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;I just get so angry having to now learn what I neglected to pay attention to all this time,&#8221; said Lee Jackson, struggling to find Afghanistan on his dusty miniature desk globe. &#8220;All I really want to know is who to blame for this mess so that I can do that and then just move on to the next hot topic in the 24 hour news cycle.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The need for accountability was a common theme among Americans just waking up to Afghanistan\u2019s challenges, but clear answers were difficult to come by. \u201cI\u2019ve done a lot of reading in the last hour,\u201d said Jackson. \u201cAnd it might be Biden\u2019s fault except that Trump and Obama screwed it up, too, and Bush 2 made everything worse and Clinton didn\u2019t fix the problems that Bush 1 and Reagan created. I don\u2019t know how to process all of that, so I\u2019m just going to blame it on my default scapegoat for everything: communism.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>With Labor Day approaching fast, Americans are hoping to once again free their minds of worries before heading out for vacation. &#8220;I, for one, am going to commit to the wisdom of my bumper sticker &#8211; &#8216;Live, Love, Laugh&#8217; &#8211; and just focus on the positive,&#8221; said Maggie Fuller, while filling up her Ford Excursion SUV. &#8220;Good God! Did you see how how high gas prices are lately?!&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>After nearly two decades of almost never thinking about Afghanistan, Americans were recently forced to finally start worrying about the war-torn country. &#8220;My heart really aches right now,&#8221; said Sarah Graham, wearing a 9\/11: Never Forget shirt. &#8220;I vaguely recall the whole capturing of Osama bin Laden thing &#8211; whenever that was &#8211; but now&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2027,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,10],"tags":[551,24,140,368,141,161,640,512,638,94,98,162,93,111,4,2,718,716,717,104,164,599,523],"class_list":["post-2026","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lifestyle","category-national-politics","tag-dc-politics","tag-dc-satire","tag-fake-news","tag-google","tag-humor","tag-joe-biden","tag-maryland-satire","tag-md-politics","tag-moco-satire","tag-parody","tag-political-satire","tag-politics","tag-satire","tag-satirical-news","tag-takoma","tag-takoma-park","tag-takoma-park-satire","tag-takoma-satire","tag-takoma-satirical-news","tag-takoma-torch","tag-takomatorch","tag-the-onion","tag-usa","wpcat-15-id","wpcat-10-id"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/takomatorch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/takomatorch_afghanistan.jpg?fit=1920%2C1280&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/paPZSG-wG","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/takomatorch.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2026","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/takomatorch.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/takomatorch.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/takomatorch.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/takomatorch.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2026"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/takomatorch.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2026\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2028,"href":"https:\/\/takomatorch.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2026\/revisions\/2028"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/takomatorch.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2027"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/takomatorch.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2026"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/takomatorch.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2026"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/takomatorch.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2026"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}