Here is the transcript of my latest editorial for Shared Sacrifice. This week, I talk about the Obama address, war and class. Audio component is posted online at dotrad.

This week, President Barack Obama spoke to the people of the United States on the end of military operations in Iraq. Amid the analysis of his decision, the public is not having a conversation about what his speech really means for disadvantaged people in the U.S. and abroad.

The wars overseas have simmered the last few years, with the deaths and skirmishes making occasional headlines. In Afghanistan, you hear more about corruption allegations involving President Hamid Karzai’s administration, not to mention his directive disbanding private security firms by year’s end, than you do about Bush-era fantasies of capturing Osama bin Laden, about whom all this mess was supposedly about.

Referencing George W. Bush in his speech, Obama spoke more of unity than of how so much of the country’s current economic and political troubles can be traced back to the mistakes of his predecessor.

It’s well known that he and I disagreed about the war from its outset. Yet no one could doubt President Bush’s support for our troops, or his love of country and commitment to our security. As I have said, there were patriots who supported this war, and patriots who opposed it. And all of us are united in appreciation for our servicemen and women, and our hopes for Iraqis’ future.

Appreciation, however, should not be considered synonymous with action.

Writing for the New York Times, Bob Herbert remarked the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan have dragged on as long as they have because so few Americans have any actual personal stake, family involved or direct financial hardship in wars overseas.

Indeed the announcement of the Iraq war’s conclusion was ambiguous. Resources are instead being diverted to Afghanistan, and the U.S. begins a so-called advise and assist role for an Iraqi system rife with dysfunction. The poor and working class people whose family members are the ones overseas were further denied a direct answer to the question they’ve been asking for years, namely, when will brothers, sisters, cousins and grandchildren come home?

Mike Ferner of Veterans for Peace reminds everyone that there is no such thing as “non-combat troops.” It is a contradiction in terms, he says. Language and military adjustments do not obscure the fact that war continues. Rather, Obama must address what tour after tour in Iraq and Afghanistan is doing to soldiers physically and psychologically.

Herbert puts America’s foreign policy pretensions in a pointed yet honest way:

We keep shipping other people’s children off to combat as if they were some sort of commodity, like coal or wheat, with no real regard for the terrible price so many have to pay, physically and psychologically. Not only is this tragic, it is profoundly disrespectful. These are real men and women, courageous and mostly uncomplaining human beings, that we are sending into the war zones, and we owe them our most careful attention. Above all, we owe them an end to two wars that have gone on much too long.

What’s more, as William Blum says, no American should forget that the country of Iraq has been destroyed.

Unwritten in Herbert’s piece is a disturbing trend of racist political distractions that indirectly shore up public support for imperialism from middle class people who have poor people fighting their wars.

The New York City mosque and 14th Amendment controversies have become a bellwether for North American bigots’ fight to defend the idea of Americanism forwarded abroad and at home. Implicit is the premise that the United States and its people, especially its working classes and poor, must make commitments without conditions, shut down differences in view or questions about tactics and suspend rights held dear because of those believed to threaten a particular way of life or power.

In spite of the importance of each issue, make no mistake that there is a larger backstory.

The idea of the privileged and powerful making decisions affecting the lives of the economically disadvantaged is not a new thing. However, so many of important political issues are defined by what or what is not presented in news stories and how each are framed. Whether it is the movement of the same soldiers from Iraq to Afghanistan or who gets to be an American citizen, we are talking matters of class, regardless of how politicians and reporters spin issues.

With a tripling of U.S. troops in Afghanistan, it is doubtful media reports will convey the impact on America’s poor communities. Thus it is independent media voices that need your support and audience.