Editorial - 11 years later: The invisible war

By the end of a 90 minute debate Tuesday night, President Barack Obama and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney discussed a variety of topics, which included immigration reform, health care and the automobile industry bailout.

This debate, which was moderated by CNN’s Candy Crowley took on a town hall format,and was the second of the three scheduled debates. Unlike the first debate, which was devoted exclusively to domestic policy, this debate was supposed to include both foreign and domestic policy. However, after 90 minutes, there was only one question about foreign policy, and it was about the recent terrorist attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya.

Although there is still one debate to go, which will be entirely dedicated to foreign policy matters, there has been a glaring omission of discussion of the war in Afghanistan by either candidate, up until this point.

This, despite the fact that the war in Afghanistan has resulted in the deaths of more than 2,000 U.S. servicemen, more than 10,000 Afghan civilians and a tab of more than $500 billion of U.S. taxpayer funding.

At a time when legislatures across the country are slashing budgets for schools and fire departments, how can we justify our spending of this outrageous sum of money in Afghanistan?

It’s been more than 11 years, and the war in Afghanistan is now the longest war in American history.

With Osama bin Laden dead, and our continued covert wars in Yemen and Pakistan, it is hard to rationalize our remaining presence in Afghanistan. Obama’s decision to double down there was a mistake we continue to pay for.

This should be a hotly debated issue this election season.

Yet, with Election Day only three weeks away and based on how little this war has been discussed, one wouldn’t even know it’s still going on.