America and Vietnam

I think that Susan Sontag's essay in response to the questionnaire was the best piece we were assigned to read this week. While reading this essay, I kept thinking about how that questionnaire might still be applicable to today's America. Obviously, some questions would need to be changed such as #4 dealing with African Americans. However, the questions dealing with inflation and poverty, where our foreign policy is leading us, and the general future of our country, are very much applicable in today's society.
Just as America in the late 1960s had to deal with lessened support for Vietnam and what to do about an unpopular war, we are in the same situation. America today is dealing with the unpopular war in Iraq and how the new administration is going to resolve our involvment in the middle east.
Sontag wrote that "the quality of American life is an insult to the possibilities of human growth" (120). I think those words can also be applied to our society today when many children are starving, however we are involved in a pointless and expensive war and sending aid to countries when our own citizens are starving.
She goes on to write, "Needless to say, America is not the only violent, ugly, and unhappy country on this earth. Again, it is a matter of scale"(121). Once again, this mentality can be applied to our current situation where we are looked down on by other nations because of our violent and unnecessary involvement in the middle east. Granted, we are not the only nation that engages in such wars and neglects those at home, but, when you compare the publicity and focus the world keeps on our country's actions, it really does come down to scale. We are not the only ones, but quite possibly the most focused on.
Lastly I'd like to comment on the last passage before Sontag beginnings directly answering the questions of the survey she is responding to. Sontag writes, "Since wars always happen Over There, and we always win, why not drop the bomb? If all it takes is pushing a button, even better. For America is that curious hybrid- an apocalyptic country and a valetudinarian country" (122). Most Americans now seem to have that same ideology when it comes to the war in Iraq. I would argue that a vast majority is so detached from the conflict our country is in over seas because it is easier to be in the "Over There... we always win" way of thinking. If it is not directly affecting our comfortable ways of life, this attitude has been allowed to survive over 40 years since Vietnam. I wonder, will this always be the case until a war breaks out on our own soil and forces the American majority to acknowledge it?