As if the news about the continuing tanking economy wasn't bad enough, this morning I'm getting an earful about the wars in Iraq and Aftghanistan. And none of it is good.

The NYT has a horrific story about how families are identifying their loved ones among the thousands of nameless dead in Iraq. A slide show of grief. As people read these stories of senseless deaths from the civil war in Iraq, their disgust with the region with increase.

People are already sick of this war. "An August poll by Associated Press-GfK shows that nearly 6 in 10
Americans oppose the Afghanistan war and only 38 percent support the
expanded effort there."

There are some doubts about how well Obama is dealing with being a War President. He's had a steep learning curve and domestic problems have been a priority.

The troops are returning home with mental illnesses and missing limbs.

Bob Herbert says that this war is stretching on, because other people's kids are doing the dirty work.

One of the reasons we’re in this state of nonstop warfare is the fact
that so few Americans have had any personal stake in the wars in Iraq
and Afghanistan. There is no draft and no direct financial hardship
resulting from the wars. So 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.

Mike Crowley writes about the challenges that Obama will have to address in tonight's speech. "That may be because Afghanistan is looking increasingly like Obama's
Iraq — an unpopular war that the President must defend on
national-security grounds rejected by many Americans."