Healthcare reform must wait until this country ends its costly wars abroad. That may take 10 years or longer. So be it. We cannot have guns and butter at the same time.
Counterinsurgency "expert" retired Col. John Nagl says the U.S. is in it for the long haul in both Afghanistan and Pakistan. So does Ambassador Richard Holbrooke. And that's not the extent of U.S. wars in the Middle East and South Asia. Every country in Central Asia bordering Afghanistan is now being drawn into this epic clash.
I have supported universal health insurance since 1970 and the single payer "public option" system of finance since 1994. None of that matters as long as this country is at war. Most liberals have their priorities wrong. There will be no progress on needed domestic programs or sustainable economic recovery as long as this country wages costly, endless wars of hegemony.
Europe, Russia, and India may be on the side of the west in this epic clash of cultures. Even China is affected because of its Muslim Uyghur population. But ironically it is China and Russia who stand to gain the most by staying on the sidelines as historically Christian western civilization clashes with resurgent Islam spurred on in no small part by the counterproductive U.S. war on terror which has created more enemies of United States than it can kill - high tech asymmetric warfare be damned.