Kabul - Four U.S. servicemen were killed by a roadside bomb in Afghanistan on Tuesday, making 2009 the deadliest year for the growing contingent of foreign troops since the overthrow of the Taliban in 2001.
The deaths highlighted the steadily worsening violence in the country, which has been in political limbo since a disputed presidential election last week.
This month, a lot of media stories have compared President Johnson's war in Vietnam and President Obama's war in Afghanistan. The comparisons are often valid, but a key parallel rarely gets mentioned: the media's insistent support for the war even after most of the public has turned against it.
This omission relies on the mythology that the US news media functioned as tough critics of the Vietnam War in real time, a fairy tale so widespread that it routinely masquerades as truth. In fact, overall, the default position of the corporate media is to bond with war policymakers in Washington - insisting for the longest time that the war must go on.
ThinkingPeople members need to believe in the bulk of our vision statement and work to support that vision. You are asked to attend at least 4 ThinkingPeople events a year. We don't burden you with many meetings so input via email is crucial and appreciated. No obstacle courses or gigantic membership fees (not that we are opposed)! To get started, we will add you to the ThinkingPeople email list. That will alert you to our events and others around town that we support.
Donald Rumsfeld, in 2003, estimated that the cost of the war in Iraq would be $50 billion. Five years and more than $500 billion later, Iraq has turned into a sinkhole for American taxpayers. In fact, recent analysis indicates that the true cost of the war could easily top $1-2 trillion dollars!
End the waste of money and lives! »
The war in Iraq is on track to be more expensive than any other war, except for World War II. Just think -- it has already been more expensive than the anticipated cost of the U.S. implementing the Kyoto Protocol to control greenhouse gases ($300 billion).
Countless lives lost and massive fiscal irresponsibility to boot -- the entire affair has been one debacle after another. Demand that the U.S. better use its resources and return its troops home. »
TAKE ACTION : http://www.thepetitionsite.com/takeaction/151569753?z00m=15873140
ISN'T IT strange the way we seem to have taken our eye off the ball when it comes to events in Iraq? Preoccupied with the growing violence and rising British casualty rate in Afghanistan, suddenly it seems we have no appetite for news coming out of places like Baghdad, Basra, Kirkuk and Mosul. It was not always like this, of course. Barely a few years ago Afghanistan was dubbed the "forgotten war" as world attention focused on defeating the insurgency in Iraq.
Today it is a different story, with our coverage only picking up when the death toll cannot be ignored. This was graphically illustrated last week when TV pictures showed the effects of bomb and mortar attacks that killed 95 people and wounded more than 500 in Baghdad.
Beyond these images of carnage, however, there is a distinct lack of incisive behind-the-headlines coverage precisely at the moment when Iraq's ethnic and religious faultlines once again appear to be cracking.
``````````````````````````````````````````````````````
Blackwater Used by the CIA in Assassination Program
According to reports first published in the New York Times on Aug. 19, the CIA hired the company formerly known as Blackwater (now Xe Services), in 2004, to help in an assassination program targeting Al Qaeda operatives in Afghanistan. The very existence of that program had been withheld from Congress, apparently on orders from former Vice President Dick Cheney, until revealed to lawmakers by CIA Director Leon Panetta in June.
It transpires from various reports that the real reason the CIA considered using Blackwater is because most of the senior CIA officials who would have been in charge of the program had left government service to work for the private security contractor! One such official was J. Cofer Black, in charge of the CIA's counter-terror operations until he was hired by Blackwater founder Erik Prince in 2005 to run his private intelligence firm. According to the Times, the CIA paid Blackwater about $10 million, but its operatives apparently did not kill or capture any terrorists.
Bill Moyers and Michael Winship | It Was Oil, All Along
For Truthout, Bill Moyers and Michael Winship write: "Oh, no, they told us, Iraq isn't a war about oil. That's cynical and simplistic, they said. It's about terror and al-Qaeda and toppling a dictator and spreading democracy and protecting ourselves from weapons of mass destruction. But one by one, these concocted rationales went up in smoke, fire and ashes. And now the bottom line turns out to be ... the bottom line. It is about oil."
Contact
ThinkingPeople to get email updates or with any questions.
