|
September 11, 2010 Marion Square
Details to come.
|
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
|
|
Civil war in Iraq is still a real possibility
http://www.sundayherald.com/oped/opinion/display.var.2526884.0.0.php
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
http://news.eirna.com/208262/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."
|
|
|
|
