PRESS DEMOCRAT– Rep. Lynn Woolsey, D-Petaluma, delivered her 400th speech against the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan on the House floor Tuesday.Woolsey, a former Petaluma city councilwoman who was elected to Congress in 1992, began by noting that her series of anti-war speeches — delivered every day Congress was in session — began in April 2004, a year after the … Read More
MEDIA ROOTS- The following contains the full transcript of President Obama’s June 22 speech regarding the troop pullout in Afghanistan. All additional commentary is italicized. President Obama on June 22, 2011 *** BARACK OBAMA: Good evening. Nearly 10 years ago, America suffered the worst attack on our shores since Pearl Harbor. This mass murder was planned by Osama bin Laden … Read More
NPR– The amount the U.S. military spends annually on air conditioning in Iraq and Afghanistan: $20.2 billion. That’s more than NASA’s budget. It’s more than BP has paid so far for damage during the Gulf oil spill. It’s what the G-8 has pledged to help foster new democracies in Egypt and Tunisia. “When you consider the cost to deliver the … Read More
COMMON DREAMS– Barack Obama’s June 22 announcement of a phased troop withdrawal from Afghanistan was often portrayed as a major step towards ending the war, with many outlets neglecting to accurately explain the pace of escalation that has happened under his watch. When Obama took office in 2009, the U.S. had about 34,000 troops in Afghanistan. Obama has initiated two … Read More
SALON– What if, from the beginning, everyone killed in the Iraq and Afghan wars had been buried in a single large cemetery easily accessible to the American public? Would it bring the fighting to a halt more quickly if we could see hundreds of thousands of tombstones, military and civilian, spreading hill after hill, field after field, across our landscape? … Read More
