US threatens war with Iran
An Iranian navy military exercise
Media propaganda can be a powerful tool for distorting history, as well as distorting current political events.
Shortly before the United States entered World War II, for example, it placed an embargo on Japan, blocking its access to goods like steel and oil. These things were critical to its economy, and as a small island nation, it depended heavily on imports. The Roosevelt administration knew the overwhelmingly likely effect of this embargo would be Japanese retaliation - and sure enough, the move forced Japan into attacking the U.S. at Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941. The U.S. media has long portrayed America as the victim of totally unwarranted Japanese aggression, but the truth is, the U.S. provoked Japan into attacking and knew exactly what it was doing.
Similar events are taking place with respect to Tehran today. While the media would have us believe that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the President of Iran, is a madman and dictator, bent on acquiring nuclear weapons and "wiping Israel off the map," there is more to the story than this absurdly pro-U.S. account.
Both the United States and its allies, as well as the UN Security Council, have previously imposed sanctions on Iran over its alleged nuclear weapons program, which have significantly harmed its economy. Tehran denies that it is developing nuclear weapons.
President Obama will soon sign into law restrictions on Iran's central bank, through which most Iranian oil sales flow. Specifically, it would freeze assets of any foreign financial institutions doing business with the bank, which would have the effect of severely impeding Iranian oil exports. Meanwhile, the European Union is considering placing an embargo on exports of Iranian oil.
Sound familiar?
It's no surprise that, in response, Iran has threatened to close the Strait of Hormuz. Having been sufficiently provoked and attacked economically, Iran is lashing out at the true aggressors - the U.S. and its allies. However, the American media has unleashed a barrage of propaganda, making it appear that Iran's threat to close the Strait of Hormuz is totally unwarranted.
The U.S. Department of Defense issued a statement saying that this would "not be tolerated," an implied threat of military action.
As the Obama administration deliberately heightens tensions with Iran, arguing that a nuclear Iran is unacceptable, bear in mind that the U.S. deliberately manufactured lies about Saddam Hussein building WMDs in Iraq in 2003. It makes no difference whether Iran is actually building nuclear weapons - the U.S. has its own strategic reasons for justifying a war with the country, including its huge oil and gas reserves.
Obama blocks morning-after pill for minors
Plan B: The Morning-After Pill
The Food & Drug Administration (FDA), following medical experts' recommendations, was all set to remove the Bush-era restriction on the emergency contraceptive, Plan B (often referred to as the morning-after pill). Then, on December 7, the Obama administration interfered. The Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS), Kathleen Sebelius, overruled the recommendation to remove the age restriction. This is the first time in history an HHS Secretary has overruled the FDA.
Use of Plan B is time-sensitive (hence the name, morning-after pill), and physicians are often unavailable on such short notice to write a prescription. Thus, this move will effectively deny access to the contraceptive for minors.
This is outrageous on two levels. First, there are the extreme cases, such as rape or incest. If a 15-year old girl is raped, she will be unable to buy the morning-after pill without a prescription - and by the time she gets a prescription, it will likely be too late.
The outlier situations of rape and incest, of course, are the easier cases to make; many Republicans might even agree that these should be valid exceptions. However, a broader (and more controversial) principle is at stake here: access to birth control for all girls of every age.
The girls who are most in need of contraceptives or abortion procedures are the most vulnerable ones in society - young women, who are not old enough to be capable of raising a child, and poor women, who do not have the financial resources to raise a child. Women who are older or more affluent will not be nearly as devastated by an unintended pregnancy. Contraceptives may be helpful or convenient for the latter group, but they are absolutely vital as a basic human right for minors. An unintended pregnancy can condemn a girl to poverty, placing enormous burdens on her and severely pressuring her to give up any hope of a more productive and prosperous future.
The Obama administration has deliberately blocked girls under 17 from obtaining Plan B without a prescription, once again eroding a critical civil liberty. The consequences of this action will be catastrophic for innumerable young women.
Trotsky’s response to the Republican candidates’ debate
Republican presidential debate
The Republican party is an intellectually bankrupt party. Rather than give a detailed rebuttal as to each and every idiotic and nonsensical point the eight candidates made on stage in the Republican presidential debate Wednesday night, I will instead post some closing remarks from a speech that Leon Trotsky gave in 1932 to a group of students in Copenhagen. Trotsky's remarks are as dazzling in their rhetoric as they are powerful and penetrating in their analysis; he condemns the entire "free market" system of capitalism and explains why the alternative (socialism) is a historic necessity. It makes the Republicans look, in stark contrast, like children. His speech is entitled, "In Defense of the October Revolution."
"Capitalism has outlived itself as a world system. It has ceased to fulfill its essential functions, the raising of the level of human power and human wealth. Humanity cannot remain stagnant at the level which it has reached. Only a powerful increase in productive force and a sound, planned, that is, Socialist organization of production and distribution can assure humanity – all humanity – of a decent standard of life and at the same time give it the precious feeling of freedom with respect to its own economy. Freedom in two senses – first of all man will no longer be compelled to devote the greater part of his life to physical toil. Second, he will no longer be dependent on the laws of the market, that is, on the blind and obscure forces which work behind his back. He will build his economy freely, according to plan, with compass in hand. This time it is a question of subjecting the anatomy of society to the X-ray through and through, of disclosing all its secrets and subjecting all its functions to the reason and the will of collective humanity. In this sense, Socialism must become a new step in the historical advance of mankind. Before our ancestor, who first armed himself with a stone axe, the whole of nature represented a conspiracy of secret and hostile forces. Since then, the natural sciences, hand in hand with practical technology, have illuminated nature down to its most secret depths. By means of electrical energy, the physicist passes judgment on the nucleus of the atom. The hour is not far when science will easily solve the task of the alchemists, and turn manure into gold and gold into manure. Where the demons and furies of nature once raged, now reigns ever more courageously the industrious will of man.
But while he wrestled victoriously with nature, man built up his relations to order men blindly almost like the bee or the ant. Slowly and very haltingly he approached the problems of human society. He began with religion and passed on to politics. The Reformation represented the first victory of bourgeois individualism and rationalism in a domain which had been ruled by dead tradition. From the Church, critical thought went on to the State. Born in the struggle with absolutism and the medieval estates, the doctrine of the sovereignty of the people and of the rights of man and the citizen grew stronger. Thus arose the system of parliamentarianism. Critical thought penetrated into the domain of government administration. The political rationalism of democracy was the highest achievement of the revolutionary bourgeoisie.
But between nature and the State stands economic life. Technical science liberated man from the tyranny of the old elements – earth, water, fire and air – only to subject him to its own tyranny. Man ceased to be a slave to nature, to become a slave to the machine, and still worse, a slave to supply and demand. The present world crisis testifies in especially tragic fashion how man, who dives to the bottom of the ocean, who rises up to the stratosphere, who converses on invisible waves with the Antipodes, how this proud and daring ruler of nature remains a slave to the blind forces of his own economy. The historical task of our epoch consists in replacing the uncontrolled play of the market by reasonable planning, in disciplining the forces of production, compelling them to work together in harmony and obediently serve the needs of mankind. Only on this new social basis will man be able to stretch his weary limbs and – every man and every woman, not only a selected few – become a citizen with full power in the realm of thought.
But this is not yet the end of the road. No, it is only the beginning. Man calls himself the crown of creation. He has a certain right to that claim. But who has asserted that present-day man is the last and highest representative of the species homo sapiens? No, physically as well as spiritually he is very far from perfection, prematurely born biologically, with feeble thought, and has not produced any new organic equilibrium.
It is true that humanity has more than once brought forth giants of thought and action, who tower over their contemporaries like summits in a chain of mountains. The human race has a right to be proud of its Aristotle, Shakespeare, Darwin, Beethoven, Goethe, Marx, Edison, and Lenin. But why are they so rare? Above all, because almost without exception, they came out of the upper and middle classes. Apart from rare exceptions, the sparks of genius in the suppressed depths of the people are choked before they can burst into flame. But also because the process of creating, developing and educating a human being have been and remain essentially a matter of chance not illuminated by theory and practice, not subjected to consciousness and will.
Anthropology, biology, physiology and psychology have accumulated mountains of material to raise up before mankind in their full scope the tasks of perfecting and developing body and spirit. Psychoanalysis, with the inspired hand of Sigmund Freud, has lifted the cover of the well which is poetically called the “soul.” And what has been revealed? Our conscious thought is only a small part of the work of the dark psychic forces. Learned divers descend to the bottom of the ocean and there take photographs of mysterious fishes. Human thought, descending to the bottom of its own psychic sources, must shed light on the most mysterious driving forces of the soul and subject them to reason and to will.
Once he has done with the anarchic forces of his own society, man will set to work on himself, in the pestle and the retort of the chemist. For the first time mankind will regard itself as raw material, or at best as a physical and psychic semi-finished product. Socialism will mean a leap from the realm of necessity into the realm of freedom in this sense also, that the man of today, with all his contradictions and lack of harmony, will open the road for a new and happier race."
What if the government created 20 million jobs?
Time magazine cover
The U.S. added no new jobs in August, after a tiny private sector gain of 17,000 was completely erased by the loss of 17,000 government jobs last month. Adding to the problem, job creation for the past two months was revised downward. The Department of Labor said that only 85,000 jobs were created in July instead of 117,000, and a mere 20,000 in June instead of 46,000 as previously reported.
Officially, about 14 million Americans are counted as unemployed, with the unemployment rate at 9.1 percent. This figure, however, does not take into account unemployed workers who have given up looking for a job, nor does it indicate involuntary part-time workers (those who want full-time work but can't find it). Adding these workers results in a much more accurate unemployment rate of 16.2 percent, or 25.3 million people.
There are only 310 million or so people in America, and many of them don't even count as part of the labor force. As of August 2011, the U.S. labor force consists of 153.6 million workers. This puts into perspective the 25.3 million additional people seeking jobs who cannot find them.
So in light of the fact that we seem to be steadily slipping into a catastrophic economic depression, why doesn't the government directly create jobs? FDR did this in the 1930s, cutting unemployment in half with federal work programs like the Works Progress Administration (WPA), the Federal Housing Administration (FHA), and the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA). This was in addition to creating significant social safety nets through the Social Security System, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), and the Fair Labor Standards Act.
Despite the media hype, Obama is no FDR. However, what would it cost for the government to actually create, say, 20 million jobs to address the situation? If each job paid $50,000 a year (for the sake of an easy calculation), this would cost the government a total of $1 trillion per year to employ all of these workers. Sounds like a lot of money, right? It's not.
First of all, we already spend that much - or more - on the military every single year, so there's plenty of money to be found to fund this massive jobs creation program. The estimated 2012 budget for the Department of Defense and all related military spending is between $1 and 1.4 trillion.
Second, a lot of that money would come back to the federal government in the form of taxes. Think about all the money that would be paid into Social Security, Medicare, and federal income taxes by those 20 million additional workers. But that's just the immediate cost calculation, assuming this is a zero-sum game - and that's not how economics works.
More importantly, creating these jobs would boost the economy dramatically in both the short run and the longer term. If 20 million people were suddenly employed and spending money in all sectors of the economy, all businesses would be booming. Furthermore, we could create the jobs in vital areas of national need - repairing and building new infrastructure (roads, bridges, electric grids, pipes, etc.) as well as in healthcare and education. Basic scientific research could also be heavily funded. All of this would propel America economically and scientifically forward for decades to come, in addition to gainfully employing tens of millions of workers and reversing the recession.
Obama will give a jobs speech this week, and he'll probably say something about handing money over to the private sector in another stimulus or through tax cuts for businesses, in a feeble attempt to indirectly create jobs. That, of course, will allow employers to just sit on the money, as they've already been doing for several years now. I don't know exactly what Obama will propose, but I guarantee he won't follow in the footsteps of FDR and actually create government employment.
Kate Middleton: a royal outrage
Kate Middleton
Britain still has a royal family - princes and princesses, kings and queens. It sounds cute until you realize it's not 1600 and this isn't Disney - it's real life. There is actually "nobility" still around in 2011.
Recently, with the royal wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton, they've been in the news a lot. Kate just met Michelle Obama at Buckingham Palace (that's right - palace) and she made the news for wearing a dress that "only" cost $340 (while Ms. Obama's dress reportedly cost at least $2,000).
First of all, who is the real royalty here? We might label these British people "royalty" and use terms like prince and princess, but Obama's family has more secret service protection and greater resources at their disposal. They live in the White House. "House" sounds deceptively simple, but this is a mansion that has, for example, 35 bathrooms. But in any case, it doesn't matter. For all practical purposes, the families are both part of a wealthy aristocracy.
Furthermore, how is $340 cheap for a dress? News articles refer to Kate as "the pauper's princess" and a "recessionista." Are you shitting me? Maybe if she crafted her own dress out of a Hefty bag or a burlap potato sack, those terms might actually mean something. Hell, even if she sewed a nice-looking dress herself from real cloth or other fabric, she'd qualify. But purchasing a $340 dress is considered cheap?
This would be unheard of if we weren't so used to the luxury these people live in. Kate apparently wore a wedding dress that cost up to $200,000.
The fact that we still have royalty and nobility is an embarrassment to humanity and a slap in the face to the great thinkers of the Enlightenment (some of whom founded America). Following in the footsteps of the courageous workers of the Middle East and North Africa, the people of Britain and the United States need their own revolutions to force these aristocrats out of their palaces.
Obama demands extension of Patriot Act provisions for another 4 years
They're watching you
The Obama administration and the Justice Department have demanded Congress extend several key provisions of the Patriot Act for another 4 years. Naturally, as there are no real differences between the two capitalist parties, there is sufficient bipartisan agreement between Democrats and Republicans to extend it.
The Patriot Act was signed into law in 2001, immediately after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, and most of its provisions were made permanent. Three sections, however, had expiration dates - ironically, because of their potential for abuse. Here we are, a decade later, and these provisions are still going strong, about to be renewed for another 4 years. The three sections at issue include:
- The "lone wolf" provision, allowing government surveillance of individuals who are not connected to any terrorist organization but merely suspected of operating independently
- Section 215, allowing government access to "any tangible item" associated with a suspect under surveillance, such as business records (e.g., if the suspect visits a hotel or a library, uses a credit card, rents a car)
- The "roving wiretap" provision, authorizing the FBI to tap any phone number it deems linked to a suspect (waiving the requirement that wiretaps be targeted to specific phone numbers)
These provisions have already been extended several times; most recently, they were set to expire on Feb. 28, 2011, but after Congress approved a 90-day extension, the latest deadline is May 27. They'll vote next week.
You know what's really disgusting? The Republicans wouldn't even be able to pass this on their own because they're split - most of them want to extend these domestic spying provisions, but a minority (think Ron Paul) are opposed on libertarian grounds. As a result, they're depending on votes from Democrats to pass this extension - and the faithful Democrats will provide these votes, of course.
While everything is happening behind closed doors - there are no Congressional hearings or any other pretense of democracy - the Department of Justice released its annual report earlier this month, which noted a huge increase in domestic spying during the first two years of the Obama administration. Because, you know, he's so much better than Bush.
Obama replaces Osama as world’s biggest terrorist
Pakistani protesters burning a poster of Obama
Did the title catch your eye? Okay, okay, I'm just kidding around. President Obama won the title of "world's biggest terrorist" years ago.
Barack Obama seems to believe that the targeted killing of Osama bin Laden was the historic defining moment of his presidency. He's probably right - it summarizes his administration's cold-blooded murderous policies, killing countless civilians in Afghanistan and Iraq, opening a new war in Libya (even giving the green light to unmanned Predator drones there), and dramatically escalating the use of drone attacks in Pakistan.
Pakistani human rights groups estimate around 2,500 civilians have been killed by the U.S. drone missile attacks in that country. This is nearly as many people as those who died in the 9/11 attacks in the U.S. Yet Obama receives a Nobel Peace Prize and bin Laden is demonized and brutally gunned down in violation of international law and basic principles of justice.
Obama's interview about the assassination of bin Laden on 60 Minutes highlights the criminality of this act. He asserted that he didn't lose any sleep over taking bin Laden out. When questioned about the legality of killing this unarmed man, Obama responded in a way that eerily echoed the callous and stupid comments of George W. Bush, avoiding the question and stating that justice was done, bin Laden got what he deserved, and anyone who thinks otherwise needs to have their head examined.
What the hell? What kind of answer is that? The very opposite of justice was done. You can't just argue that bin Laden deserved punishment, so it doesn't matter how you go about punishing him. Of course it matters. We have a whole constitution and judicial system with courts, judges, juries, evidence - because it matters.
Osama bin Laden's son, Omar, released a statement condemning the U.S. and the Obama administration for his father's death. He cited the shooting and killing of an unarmed man, as well as killing his family members, as violating U.S. and international law. He also pointed out that dumping his father's body into the sea was simply humiliating. Omar bin Laden has publicly spoken out against his father's use of terrorist acts in the past; he has denounced violence of all kinds. He accused Obama of ordering the execution of unarmed men and women.
Sounds like this would be a far better country with Omar bin Laden as President, rather than Barack Obama.
Osama bin Laden was unarmed when killed
Bin Laden compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan
In a devastating admission, the Obama administration has backtracked from its original claim that Osama bin Laden was armed when US Navy Seals shot and killed him. Now it frankly admits that bin Laden did not have a weapon, although the White House hedged a bit, claiming he still somehow resisted.
Somehow I find it a little difficult to believe that when you are Osama bin Laden, the most wanted terrorist on Earth and pursued for nearly a decade by the most powerful and ruthless military in the world, you are going to resist when finally caught and surrounded by 24 Navy Seals with guns pointed at you. Especially if you're unarmed. Why the fuck would you resist? You know they're just itching to kill you. How would you resist, against so many troops, when you have no gun?
And even if that is actually true and Osama did foolishly resist, that's no justification to kill him on the spot. The US government admitted he had no gun, and it hasn't claimed he had any explosives or other weapons. What could he have done against 24 Navy Seals with large guns aimed at him? If, in America, a suspect is fleeing the police and resists arrest when caught, they do not shoot him twice in the head. The police would be in prison for murder.
This flies in the face of all sorts of laws and ethical principles. It's infuriating. Osama bin Laden is still a human being, and you do not shoot unarmed people under any circumstances. This violates international law, US law, and basic morality. It doesn't matter what his past acts or crimes are. The Nazi leadership was responsible for killing far more people than bin Laden did, but they were still captured alive and given a trial.
Now, Obama's Attorney General Eric Holder is irrationally claiming that killing bin Laden, despite being unarmed, was perfectly acceptable. Holder claims that "the operation against bin Laden was justified as an act of national self-defense." This is a stunning claim. "National self-defense" is an incredibly broad and nebulous term that could encompass virtually anything. So now the US military is allowed to murder anyone in cold blood whenever they're deemed to pose any type of threat to national security? What the hell is national self-defense, anyway? Under this theory, could rival politicians be killed in the name of national self-defense because their policies would harm the country? Could heads of foreign states be assassinated? Could US citizens be killed?
Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) agreed with Holder and said "you have to believe this guy was a walking IED." Really? Why do we have to believe this? There was no evidence bin Laden had any explosives on him. Why should we assume he did? Because he's Muslim? Arab? Because a US Senator said so? You can't just presume someone is dangerous and kill him in advance, without any evidence. This "shoot now, ask questions later" policy is barbaric and outrageous. These Navy Seals who opened fire on and killed an unarmed man should be tried, convicted, and imprisoned for murder, along with the top officials in the Obama administration who directed their conduct. This disgusting behavior, based solely on revenge and bloodlust, has no place in a civilized society.
US assassinates Osama bin Laden
Osama bin Laden
As everyone has heard by now, President Obama announced Sunday night that US forces had located and killed - assassinated - Osama bin Laden in Abbottabad, Pakistan. This is a suburb outside of the nation's capital, Islamabad, and is located only 40 miles from the center of the Pakistani military establishment. Bin Laden was apparently living it up, not hiding in caves or mountains but residing comfortably in a mansion.
While I have no real sympathy for bin Laden, this targeted killing blatantly violates the law, flies in the face of basic human decency, and sets a disturbing precedent. The US made no attempt to capture him alive, which obviously would have had great practical value (he assuredly has a lot of valuable information) but also implicates morality. The US constitution, and basic ideas of human rights and due process since the Enlightenment, guarantees anyone accused of a crime a fair trial. No matter how heinous your crimes, if you're accused of anything then you need to be arrested, given a lawyer, given time to mount a defense, etc. Perhaps the authorities have mistaken your identity; perhaps you had a reasonable justification for your crime. Perhaps you had accomplices (in bin Laden's case, the US trained and funded him and others like him, such as the Taliban, to fight off the Soviets in Afghanistan).
Timothy McVeigh killed over 100 people in his bombing of a federal building; he was still arrested and given a trial. Even the Nazis, immediately after the horrors of World War II, were given trials at Nuremberg. Their leaders were responsible for everything from killing millions of people in the Holocaust to waging wars of aggression against numerous countries, causing tens of millions more deaths. These are all violations of international law ranging from crimes against humanity to crimes against peace. Yet they were still afforded trials; it was unthinkable at the time for the US or its allies to summarily execute the Nazi leaders. Such ruthless vengeance would put the US in a poor light when it claimed to be a nation of laws and democracy.
Justice Jackson of the US Supreme Court played a leading role in the Nuremberg Trials, and he commented: "These defendants may be hard pressed but they are not ill used... If these men are the first war leaders of a defeated nation to be prosecuted in the name of the law, they are also the first to be given the chance to plead for their lives in the name of the law" (emphasis added).
No such chance was afforded to bin Laden.
Assassination or the targeted killing of a specific individual is a barbaric act. The founding fathers of the United States would never have stood for this; Thomas Jefferson, for example, refers to it properly as a horror, a principle unworthy of a civilized society:
"Assassination, poison, perjury... All these were considered legitimate principles in the dark ages which intervened between ancient and modern civilizations, but exploded and held in just horror in the 18th Century."
Moreover, assassination is illegal by Presidential executive order, which has full force of law.
The Ford administration issued an executive order prohibiting political assassinations, Executive Order No. 12,333, 46 Fed. Reg. 59,941 (Dec. 4, 1981), which remains in effect today:
"2.11 Prohibition on Assassination. No person employed by or acting on behalf of the United States Government shall engage in, or conspire to engage in, assassination.
2.12 Indirect Participation. No agency of the Intelligence Community shall participate in or request any person to undertake activities forbidden by this Order..."
Furthermore, international agreement outlaws assassination. The Hague Convention IV, 1907, is construed is prohibiting assassination, or putting a price upon an enemy's head, as well as offering reward for an enemy "dead or alive."
This is precisely what Bush did right after 9/11 in 2001, when he declared that he wanted bin Laden "dead or alive." And now, at Obama's direction, he has been targeted and killed.
Only a half century ago, when America was a far better country, it would have given the man a trial as justice plainly demands. Now, in violation of our Enlightenment founding principles and morality, US law, and international law, the Obama administration and many Americans gleefully celebrate a man's death by assassination.
Escalation in Libya
Rebels injured in the civil war against Gaddafi, treated in a hospital Wednesday (Reuters)
The media covered events in Egypt and then Libya for a while, a few months ago, when things were fresh and interesting. First Mubarak was forced to step down by masses of protestors, and then it seemed Gaddafi would follow suit. Against all odds, however, he has refused to leave and has remained in power. And paradoxically, as the Obama administration and NATO decided to get more involved in the military conflict, the media seemed to lose interest.
Obama, recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize, launched well over 100 cruise missiles into Libya, killing scores of civilians and throwing down the gauntlet, marking the open U.S. entrance into yet another war in the Middle East (well, technically North Africa, but the country is rich in oil).
Gaddafi held fast, beating down the resistance, and now Western powers are at a crossroads. Do they back off, admitting they wasted time and money (the U.S. cruise missiles alone cost well over $100 million) and that lives were lost for nothing? Or do they double down on their efforts and escalate the conflict? Naturally, inevitably, they will choose the latter.
Libya is turning into another Iraq or Afghanistan. Tim Hetherington, a British photographer and journalist - noted for his recent documentary "Restrepo" about the war in Afghanistan - was killed from a mortar round in the Libyan city of Misurata. He is the first British casualty of the war in that nation. He will probably not be the last.
Military analysts say the war in Libya could drag on. Who could have possibly foreseen this?
France, Italy, and Britain will send "liaison officers" - that is, military advisers - to support the rebel army. This sounds exactly like how the U.S. got slowly dragged into the quicksand of Vietnam. A senior NATO ambassador said that no military official thinks the war in Libya will be over quickly. Undoubtedly, as Obama has promised $25 million to aid the rebels in Libya.
The war in Afghanistan has been dragging on for a full decade; in Iraq, for 8 years, since March 2003. Each has cost the U.S. billions of dollars per week. And according to several independent studies and polls, the Iraqi war has killed over 1 million civilians. Now that Libya is under constant attack from Western powers, seeking to reassert imperial control, its future is also looking bleak.
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