Loss of Privacy

Yet more hypocritical speeches, this time from President Obama.

“As we mark the end of America’s combat mission in Iraq,” President Barack Obama said this week, “a grateful America must pay tribute to all who served there.” He should have added “unless you’re gay,” because, despite his rhetoric, weeks earlier the commander-in-chief fired one of those Iraq vets: Lt. Dan Choi. Choi is a West Point graduate, an Arabic linguist and an Iraq war veteran. He was fired under the military’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy. We talk to him about his life, his coming out and his military service.

Another great TED talk.

The controversial website WikiLeaks collects and posts highly classified documents and video. Founder Julian Assange, who’s reportedly being sought for questioning by US authorities, talks to TED’s Chris Anderson about how the site operates, what it has accomplished — and what drives him. The interview includes graphic footage of a recent US airstrike in Baghdad.

It is absolutely disgusting how people continue to say that we should support the troops and contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan. I can’t and won’t. This video aptly explains why so many people believe as I do.

There may have been men and women who had good intentions when they joined the military, but they are just as guilty as their superiors for not refusing illegitimate orders and for violating international laws and committing vile acts of rape and murder.

In 2003 Donald Rumsfeld estimated a war with Iraq would cost $60 billion. Five years later, the cost of Iraq war operations is over 10 times that figure. So what’s behind the ballooning dollar signs? Joseph E. Stiglitz and Linda J. Bilme’s exhaustedly researched book, “The Three Trillion Dollar War: The True Cost of the Iraq Conflict,” breaks down the price tag, from current debts to the unseen costs we’ll pay for years to come.