Peter Thottam (JD MBA) is the Antiwar Candidate - fighting to bring US Troops Home.

By Peter Luke Thottam, Esq.

As of June 2006, over $350 billion has been allocated by the US Congress entirely for the Iraqi war. The amount has been calculated at upwards of $3500 per taxpayer. The war in Afghanistan has cost an additional $100 billion since 2001. It is time to reverse course and to take back control of a political and economic system that has become beholden to the very military industrial complex that former President Eisenhower warned us against in 1961.

Best regards,

- Peter

As of June 2006, over $350 billion has been allocated by the US Congress entirely for the Iraqi war. The amount has been calculated at upwards of $3500 per taxpayer. The war in Afghanistan has cost an additional $100 billion since 2001. For what? For oil? For a new Cold-War to create jobs? For U.S. dollar hegemony? For empire and to preempt China or Europe? Whatever the answer, today our country's reputation around the world has been shattered. It is time to reverse course and to take back control of a political and economic system that has become beholden to the very military industrial complex that former President Eisenhower warned us against in 1961. Our country's economy is rapidly losing steam and the number of Orwellian incidents that have occurred in this administration are unsettling. The U.S. media must be severely castigated for waging the country's first pre-emptive war and enabling the this administration to bring the fold-faced lie to the American people that Hussein had WMDs and that Hussein had something to do with 9/11, despite ample evidence to the contrary. Fox News and the Republicans are not alone to blame. The traditional tactic of blaming public complicity upon a nefarious coalition of Republican-owned media conglomerates only begs the question, as it was the Clinton White House that removed the anti-trust obstacles that allowed such consolidation in the first place. Isn't it fascinating, how quickly the country is being led down a road of morphing IraQ into IraN (remember 1984's Eurasia/EastAsia/Oceana shifts?). Military recruits are increasingly being populated by working class and less affluent Californias as well as young mid-Westerners and immigrants whose only option for financial survival is fighting a war in which they do not believe. A shrinking group controls the media and, increasingly, the language and words our media uses to frame the context of national debate.

Americans are being conditioned into perpetual distraction. Their focus is the day-to-day. Whether it's debating the ramifications of Cheney on a quail hunt, temporarily getting riled up about a fleeting censure momentum, or watching high speed auto chases and watching televised presentations of local convenience store robberies, ...can you say 'how convenient' ....or fearing the Next Terrorist Attack - every day we are distracted and taught to fear. This must end. It is time to bring the Troops Home Now. Not Tomorrow. NOW."

- Peter L. Thottam, Esq. [JD/MBA] http://www.peterthottam.com/53