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Students show global knowledge
The Council on International Relations wishes to recognize the exceptional academic skills exhibited by over 80 area high school students at its annual CIR Summit. This year’s topic was “Why Does America Go to War” and students were organized into teams and assigned a conflict starting with the Revolutionary War. The student teams researched and planned a presentation complete with charts, maps, and political cartoons which demonstrated the themes of causality, underlying protocols and secret alliances. The student teams described the triggering of warfare and the motivations of soldiers who marched off to Yorktown or Kabul, and the final gains and losses weighed against national objectives. The students were from Santa Fe High, Desert Academy, United World College, Santa Fe Community College, The Master’s Program, and Monte Del Sol. The students delivered a well-rehearsed, polished presentation in accordance with very high academic standards. JEFF CASE Santa Fe
Some of Obama’s actions defy logic
I don’t understand President Obama’s logic. First there was a problem caused by Wall Street’s recklessness which hurt our nation’s economy and added to the deficit. The president agreed to fix this by giving my tax dollars to Wall Street in something called a bailout.
Now the president wants to further attack the deficit by going after older people’s earned benefits called Social Security. The president would reduce those future earned benefits to reduce the deficit while ignoring the part of the deficit caused by the tremendous costs of war.
The combined costs of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars could approach $10 trillion when all the numbers are in, like adding the direct operating costs to those of replacing all the war equipment, caring for all the veterans, the interest on the money borrowed to fight the wars, etc. Ignoring war must be part of the logic.
RICHARD FOSTER
White Rock
