David Barsamian to Speak in Santa Fe on Obama, Afghanistan and Pakistan

Note: The Santa Fe Reporter has an interview with David Barsamian conducted in advance of his appearance in Santa Fe.

From Veterans For Peace Santa Fe: David Barsamian will give a speech on Tuesday, June 9th, at 6:00 PM at the CCA Cinematheque at 1050 Old Pecos Trail in Santa Fe on the topic, "The War Expands: Obama, Afghanistan and Pakistan." The suggested donation $5. Please RSVP by calling 982-1338.

What's really going on in Afghanistan and Pakistan? Why is U.S.involvement rapidly escalating? Is our exit strategy from Iraq merely to send those troops to Afghanistan? Noted author and media scholar David Barsamian reveals how, though the Obama administration no longer uses the phrase "war on terror," it is waging one on the Afghanistan-Pakistan border, doubling troop strength and greatly expanding attacks on Pakistan that increasingly destabilize that impoverished country.

Throw in nukes, feudalism, an emboldened Taliban, a collapsing infrastructure and you have a volatile cocktail that could explode in Washington's face and undermine the Obama presidency. Is this the change we can believe in?

David Barsamian is the award-winning founder and director of Alternative Radio, the independent weekly series based in Boulder, Colorado. His books include Targeting Iran, and What We Say Goes with Noam Chomsky; Speaking of Empire & Resistance with Tariq Ali; and Original Zinn with Howard Zinn. His earlier books include The Checkbook and the Cruise Missile with Arundhati Roy; Imperial Ambitions with Noam Chomsky; Eqbal Ahmad: Confronting Empire and The Decline and Fall of Public Broadcasting.

Barsamian lectures around the world on subjects including U.S. foreign policy, corporate power, the media, and propaganda. He is winner of the Media Education Award, the ACLU's Upton Sinclair Award for independent journalism, the Rocky Mountain Peace and Justice Award and the Cultural Freedom Fellowship from the Lannan Foundation. The Institute for Alternative Journalism named him one of its Top Ten Media Heroes. In December 2007 he delivered the prestigious Eqbal Ahmad lectures in Pakistan in Karachi, Islamabad, and Lahore.

Alternative Radio can be heard at 6:00 PM Saturdays on KUNM and 4 PM Sundays on KSFR.