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This week on Uprising:

* Afghan War Off to a Bloody Start as Obama Calls for More Troops
* Empire Notes on the End of the Iraq War
* Democrats Join Right-wing Radio in Opposing Fairness Doctrine
* Black Agenda Report on Obama and Iraq
* Women and the Economy: An International Women’s Day Special

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Afghan War Off to a Bloody Start as Obama Calls for More Troops

As President Obama announced the deployment of an additional 17,000 troops to Afghanistan, the U.S. campaign in the Central Asian country is off to a bloody start this year. After conducting a death count, the Associated Press has learned that two months into 2009, the number of U.S. troop fatalities has increased threefold compared to a year ago. With 38,000 troops on the ground in Afghanistan, twenty-nine soldiers have lost their lives in January and February alone outpacing the current ratio in Iraq. The news agency has also reported that, thus far, U.S. and NATO forces have killed forty more civilians than Afghan militants have in the new year. President Obama, who last week requested $205 billion dollars through the end of the 2010 fiscal year to fund the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, has acknowledged that even more troop deaths may result as combat operations increase saying, “That is something we will have to monitor very carefully.” According to an ABC News/ Washington Post poll, sixty-four percent of Americans support President Obama’s call for additional forces. In contrast, a poll of Afghans by the Washington Post in mid-February showed that 44% of Afghans want the number of US troops to decline, compared to only 18% who want troops increased.

GUEST: Khushal Arsala, contributor to Foreign Policy In Focus, is a former Afghan diplomat and a student at the University of San Francisco

Read Khushal Arsala’s article with Stephen Zunes here: http://www.fpif.org/fpiftxt/5878

Empire Notes on the End of the Iraq War

Empire Notes are weekly commentaries filed by Rahul Mahajan, author of Full Spectrum Dominance and The New Crusade. Today’s commentary is on the End of the Iraq War

GUEST: Rahul Mahajan, author of Full Spectrum Dominance and The New Crusade.

Visit www.empirenotes.org for more information.

Democrats Join Rightwing Radio in Opposing Fairness Doctrine

Amidst fears that Congress, the White House, or the FCC could bring back the so-called Fairness Doctrine for broadcast media, the US Senate last week voted to ban the policy. The Fairness Doctrine required by law that public airwaves feature an even balance of political views in programming. When President Ronald Reagan repealed the doctrine more than 20 years ago, it set the stage for the dominance, particularly in radio, of conservative talk shows hosted by the likes of Rush Limbaugh, Michael Savage, and others. The Senate ban, backed strongly by some Republican lawmakers as a result of heavy lobbying by right wing broadcasters, is a pre-emptive strike against verbal pledges by some Democrats to revive the Fairness Doctrine after Obama’s election. Obama himself has said that he is opposed to reviving the doctrine. So has the progressive media reform group, Free Press. The Senate ban on the Fairness Doctrine was an amendment snuck into an unrelated bill on DC Voting Rights, and passed 87-11.

GUEST: Steve Rendall is FAIR’s senior analyst, and co-host of CounterSpin, FAIR’s national radio show. He has written about the Fairness Doctrine for FAIR’s magazine Extra!. For more information, visit www.fair.org.

Black Agenda Report on Obama and Iraq

Glen Ford is a writer and radio commentator and the Executive Editor of The Black Agenda Report. This week’s commentary is about Obama and Iraq.

Visit www.blackagendareport.com for more information.

Women and the Economy: An International Women’s Day Special

On March 8, 1857, hundreds of New York based women working in garment and textile factories staged a strike protesting low wages, long working hours, inadequate pay, inhumane working conditions and the lack of voting rights. It was an historic event that laid the foundation for International Women’s Day, a yearly commemoration of the struggles of women worldwide. It’s fitting then, as we celebrate International Women’s Day, for us to focus on how women are faring in these tough economic times. Even before the recession hit, women were earning 76% of what men earned on average and only a quarter of all businesses were owned by women. Among women, racial disparities showed that African American and Latina women earned less and had fewer job opportunities than white women. At this year’s World Economic Forum, Ernst and Young released a report called “Groundbreakers: Using the strength of women to rebuild the global economy,” which, in typically corporate terms described “capitalizing” on the contributions of women to save the economy. Still, women are the world’s majority, and their economic well being is the topic of our story today.

GUESTS: Ariane Hegewisch, Study Director at the Institute for Women’s Policy Research, Heather Boushey, at the Center for American Progress

Sonali’s Subversive Thought for the Day

“We ask justice, we ask equality, we ask that all the civil and political rights that belong to citizens of the United States, be guaranteed to us and our daughters forever.” — Susan B. Anthony, Declaration of Rights for Women, July 1876