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Employers cut 60,000 jobs last month, continuing a six-month streak of job losses, according to new labor statistics. On top of that, oil hit a new record of $145 per barrel today. The combination led Treasury Secretary Henry Paulsen to warn that there are "no quick fixes" to what is likely to be a long economic slowdown. Some experts are predicting a "slow-motion recession" where sluggish growth could continue well into 2009.
There were 28 U.S. combat deaths last month in Afghanistan, just one less than in Iraq in the same time period, and the most ever since the war began almost seven years ago. The Washington Post reports some experts expect the Afghan war to become more violent before it calms, with the next U.S. president inheriting an increasingly bloody conflict. There have been 533 combat deaths so far in Operation Enduring Freedom, which is based in Afghanistan, where about 32,000 U.S. troops are stationed with a force nearly as large from a number of allied nations. President Bush said today that because of the "tough month" in Afghanistan he was considering whether to send more troops.
Our most recent Confidence in U.S. Foreign Policy Index found that public attitudes about the war in Afghanistan, which gets much less media coverage, are less intensely negative than on Iraq. Fifteen percent of survey participants told us the U.S. can do "a lot" to help create a stable Afghanistan; 36 percent said there's "not much" the U.S. can do. Twenty-eight percent gave the U.S. an "A" or a "B" grade for meeting our objectives in Afghanistan; 31 percent said the same about Iraq. More took an opposite point of view, with 31 percent giving the U.S. a "D" or an "F" for meeting its objectives in Afghanistan and 40 percent saying the same about Iraq.
