Condemning Goldstone

 
The sniveling, cowardly behavior of United States officials regarding Israel continues unabated under President Barack Obama and his Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton (who recently trumpeted the “courage” of Israel in agreeing to “restrict” its illegal settlements in the interest of peace; which is like congratulating a rapist for restricting his assault to mere intercourse). It also continues in the House of So-called Representatives, with the prospective passage of a resolution, drafted by Republican Ileana Ros-Lehtinen of Florida, condemning the Goldstone Report for bias against Israel, and resolving to block “any further consideration” by the United States of its findings.
            For those who have been on Mars, the Goldstone Report is the UN-sponsored report headed by South African Justice Richard Goldstone, which recently investigated the alleged war crimes in Israel’s attack last year on Gaza. Goldstone, himself a Jew and longtime Zionist supporter of Israel, insisted, before he agreed to head the report, that the UN resolution include investigations into rocket attacks by Hamas as well, attacks which Goldstone’s report also condemns as war crimes. But to read the House Resolution, one would never know this—for it goes on and on about how the report is biased, the UN is biased, the Human Rights Council is biased, the whole world is biased against Israel. Nor would one know that Goldstone actually responded to each of the Resolution’s charges in detail—showing how each is either factually incorrect or misleading. Consider this response, for example (the House Resolution condemning his report is in italics, and Goldstone’s response is in standard type):
Whereas clause #8: “Whereas the report repeatedly made sweeping and unsubstantiated determinations that the Israeli military had deliberately attacked civilians during Operation Cast Lead;”
This whereas clause is factually incorrect. The findings included in the report are neither "sweeping” nor “unsubstantiated” and in effect reflect 188 individual interviews, review of more than 300 reports, 30 videos and 1200 photographs. Additionally, the body of the report contains a plethora of references to the information upon which the Commission relied for our findings. (from Goldstone letter to U.S. Representatives Howard Berman and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, Oct. 29, 2009, cited on website of U.S. Representative Brian Baird.)
But the jurist’s responses are not expected to affect the outcome. Reports suggest that the House Resolution will pass easily—especially given the fact that the House of Representatives is controlled from top to bottom by AIPAC and other pro-Israel organizations, the combined weight of which terrifies and targets House members who dare to question the United States’ undying support for any crime Israel chooses to commit.
            This resolution, though, is taking things to absurd lengths. For what does it say about a nation, the United States of America, and a legislature, the House of Representatives, which, while continually bragging about its commitment to human rights, condemns a UN report commissioned to investigate war crimes, and which indeed finds evidence of war crimes? For that is what the Goldstone Report’s findings amounted to: that Israel, in attacking Gaza and its civic infrastructure including schools, hospitals, and individual homes with the most devastating modern weapons available, committed numerous violations of international human rights law and international humanitarian law required of all militaries. And though the report also condemns the firing of rockets by Hamas, the weight of its findings—as indeed the weight of the damage, 1387 Gazans killed, 13 Israeli soldiers killed; no damage to speak of in Israel; Gaza left in ruins—is a condemnation of Israel and its brutal invasion last year (during, it should be noted, the interregnum period when Bush was leaving office and Obama had not yet been inaugurated.)
            The only bit of positive news in all this is that at least one House member, Brian Baird of Washington state, has condemned the House Resolution in no uncertain terms. In a piece appearing on Common Dreams on Nov. 3, and on his website (baird.house.gov), Baird’s essay, “Israel and Gaza Deserve Better than a Misguided Resolution,” asks some pertinent question about H. Res. 867, most significantly, “Have those who will vote on H. Res. 867 actually read the resolution? Have they read the Goldstone report?” Clearly, Baird believes that the answer to both questions is “no.” Nor, he writes, do most House members have any idea what took place in Gaza in late 2008 and early 2009: “Since scarcely a dozen House Members have actually been to Gaza, what actual first-hand knowledge do the rest of the Members of Congress possess on which to base their judgment of the merits of H.Res.867 or the Goldstone report?” And most important, “What will it say about this Congress and our country if we so readily seek to block ‘any further consideration’ of a human rights investigation produced by one of the most respected jurists in the world today…”
            What will it say indeed. Representative Baird considers the issue vital, both to the Middle East, and to the United States of America, whose reputation in the world has taken such a beating in recent years, and most directly, to the conscience of the Congress. Because unlike most of the toadies who will vote to protect their backsides and their pro-Israel funders, Baird himself has seen the devastation caused by Israel in Gaza, and says it seems to support what the Goldstone Report asserts. This makes it more than “just another imposed political litmus test,” Baird writes:
   “This is about whether we as individuals and this Congress as an institution find it acceptable to drop white phosphorous on civilian targets, to rocket civilian communities, to destroy hospitals and schools, to use civilians as human shields, to deliberately destroy non-military factories, industries and basic water, electrical and sanitation infrastructure. This is about whether it is acceptable to restrict the movement, opportunities and hopes of more than a million people every single day….” 
Clearly, Baird thinks it unacceptable, especially given the fact that “our money and our weaponry play a leading role in those violations.” Would that more of his sniveling associates in the United States Congress, and, regrettably, in the White House itself, felt the same way. But at this writing, it appears that the United States is about to announce to the world that not only does it consider such behavior perfectly legitimate and even praiseworthy, but that those who would dare question it deserve public condemnation and burial.
 
Lawrence DiStasi

PTSD, A New Meaning

As all the talking heads agreed
Fort Hood was clearly now the locus
And a host of murders provided seed
But the Army was the focus
How could something go this wrong
When the rules were sharp and strong
And uniforms were clean and starched
So to all one drummer marched?
Well now we have reversed the order
And called it pre-traumatic stress disorder


The tragedy of 5 November 2009 at Fort Hood, Texas is less that the toll of lives was so high and more that the medical system for supporting combat soldiers may have been perverted to simply maximize the numbers available for combat (including the shooter). Essentially, there is close linkage between policies to maintain deployable numbers and the reality of PTSD (post traumatic stress disorder). There is no way for a soldier to maintain his/her sanity in a world of mindless commitment of the US military in repeated combat tours without the expectation that there will be serious breakage. We see the breakage in the suicide rates (75 in recent years at Fort Hood alone) and also in domestic abuse and substance abuse and a variety of antisocial behaviors. We have long recognized the effects of combat stress. Even the annals of the US Civil War demonstrate that the phenomenon is long with us. In years gone by, combat was usually better defined in the sense that more often than not, there were safe zones where the stresses of combat were greatly reduced. Units were sent to a rear area to refresh as well as resupply. Vietnam saw that change dramatically, but soldiers were still sometimes given R&R (Rest and Recuperation) to provide specific breaks from combat surroundings. Repeated tours in Vietnam were becoming more common as the war ended, but many soldiers experienced only a single tour. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan brought additional deployment policy changes to the soldier in an era of a volunteer force. One good thing was that deployment became a unit move instead of individual replacements and this provided some amount of unit cohesion. Unfortunately, the gains achieved by increased cohesion were counter-balanced by far more frequent deployment. It takes time to recover from combat and the current OPTEMPO (tempo of combat operations) is more rapid than the recovery or restoration of the soldier.

While the reasons for the increase in PTSD are many, they include that our nation seriously underestimated the number of soldiers required for the invasion and occupation of Iraq and therefore the same units were repeatedly deployed. Qualification rules were relaxed so that older soldiers could enlist and the educational and “moral” requirements were also eased so that miscreants including some felons were welcomed to meet recruiting goals. On 12 December 2006, in a letter signed by Lieutenant General Kevin Kiley addressing the management of medical conditions and deployment considerations, the Commanding General of all Regional Medical Commands, made it clear that profiles limiting duty should only be made for physical reasons. “…Profile Codes, profiles may only address physical functional capacity and limitations.” While not an outright denial of psychiatric conditions such as PTSD, it goes further: “A psychiatric condition controlled by medication should not automatically limit deployment.” All this leads one to believe that the short term goals of reaching high deployable numbers outweighed the goal of a healthy Army in the field and at home. Let me ask the question differently. What good does a deployment screening center serve if the rules essentially mandate deployment?

The Army Medical Command’s letter is not the only evidence of medical management, although it highlights the Active Army goals. When the soldier has completed his duty, another agency takes responsibility for the diagnosis and care of the returning soldier/veteran. The VA (Veterans Administration) has been the lightening rod for criticism for care of veterans, and some of it is deserved. The VA has been at the forefront in automating medical records, but has been woefully under funded to treat growing numbers of veterans, especially given the increase in PTSD cases overall. Maybe a quick review of PTSD information will help the reader understand how complex the diagnosis and care can be on both the individual and on the national scale. First, numbers vary from a low of 10 % to over 30% based largely on the intensity of the combat experienced. This means that we have a wide range of estimates based on combat intensity, but that alone is insufficient. Intensity plus the duration of the exposure to stress is a common-sense yardstick. If you remain under stress longer, you are more likely to be adversely affected. There are other factors. If you have a history of alcohol or substance abuse, you are more likely to be affected. If you had a poor relationship with your father, you are more vulnerable. If you had behavioral or psychological episodes or problems or were in trouble with societal rules, you had increased likelihood of issues. If you lacked a support system, e.g., a family where you were respected and protected, then your chances for PTSD increased. We have not “calibrated” the effects of duration or repetition or family protection for the simple reason that each individual has a different tolerance level and some can take more stress than others. This complicates the evaluation by the VA and others. The VA, as many other agencies would do, has treated symptoms rather than the conditions that create or aggravate PTSD. It does not have the means to perform its mission let alone conduct preventive psychiatric care. Generally that means that the VA uses drugs to reduce the sleep interruptions and nightmares that accompany PTSD. That is also done under conditions of combat where psychotropic drugs have become common.

The VA maintains a National Center for PTSD that has created a Clinician’s Guide for Iraq War casualties and it contains a section entitled “Topics Specific to the Psychiatric Treatment of Military Personnel.” That document is 20 pages of policy and guidelines for the treatment of soldiers, but much as the active duty guidelines, the tone leads one to believe that the VA does not trust our soldiers to be telling the truth. Speaking of the responsibilities of military mental health officers:
“If evacuation is required, a replacement will not be forthcoming. Therefore, one must use common sense to screen out individuals who are ill or likely become ill. As anxiety is a normal response prior to deployment, normal fear and apprehension should not be pathologized. Clinicians must always maintain a keen eye for potential malingerers, as well.”
My personal experience in combat was quite the opposite. Soldiers would rather have suffered than be taken from their buddies to be treated for any medical condition. It would indeed be the exception that a soldier would seek treatment and if he/she did, the peer pressure might be unbearable. Soldiers might grouse about conditions, but they would rather grouse than leave the unit and let down their buddies. Additionally, there is a stigma associated with soldiers seeking help and especially for mental illness or emotional distress. My experience seems distant from the underlying assumptions that military medical professionals injected into their written policies and my experience was with an army that included draftees rather than all volunteers. Later when describing how to execute a Medical Evaluation Board, the VA again demonstrates a lack of trust:
“One has to be cognizant of the individual who may be attempting to manipulate the disability system in his or her favor by exaggerating symptoms, or seeking disability for conditions that are not medically unfitting. The psychiatrist must be mindful of all motivating factors and the potential for the influence of a disability seeking culture.” This damns all volunteers.
By one tally, the 184 Army and Marine Corps active duty suicides in 2008 amounted to 28% of its total of 469 casualties in combat (KIA) in Iraq and Afghanistan reported as of January 2009. That number did not include veterans returning from the wars, and yet we know that about 150,000 Vietnam veterans have committed suicide since that war ended. The current wars will not likely be any better. My point is, that with that number of suicides, it is inexcusable to hold a theory that a significant number of soldiers may be malingering. It is also ineffective medical policy and practice. Further, it would appear that the recruiting tail is wagging the dog. Inasmuch as the goal of maintaining combat strength of a volunteer force includes minimizing all injuries including self-inflicted injuries like suicide, then why would we logically stretch the “fit for combat” standard to insert the unfit into combat? Are we simply hostage to recruiting goals and unable to improve recruiting? Solving a recruiting problem on the backs of unfit soldiers is short sighted and stupid, at best, and potentially unethical for a profession that thrives on the Hippocratic oath: “First, do no harm.”

I am aware that the commander makes the final determination of fitness for combat, but any commander that does not consult with his/her medical professional is acting blindly and badly. We sense from reviewing the cited literature that the medical policy itself may contribute to the problem by a presumption of malingering and a dependence on psychotropic drugs to keep up the numbers for deployment.

My verse is literal in the sense that we have created a new affliction that I call: Pre-traumatic Stress Disorder. This is the sickness brought on by denying the reality of Post-traumatic Stress Disorder. Much Post-TSD is caused by Pre-TSD. If we recruit the shaky and then drug them for deployment and combat, we are asking for trouble and it is long-term trouble that will pale the Vietnam veteran experience. The two are intimately connected like dirty hands and typhoid except that dirty hands are sometimes visible. The cure is the political will to do the right thing and the options include:
We can keep fighting wars with volunteers and fully recruit to fill the deployment needs; we can cut down the wars and fight only the ones we have recruited for; we can give up on a volunteer force and return to the draft, then simply draft to the need of the wars we fight.

These are priorities that must be set and the Rumsfeld notion that wars are “come as you are parties” is obviously not going to work. Do we have the political will to set a budget that allows for effective recruiting and screening of volunteers? Do we have the courage to admit failure in a policy and change our ways? Do we have the courage to be absolutely ethical in employment of soldiers? (Is it any wonder that returning soldiers use excessive drugs and alcohol when they were prescribed for combat?)
In 2008, the Rand corporation estimated that 20% of returning soldiers had PTSD and the suicide rate of veterans is expected to be higher than the casualty rate of KIA (as is true for Vietnam Veterans where, through suicide, we are losing nearly 3 times the number KIA ).

At Fort Hood where the latest tragedy happened, 75 soldiers have committed suicide since 2003 and 10 this year alone of 114 suicides tallied among active soldiers and marines. Without characterizing the act of Major Hasan as willful terrorism and/or the result of mental illness, the wake up call was missed long ago as we stonewalled the question of fitness and refused to face the reality that PTSD has a beginning, but no end. Fort Hood alone has accounted for as many suicides in the past 6 years as 6 times the number killed by Hasan at that post. We sorrow over those murdered by an insane zealot and yet ignore the invisible fallen to suicide. We have little control over zealots except to root them out and to deny them positions of trust, but we need new policies to minimize suicide. Control begins with good policy and it continues with caregivers in the military and in the VA. It never ends. Pre-TSD is an excuse for bad policies and like all other excuses, it offers no help or hope for change. Not incidentally, I must ask if Hasan was sent to fort Hood to fill a quota much as our soldiers who are sent to combat again and again? As the song “Where have All the Flowers Gone?” popular in the 60s says: “When will they ever learn?”


Peace,
George Giacoppe
09 November 2009

The News Today, Oh Boy

 
I read the news today, oh boy. (some of you may remember this Beatles’ line from one of their albums, Sgt. Pepper maybe.)

            Actually, most of these itemscome from sources other than newspapers.

            Barbara Ehrenreich’s new book, for example, is reported to contain this lovely statistic:

            Between 1979 and 2007, the top 1% of American households saw their share of all pretax income nearly double—while the share of the bottom 80% of households fell by 7%! To put this in another perspective, according to the NY Times, it is as if every household in the bottom 80% had written a check for $7,000 every year and sent it to the top 1%.

            The question is, why has there been no reaction to this???

 

            Another item, this one heard on “This American Life,” NPR’s radio show hosted by Ira Glass, added to my ire about healthcare, which was the theme of the show. The first segment was titled “One Pill Two Pill, Red Pill Blue Pill”—after Obama’s admonition to consumers to buy the blue pill if it’s cheaper. On the segment, Planet Money’s Chana Joffe-Walt explained the scam behind the drug companies’ generosity in handing out prescription drug coupons. Here’s how it works. First, the ploy was invented to combat the moves by Health Insurers to use co-pays (what the customer pays after his Health plan pays part of the drug’s cost) to discourage customers from choosing very expensive, name-brand drugs and choosing cheaper generics instead. That is, generics, in virtually all cases, are just as effective as name brand drugs like Lipitor, but are many magnitudes cheaper. If you use the generic, the Health plans make your co-pay considerably less, because their payment is also less. Seems to make sense.

            But the drug companies couldn’t let their cash cows be dissed this way. And so they came up with the prescription coupon. You get the coupon “free”—either from your doctor, or directly from the drug company. With it, you can get a huge discount on your prescription. Thus, one name-brand drug used by a guy with acne, sold for about $600-800 a month. His co-pay had been $130, but with the prescription card, it was only $10. What a great deal! he thought. And who wouldn’t? The problem comes in the details: though the drug company only got $10 from the consumer, it billed the health care provider over $600. And it worked beautifully: the doctor prescribes the name brand, knowing his patient can get it cheaply, and having no idea that the drug company is making a huge profit from the health provider. But that’s not the end of it. In order to stay profitable with this kind of payout, the health care provider will naturally have to charge its customers more—all of which comes back to the poor consumer in the end, who is hit with rising costs for health care.

            This is really the gorilla in the room of the whole health care debate. Doctors say they can’t be expected to know how much drugs cost—so they just assume patients have health care, and prescribe name brands which cost 10 or 20 times what the generics do. Who makes money? Pfizer and their ilk. And who gets screwed? As always, it’s John/Jane Q. Public.

            As for the doctors, whom everyone seems inclined to excuse from having any role in rising health care costs, a recent medical experience I had demolished that theory as well. I had a knee problem, and though I was wary of the suggestion, after two months or so of pain agreed to have the knee x-rayed—even though my GP (a damn good one) allowed as how it probably wouldn’t show much, but was a necessary step in the progression. Anyway, since he had no x-ray machine, he sent me to the local hospital (Marin General). I knew it was going to be bad when I had to go through a full registration, the way one does when admitted. Finally got the knee x-rayed after a fairly long wait—with three or four pics taken. Then they told me the report would be sent to my doctor. “But I thought I was getting the results,” I said. “We’ll give you copies of the x-rays,” they said, “but our radiologist will send the diagnosis.” I knew that was trouble, but had no idea how much.

            The x-rays came back showing the normal degeneration of a knee in my age range. No help. But for that little diagnosis (which, by the way, any competent doctor can do unaided by specialists), I received two bills. One was from Marin General: my charge was $59.50, but only after Medicare paid $409.50 (i.e. the total charge for a simple knee x-ray was $469.00). My daughter tells me that in a veterinarian’s office, the x-ray charge is usually around $90. Same x-ray, same competent diagnosis. But that’s not the worst of it. I also received another bill, this one from Advanced Imaging Medical Association, for diagnosis—you know the guy who reads the x-ray—and for his services, the total charge was $719.86. Medicare paid most of that, but the point is clear. For one x-ray (actually they took 3 shots), which contributed virtually nothing to the diagnosis or the healing of my knee, the charge was $1189.86. And though one tends to imagine that because Medicare pays for this, it’s free, the truth is, it’s not. Ultimately, we all pay for this stuff. And there can be little question that everyone—the doctors, the hospitals, the insurance companies, and everyone in between—is in on the take.

            Finally, today’s news had a piece about foreclosure auctions going on in long-suffering Detroit, once the thriving Motor City, now the most depressed and distressed city in the nation. Homes were starting at $500. There were pages and pages of them. One comparison showed the number of homes in foreclosure (or abandoned completely), if put together, would cover an area the size of Boston. And who was getting to buy most of these places? You guessed it, not Detroit natives who were hoping to be able to get a house cheap and live there, but mostly speculators from California and New York, seeking to make a killing while the killing was still good.

            But then again, this is the free market, folks. And the “free” market, after all, is the most efficient and most humane of all systems yet devised by man. Oh boy.

 

Lawrence DiStasi

Bend Over, Suckers

 
I have just been on the phone with my Congresswoman’s office (Lynn Woolsey), and with my bank credit card representative. The news is not good. The taxpayers are being screwed once again, this in order to beat the deadline mandated by the new Credit Card Bill of Rightswhich goes into effect soon. So get ready: the banks will all be socking it to their customers to the limit before their options are limited by the new bill.

            It starts with a letter—like the one I received yesterday. It notifies me that my interest rate is being increased, both the standard rate and the cash advance rate. There is an increase both in the “margin” to 10.45 percentage points; and in the APR on purchases (based on the Index Rate plus the “Margin”) to a now hefty 16.20%. That is nearly a 4-point jump in my interest rate, which has already been bumped recently by a couple of percentage points. Worst of all, “these increases to the Purchase APR will apply to both new Purchases made on your account AS WELL AS ANY EXISTING PURCHASE BALANCES.”  And if you don’t like it, you can drop your card so long as you pay your entire balance.

            Of course I was outraged to read this. I have never missed a payment on my credit card, a fact which was confirmed when I called my credit card representative, who said, “you have an excellent credit history.” And yet, my rate is being bumped. But why??? I asked the representative, who said it was a “management decision. All Wells Fargo credit card customers are having their rate bumped by upwards of 3%.”  But why, I again asked, noting that the prime rate which banks pay for their money from the Fed was down around 3% the last time I looked. The banks have been in difficulty, she said (yes, I argued, because of the rapacity of their greed to cash in on subprime lending, which loans have gone bad and left the banks needing to ramp up their other cash cow, credit cards.) She said she had no information on that. She also said she had no information on the upcoming changes mandated by the Credit Card Bill of Rights either. But I had already learned about this, with a little help from my Congresswoman’s office, and here’s the news.

            The bill was passed to great fanfare and signed by President Obama on May 22, 2009. Among other things, the bill says:

            “No interest rate increases on pre-existing balances. If your credit card issuer decides to increase your interest rate, that new rate would only apply to new balances. Your current balance would continue to be subject to the old interest rate. There's an exception, however, if you become more than 60 days late on your credit card payments.”

(http://credit.about.com/od/consumercreditlaws/a/creditbillright.htm )

Aha, I thought. I’m protected; they can’t do this. But then I looked to the bottom of the website and found this disconcerting news: These rules won’t take effect until February 22, 2010.

            So now you get the picture. The banks, devils that they are, are fully aware that after February 2010, their ability to screw their credit card customers will be circumscribed. They won’t be able to arbitrarily raise rates, and apply them to purchases that were made previously, in full faith and knowledge by the customer, based on the old interest rate. Under the new rules, rate hikes can be applied only to new purchases; the old balance will be charged at the old rate. Poor old bankers—they won’t be able to just make an announcement that your rate is now higher, and have it apply retroactively. What an imposition! And so, in order to rake in billions and billions before the new rules go into effect, they’re hitting us all with higher rates now. 

            So this is our payoff, suckers, for allowing the Washington boys to bail out these same banks, to the tune of trillions of dollars, which bailout is going to sink this entire nation soon. Which is to say, sink all of us. Bail them out, let them continue raking in their usurious bonanza, and then bend over for your individual reward. 

            I let both my credit card rep and my congressional rep know my feelings about this. I would suggest that every single person who feels the same let their reps know as well. Because sooner or later, somehow or other, the criminality that is the banking system, along with the white-collar thugs who profit by it—and I include our sitting so-called representatives and president who all have their hands in the same cookie jar—are going to have to be brought to heel.  The only question is, what’s it going to take?

 

Lawrence DiStasi

Dictating Democracy

 
The logic behind American foreign policy becomes more difficult to fathom each day. Last night’s news, for example, informed us that the State Department was exploring new initiatives to open diplomatic contacts with the Generals who rule Burma. Now this is a lovely regime made up of those geriatric thugs who came to power by overturning a peaceful election which should have brought Aung San Suu Kyi to power, and who have since employed the most brutal methods to eliminate protestors, including the beating and jailing of Buddhist monks. After that, they ripped off much of the international aid sent to that benighted country by America and others to relieve the suffering population after the monsoon floods in May 2008. And the American State Department now thinks it’s a good idea to open negotiations with these creeps. On what grounds exactly? On their notable commitment to democracy and the rule of law?
            Similarly, in late June, reactionary forces in Honduras overthrew the democratically-elected president of that country, Manuel Zelaya, by arresting him in the middle of the night and hustling him out of the country. This wholly illegal maneuver, reminiscent of a Woody Allen movie, was initially greeted by the United States with temperance and patience and hemming and hawing calls for both parties to negotiate. Negotiate? This was a wholly illegal coup, engineered by thugs who have consistently employed the U.S.-trained military to put down the populace protesting such blatant disregard for international law. Virtually every Latin-American nation and the Organization of American States have all condemned the coup in no uncertain terms—all, that is, except our Clintonesque State Department, which continued to resist calling the overthrow a “coup,” and which took its sweet time cutting off aid as its statutes required it to do. What is going on here? Is it that the United States, even under Obama, really hoped (schemed?) to see another episode of the sick drama that played out in Haiti, where leftist President Aristide was also spirited out of his country and has remained in exile ever since? Can it be that there’s a little pattern here, a pattern that, regardless of the administration’s color, blue or red, Republican or Democrat, pays lip service to the glories of democracy, but in reality makes certain that only certain democracies—those that toe the imperial line—receive U.S. support?
            What else can one conclude? Recent so-called elections in Afghanistan have been routinely condemned by most observers, including Peter Galbraith, as not only flawed, but outright fraudulent. Ah, but our man in Kabul, the drug-dealing Hamid Karzai, is allegedly, and necessarily for us, the winner. Because we’ve sacrificed hundreds of American lives and billions upon billions in treasure to defeat the terrorists we say have a home there. So admitting that we’re sacrificing so much to maintain a crook in power just wouldn’t do: imperial interests are one thing, but theft requires a deodorant. By contrast, when the 2006 elections in Palestine produced an internationally validated outcome, but one that displeased us—the victory of Hamas, otherwise known in the western press as muslim devils incarnate, with the gall to advocate resistance to Israeli oppression—why then it was a different story. Then, we, with our “democratic” ally Israel, decried the stench and cranked up the propaganda and strong-arming to the point where an international boycott was imposed, a boycott so cruel and crippling that it has left over a million people in Gaza bereft of even the most basic human elements—food, fuel, shelter, medical supplies—even before Israel invaded last year and destroyed most of what was left.
            And then, of course, there’s Iran. When recent elections there produced street demonstrations, the American media covered the protesters night and day. For a few days it appeared that yet another “orange” revolution similar to that in the Ukraine, fomented and financed by the CIA, was about to take place. But no, the Ayatollahs clamped down on the demonstrators, and the American press duly condemned those in power as illegitimate, the result as undemocratic. Because, after all, Iran might some day threaten the “middle east peace” we’ve done so much to preserve. Because, after all, Iran has centrifuges and is producing fissile material. And that material, we are sure, is meant for nuclear weapons. And if Iran were to obtain a nuclear weapon, why it would upset the entire balance (i.e. Israel’s death grip) in the region because now muslim devils would possess the bomb. But what about the devils who already have the bomb, and not just one puny nuke but hundreds! Israel, that is, not only has a stockpile of nuclear weapons that numbers at least two hundred, but that includes not just your puny atomic bomb but thermonuclear ones as well, complete with the most sophisticated delivery systems outside the U.S. And has threatened to use them on Iran, and Egypt and Russia, among others. Furthermore, it has never even signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty which we so dramatically accuse Iran of violating (which it has not; the treaty gives every nation the right to produce nuclear power, which is what Iran appears to have done so far); nor has Pakistan, also equipped with numerous nukes, signed the NPT,  nor India, which also possesses an unknown but considerable number, aided and abetted recently by the Bush administration which generously gave the Indians more technology to build still more.
            So what is going on here? What is this rhetoric about democracy? What is this hysteria about rogue states, and nuclear proliferation when, in fact, the United States now and in the past has supported and colluded with some of the most vicious dictators on the planet? Including the late and not lamented General Musharraf of Pakistan, who also took over in a coup and who also had his rogue nuclear program, but whom we coddled and cuddled until the stench and incompetence and unpopularity of his regime demanded that he be scuttled. Nor can we forget that it was the United States, in the person of Kermit Roosevelt, who, in 1954, engineered the unrest that forced the democratically-elected Mohammed Mossadegh from power in Iran, and replaced him with the Savak-wielding Shah—thus necessitating the rise of the Ayatollahs.
            In which regard, some statistics put together by Anthony DiMaggio are revealing:
Number of major U.S. invasions since World War II: 13—including attacks on North Korea (1950 and 1951), Cuba (1961), South Vietnam (1962), The Dominican Republic (1965), Cambodia (1970), Lebanon (1982), Grenada (1983), Panama (1989), Iraq (1991), Haiti (1994), Afghanistan (2001), and Iraq again (2003). And that doesn’t count covert invasions and attempted overthrows and crushings of populist-nationalist movements.
Number of Iranian invasions: 0 (Iraq invaded Iran to initiate the 1981 war)
Number of countries the U.S. has explicitly threatened with nuclear annihilation: 8
Number Iran has threatened: 0.
            So what is this nonsense demanding that Iran show its “peaceful intentions”? What about the thugs in Burma—have they ever shown even a hint of “peaceful intentions”? Have the Honduran coup leaders? Indeed, has the United States? (check the stats).
            Perhaps a little less invading and a little more withdrawing might be in order. Perhaps a little less dictating to others might be in order. Because dictating democracy, not to mention dictatorial democracy is an oxymoron. A contradiction in terms. A beast with two heads—or two asses; can’t be. There can’t be a dictated democracy, or a partial democracy, or a democracy with rights for only certain religious or ethnic groups. In which regard we might ask if the United States itself has ever been a real democracy—i.e. a democracy governed by all its people rather than a small elite serving wealthy or propertied or corporate interests. But that is a question for another blog. For now, it is enough to observe that the United States would do well to look to itself, rather than seeking to dictate democracy elsewhere.
 
Lawrence DiStasi

Death Panels and Kindred Spirits

Hey, I have a right to make a buck
I’m a corporation with rules to protect me
If you get hit by a puck
And once had a scratch on your knee
Then why should I pay for your care?
That pre-condition was there
And I will fight to the death
Or until you take your last breath
To prove you haven’t a claim
Because it is you who’s to blame


The California Nurses Association recently conducted a study to determine the claim rejection rate of major insurers in California. As you may have already heard, the rejection rate averaged 22%. These insurers rejected over 45 million claims according to numbers that the insurers themselves submitted. While the rejections were not characterized in terms of rationale, the sheer numbers are staggering and indicate several issues that underlie insuring healthcare. The insurers claim that many of the rejections are related to paperwork as though that was something over which they had no control. They also were unable or unwilling to provide numbers to support their defense of claim acceptance.

The claims rejection numbers varied from a high of 39.6 for Pacificare to 6.5% for Aetna with Cigna coming in at 33% and Healthnet rejecting 30%. Anthem Blue Cross and Kaiser each reported 28% rejections. We know that the claims business is complicated. I personally have three levels of claim including Medicare, a paid for supplement by an insurance company and Tricare (the military medical insurance). This often results in confusion when my healthcare provider (physician or hospital, for example) has difficulty fitting a claim into the right category and to the proper insurer, even though two of the three are government entities. Providers don’t always get it right. According to my physician son, who is a gifted analyst and has an IQ over 180, the process is obscure and requires a medical administrative expert rather than an automated system or a “fill in the blanks” approach. There are medical procedures that are similar to each other and yet the reimbursement rate may vary according to the description, so there is no guarantee that a claim will be paid at the rate expected or paid at all. This alone sometimes results in multiple applications and rejections. He has also learned that not all insurance companies have the same rules, so the combinations and permutations of filing a correct claim approach infinity as the number of providers and the number of insurers increase. That alone may be a good reason to consider a single payer system, although single payer is anathema to the “free” market approach. I use the word “free” because free market is a relative term since one insurer in Alabama (Blue Cross), for example, covers 89% of those insured. There may, in reality, be few choices in the “free” market. We have outlined a few sources for increasing costs and reducing coverage of those who happen to be insured. Denial of claims may also lead to denial of coverage for pre-existing conditions. We will consider that separately in the paragraphs ahead. First, let us look at the history of the healthcare insurance system we have cobbled together over the years. It may hold the key to some of our frustration.

Healthcare and heath insurance, as we now know it, really began after World War II, but there were precursors of note. Prior to about 1920, hospitals did not deliver the preponderance of healthcare, but individual physicians did and often they delivered care to the patient’s home. In 1929, Baylor University began the first medical insurance system that eventually became Blue Cross by offering to insure against hospital expenses for a cost of about $1.20 per month. Physicians later, concerned that hospitals could take their place in delivering care followed up with what eventually became Blue Shield as a way to help in getting paid for their work without depending on hospitals. Only a few years later, the depression forced everyone to rethink insurance as hospital endowments were lost to the economics of the time and many physicians were going unpaid. In the 1920s and earlier, medical care was actually less expensive than the loss of wages for being sick or incapacitated. People and corporations became aware that it was cheaper to pay for insurance than it was to pay for an unstable workforce that might miss work due to injury or illness. That is right. It was CHEAPER to have insurance than to lose wages or to lose the critical skills of a worker. The government was not involved. Businessmen protected their businesses and individuals protected themselves through cheap insurance. After WW II, however, the march of technology was such that the cost of care began to rise to pay for the increasingly more complex equipment, procedures and chemistry involved. Insurance was still cheaper than losing the services of a worker, but the margin began to narrow and it was commonplace for corporations to contract for medical care insurance coverage offered as a benefit to employees. The government remained apart from healthcare or insuring citizens for care. Other nations developed systems that essentially viewed healthcare as a benefit provided by a tax system that could ensure that providers could be compensated without worrying about endowments and that citizens could receive care regardless of job status. Kaiser was a major government production contractor, but it developed its own healthcare system to ensure a steady workforce. Kaiser Permanente survives today despite the decline of Kaiser Industries. We did not choose the same path as most nations and thereby built up a whole industry out of the accidental circumstances of the 1920s and 1930s. This served us reasonably well until medical costs spiraled out of control and the understandable reaction of corporations was to reduce or eliminate health insurance. Despite an increasing population, the number of insured declined. With a reduction in the number of insured and a need to stay economically viable in an environment of increasing medical costs, the price for insurance went up thereby causing even more employers to reduce or eliminate coverage. A cobbled system began to fail and eventually fall apart. If you were unfortunate enough to suffer a major illness or injury, you became a likely subscriber to bankruptcy that, in turn, placed further pressure on individuals and corporations, including insurance companies. Our healthcare system depends on timely and accurate financial support. The system is now broken.
Health insurance companies depend on a regular flow of premiums into their coffers in order to provide a service of insuring people from loss due to some undesirable health condition. That is a given. It is the way of the corporate world. That is capitalism 101 and it is to be expected…or is it?

If we encourage the same business behavior of health insurers as we get from manufacturing or accounting services, for example, we would expect unprotected open market competition and also internal scrutiny by each company to reduce costs and increase profits. That makes sense and cents. If I can get cheaper materials or labor and still produce a quality and competitive product or service, then there is no harm to the consumer. On insuring healthcare, however, my profit is affected more directly by denying or delaying care through the claims process so that my premium collection can overweigh my expenses. This simply is not the same as manufacturing or accounting. It does not work and yet we cannot assume that an insurance company will become a non-profit entity because it has altruistic management. The management would and should be fired if they cannot turn a profit. Incompatibility is inherent. Therefore claim denial is increasingly likely as costs rise. If the cost of my raw materials increases and the cost of my labor increases, there simply are not many ways to stay in business unless I price my product higher and reduce my expenses (claims). Pre-existing conditions have become synonymous with claim denial. Unfortunately, the associated logic has more to do with profit than medicine. Exactly how is acne a pre-existing condition for breast cancer, for example? The examples are legend. And they are disturbing. Treating cancer is expensive. Claim denials are cheap.

It is time to develop a system that emphasizes the medical over the fiscal and to think the unthinkable that perhaps the common good is no longer well served by a system that was cobbled together when medicine was crude and cheap. Medicine is now sophisticated and expensive. Get over it. We can help ourselves by either going to a single payer system with one set of rules or we can inject competition into the equation through a combination of government oversight, incentives and penalties and see if that experiment works well enough to save health insurance companies. You decide.



Peace,
George Giacoppe
15 August 2009

Tortuous Presumptions

   
 
The recent release of the “CIA Inspector General’s Special Review of Counterterrorism Detention and Interrogation Activities, September 2001 to October 2003”—detailing once again the appalling torture techniques employed by U.S. interrogators in their attempt to get information from “the worst of the worst”—has been discussed by experts far more qualified than myself. One aspect of the report, however, especially as disclosed by former CIA analyst Ray McGovern (“Closing in on the Torturers,” Aug. 26, 2009, consortiumnews.com), struck me forcefully. It concerned the operating assumption among interrogators, in the absence of any evidence, that their Al-Qua’ida captives (called “high value detainees) must have had crucial information, and were refusing to give it up. Here is what the report says:
            According to a number of those interviewed for this Review, the Agency’s intelligence on Al-Qa’ida was limited prior to the CTC (Counterterrorist Center) Program. The Agency lacked adequate linguists or subject matter experts and had very little hard knowledge of what particular Al-Qa’ida leaders—who later became detainees—knew. This lack of knowledge led analysts to speculate about what a detainee ‘should know’…When a detainee did not respond to a question posed to him, the assumption at Headquarters was that the detainee was holding back and knew more; consequently, Headquarters recommended resumption of EITs [enhanced interrogation techniques].
McGovern adds one more bit of data from the Review, and then a comment:
            Some participants in the Program, particularly field interrogators, judge that CTC assessments to the effect that detainees are withholding information are not always supported by an objective evaluation of available information and the evaluation of the interrogators but are too heavily based, instead, on presumptions of what the individual might or should know.
And then comes McGovern’s comment:
            “People were tortured on the basis of ‘presumptions.’ Nice.”
            What struck me when I read this was how similar it sounded to the root rationale governing the arrest and detention of American civilians during World War II. The phrase then in vogue by the FBI, military intelligence, and the Alien Enemy Control Division of the Department of Justice, was “potentially dangerous.” This was the term that was used to justify first investigating and then preparing dossiers on thousands and thousands of Americans with roots in the three prospective enemy nations—Japan, Germany, and Italy—even before war broke out. These investigations were undertaken primarily by J. Edgar Hoover’s FBI, starting in 1936 after a meeting the Director had with President Franklin Roosevelt. By 1940, the individuals investigated—many of them targeted by informants—were placed on a Custodial Detention Index prepared by Hoover’s FBI. The term “custodial detention” clearly indicates that anyone on the list was automatically a candidate for arrest and detention in the event the United States entered the war, which it did on December 7, 1941. And on that date, and in subsequent months, thousands on the list (some 60,000 domestic arrests were made during the war) were arrested, detained, interrogated about their activities and associations, and, if they could not “prove their innocence,” interned at Army-run camps for the duration of the war. Most were so-called “enemy aliens,” those immigrants who had been born in Italy, Japan or Germany and had not yet become U.S. citizens, but many were naturalized U.S. citizens with roots in those now-enemy nations.
            It was in respect to the latter that the Department of Justice, under the direction of Attorney General Francis Biddle, in about 1943 looked into the reasoning behind the term “potentially dangerous,” and came to some stunning conclusions. It should be noted that both Biddle and his predecessor, Robert Jackson (later elevated to the Supreme Court) had expressed reservations about many such wartime assumptions earlier. Specifically, Jackson had warned about the casual use of the term “subversion” or “subversive activity” with regard to the spying then being done on Americans. Jackson maintained that subversion was a dangerous concept because there were “no definite standards to determine what constitutes a ‘subversive activity’, such as we have for murder or larceny.” The Attorney General expanded on this problem with more examples:
            Activities which seem benevolent or helpful to wage earners, persons on relief, or those who are disadvantaged in the struggle for existence may be regarded as “subversive” by those whose property interests might be burdened thereby. Those who are in office are apt to regard as “subversive” the activities of any of those who would bring about a change of administration. Some of our soundest constitutional doctrines were once punished as subversive.         
That the Attorney General knew whereof he spoke could have been grimly attested to by one Italian immigrant and “enemy alien” named Federico Dellagatta. Dellagatta had been reported for making suspect statements—“irresponsible talk about the greatness of the Italian people and the Italian army”—while shining shoes in Providence RI’s Union Station He was arrested and detained by the FBI, judged no danger to the nation by his hearing board,  and recommended for parole. But when his case was reviewed by the DOJ’s Alien Division, the term “subversive activity” came into play, with grim results for the bootblack. Here is what the reviewer said:
            “In the opinion of this reviewer, subject’s persistent talk in praising and boasting of the greatness of the Italian people and of the Italian army while employed in a shoe shining shop constitutes downright subversive activity..” [emphasis added, ed.]
Because of his “subversive” talk, therefore, Dellagatta was interned. Francis Biddle, shortly afterward, weighed in on the related danger of sedition statutes, one of which had been quietly included in the Alien Registration Act of 1940. The act made it a criminal offense for anyone to advocate overthrowing the Government of the U.S. or any state, or even to be “a member of an association which teaches, advises or encourages such an overthrow.” For Francis Biddle, then Solicitor General, such sedition statutes were too easily misused, and often conflicted with the bedrock First Amendment right to free speech. As he later wrote in his autobiography, In Brief Authority:
            History showed that sedition statutes—laws addressed to what men said—invariably had been used to prevent and punish criticism of the government, particularly in time of war. I believed them to be unnecessary and harmful.
            When he became Attorney General, Biddle opposed many of the proposed measures demanded by the military (though to his everlasting shame, he cooperated in the internment of 110,000 Japanese, including 70,000 U.S. citizens), especially its Individual Exclusion Program aimed at naturalized citizens of German and Italian descent. Biddle actually refused to prosecute several who violated their exclusion orders. His real objections came in 1943, however, when he ordered his department to prepare a report on the Program. After examining and completely invalidating the entire rationale for removing individuals from allegedly vulnerable coastal zones, the report then attacks the concept of “potential dangerousness” as the basis for exclusion (and, by implication, for internment as well.) It notes, first, that “the concept of potential dangerousness itself contains the element of possibility.” Saying someone is “potentially dangerous,” that is, is equivalent to saying that someone “might possibly be a possible threat.” The report then concludes:
Practically, the use of phrases such as this [i.e. ‘potentially dangerous’] suggests that those who use them hold the view that a subject of an exclusion case must be excluded unless it is clear that there is no reason to exclude him. This is analogous to saying that the burden of proof is on the excludee, although the excludee, of course, cannot meet the burden, since he is not advised of the charges against him. 
            Unfortunately, there were no Robert Jacksons or Francis Biddles in George W. Bush’s Department of Justice, or in his CIA. Where those two WWII Attorneys General understood and, for the most part, respected the law, the Constitutional protections afforded all persons in the United States (such as the right to know what one is charged with), and the presumption of innocence enshrined in English law since the 12th century, Bush’s political appointees did not. Therefore, it seemed perfectly natural to them and their underlings to make “presumptions” about what a detainee could be expected to know, and to torture him if he did not reveal what was expected. Of course, as lawyers, they were adept at coining novel names for such practices, names like Enhanced Interrogation Techniques. They were also adept—Yoo, Addington, Bybee, Gonzalez, on up to the President and Vice-President—at issuing diabolical directives to both define what torture was (or more often was NOT), and why those interrogators who employed it could not be liable for prosecution. As the Review notes:
            The OLC [Office of Legal Counsel, where Yoo and Bybee worked] determined that a violation of Section 2340 [of the torture statute,18 U.S. Legal Code] requires that the infliction of severe pain be the defendant’s “precise objective.” OLC also concluded that necessity or self-defense might justify interrogation methods that would otherwise violate section 2340A. 
OLC produced another legal opinion on 1 August 2002 at the request of CIA…The opinion concluded that use of EITs on Abu Zubaydah would not violate the torture statute because, among other things, Agency personnel: (1) would not specifically intend to inflict severe pain or suffering, and (2) would not in fact inflict severe pain or suffering.
            So there you have it. Interrogators “presume” that a detainee knows more than he’s saying, and on that basis get permission to use “Enhanced Interrogation Techniques” like wall slamming, sleep and food deprivation, and waterboarding. Then, having done this—in Zubaydah’s case, using the waterboard over 180 times—they then say that legally ‘We didn’t intend to hurt the little fellow, nor did we even know it hurt or caused any suffering whatever; we only wanted information. The fact that people tend to emerge from these sessions gibbering like idiots may be due to the diabolical training they all get. And besides, the bosses insisted.’
            Though torturing suspects based on a “presumption” of what they know is different from interning them, or excluding them from vast areas because of their “potential danger,” the entire policy forms a continuum which turns on the same idea. That idea seems to be that, regardless of the law, one can never take too many precautions, or be too squeamish about methods when confronting what one presumes to be a “potentially dangerous” or “potentially knowledgeable” population.
 
Lawrence DiStasi
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Health Care on Life Support

As progressives have watched in horror and disbelief—can it be possible that the same right-wing fools who gave us Bush/Cheney, the war in Iraq, and its related bag of lies, fraud, raiding of the public treasury and outright criminality, have regained the initiative?—the alleged movement for health care reform has been chopped to pieces and is now threatening to collapse altogether into some fraud tailored to the specifications of big Pharma and big Healthcare. Sarah Palin has accused the new Democratic proposals of providing “death panels” to threaten the life of her Down’s syndrome child (has there ever been so shameless a public figure, willing to use her handicapped child to score political points?), while health care companies like United Health have urged their employees to mob the Democrats’ vaunted town hall meetings and shout them down with their slogans. To top it off, several of these yahoos have shown up at town meetings packing guns—one yo-yo at a recent Obama event with an assault rifle slung over his shoulder was featured in every newscast.
            The coup de grace came this week, with both Obama himself and Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius saying that the “public option” wasn’t really essential to health care reform, and that co-ops could be a way to go. This was mightily pleasing to both Republicans and that “key” senator from the crucial state of North Dakota, Kent Conrad, who characterized co-ops as a workable compromise that could pass the Senate.
            In the midst of the sinking feeling that whatever does emerge as health care reform will be so gutted as to be meaningless (or worse: it turns out that Obama has already made a deal with big Pharma that his health care plan won’t, repeat WILL NOT use the government’s bargaining power to get lower prices for drugs!), two recent proposals seem worth considering.  One was posted by Thom Hartmann on Common Dreams August 17. In the form of a letter, it suggested to the president that a simple solution would be: let all who choose to buy into Medicare. No new program to invent. No nonsense about forcing people into something they don’t like. Simply amend Medicare so that
“any American citizen can buy into the Medicare program at a rate to be set by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) and the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), which reflects the actual cost for us to buy into it….To make it available to people of low income, raise the rates slightly for all currently non-eligible people under 65, to cover the cost of below-200%-of-poverty people. Revenue neutral.” 
Seems like a plan to me. Nearly everyone who has Medicare seems to be quite satisfied with it (even the morons who have been ranting at town-hall meetings that they’re dead set against government-controlled health care, most of whom actually have Medicare!). Hartmann’s point is, why limit it to just people over 65? Let everyone buy in, pay for their own coverage until they reach 65, and thus cover everyone who’s dissatisfied with the Health-Care pirates.
            The other is a brilliant piece by renowned linguist and activist George Lakoff, who analyzed what’s wrong with the Obama approach so far. In a piece titled “The PolicySpeak Disaster for Health Care,” (commondreams.org, 8/20/09), Lakoff points out what he’s been trying to drum into Democrats for years, the importance of “framing.” The Republicans, by imitating marketing techniques, have long since mastered this stuff. The Democrats seem to think it’s manipulating the public and try, instead, to employ Policy Speak to appeal to the public’s reason. According to Lakoff, this is based in 17th century views that “if you just tell people the policy facts, they will reason to the right conclusion and support the policy.” In other words, rational discussion and logic will persuade people of the rightness of liberal democratic principles. WRONG. As Lakoff points out, even though 80% of the public wants a public plan, calling it the “public option” is a disaster. As cognitive neuroscientists have discovered—and marketers and Republicans, unlike Democrats, have taken into account—you have to appeal to people as they really think, in a way that resonates with them, and inspires them to act. Emotions are a big part of this, and emotions as well as the moral sense must be appealed to (Republicans appeal to emotions in the most calculating, irrational, and truly nefarious ways: “death tax,” “death panels,” “socialized medicine,” even Obama with a Hitler mustache—at the same time he’s accused of being a Commie).
            Accordingly, Lakoff suggests a simple narrative, using a simple patriotic title: The American Plan. It would tell the truth, but tell it simply, without fear of appealing to morality:
            “Insurance company plans have failed to care for our people. They profit from denying care. Americans care about one another. An American plan is both the moral and practical alternative to provide care for our people.
            “The insurance companies are doing their worst, spreading lies in an attempt to maintain their profits and keep Americans from getting the care they so desperately need. You, our citizens, must be the heroes. Stand up, and speak up, for an American plan.”
Lakoff also suggests using other simple, but emotional/moral language and slogans instead of boring “policy speak”: Doctor-patient care; Coverage is not Care; Insurance Company profit-based plans ration care; Doctors care, insurance companies don’t; and so on.
            Lakoff also punctures the simple-minded Democrat attempt to avoid the dreaded accusation, “culture wars.” As he notes, the culture war is already on and can’t be ignored. Call the villains and liars out, in public. The president has the biggest bully pulpit in the land. He has to start using it, instead of continuing to make a vain attempt to achieve some longed-for spirit of bipartisanship. He needs to demonstrate some passion, if for no other reason than to counter the evil passions being stirred up by his opponents, and that includes so-called moderates like Senator Chuck Grassley. Grassley displayed no reluctance at all to suggest, on the Newshour recently, that Obama’s plan was a government takeover of all health care and equivalent to socialism. There’s no way to make nice or use logic with such people. Use the power of the presidency, and the power of the Democratic majority, letting the Republicans know that if they wish to come along, fine, but if not, they will be accused of placing their corporate constituents ahead of the majority’s welfare.
            I would also add that it’s time the administration started to play hardball with the so-called Blue Dog Democrats. Why should these refugees from conservative districts, along with a few white-bread legislators from small-population states like Montana and North Dakota, shape and control the most important legislation of our time? Every Democrat should know that a “public option” (finding another name for it) is critical, that it must be included in any bill that the president will sign, and that failure to support it will be dealt with by means of all the patronage tactics available to the party’s leadership.
            Short of these course corrections—and it’s not too late, though the fight now, if Obama has the political and moral courage to engage it, will be long and dirty—the signature initiative of the Obama presidency will go down in flames. With it will go the hopes that the United States might be saved from the military/corporate/privatizing corruption that has engulfed it these last thirty years.
 
Lawrence DiStasi

The Deep Beauty of Conspiracy Theorists

Just how wrong are you now
If you don’t see that cow
That used no steroids or spoon
And leaped joyfully over the moon?
If I lie and you swear it is so
Then where do we go
On our journey to fashion a tale
Of intrigue and sinister woe
When breaths become gales
And minnows are whales
Then just where do we go?



For the past decade or so, it has been fashionable to equate one opinion to another, even when an “opinion” is unsupported with facts. FOX news has made a business out of reporting rumor and then commenting and operating on the assumption that a rumor, or worse, a lie, is true and worthy of further coverage. If we take the “birthers” for example, FOX and now CNN, through Lou Dobbs have extended the life and the strength of the false accusation that Mr. Obama is not a natural born US citizen. True, even Lou Dobbs does not directly say that Obama was not born in Hawaii, but he gives credence to the lie by constant repetition and by asking for proof that has already been provided. More recently, the “deathers” have pumped up the volume, even after being alerted that their statements are false.

Very recently, as congress members and senators have hit the trail to discuss the need for changes in our healthcare system, they have been systematically attacked by shout-down tactics that eerily remind me of the bullying by Stalinists in their early rise to power. Regardless of their heart felt conviction in their cause, their tactics are unconscionable. Instead of soliciting and enabling discussion, the process inculcates fear and shuts down discussion before it can begin. Recent revelations indicate that professional lobbyists have had their fine fingers on the puppet strings of many meetings that have issued “guidelines” to shut down meetings by filling rooms quickly to shout down and to stop politicians from speaking. In addition to being rude, the tactics do not bode well for an improved outcome for the healthcare programs we are trying to improve. Another approach is the old fashioned big lie. One specific example of using a known untruth is the introduction by Sarah Palin of “Death Panels” in the White House proposals. There are no “Death Panels.” Republican Senator Johnny Isakson proposed that there be a provision for end of life counseling that would help the elderly get living wills and similar advice to ease their minds and would help them make care decisions while they were able to do so. While the Palin accusations may sound ludicrous, she has defended her statements by saying that it could happen. So could “free bubble up and rainbow stew,” but making a campaign of either event is suspect and it panders to the lesser side of constituents. And, yes, Palin is campaigning despite quitting her job as governor with half her time to go. She only attacks Obama and not Isakson, so her motive seems more clear than her specific accusation. If you cannot see the conspiracy, then you are simply not looking for it. It must be there…somewhere.

Both the above tactics are simple and as old as politics itself. The elegance of simplicity, however, is overwhelmed by the negative purpose and outcome. This approach confuses and angers people, but will not add much in the way of alternative proposals for healthcare. Of course, there is also a simple elegance in the use of conspiracy theories by politicians and, in fact, any of us. It is impossible to prove a conspiracy theory to be wrong. No matter how much evidence you pile up, the conspiracy theory lives and even thrives. Hawaii has twice published the true extracts of the Obama birth certificates…doing it the second time to dispel the rumors and false statements by Rush Limbaugh and FOX News as well as others who simply want to keep the myth alive. People who insist that the earth is 6,000 years old and scoff at carbon dating and tons of evidence of early life on earth going back millions of years love conspiracies. Conspiracies explain faith. Conspiracies define enemies. Conspiracies define evil in the world. Unfortunately, they also define the holders of the “conspiracies.”

We need to look at the motivations of those who espouse and spread the conspiracies in order to expose them for the frauds that they are. Take, for example, Betsy McCaughey (pronounced McCoy) who has spread outright lies about the living wills recommended for the healthcare legislation. She is a lobbyist for healthcare insurers who want no limitations on their power to provide or deny coverage or charge rates that provide excess profits. Betsy is a member of the Hudson Institute. This is a group of neocons that helped bring you the war in Iraq. If you liked Iraq, you will love Betsy. She has twisted the provision to allow voluntary counseling to create living wills into a mandatory program for seniors to get death counseling to choose a poison or other means for euthanasia. It is not only dishonest, but is being used to scare the hell out of seniors. Others in this sinful cabal include Rush Limbaugh and Newt Gingrich. They are spreading misinformation and doing the bidding of “Freedom Works” headed by Dick Armey. That catchy name is a cover for privatizing Social Security (can you imagine the disaster had that been made law in today’s economic supply side disaster?); also to limit tort liability; to expand school vouchers and otherwise solidify the position of the rich as a permanent and deserving arrangement. In fact, supply side member Jack Kemp hailed the Katrina disaster as an opportunity to make the new economic order permanent. That alone makes the disaster seem caused by deliberate action instead of sheer incompetence. The connections of “Freedomworks” are prolific and include DLA Piper (an international lobbying and law firm) that lobbies for Bristol-Myers Squibb, for example.

If my information sounds like a special conspiracy, I apologize. It is the reality of big bucks calling the tune and FOX and the bobbleheads doing the dance. “Freedomworks” is a Republican pressure group that sends “aggressive” and “disgruntled” healthcare activists to disrupt meetings held by congressional advocates for change in the healthcare system. DLA Piper also employs Dick Armey and, surprisingly, Bristol-Myers Squib stands to lose about $400 Million if it has to negotiate drug prices due to new legislation. Imagine that! The gravy train established by the Bush policy of forbidding drug price negotiation might slosh to a halt. Unforgivable. If you find that my brief research is too bizarre to be accepted, then do your own, but do not accept the claim that these are simply unguided and spontaneous (rude) people expressing themselves in open forums. They have scripts and follow them. The scripts are provided by major lobbies and the Republican party.

Now why would all these folks spend this time, money and energy to kill improvements to healthcare? Their reasons are really simple. Large companies providing drugs or insurance want to dictate terms to maximize profits. Nothing is new there. Politicians on the right also need to prevent changes in healthcare to protect their major donors and to remain relevant in politics. Can you imagine what would happen if Obama succeeds? There would be no place for right-wingers at the money trough and they would have to say something other than “no” and that would mean learning a vocabulary beyond obstruction. Incidentally, they also have a lot invested in stopping the economic recovery for similar reasons. If the recovery plan works, the curtain is drawn open for everybody to see the Wizard of Oz and he is not very pretty. We are seeing some whoppers in print and on the cable news sources, but the whoppers are only red herring minnows that distract us from the goal of improving healthcare and our economy. Set the hook and don’t make this a catch and release program. Make them accountable for engaging in a program of outright lies by calling them on each one and exposing their connections to the lobbies that bought them.


Peace,
George Giacoppe
15 August 2009

Why Lobbyists Love Health Care Reform

 
The more we learn about the Democrats’ plan for health care, the more it seems that, though it might help to cover more people—which would be good—it really won’t address the underlying problem. That problem is simply put: as long as health care is a multi-billion dollar industry run not to care for people but to make huge profits, the profit makers will find ways to continue to drive themselves into profit Valhalla, and the public into sickness and ruin.
            As confirmation, we have a recent report, by the Associated Press no less, informing us why there will indeed be a health care bill this year, even though the industry, and their Republican  (and Democratic) stooges would prefer to keep things as they are. The report—“Lobbyists the silver lining in health care storm?” by Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar—tells us why “the drug industry, the American Medical Association, hospital groups and the insurance lobby are all saying Congress must make major changes this year.” What? THEY want health care reform? How could this be?
            The answer is elementary. First, they see the writing on the wall: Joe Sixpack can’t afford health care any more. Second, government programs have “gotten increasingly friendly to private insurance companies,” giving them “major roles as middlemen” in Medicare and Medicaid. You know, like Bush’s great prescription-drug boondoggle for Medicare, called, cynically, Medicare Advantage.
            But the real bonanza for these guys is the central requirement, in both House and Senate plans, to require health care for all. That is, the new plan will require everybody to buy coverage. And what will this do? Why it will “guarantee a steady stream of customers subsidized by taxpayers not only for insurers, but for all medical providers.” In other words, 47 million more customers will now have to procure health insurance. And if they can’t afford it—otherwise, why wouldn’t they have it in the first place—good old Uncle Sam, which is the taxpayer, will help them to pay for it. No matter how high the costs go.
            Dr. Marcia Angell, who was a guest on Bill Moyers’ show last Friday, said essentially the same thing. Unless, she said, there’s a change in the system—the economic system of unfettered capitalism willing to sacrifice anyone and everything for profit—all President Obama’s health care reform will do is increase the profits for private health care companies, doctors, and hospitals by presenting them with a CAPTIVE MARKET—i.e., of Americans now FORCED to buy health care.
            The thing is, we already know how this turns out. Massachusetts and a half dozen other states have already enacted this kind of reform, giving subsidies to the poor in order for them to buy insurance from the private health industry. And it has turned out to be more expensive, not less. So it appears that the only way our obscene medical costs will ever be reduced is by means of a government-run plan (the so-called “public option” the Republicans have tried to characterize as, ugh, socialism!), or, even better, a single-payer plan like Medicare. It would be a real plan that, by virtue of the numbers enrolled and the government’s power of mass purchasing, for instance from drug companies, but also from doctors and hospitals, would be able to reverse the trend of ever more expensive treatments for the ever more numerous conditions the industry can soak us for. Without that—and it is not clear at this moment if a “public option” will survive the congressional bartering and lobbying process—the sharks will remain in business, with the predators growing ever fatter, and thus ever more able to bludgeon our so-called representatives in our so-called representative democracy (and I include the President himself) into doing their multibillion-dollar bidding.
            Lawrence DiStasi

Torture by Design and Other Stuff

For those who boast or whine
About intelligent design
And draw lessons from scripture
To create a picture
Of what we humans have done
For security or fun
Need to re-check and squint
To see if we followed the blueprint


We need to review the bidding on torture and related violations of law and the Constitution before we blithely travel down the road to tomorrow’s legal issues. We have endured the painful if titillating exposes of hypocrites wailing over their peccadilloes. Governor Sanford and Senators Ensign and Vitter are merely the latest in a long series of failed humans; some of whom seem bent on throwing stones while forgetting that their positions in life place them in glass houses in full view of the people whom they both resemble and represent. Human failing appears to be part of the human condition and fully bipartisan. If there is a difference, it is that the conservatives run on a platform of holiness and purity while they stumble and fall at the same rate as liberals who are just as human and fallible, but run on platforms that are unrelated to personal perfection. Let us accept that these practices will continue and then devote some energy to issues of Constitutional and international law before we get too distracted.
Let me begin with the absurd posturing by our former Vice President Dick Cheney re the efficacy of torture. While that assertion that torture “worked” is not relevant to the law, it must still be challenged. Let us return to the design of the torture program and how it either evolved or was the product of intelligent design since that is a common mantra of the right wing. We experienced considerable torture at the hands of Chinese and North Korean Communists during the Korean Conflict. The torture resulted in scores of false confessions that were distributed internationally and decried as inhuman and cruel by our government and even our press. The purpose of the torture that was structurally inherent in the design was to elicit confessions…false confessions. After review of the military subjected to torture and countless interviews and study, we recognized that our soldiers were not prepared for the process and that, if they were given an orientation to the techniques of torture, that perhaps there would be increased resistance to signing false statements and fewer incidents in future conflicts. The SERE program was then designed and presented to our military to reduce false confessions by our soldiers. Many of our military personnel were then trained to resist by subjecting them to abbreviated torture techniques. It was not done to train our soldiers in how to inflict torture, but rather to familiarize them with the techniques so that they might be better prepared to resist.
Think about this. The Communists designed a program to elicit false confessions and then exploited those false confessions on the world stage. That was their design and the system worked according to that design. At no time did the Communists assume that their extracted confessions were “truth through torture,” but rather that the many Americans, although not all, were weak enough to succumb to the techniques. The design worked exactly as it should. Given that we, after failing to prevent 9/11, moved to round up “targets” like Sheik Mohammed and torture them without any essential redesign of the program used by the Communists, then why should we suddenly believe that the same design under similar conditions would suddenly produce Truth? This is the equivalent of designing a physical system to extract water from a stone and expecting it to produce fine wine. It’s a miracle! We can be absolute in expecting that physical system to extract water, not wine and we can fully expect that the torture of prisoners by our government produced false confessions. That is the beauty of design. Incidentally, that design is not affected by the good intentions of the torturers to get Truth, or the righteousness of our cause to find the perpetrators of 9/11. Sheik Mohammed has admitted to giving false answers to stop the torture he was subjected to much as our soldiers did upon return to a safe environment at home. Hmm. If Cheney can create wine from water, he missed his calling.
In addition to the problem of a system working according to design, there is the nagging reality of the law. Our Constitution and international laws to which we are party specifically prohibits torture. Techniques such as waterboarding have been cited repeatedly in precedent as prohibited and illegal. Our own findings in the Nuremburg trials led to punishment of the perpetrators and even to the officials and legal authorities that provided covering opinions. Herbert Klemm was convicted by a U.S. military tribunal for a legal position he took that advocated taking rights away from people that contributed to the abuse of these groups. This places Yoo and other Bush administration lawyers in the similar position of supporting torture through memos and other means that advocated positions that attempted to rewrite common definitions of torture, for example, to provide a fig leaf to cover Bush and Cheney. Limiting the definition of torture as “deliberately inflicting grievous bodily harm such as organ failure” is a bogus opinion on its face and could be prosecuted by others using our own precedent against Klemm. Even if some court would exonerate Bush and Cheney due to their ignorance, Yoo and others might be prosecuted based upon the assumption that an attorney would be required to issue an opinion that recognizes common international law and our own laws on the subject. A lawyer calling a pig a diamond does not materially alter the nature of the pig. Torture is torture regardless of what Yoo called it.
More recently, we have been informed that Cheney apparently failed to notify Congress of an assassination program being established in violation of specific law created by our Legislature that required briefing on CIA programs. Further, an earlier Congress eliminated political assassinations as policy in the 1970s as a result of the Phoenix Program disclosures in Vietnam and Cambodia. This is a double problem for the Cheney office (hiding an illegal program from Congress). We probably all guessed that Cheney who apparently drinks liberally but is conservative in most other aspects of life would be on the wrong side of the law, but we simply did not understand the depth of his involvement. It now seems that Cheney was not only personally cherry-picking intelligence, but he was directing actions to change the rules of behavior for our intelligence forces and perhaps saw himself as 007 with license to kill. This is troubling on an international as well as a national level because, just as we did not inform Congress, we also failed to inform our allies. That usually gets them ticked off.
Where to from here? We cannot make believe that this history did not happen. We have a major economic crisis, yes, but the law is always with us. The crisis in economics will pass. If we do not pursue the law, then some day, when we least expect it, the law may pursue us. On that tenuous note, we are all guilty of contributing to the delinquency of an administration if we look the other way…and that is true for both the perpetrating Bush Administration and the following Obama Administration. I am fully aware that Obama does not want to delay health care and recovery from this recession, but just how many people will it require to simply follow the law where it takes us? Will history be any kinder to Obama for doing nothing than it will for Bush and Cheney for the violations? Should it?
We need to use our powers as citizens to cry out for justice. It will take months and compromise is unacceptable, but we cannot simply stand by and allow our great nation to shrink from our joint and aggregate responsibility to ensure that justice prevails. Is it worse to admit our failings and to repair them or to pretend that we have no faults when the hypocrisy is screaming to us and to the world as we wait? Remember Sanford, Ensign and Vitter? It is not their failings but their hypocrisy that angers us. Let us not be hypocrites. Yes, we failed. Now let us repair the damage by welcoming Justice without reservation and let the lady with the blindfold do her thing.


Peace,
George Giacoppe
15 July 2009

Nuclear Treason

When one reads Seymour Hersh’s material (The Samson Option, Random House: 1991) on Israel’s pursuit of, manufacture of, and testing of nuclear weapons in a program which began in the late 1950s, and America’s response to it, one has no choice but to consider the word “treason.” That is because for decades, starting with the late days of the Kennedy Administration, and continuing through Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, and beyond, successive American Presidents, intelligence officials and Cabinet members have all had a hand in a clandestine policy to keep the increasingly conclusive proof that Israel had succeeded in producing nuclear weapons a secret. A secret from the American public. A secret from U.S. allies. A secret from the world—even as the United States loudly and overtly banged the drum promoting the Non-Proliferation Treaty it had a major hand in writing, and from its beginnings, enforcing. It has vociferously protested when any nation but the big 5 (the U.S., the Soviet Union, France, England, and China) has made moves to acquire nuclear weapons. It has accused nations such as India and Pakistan of endangering the world, and more recently North Korea and Iran of violating their commitments under the NPT. It has called them everything from liars to frauds to criminals to Hitlerian dictators threatening other nations and worldwide conflagration.
            And yet, when it came to Israel, the American political establishment bent (and still bends) over backwards (or perhaps forwards) to look the other way: see no evil, hear no evil, and definitely speak none. And there has been one overriding reason for this: fear of the protests that would arise from the American Jewish community if the United States revealed Israel’s dirty secret. Fear that the big money coming to American politicians from that same community would be cut off. One of John F. Kennedy’s major contributors, for example, was a hosiery and apparel mogul named Abraham Feinberg. His financial donations had rescued Harry Truman’s presidential campaign in 1948 by financing Truman’s whistle-stop train campaign. Feinberg then managed to collect a huge campaign chest for the Kennedy campaign as well, and thereby secured direct influence in that White House. Having raised many millions of dollars needed to help Israel build its nuclear facility at Dimona, Feinberg’s zeal to protect “his” facility ran into conflict with Kennedy’s commitment to nonproliferation and desire to get IAEA inspections of it. Feinberg “fought the strongest battle of my career to keep them from a full inspection” by getting his message to the President (he met directly with Defense Secretary Robert McNamara): an inspection of Dimona would result in less support in Kennedy’s 1964 presidential campaign. Though unable to fight off an inspection completely, Feinberg was able to cripple it: instead of the IAEA, Washington agreed to send an American inspection team, one that would schedule its inspection visits in advance, with Israeli’s permission. This gave Israel time, as Hersh puts it, to build a “Potemkin Village” to deceive their American visitors (p. 111). In other words, the Israelis built a false control room showing that no chemical reprocessing plant (and hence no conversion of spent nuclear fuel to bomb-grade plutonium) was operating, and the American team dutifully reported that Israel had only a “standard reactor.”            
President Lyndon Johnson continued this charade (American inspections of Dimona took place each year on schedule, always finding nothing, including the time in 1963 when Israel’s reactor “went critical”—meaning it was producing 70 megawatts of power, far more than the alleged 24 megawatts needed for electricity, and enough to start producing plutonium.) As Hersh writes:
            “By the middle 1960s, the game was fixed: President Johnson and his advisers would pretend that the American inspections amounted to proof that Israel was not building the bomb, leaving unblemished America’s newly reaffirmed support for nuclear nonproliferation.” (p. 143).
            The American CIA knew full well what the Israelis were doing: “Everybody knew” about the Israeli missile, one CIA analyst said, “but nobody would talk about it.”  This allowed President Johnson to make statements, after China exploded its first nuclear weapon on October 18, 1964, such as: “Nuclear spread is dangerous to all mankind…We must continue to work against it, and we will.” (p. 149.) After the Israeli victory in the Six-Day War of 1967, the intentional ignorance became even more pronounced, as the White House sided more openly with Israel. Israel was importing yellowcake (uranium ore) from South Africa in great quantities, and it was monitored by IAEA. As one U.S. official monitoring nuclear developments said, “We knew about the yellowcake, but we weren’t allowed to keep a file on it. It simply wasn’t part of the record. Anytime we began to follow it, somebody in the system would say, ‘That’s not relevant.’”
            But the most overt piece of pandering to his American Jewish supporters—and specifically to the same Abe Feinberg mentioned above—by Lyndon Baines Johnson took place just before LBJ left office. As Hersh describes it, the CIA by this time knew for certain that Israel had manufactured at least four nuclear weapons (it had actually made many more). But Israel wanted American F-4 Phantom jets—a high performance airplane that could carry nuclear weapons on a mission to Moscow (which Israel was determined to, and did target to dissuade the Soviets from aiding Egypt and other Arab nations).  Many in the Johnson administration wanted to use this Israeli hunger for the F-4 as a bargaining chip to get Israel to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). Paul Warnke, assistant secretary of defense, to that end called Yitzhak Rabin, Israel’s American ambassador, to his office and questioned him about Israel’s nuclear program. Rabin refused to answer, and Warnke leveled him with a long overdue tirade: “Mr. Ambassador, we are shocked at the manner in which you are dealing with us…You, our close ally, are building nuclear bombs in Israel behind our back.” Rabin of course denied it, but was so outraged that he not only lied about the encounter (he said in his memoirs that the whole encounter was about the F-4, and Warnke’s attempt to blackmail Israel by insisting on complete on-site supervision of all Israeli arms manufacturing and research), but also activated all of Israel’s supporters in Congress to oppose the NPT inspections. Most tellingly, Rabin called upon Abe Feinberg. Feinberg recalled Rabin complaining that “Everything you (Feinberg) have done about Phantoms is going down the drain. Clifford (Clark Clifford, Secretary of Defense and Warnke’s boss) is insisting on the NPT.” Now Feinberg had just recently met the President and Walt Rostow, his National Security Adviser, and remembered the President saying there would be “no conditions” to the sale of the planes. Hersh narrates the rest:
            “So I picked up the telephone,” he said, “called the White House, and asked for Rostow.” The national security adviser was having dinner at Clifford’s house, and Feinberg, who was well known to the White House switchboard operators, was patched through. “Walt gets on the telephone,” continued Feinberg, “and I say, ‘Walt, you and I and the President were together and Johnson said ‘no conditions.’ Walt agrees. I say, ‘When you get back to the table, tell that to Clifford.’”
            Clifford apparently got the message. For when Paul Warnke “arrived at a later meeting of his staff, all of whom favored tying the F-4 sale to Israeli acceptance of the NPT, he dramatically drew his hand across his neck. The NPT was out.” Harry Schwartz recalled Warnke’s account of the Clifford-Johnson dialogue: “Clifford called Johnson and LBJ said, ‘Sell them anything they want.’
            “‘Mr. President, I don’t want to live in a world where the Israelis have nuclear weapons.’
            “‘Don’t bother me with this anymore.’ And he hangs up.” (pp. 190ff)
            So there it is. Don’t bother me with this anymore, says the President of the United States.  Nevermind hypocrisy. Nevermind being taken for a fool by another nation whom the United States has supported and continued to support in the face of worldwide opposition, and without which support this nation could not last a day. Nevermind being spied on, lied to, hijacked, and, in at least one instance, being attacked by this same nation that seems immune to criticism (I refer to the now-infamous Liberty incident, wherein Israeli aircraft fired upon an American telecommunications ship in international waters during its 1967 Six-Day War, killing 34 Americans and wounding 171.) LBJ, like Kennedy before him, felt constrained to honor his commitment to a major American Jewish donor, regardless of the fact that nuclear nonproliferation, which the President believed in as sincerely as he believed in anything and on which, arguably, depended the fate of the entire world, was openly mocked and endangered thereby.
            Nor was this the end. This same kind of intentional blindness, this same massive hypocrisy, this same kowtowing to the organized might of American Jewry has continued almost unabated ever since, through every President and every administration, up to and including the administration of Barack Hussein Obama. CIA reports have been buried. Public accounts of Israel’s nuclear activities have been ignored by the world’s media: for example, in April 1976, Time magazine reported that shortly after the 1967 Six-Day War, Israel’s war hero Moshe Dayan had secretly ordered the building of a reprocessing plant. The report came from David Halevy, an Israeli citizen. Nothing happened. Ten years later, this time in 1986, the London Sunday Times ran an explosive story, based on the testimony of Israeli defector Mordecai Vanunu, detailing the inside story, with photos, of the huge Isaeli nuclear operation, including the fact that the Israeli nuclear stockpile now totaled more than 200 warheads, including some of the most sophisticated weapons in the nuclear arsenal such as advanced missile delivery systems targeting the Soviet Union, and “suitcase bombs” capable of infiltrating any country. Again, there was no reaction, other than a widespread Israeli disinformation campaign, much of which was organized by the rival Sunday Mirror of London by its pro-Israeli owner, Robert Maxwell.
            Of course, some might say, ‘No one should worry. Israel is an ally, a sane and rational democracy, whose leaders would never employ such weapons.’ But that would be to forget the zealots who are in charge of this “democracy,” and what they have said, and done already. In the aftermath of the 1956 Suez War, for example, in which the Israeli leader David Ben Gurion considered President Eisenhower’s refusal to back Israel as a dastardly betrayal, one Israeli official is quoted by Hersh as saying: “We got the message. We can still remember the smell of Auschwitz and Treblinka. Next time we’ll take all of you with us.” (p. 42) It was at this point that Israel initiated its secret plan, with French aid, to go nuclear. And by the time of Israel’s 1973 Yom Kippur war with Egypt and Syria, it was not only nuclear, but deadly serious about acting. Most Americans, consumed with their own domestic drama known as Watergate, could never have known how close the world came at this time to Armaggedon, and worse (if anything could be worse than nuclear destruction), how the Israelis used that threat of Armaggedon to blackmail its patron and ally, the United States of America.
            Hersh devotes an entire chapter, and more, to this episode. For the truth is, in the early days of the war, Israel was in a panic. Its famed commander, Moshe Dayan, having been totally surprised by the Arab attack, was virtually conceding defeat to the advancing Egyptian and Syrian armies which had destroyed 500 of Israel’s tanks and 400 planes, including 14 F-4 Phantom jets. An October 8 cabinet meeting resulted in three related decisions:
            “Israel would rally its collapsing forces for a major counterattack; it would arm and target its nuclear arsenal in the event of total collapse and subsequent need for the “Samson Option” [i.e. bringing down “all of you with us”]; and finally, it would inform Washington of its unprecedented nuclear action—and unprecedented peril—and demand that the U.S. begin an emergency airlift of replacement arms and ammunition needed to sustain an extended all-out war effort.” (p. 225).
 
All three of these plans were implemented. Israel did counterattack, and managed to salvage the situation. But it also went on nuclear alert, readying its nuclear weapons not once, but twice in the course of the Yom Kippur war. It did this openly, partly to impress the Americans, but partly also to scare the Soviet Union into persuading their Arab allies not to advance beyond the pre-1967 borders. Apparently this warning to Egypt was given, according to Mohammed Hiekal, editor of Al Ahram, the leading Egyptian newspaper, warning the Egyptians that the “Israelis had three warheads assembled and ready.” 
            Finally, the blackmail was also implemented by the nuclear arming. Israel was already outraged that Henry Kissinger was taking his time in resupplying the Israeli military with the weapons that had been lost. Without the assurance of immediate delivery of such American weapons, Israeli commanders would be hampered in their vital counterattack. According to Hersh, a call on Kissinger by Simcha Dinitz, Israel’s ambassador to Washington, changed Kissinger’s mind. Confirmation of this comes, not from Kissinger’s memoirs, which omit any mention of Israeli nuclear capability (though they do mention the replacement of its war losses by October 9), much less its threat; but from Hermann F. Eilts, the American ambassador to Egypt. Eilts maintained that at the end of Kissinger’s tenure as Secretary of State, he brought up the 1973 war, and casually referred to the nuclear option: “Henry threw in that there was a concern that the Israelis might go nuclear. There had been intimations that if they didn’t get military equipment, and quickly, they might go nuclear”(p. 230). James Schlesinger, Secretary of Defense, concurred that “Kissinger just turned around totally. He got a little hysterical” in urging an immediate and massive resupply of weapons to Israel in October 1973. Schlesinger added that “there was an assumption that Israel had a few nukes and that if there was a collapse, there was a possibility that Israel would use them.” Finally, Anwar Sadat, then leader of Egypt, told Mohammed Heikal that Kissinger had said at the time: “It was serious, more serious than you can imagine.”
            Before the war was over, Russia would threaten military intervention to get Israel to abide by the cease-fire, the United States had put the 82nd Airborne Division, B-52s carrying nuclear weapons, and the aircraft carrier John F. Kennedy on alert, and Israel responded by going on nuclear alert one more time. Hersh cites one more confirmation of the episode—more dangerous by far than the Cuban Missile Crisis about which we’ve heard so much—in a March 10, 1980 addendum to a column by Jack Anderson. Anderson wrote as follows:
            “Locked in secret Pentagon files is startling evidence that Israel maneuvered dangerously near the edge of nuclear war after the 1973 Arab assault. The secret documents claim that Israel came within hours of running out of essential arms. ‘At this crucial moment, the possibility of nuclear arms was discussed with the U.S,’ declares one report. American authorities feared the Israelis might resort to nuclear weapons to assure their survival. This was the most compelling reason, according to the secret papers, that the United States rushed conventional weapons to Israel.” (p. 236)
            If all this doesn’t make your flesh crawl, I don’t know what will. Read The Samson Option and you’ll see that this is only a sketch of a much more detailed and disturbing story. This is so especially in the light of President Obama’s trip, this week, to try to re-invigorate the START Treaty with Russia, to delimit the nuclear stockpiles of the two major nuclear states even further. All of which is admirable. So is the United States’ continuing attempt to end nuclear proliferation. But all the fine words of statesmen and politicians seem like so much horse shit when viewed in the light of the half-century of dissimulation, deception and outright treason when it comes to Israel’s still-unacknowledged nuclear secrets. I mean think of it: Israel rants and raves about the alleged nuclear plans of Iran. It attacks and destroys Iraq’s Osirak reactor, to unanimous applause. It threatens a similar attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities. It bellows and wails about terrorists who are plotting to infiltrate its borders, or those of the United States, with a suitcase bomb. And all along, it has been the lying, guilty party, doing the same thing, and much much worse. Possessed of hundreds of weapons and advanced rocketry to deliver them, it has threatened the world with nuclear conflagration more than once, and made known that it would do it again.
            What is a rational person to make of this? What are we to make of our leaders—who have known of this massive deception, of the spying of Jonathan Pollard who forwarded 500,000 pages of incredibly sensitive U.S. documents to Israel—and who have at the same time carried on with their hypocritical fulminations against nations like Iran and Korea for their “deceptions.”  What are we to make of the political calculations of presidents—not one but several—who are willing, for political purposes, for continued campaign contributions to assure their own re-election, to put the entire world at risk of nuclear armaggedon? Can we call this anything other than despicable? anything other than treason?
 
Lawrence DiStasi
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