Noon Today: Scheer demo at LA Times Bldg., Fisk speaks at USC
Hope to see you at one of them - Ed
Aid and Comfort
By William Rivers Pitt
t r u t h o u t | Perspective
Monday 14 November 2005
The old chestnut has been hauled out in public again: if you do not
support the war, if you do not support Bush, you are betraying our troops
and giving aid and comfort to the enemy. It's an oldie but a goodie. It is
worthwhile, in the face of this resurgent nonsense, to take a long, hard
look at what "aid and comfort" really is.
George W. Bush's decision to invade and occupy Iraq - and it was his
decision, as he made clear when he said it was "perfectly legitimate to
criticize my decision or the conduct of the war" in his ham-fisted Veterans
Day speech last week - has done more to increase the fortunes of al Qaeda
and Osama bin Laden than any war critic ever could.
The invasion and occupation of Iraq has created a rallying point for
extremists all across the Muslim world, and has given them a marvelous
opportunity to refine their murderous craft by constructing bombs that kill
American soldiers and Iraqi civilians every single day. There were no al
Qaeda terrorists in Iraq before this occupation. Now, there are lots of
them, and they are getting plenty of practice.
The invasion and occupation of Iraq allowed Osama "bin Dead and Alive"
Laden to slip the noose set for him in Afghanistan. We had him cornered up
there in the mountains near the Pakistani border, but our best troops and
equipment were pulled out and sent to Iraq instead. Maybe Osama is already
dead - like his friend Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who has been reported killed
approximately four hundred and thirteen times, only to constantly resurface
as the mastermind of a dozen bombings and attacks - and maybe not. The
fact that he was never captured, tried and convicted for his crimes, the
fact that he may still be out there, is a boon to those who have flocked to
his banner. Aid and comfort indeed.
The decision to allow the torture of detainees in Iraq - a decision that
came directly from both Vice President Cheney and Defense Secretary
Rumsfeld, according to former administration outsider Lawrence Wilkerson -
gave the world the horrific images of Abu Ghraib. When those photographs hit
the Arab street, they provided inspiration for thousands of people in Iraq
and elsewhere to give their lives to the idea that killing American soldiers
is a nifty and necessary thing to do. It was the best recruitment drive for
al Qaeda that could have ever been conceived.
And there are more photographs to come.
The decision to invade Iraq has made the world less safe. Look at the
wreckage left behind by the bombing of those hotels in Jordan last week.
The perpetrators were not hardened al Qaeda veterans who learned to
fight in the Hindu Kush by killing Russians on behalf of the Reagan
administration. The perpetrators were all Iraqis. Mr. Bush's misbegotten
adventure in Iraq has left the nest, and is spreading out into the wider
world.
The decision by Bush and his administration to use wildly questionable
sources in order to scare the American people into supporting the war has
been a great aid and comfort to those who now kill American soldiers so far
from home. Take, for example, the use by Bush and his people of the
information provided by Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi (whose name, loosely
translated, means "I've been a shaky alibi"). Al-Libi told his interrogators
that al Qaeda was all over the place in Iraq before the war. A multitude of
intelligence officials, including the folks at the Defense Intelligence
Agency, warned that al-Libi was lying through his teeth. It turns out, in
the end, that he was; he recanted all of his testimony in 2004. Yet even
with these warnings, Bush & Co. used his words to justify their war.
Now here's a good question: why would al-Libi lie about an al Qaeda
presence in Iraq? Could it be that he did so in order to provide Bush with
justification for an attack? Could it be that al-Libi and his masters wanted
Bush to invade Iraq, so bin Laden could get his international rallying cry
while simultaneously disposing of Saddam Hussein, whom bin Laden
hated and despised?
In other words, did Bush do exactly, precisely what Osama bin Laden
wanted him to?
The decision by Bush to chuck up this invasion and occupation has made
the United States wildly vulnerable. The US military is in horrible shape;
recruitment is down to historic lows, veterans whose wisdom and expertise
are necessary for the care and maintenance of the line are refusing to
re-enlist, and the Treasury has been utterly looted. There are enemies of
this country out there, and there are threats of dire consequence. The
damage done to our fighting men and women, to the military institutions that
protect us, has left us dangerously unable to respond should one of those
enemies choose to make a move.
Finally, Bush's close and cuddly friendship with the House of Saud has
been an incredible aid and comfort to terrorists throughout the world. Saudi
Arabia, with its vast revenues and its Wahabbist extremism, is the birthing
bed of international terrorism. Yet nary a word is whispered about this,
because the House of Saud and the House of Bush have been umbilically
connected for decades. Our worst enemies, our deadliest foes, the enablers
of those who would kill and maim among our soldiers and civilians, have an
open invitation to dinner at the White House every time they decide to go to
Washington.
But that's just business, right?
George Washington once said, "The willingness with which our young
people are likely to serve in any war, no matter how justified, shall be
directly proportional as to how they perceive the veterans of earlier wars
were Treated and Appreciated by their nation." Defenders of the Bush
administration can argue that war critics are harming our troops until their
faces turn blue. The real harm being done to our troops, the real aid and
comfort being provided to the enemy, is not coming from the Democratic party
or from the activist street. It is coming from the very men and women who
hide behind the troops, who use such rhetoric to deflect the consequences of
their folly.
Don't let it stand.
William Rivers Pitt is a New York Times and internationally bestselling
author of two books: War on Iraq: What Team Bush Doesn't Want You to Know
and The Greatest Sedition Is Silence.
***
http://select.nytimes.com/2005/11/11/opinion/11krugman.html?hp
The New York Times
November 11, 2005
Op-Ed Columnist
The Deadly Doughnut
By Paul Krugman
Registration for Medicare's new prescription drug
benefit starts next week. Soon millions of Americans
will learn that doughnuts are bad for your health. And
if we're lucky, Americans will also learn a bigger
lesson: politicians who don't believe in a positive
role for government shouldn't be allowed to design new
government programs.
Before we turn to the larger issue, let's look at how
the Medicare drug benefit will work over the course of
next year.
At first, the benefit will look like a normal insurance
plan, with a deductible and co-payments.
But if your cumulative drug expenses reach $2,250, a
very strange thing will happen: you'll suddenly be on
your own. The Medicare benefit won't kick in again
unless your costs reach $5,100. This gap in coverage
has come to be known as the "doughnut hole." (Did you
think I was talking about Krispy Kremes?)
One way to see the bizarre effect of this hole is to
notice that if you are a retiree and spend $2,000 on
drugs next year, Medicare will cover 66 percent of your
expenses. But if you spend $5,000 - which means that
you're much more likely to need help paying those
expenses - Medicare will cover only 30 percent of your
bills.
A study in the July/August issue of Health Affairs
points out that this will place many retirees on a
financial "roller coaster."
People with high drug costs will have relatively low
out-of-pocket expenses for part of the year - say,
until next summer. Then, suddenly, they'll enter the
doughnut hole, and their personal expenses will soar.
And because the same people tend to have high drug
costs year after year, the roller-coaster ride will
repeat in 2007.
How will people respond when their out-of-pocket costs
surge? The Health Affairs article argues, based on
experience from H.M.O. plans with caps on drug
benefits, that it's likely "some beneficiaries will cut
back even essential medications while in the doughnut
hole." In other words, this doughnut will make some
people sick, and for some people it will be deadly.
The smart thing to do, for those who could afford it,
would be to buy supplemental insurance that would cover
the doughnut hole. But guess what: the bill that
established the drug benefit specifically prohibits you
from buying insurance to cover the gap. That's why many
retirees who already have prescription drug insurance
are being advised not to sign up for the Medicare
benefit.
If all of this makes the drug bill sound like a
disaster, bear in mind that I've touched on only one of
the bill's awful features. There are many others, like
the clause that prohibits Medicare from using its clout
to negotiate lower drug prices. Why is this bill so
bad?
The probable answer is that the Republican
Congressional leaders who rammed the bill through in
2003 weren't actually trying to protect retired
Americans against the risk of high drug expenses. In
fact, they're fundamentally hostile to the idea of
social insurance, of public programs that reduce
private risk.
Their purpose was purely political: to be able to say
that President Bush had honored his 2000 campaign
promise to provide prescription drug coverage by
passing a drug bill, any drug bill.
Once you recognize that the drug benefit is a purely
political exercise that wasn't supposed to serve its
ostensible purpose, the absurdities in the program make
sense. For example, the bill offers generous coverage
to people with low drug costs, who have the least need
for help, so lots of people will get small checks in
the mail and think they're being treated well.
Meanwhile, the people who are actually likely to need a
lot of help paying their drug expenses were
deliberately offered a very poor benefit. According to
a report issued along with the final version of the
bill, people are prohibited from buying supplemental
insurance to cover the doughnut hole to keep
beneficiaries from becoming "insensitive to costs" -
that is, buying too much medicine because they don't
pay the price.
A more likely motive is that Congressional leaders
didn't want a drug bill that really worked for middle-
class retirees.
Can the drug bill be fixed? Yes, but not by current
management. It's hard to believe that either the
current Congressional leadership or the Mayberry
Machiavellis in the White House would do any better on
a second pass. We won't have a drug benefit that works
until we have politicians who want it to work.
Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company
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