Democrats Suck Significantly Less

Clinton was a dirt bag, but in the midst of his impeachment, he listened to Richard Clark and bombed a site alleged to be a training camp at which Bin Laden was thought to reside. For that, he was ridiculed by Republicans as trying to turn the focus off of his own problems. 

He was a dirt bag, but he didn't sell the moment as Repukes did. 

American forces were quickly deployed to Afghanistan, but before they even set foot, Bush and his cabal saw the opportunity to get the American people behind an attack on Iraq. Spewing false intelligence with a silver tongue, he drove us to war against the man who tried go kill his Daddy. An estimated  one million Iraqis have died as a result. 

Campaign Obama promised to pull out our forces from Iraq and leave a support force of 50,000 in place this fall. It wasn't a promise liked by Liberals, but it's exactly what he did. He promised to step up our forces in Afghanistan, saying it was where we should focus during the war on terror. Liberals don't like it, but it's what he promised, and it's what he's done.

George Bush went on live television and pretended search for WMD under his desk, as if the entire reason for going into Iraq and wasting our service men and women's blood was a joke.

Obama gambled $700 billion of debt to save us from another great depression.  He promised to track where every dollar went.  He pushed banks to provide loans at reduced rates and for less than the original loan amount; while a huge percentage of people have still lost their homes, at least two of my closest family have had their loans renegotiated and have not lost their homes. Almost all of that $700 billion has been repaid to the American people. Timothy Geithner is a piece of scum,  but the money he spent greasing the wheels of the industry he came from has nearly been repaid. 

George F'ing Bush spent about the same amount, but no-one has a clue where that money went, and maybe 25 years from now we'll hear about which family friends benefited. 

Democrats took congress in 2006 and immediately raised the minimum wage. It hadn't been raised since 1997, the entire interim period during which Repukes held the house and Senate. 

Obama is called a socialist for saving what's left of General Motors. GM have since staged a comeback and people like Nutjob, who call the man a socialist in one breath for these actions, turn around and whine about the inability to get in some personal benefit from GM's IPO, the selling of which repays the debt Obama secured to save the company. That's some twisted mother F'ing whining logic if ever I've heard any. 

The first things we're hearing as Repukes prepare to take congress is that we should stop government funding of NPR. What a mandate they seem to have pulled out of their a$$es. 

Yes, Democrats suck. Bu they suck unbelievably less than Repukes. It's easy to forget how morally destitute their opposition is. It's easy to forget that one million lives have been lost for a Republican's personal vendetta (and an effort to secure Middle East dominance, a goal he actually moved us away from by he and his cabal's ineptitude). It's easy to forget that the Glass-Steagall act was put in place by Democrats (who had a spine back then) to keep us from falling into the same behaviors that led to the Great Depression; it's easy to forget that Glass-Steagall was repealed by a bill initiated by Republican senator Phil Gramm--you know, the guy John-Sell-Out-McCain hired as his financial advisor--and that we nearly suffered another less than 10 years after its passage.  

So yes, Democrats stink and I hold my nose when I vote for guys like Bennet in CO, who hardly finished his acceptance speech before saying he was ready to sell out more national debt to give continued tax breaks to the wealthy. But I hold my nose and do it because their competition's carrion stench is so much more stomach turning.

There is a document out there by a think tank called the Project for the New American Century. From their site:

"The Project for the New American Century is a non-profit educational organization dedicated to a few fundamental propositions: that American leadership is good both for America and for the world; and that such leadership requires military strength, diplomatic energy and commitment to moral principle."

Cheney, Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz were all alleged members at some point, so you get the flavor of the group. The following document was unabashed in its argument that we needed to install a military base in Iraq, so that we could maintain our dominance in the ever more important Middle East:

http://www.newamericancentury.org/RebuildingAmericasDefenses.pdf

I didn't get through the entire document, but got far enough to find this jewel of a quote,

"While the unresolved conflict with Iraq provides the immediate justification, the need for a substantial American force presence in the Gulf transcends the issue of
the regime of Saddam Hussein."

This document was a blueprint for Bush's first term in office that was followed so closely I couldn't believe my eyes. Especially, I was surprised back then to learn that, with this information freely available, it didn't get mainstream attention. How hopeful I was back then!

So, as we pull our troops out of Iraq, but leave behind 50,000 soldiers and whoknows how many private contractors who we have placed above any law there, it seems fitting to cry foul once again as to the real reasons we invaded Iraq, where on the order of a MILLION people have died as a result of our search for global dominance. God bless the U.S.A. indeed. God forgive us.

Peace

Health Care Reform Debate

The government health care debate is one of the most discussed topics right now, as president Obama made it a major issue of his platform and has carried through with placing it as a high priority. He had pushed for congress to deliver him a bill before the fall congressional recess (going on now), but this was not achieved. It has become a flash point topic, encompassing individual views on:

1. Whether health care is a right or a privilege.
2. The role government should play in health care.
3. The ability, or lack thereof, of the government to provide quality health care insurance efficiently.
4. Whether or not the government wants to take over health care.
5. Whether a single payer plan should be on the table.
6. The quality of government run health care in other countries.
7. The equating of government health care to socialism.
8. Whether or not private industry can ethically deliver health care.

I am attempting to educate myself on the costs of our health care system and hope to share here what I have learned. I will provide references to sources and my goal is to distill the information in the hope that readers will be able to get a somewhat concise overview of the information, while being able to follow the references for two reasons: to fact and conclusion check, and to dig more into the topic.

Before diving in to the topic, I clearly and proudly state first that I am a liberal. To me, this label means that I believe a share of the wealth of our country--which these days means a share of the deficit we choose to spend now at a cost we will pay later--should be spent to provide a minimum quality of life to members of every income strata in our country. I do not oppose personal wealth, but I oppose personal wealth at the exclusion of this minimum quality of life. Given that the wealthiest 20% of families in the United States owned 84.6% of the country's wealth, according to:

http://www.faculty.fairfield.edu/faculty/hodgson/Courses/so11/stratification/income&wealth.htm

I do not believe it is an unfair burden to believe that some of this wealth should be redistributed to help the poorest 20% of the population. I believe it is more important that we as a society provide health care, for example, to help someone making minimum wage fight cancer with chemotherapy, radiation, or whatever treatment is appropriate, than it is to allow our wealthiest to hold that money in their bank account or real-estate investments, or to spend on their third sports car of choice, for example.

This belief pervades my opinions on health care. Even if you do not agree with it, I hope that the information here will stand on its own to provide insight into the health care situation in our country.

QUALITY OF CARE
-----------------------

While many people in this country enjoy high quality health care, I am not sure that the following is a well known fact: the World Health Organization ranked us 37th in quality of health care ( http://www.photius.com/rankings/healthranks.html) and 24th in life expectancy (http://www.photius.com/rankings/healthy_life_table2.html). This data is from 2000, the last year the WHO produced such data. At that time, the U.S. spent more than any country, as a percentage of gross domestic product, except the Marshall Islands (who were 141st in quality of health care--at least we outperformed somebody) :

http://www.photius.com/rankings/total_health_expenditure_as_pecent_of_gdp_2000_to_2005.html.

A further statistic where we fall far down on the list is in infant mortality, where 32 countries have better live birth to death ratios (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_infant_mortality_rate).

By comparison, France--often vilified for providing poor quality socialist medical coverage, but only through anecdotes--was rated as having the best quality of care, had the 3rd longest life expectancy, and was number 10 in health expenditures as a percentage of GDP.

All this is to say, the United States spends more of it's wealth on health care than any other country in the world, yet we're not in the top 10, nor even the top 20 in terms of quality of health care. With regard to life expectancy, I personally believe this is also largely influenced by diet, but a discussion of trans fats and high fructose corn syrup, while related to the general topic, is too distracting in this post.

PRICE OF HEALTH CARE IN THE U.S.
---------------------------------------------

So far, the discussion has related the cost as a percentage of GDP. Wikipedia quotes health care costs in the United States in 2007 at $2.26 trillion (reference 1). I now copy in its entirety the information on the President's budget for 2008 from Wikipedia ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_United_States_federal_budget):

Begin Wikipedia Copy and Paste
---------------------------------

The President's budget for 2008 totals $2.9 trillion. Percentages in parentheses indicate percentage change compared to 2007. This budget request is broken down by the following expenditures:

• Mandatory spending: $1.788 trillion (+4.2%)
  • $608 billion (+4.5%) - Social Security
  • $386 billion (+5.2%) - Medicare
  • $209 billion (+5.6%) - Medicaid and the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP)
  • $324 billion (+1.8%) - Unemployment/Welfare/Other mandatory spending
  • $261 billion (+9.2%) - Interest on National Debt

• Discretionary spending: $1.114 trillion (+3.1%)
  • $481.4 billion (+12.1%) - Department of Defense
  • $145.2 billion (+45.8%) - Global War on Terror
  • $69.3 billion (+0.3%) - Department of Health and Human Services
  • $56.0 billion (+0.0%) - Department of Education
  • $39.4 billion (+18.7%) - Department of Veterans Affairs
  • $35.2 billion (+1.4%) - Department of Housing and Urban Development
  • $35.0 billion (+22.0%) - Department of State and Other International Programs
  • $34.3 billion (+7.2%) - Department of Homeland Security
  • $24.3 billion (+6.6%) - Department of Energy
  • $20.2 billion (+4.1%) - Department of Justice
  • $20.2 billion (+3.1%) - Department of Agriculture
  • $17.3 billion (+6.8%) - National Aeronautics and Space Administration
  • $12.1 billion (+13.1%) - Department of Transportation
  • $12.1 billion (+6.1%) - Department of the Treasury
  • $10.6 billion (+2.9%) - Department of the Interior
  • $10.6 billion (-9.4%) - Department of Labor
  • $51.8 billion (+9.7%) - Other On-budget Discretionary Spending
  • $39.0 billion - Other Off-budget Discretionary Spending

---------------------------------
End Wikipedia Copy and Paste

So, as a nation, we spent $2.26 trillion on health care in 2007, while the federal government spent $2.9 trillion in 2008. To say that health care is big business is an understatement. The Wikipedia page on health care in the U.S. (ref1) states, "Reports on the percentage of costs that go to profits varies from 25-30%." Using the lower value, $565 billion is being made as profit by the health care industry. By comparison, the health care industry's profit exceeds the United States defense budget by $83 billion. One now starts to see why the health care industry is lining up solidly to fight any change in the status quo. If you're making more money IN PROFIT than the U.S. spends on its military, well that's something worth fighting for.

Given the sheer size of the health care budget, it is easy to see why people on both sides of the isle in congress are acting with full intention now that the health care issue has become a debate, rather than a campaign talking point. As congress is now in recess, and representatives return home, the public town halls being held by said reps have health care as the front and center issue. As it is an emotional issue, as well as a political and fiscal one, for many people, such meetings have already been the site of arrests and fist fights ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zTXBOgPCh9w&feature=channel_page ). With all this intensity on the issue, I think it is incredibly important to wade through bogus arguments and stay focused on the realities of our health care system and our goals for its improvement.

In 2007, Wikipedia states that nearly 46 million people were uninsured for at least part of the year (ref 1). 9.7 million of those are listd as non-citizens. Further, Wikipedia states, "It has been estimated that nearly one fifth of the uninsured population is able to afford insurance, almost one quarter is eligible for public coverage, and the remaining 56% need financial assistance (8.9% of all Americans)." That means roughly 26 million people in the U.S. cannot afford insurance and require assistance to do so. Given the cost of health care per person was listed at $7,439, one can estimate that roughly $192 billion is required to pay for health care for those who cannot afford it. Where this money will come from is a hot topic of the current debate.

SOURCES OF EXCESS SPENDING
---------------------------------------

Some people that I've talked to who don't believe the government should have a role in health care have posited that we should first try to recover some of the waste in health care and use that to help pay for covering the uninsured. Others, of course, believe being uninsured is the uninsured's problem. But certainly with a budget of this magnitude, the waste will add up to large dollars. The CATO institute has a paper looking at the cost to benefit ratios of various government regulations on the health care industry that covers much of this topic:

http://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/pa527.pdf

The author, a Duke University Professor, attempts to compare the cost imposed on business and consumers due to government regulation to the financial benefits reaped. The author has much leeway in how he computes the values, but does attempt to spell out the basis for his decisions. He concludes that the cost of health care regulation to the consumer and business is $339.2 billion, while the benefit to same is estimated at $170.1 billion. This leaves a net cost due to health care regulation of $169.1 billion. This is about 7.5% of the health care budget and not an insignificant amount. He lists the medical tort system (the ability of people to seek a judgement for malpractice, for example) as the highest offender at approximately $80 billion. By contrast, the requirement that hospitals provide emergency room care and community service care, totals just less than $7.5 billion.

The National Coalition on Health Reform cites a study by the Institute of Medicine that states hospitals provide $34 billion in uncompensated care, and another $26 billion is paid out of pocket by the uninsured ( http://www.nchc.org/facts/coverage.shtml ). This total of $60 billion spent more closely matches the maximum value that the CATO study predicted, rather than the expected values used to come up with a $7.5 billion loss.

In the discussion on tort reform (reigning in legal costs due to malpractice), the author discusses the defensive medicine practices that are induced by the current system, e.g. doctors having testts performed not because they think they are useful, but rather because performing the test will protect them legally. The author states the following, "In New York, a multivariate analysis
showed that the medical malpractice system reportedly deters 28.8 percent of all malpractice,
but this estimate was not statistically significant,possibly due to small sample size." (his reference 67). "The ratio of negligent injuries to negligent deaths was 2.9:1 in New York" (his reference68) "but was 10.4:1 in a study of Colorado and Utah." (His reference 69). Earlier in the article he claims that it is widely accepted that 10's of thousands die annually due to medical malpractice. If one assumes the number of deaths is 20,000 (tens of thousands is rather ambiguous), and that 28.8% of malpractice is deterred, and that 1 out of 3.9 of those deterrences were a deterrence of death, then the number of lives saved is on the order of:

20,000 x 0.288 x 1/3.9 = 1,477 lives saved.

If I divide the $80 billion that lack of tort reform is supposed to cost us by the number of lives saved (this doesn't include the greater number of people who are not injured or impaired due to the extra testing), I come up with the cost of saving each of those lives: $54 million.

The above is based on a lot of loose numbers, in my opinion, but certainly the cost of maintaining malpractice insurance and calling for defensive procedures, rahter than those that are based on the doctors assessment, is significant.

Interestingly, Obama's original choice for Health and Human Services secretary, Tom Daschle, claims there is $600 to $700 billion in defensive care ( http://content.usatoday.com/communities/theoval/post/2009/06/68120137/1 ). This is quite a huge number and off by the CATO paper's estimate by a factor of almost 10. I find it hard to believe that 30% of the health care budget is being spent on unnecessary testing, especially when Wikipedia (ref 1) lists diagnostics as 23% of the health care cost. Given Tom Daschle's close ties to the health care industry as a lobbyist (part of the reason he is not Health and Human Services secretary), I conclude that this number is grossly inflated.

Medicare fraud is another topic that's been shared with me. One article quotes the cost as high as $60 billion ( http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22184921 ). A house hearing of the Energy and Commerce Subcommittee resulted in federal officials stating that billions of dollars in fraud are perpetrated agains Medicare ( http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/68371.php ). So, the number may fall between say $3 billion to $60 billion and is another that is hard to tie down. Whatever the true number, it seems that there is much waste to be reclaimed by putting more law enforcement energy (and dollars) into the problem.

Sadly, the $7.5 billion spent on caring for the uninsured is a very ineffective way to help them. I will concede, however, that it is a much lower cost thant the $192 billion I calculated above that would be required to insure those who cannot afford to insure themselves.

In addition, emergency rooms are the most expensive form of health care, and they are not set up to help those with more common place ailments that, while deserving of a doctor's care, are not legally required to be dealt with under the government mandates. For example, if you are uninsured and need to have a cancerous growth removed surgically, you will not be treated. You may be treated for the pain that it is causing you, but no hospital is required to provide the surgery. This is the harsh reality for me, who like far too many of us lost a close family member to cancer, that someone who aquires such a harsh and devastating disease would not be provided medical support to fight it. I think that no-one should fight this battle without the option for medical treatment, and that the remaining $192 billion short fall in a $2.26 trillion dollar overall budget is a pittance to pay for the support of those who cannot access such care.

TODAY'S CONCLUSION
----------------------------

Approximately 47 million people are uninsured in the U.S. Nearly 80% of those are legal citizens, and nearly 26 million of the 47 million simply cannot afford health care. The number of uninsured now is surely higher as we have just experienced the greatest recession since the Great Depression. Medical debt is the principal cause of bankruptcy in the U.S. (ref 1). The medical budget in the U.S., at $2.26 trillion, is close to the amount of the entire federal budget. The amount of waste and fraud that can be recovered is a large percentage of the roughly $200 billion needed to insure those who cannot afford insurance (using numbers from 2007 and my own calculations). Limiting medical malpractice suits and fighting fraud against Medicare and Medicaid could yield from $60 to $100 billion in return.

Many opposed to a government health care option believe the costs will be too burdensome. Given the costs we are already paying, I believe paying to care for those who cannot afford care in the current system is not as burdensome as some believe. I hope to have provided a basis for why I reach this conclusion, and I invite feedback.


--------------------
REFERENCES
ref 1: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_care_in_the_United_States

Impeachment Movement Grows

As 2006 revs up and the elections look more and more grim for Republicans, the potential for a Democratic takeover of the house and senate is becoming a real possibility. Bush risks having REAL investigations of his misdeeds if this happens, as opposed to the farces that are going on now to appease the public.

Some Democrats aren't waiting for January 2007 to get started with impeachment proceedings, however. A little known law that allows state senators to impeach the president has been on the books. I learned about this a while ago when I added this blog to the Impeach Bush Coaltion. There, a proponent of impeachment mentioned the The Jefferson Manual of rules for the U.S. House of Representatives(see section SEC. LIII. -- IMPEACHMENT), which allows state legislatures to initiate impeachment proceedings by submitting charges to Congress.

Though I never thought anyone would actually use this little known rule, an Illinois senator, Karen A. Yarbrough, seems to have started a real snowball effect by putting forth bill HJR0125. On the heels of this, a bill has now been introduced in California. Others may soon follow, as there are rumbling about one in Vermont.

I have to admit, when I read Impeach Bush member Bulldog Manifesto's blog, I thought he was spewing into the ether. Three cheers for Bulldog!!! His dream is becoming reality.

Bush Honored By Chuck Rangel

Bush often makes overtures to the black community to try and garner their votes. This requires that we all forget that he kicked off his 2000 campaign at Bob Jones University where, at the time, interracial dating was still forbidden by school policy. But if you are colored in America, perhaps you can still overlook such actions by Bush. For example, representative Chuck Rangel discussed the benefits of George Bush in the following article. It's worth a look!

http://www.nysun.com/article/20495

Why Oil Remains the Status Quo

For years I've pondered the question of how the U.S.A. maintains its high wages and standard of living when there are so many other nations full of capable hard workers willing to do the same jobs for less. Certainly this is a question that a lifetime of research could be spent on, but one obvious answer is that we use more oil than any other country, and we get it cheap (remember, oil = energy = work done). Now I used to believe that we out and out strongarm our suppliers to keep the price low. A friend pointed out that anyone can buy a barrel of oil on the open market--it's how the U.S. taxes it that makes a difference. It's hard to argue with that. However, it's also hard (though most Americans pull it off) not to be aware of how much we spend on military efforts, either ours or those of our suppliers, to maintain the flow of fuel to our country. OK, not the exact amounts spent, but that our war machine is largely geared towards maintaining regimes favorable to gas extraction (and subsequent supply to the U.S.A.).

I've brought up two topics in the above: the U.S. has very low taxes on fuel, and the U.S. funds military operations and regimes around the world that help to maintain our fuel supply.

Nothing wrong with that, you say?

Well, let's start with the facts. America fuels itself currently using 21 of the 85 million barrels of oil produced per day. With 3% of the population, we use 25% of the worlds fuel. That makes us the haves. How do we keep the have nots from being upset about this? Well, for one, we fund despots like Saddam Hussein (until they stop doing our bidding), and sell our weapons to the leaders we like, such as fighter jets to the Saudis--remember them, the country who can lay claim to 19 of the 21 hijackers of 911? I'm not claiming here that the Saudi Arabian government was involved with the attack, but the Saudi government is not well liked among its people, largely for aligning itself with the west (that's us). This is a big issue and not the main topic of this post.

How about our lax taxation? The problem is spelled SUV. The great success of U.S. auto makers selling SUVs is partially due to low gas prices. As long as you can buy cheap gas, the biggest deterrent to buying an SUV is their higher cost. Ahh, but here, the government has helped out Detroit again: businesses can write off the costs of an SUV for their taxes. That's because they are classified as farming equipment if they weigh over 6000 lbs. See:

http://www.taxpayer.net/TCS/whitepapers/SUVtaxbreak.htm

So, here we have our government using taxes (possibly made on sale of fuel) to subsidize the cost of SUVs--and at the same time providing an incentive to ensure that SUVs weigh at least 6000 lbs to qualify!

And what do those auto makers do with all that cash? Well, they certainly recognize a great deal, so they spend political action committee dollars to ensure the status quo doesn't change. A case in point:

Going to

http://www.crp.org/pacs/pacgot.asp?strID=C00043687&Cycle=2004

you can get a list of PAC contributions to the 2004 race by Daimler Chrysler. Doing a search on bills drafted by one of the two highest paid recipients in the senate, Christopher Bond, (R) of MO, I found, not surprisingly, that he'd drafted the Bond-Levin Ammendment. From the following site:

http://www.40mpg.org/getinf/congress_votes.cfm#amend2

"The provisions in the Bond-Levin amendment...also would undercut the government’s incentive to set standards at the maximum feasible fuel economy for the industry as a whole by requiring consideration of "manufacturer competitiveness," which likely would drive down standards to those achievable by the worst performers."

Not surprisingly, Levin was also well rewarded and was one of the top recipients in the House race for 2004.

So not only do we get cheap gas, but our representatives make sure we have low fuel efficiency standards and great tax incentives to buy the WORST performers.

So just ponder for a moment, what could we accomplish if we taxed oil a little more, and ended our subsidies for gas guzzling SUVs? In fact, what if we didn't subsidize the oil industry as well, but, rather, spent our subsidy monies on alternative energy? But, you say, the president talks about funding research for alternative energy every time there is an energy bill passed. And he always mentions how important it is to national security that we develop aleternative energy.

That's what he says. But whay he and congress do is a whole other thing. For example from:

http://www.unpluggedliving.com/nrel-budget-cuts-force-layoffs/

"NREL’s budget for fiscal 2006 will be $20 million smaller than 2005’s $200 million. While a 10% percent cut may seem drastic and dimwitted at such a time on this planet, it’s a drop in the bucket when you consider that the US Congress has chopped the DOE’s total renewable energy programs budget for 2006 by more than a staggering 35%."

For those of you who don't know, NREL is the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Golden, Colorado (www.nrel.gov), the preeminent research lab for renewable energy in the country. I visited there last year and found the public area of this institution to look like a 2nd rate high school, maybe even grade school, science fair. They had computers that weren't working, and a smattering of demos, some of which worked and some which didn't. Obviously when your budget is getting slashed while the pres talks about how important alternative energy is, as an employee of NREL, you aren't really motivated to go fix the dog and pony show for the public.

Not outraged yet? Why the *#!& not?

To review:

1. SUVs, if they weigh over 6000 lbs, are a full tax write off. For example, a $110,000 SUV provides a $106,000 tax write off! Our government gives up tax income to provide purchasing incentives for these vehicles.

2. Automakers make campaign contributions to our government officials, who turn around and make sure the government doesn't raise fuel efficiency standards.

3. With all that lost revenue, the government's gotta save money somewhere. So, they slash the renewable energy budget of the Department of Energy by 35%!!!

So the next time someone says renewable energy isn't really feasible, you can tell them that neither are SUVs, that's why our government subsidizes the mother *#$!#*@ !!!

The Little Boy Who Cried Wolf

Note: I wrote this in January 2003 and sent it to friends and family. Many found it too scathing. Three years later, I have to say that the characters in the story have only become more frightening as their roles in government continue to escalate.

The Little Boy Who Cried Wolf
Old Version

A shepherd-boy, who watched a flock of sheep near a village, brought out the villagers three or four times by crying out, "Wolf! Wolf!" and when his neighbors came to help him, laughed at them for their pains. The Wolf, however, did truly come at last. The Shepherd-boy, now really alarmed, shouted in an agony of terror: "Pray, do come and help me; the Wolf is killing the sheep"; but no one paid any heed to his cries, nor rendered any assistance. The Wolf, having no cause of fear, at his leisure lacerated or destroyed the whole flock.

New Version

A former head of the CIA became vice president of the most powerful country in the world. He later ran for president on the promise of, "Read my lips, no new taxes." His administration believed that at all costs, even if it meant breaking the country whom they represented's constitution and laws, that the evil empire of the Soviet Union needed to be destroyed.

And so, they used words like evil and monstrous to villify their chosen opponent, and the world listened. Weapons were given to allies of dubious and weak allegiance so long as they promised to fight against the evil empire, or through their actions, weaken it.

When war first broke out between Iran and Iraq, the Soviet Union turned back its arms ships en route to Iraq, and for the next year and a half, while Iraq was on the offensive, Moscow did not provide weapons to Baghdad. In March 1981, the Iraqi Communist Party, repressed by Saddam Hussein, beamed broadcasts from the Soviet Union calling for an end to the war and the withdrawal of Iraqi troops. That same month U.S. Secretary of State Alexander Haig told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that he saw the possibility of improved ties with Baghdad and approvingly noted that Iraq was concerned by "the behavior of Soviet imperialism in the Middle Eastern area." The U.S. then approved the sale to Iraq of five Boeing jetliners, and sent a deputy assistant secretary of state to Baghdad for talks. The U.S. removed Iraq from its notoriously selective list of nations supporting international terrorism (despite the fact that terrorist Abu Nidal was based in the country) and Washington extended a $400 million credit guarantee for U.S. exports to Iraq. In November 1984, the U.S. and Iraq restored diplomatic relations, which had been ruptured in 1967.

Meanwhile, our president and vice president were concerned about having lost its diplomatic ties to Iran, worrying that the Soviet Union would become a strong backer of the Khomeini regime, thus maintaining a foothold in the middle east. A CIA position paper in 1985 noted that whichever superpower got to Iran first would be "in a strong position to work towards the exclusion of the other. In 1984, because of Iranian battlefield victories and the growing U.S.-Iraqi ties, Washington launched "Operation Staunch," an effort to dry up Iran's sources of arms by pressuring U.S. allies to stop supplying Teheran. U.S. secret arms sales to Iran in 1985 and 1986 thus not only violated U.S. neutrality, but undercut as well what the U.S. was trying to get everyone else to do. The cynical would note that Operation Staunch made the U.S. arms transfers to Iran that much more valuable.

When this arms dealing became known, the Reagan administration was faced with a major scandal on several counts. Proceeds from the arms sales had been diverted to the Nicaraguan contras in violation of the Boland Amendment. And though the administration's professed uncompromising stand on terrorism was always hypocritical, given its sponsorship of terrorism in Nicaragua and elsewhere, being caught trading "arms-for-hostages" was particularly embarrassing.

During this war, the administration also enabled the development of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. A 1994 report by the Senate Banking Committee concluded that "the United States provided the government of Iraq with 'dual-use' licensed materials which assisted in the development of Iraqi chemical, biological and missile-system programs." This assistance, according to the report, included "chemical warfare-agent precursors; chemical warfare-agent production facility plans and technical drawings; chemical warfare filling equipment; biological warfare-related materials; missile fabrication equipment and missile system guidance equipment." Although the U.S. publicly stated (and states) abhorrence for the use of such weapons, it provided them happily to Hussein, who used them both on his enemies within and out of his country.

The U.S.-Iraqi relationship flourished from February 1986, when then-Vice President George Bush met with Iraq's ambassador to Washington, Nizar Hamdoon, and assured him that Baghdad would be permitted to receive more sophisticated U.S. technology, until the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in 1990. Over that four-year period, the Reagan and Bush administrations approved licenses for the export of more than $600 million worth of advanced American technology to Iraq, according to congressional reports.

With the Iran-Iraq war escalating, President Ronald Reagan dispatched his Middle East envoy, a former secretary of defense, to Baghdad with a hand-written letter to Iraqi President Saddam Hussein and a message that Washington was willing at any moment to resume diplomatic relations.

That envoy was Donald Rumsfeld.

And so the world had its first helping of the administration crying wolf, only to find that it was operating purely out of selfish desires, performing whatever underhanded tricks were necessary to achieve its goals.

But certainly this wasn't the only area in which the administration misbehaved.

In early 1981, then ambassador Jack Binns, Carter-appointed to Honduras, made numerous complaints about human rights abuses by the Honduran military. Reagan then replaced Carter, and in response to Jack Binns' complaints and concerns about murders and disappearances, called him home and replaced him with John Negroponte.

Negroponte served as ambassador to Honduras from 1981 to 1985, a period during which U.S. military aid to Honduras grew from $4 million to $77.4 million. Accusations abounded against the U.S.-backed military regime for violations against human rights in Honduras. Reports suggest more than 100 people disappeared, with a special intelligence unit called Battalion 316 at the center of the controversy. The question senators have for Negroponte is why he didn't raise concerns. Negroponte denies having knowledge of any wrongdoing. It has been suggested that the vast amount of evidence and testimony supporting the human rights violations would have required that Mr. Negroponte live in total isolation not to have noticed the crimes that had so disturbed Jack Binns. Later, the Honduras Commission on Human Rights accused Mr. Negroponte himself of human rights violations.

South America proved to be a hot bed of improper activity for the administration. In October and November 1986, two secret U.S. Government operations were publicly exposed, potentially implicating Reagan Administration officials in illegal activities. These operations were the provision of assistance to the military activities of the Nicaraguan contra rebels during an October 1984 to October 1986 prohibition on such aid, and the sale of U.S. arms to Iran in contravention of stated U.S. policy and in possible violation of arms-export controls. In late November 1986, Reagan Administration officials announced that some of the proceeds from the sale of U.S. arms to Iran had been diverted to the contras.

the Iran operations were carried out with the knowledge of, among others, President Ronald Reagan, Vice President George Bush, Secretary of State George P. Shultz, Secretary of Defense Caspar W. Weinberger, Director of Central Intelligence William J. Casey, and national security advisers Robert C. McFarlane and John M. Poindexter; of these officials, only Weinberger and Shultz dissented from the policy decision, and Weinberger eventually acquiesced by ordering the Department of Defense to provide the necessary arms; and large volumes of highly relevant, contemporaneously created documents were systematically and willfully withheld from investigators by several Reagan Administration officials.

following the revelation of these operations in October and November 1986, Reagan Administration officials deliberately deceived the Congress and the public about the level and extent of official knowledge of and support for these operations. In addition, Independent Counsel concluded that the off-the-books nature of the Iran and contra operations gave line-level personnel the opportunity to commit money crimes.

Independent Counsel's investigation did not develop evidence that proved that Vice President Bush violated any criminal statute. Contrary to his public pronouncements, however, he was fully aware of the Iran arms sales. Bush was regularly briefed, along with the President, on the Iran arms sales, and he participated in discussions to obtain third-country support for the contras. The OIC obtained no evidence that Bush was aware of the diversion. The OIC learned in December 1992 that Bush had failed to produce a diary containing contemporaneous notes relevant to Iran/contra, despite requests made in 1987 and again in early 1992 for the production of such material. Bush refused to be interviewed for a final time in light of evidence developed in the latter stages of OIC's investigation, leaving unresolved a clear picture of his Iran/contra involvement. Bush's pardon of Weinberger on December 24, 1992 pre-empted a trial in which defense counsel indicated that they intended to call Bush as a witness.

Then came dark days. The elder Bush lost his second bid for president, perhaps allowing the world at large some hope that the American people could recognize a liar and a rat when they saw one. But, alas, for two terms, another smooth liar ruled the nation, until the American people again railed against misbehavior, voting strongly for another Bush to take the helm. OK, not strongly. Bush garnered 50,456,169 votes, against his opponent's 50,996,116 votes. The Florida recount fiasco ended with a president select Bush chosen by the U.S. supreme court's decision.

With all the rhetoric spouted by Bush against the detestable actions of his predecessor, one might have hoped that misbehavior by the presidential administration would be a thing of the past, that U.S. citizens could travel the world and be proud to state their origin. Any such hopes were dashed, however, as W's new cabinet took shape, and some had to wonder if the previous Bush office-holders had simply been cryogenically frozen, waiting and now surprised that they should be returned to power so soon after their previous misbehaviors.

For instance:

John Negroponte is now the amabassador to the United Nations. More than willing to cry foul at the misbehaviors of countries the U.S.--actually the U.S. administration--now considers it's enemy, this man still claims he knew nothing of the human rights abuses taking place around him in a previous high ranking ambassador's post.


Donald Rumsfeld is currently the secretary of defense. His greatest efforts are focused on preparing to go to war with and villify the actions of Sadam Hussein, the very man he worked to deliver the necessary ingredients to for his weapons of mass destruction.

And now W stands before the American people and the world using the same catch phrases his father used to describe an enemy entrenched in power by the very people W has put back into key positions. But the world is wary of George Bushes crying wolf. With his father working for the Carlyle group, and nefarious and direct links to the Bin Laden family (see web links), the people of the world have no belief that there can be anything but personal interest fueling the efforts towards war of the U.S. administration.

The moral of the story: If you think that voting republican makes you any more honorable than those voting for any other political group in the U.S., you'll have to find a new crop of listeners--we've all heard it before.

References:

I stole much of the information in this story directly from the following web sites. If any of the authors feel I have lifted their material, please contact me via comments left at this blog.

http://www.commondreams.org/views02/0802-01.htm

http://www.bushwatch.net/bushmoney.htm

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