NOT A COUNTRY ANYMORE

By William Fisher

Think about contractors in Iraq, and what’s the first thing that comes to mind? Halliburton, raking in billions and overcharging taxpayers by billing the government for stuff it forgot to deliver, and then getting bonuses for almost all its questionable charges? The Lincoln Group, paying Iraqi journalists to plant “good news” stories in the press? The Pentagon’s private army of outsourced “security specialists”, like Blackwater and Custer Battles, the mercenaries whose greed and shameful tactics make the CIA look like choirboys?

You’d be right. And wrong.

Wrong because what you probably don’t know is that these miscreants are not the only contractors there. There is also a not-nearly-large-enough cadre of contractors who don’t make millions.

Most of them work for USAID – the much-maligned U.S. Agency for International Development. They are both Americans and Iraqis – Shia, Sunni, Kurd. And they work side by side every day, in an environment of chaos, fear and violence, risking their lives trying to improve the lives of ordinary Iraqis.

That they make any progress at all in that kind of environment is truly remarkable. But they do make progress. And that may be the only piece of legitimate “good news” coming out of what can now only be described as “not a country anymore”.

I get a near-free pass today, because the rest of this column has been written by one of those unsung heroes -- a dear friend who heads a sizable economic development team. But I cop out with sadness. Here’s the email he sent me this morning (slightly edited to protect identities):

“I just now talked to my security manager in Baghdad, and am left speechless. He describes a complete breakdown of law and order. We reviewed our staff list to determine each individual's circumstances. One guy, Ahmed, has his brothers stay with him at night. They take turns sleeping in case someone attempts to break into his home. Abdullah is the same. He and his father alternate sleeping at night, three hours on and three hours off. Walid and his family live in Sadr City where violence has once again brought tragedy to large numbers of families.

“On and on, one by one, we discussed all of our people. All are scared. None of these friends is specifically targeted, so there is nothing for us to do except hope that they do not become victims of random and senseless violence. The most common words are death, kidnapping, injury and danger. Iraq, especially Baghdad, is not a country any more. It is hell.

“I am beyond angry, and only feel a deep sadness. The optimism we felt in 2003 and early 2004 has been replaced by despair and wretchedness -- there is no longer even a thread of hope to hang onto.

“In early 2005, after the first election, we thought maybe there was a future. I made several trips to Baghdad, to meet with USAID and one of the government ministers. While my movements were proscribed, I managed to go out to lunch a few times, though mostly I stayed in the minister’s house. Now, even that bit of travel would be out of the question.

“A good portion of my job is to be strong in the face of these risks, to be the rock for others to vent their fears and sadness. There are days when the emotional side of this job overwhelms me, when I feel like I cannot take yet another tragedy. I am not overwhelmed often, but today happens to be one of those days. After writing this I will feel better, and I will go on to the next meeting or conference, or fix the next problem.

“The outrage of the Bush Team blaming the media for imbalanced reporting is unconscionable. They are nothing but a gang of liars, try to spin a civil war and a huge snafu of their creating into progress. And while some in the media are starting to acquire a hit of courage, thank God we have Helen Thomas, who will continue to pound away.

“Exactly why did we go to war? And why did we not fight to win it? I can only shake my head.”

And I can only join him in the head-shaking. Because I don’t know the answers to his questions. Nor does anyone else except perhaps George W. Bush. And he’s not telling.

Biscuits, anyone?

By William Fisher

"Press Office", chirped the Defense Department voice on the phone.

"Yes, good morning. My name is Bill Fisher. I write for Truthout. I have a couple of questions about the Biscuit program. Would you be able to help me?"

"What are Biscuits?" said a confused voice.

"They are military shorthand for Behavioral Science Consultation Teams", said I.

"Let me connect you with the person who knows about that program," said the helpful voice.

Pause.

Then came an answering machine. "This is Jane Doe (I am not using her real name because I might get her in trouble). Please leave your name and phone number and the nature of your question, and I'll call you back", said the disembodied voicemail message.

I did, adding that I wanted to file a story today. Then I waited. And waited. And waited some more.

Altogether I called three times, each time being referred either to a different person (who was away from his/her desk), or to another automated voice mailbox, where I left the same message.

The questions I never got to ask anyone at DOD were:

"I'd like to know whether BISCUIT units are working at Abu Ghraib and Bagram and other U.S.-controlled detention centers as well as at Guantanamo", and "Some folks who are in the medical and other health-provider fields have been critical of the BISCUITS at Guantanamo Bay, saying they have been using doctors and nurses and psychologists to help the interrogators get information out of the detainees, and advising about how best to keep people alive who are on hunger strike there."

Now, if my name happened to be Bob Woodward or Jane Mayer or Sy Hirsch or Walter Pincus or Jim Risen, I suppose I could have called a "high level official close to the Bush Administration", who might speak "on condition of anonymity".

But I wanted to discover whether a plain vanilla working stiff journalist - and taxpayer -- could actually get some information on a sensitive subject from a famously secretive government.

I guess I got my answer. The silence was deafening.

Now, just in case you've been living on Pluto for the past year or so, BISCUITS -- Behavioral Science Consultation Teams - consist of military psychiatrists, psychologists, behavioral scientists, and other healthcare professionals. Their role, it has been charged by former Guantanamo interrogators, is to advise them on ways of increasing psychological duress on detainees, sometimes using their medical records to find ways of exploiting their fears and phobias, to make them more cooperative and willing to provide information.

In one example, published in the New York Times, "interrogators were told that a detainee's medical files showed he had a severe phobia of the dark and suggested ways in which that could be manipulated to induce him to cooperate."

The DOD has said that there is very limited access to prisoners' medical records. But many members of the healthcare community remain skeptical.

An article in the New England Journal of Medicine said interviews with doctors who helped devise and supervise the interrogation regimen at Guantánamo showed that the BISCUIT program was explicitly designed to increase fear and distress among detainees as a means to obtaining intelligence.

And between July 2003 and March 2004, a doctor was allegedly "pressured by OGA personnel into filling out death certificates on Iraqi detainees" though the doctor was not given the opportunity to examine the bodies. The causes of death given for two detainees were later found to be inaccurate. The term "OGA" (Other Government Agencies) is generally used to refer to the CIA.

After April 2003, when Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld tightened
rules on detainee treatment, one interrogator said detainees' medical records had to be obtained through BISCUIT team doctors, but that the doctors always obliged. The former interrogator said the BISCUIT team doctors usually observed interrogations from behind a one-way mirror, but sometimes were also in the room with the detainee and interrogator.

The biscuit teams were also central, the former interrogators told the New York Times, in devising strategies like "Operation Sandman," in which a detainee's sleep patterns were systematically interrupted several times a night.

Then there is the issue of the "autonomy" of a doctor's patients. That refers to a patient's fundamental right to decide which medical interventions he will permit. That well-established canon of medical ethics requires that a detainee who is on a hunger strike has the "autonomy" to remain on a hunger strike if that's what he wants. If one is a healthcare provider, the patient is a patient whether or not he's a prisoner. Which means that medical personnel are barred from forcing a prisoner to stay alive, or advising others about how to reach that objective.

So, to return to my unanswered questions to the DOD: Have the BISCUITs changed at all as a result of criticism from civilian medical and other healthcare authorities? And are they being used elsewhere?

As to the "elsewhere" question, what we know is that Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Miller, the former commander at Guantanamo, recommended the use of BSCT teams at Abu Ghraib when he was sent there to "GITMO-ize" it in August and September of 2003. According to the testimony of those who were at Abu Ghraib, psychologists were indeed involved in the interrogations and abuses of detainees.

Gen. Miller recently invoked his right against self-incrimination in a case of two soldiers accused of using dogs to intimidate detainees at Abu Ghraib. This invocation was the first sign by Miller that he might have information that would implicate him in the abuses in Iraq. Numerous reports indicate that Miller instituted the use of dogs to intimidate prisoners at Abu Ghraib after first using the technique at Guantanamo Bay. A military investigation recommended that Gen. Miller, who is soon to retire, be reprimanded, but a higher-ranking officer denied the request.

And a senior human rights attorney told me on condition of anonymity, "I would suspect since the BSCTs continue to be used as part of the intelligence apparatus at Gitmo" and because have been judged favorably by the military establishment "they are likely in place at the very least at strategic interrogation facilities in Iraq and in Afghanistan."

As to changes in the way the BISCUITs operate, the DOD finally issued revised guidelines last June, after various healthcare professional organizations and prominent medical authorities ignited a firestorm of criticism. Both the American
Psychological Association and the American Psychiatric Association have
made clear that it is unethical for members of their profession -- whether in the military or not -- to participate interrogations or to provide information to interrogators about ways to "break" a detainee.

Dr. William Winkenwerder Jr., assistant secretary of defense for health affairs, acknowledged that the new guidelines came about as the result of a review of procedures begun after allegations of medical personnel assisting in abusing prisoners surfaced. "What got the ball rolling was an awareness from all the information coming out of Abu Ghraib and the various allegations," he said.

Some of the most passionate of these allegations have come from Brigadier General Stephen N. Xenakis, M.D., who retired from the U.S. Army in 1998, after serving in many high-level positions, including Commanding General of the Southeast Regional Army Medical Command. He has reportedly played a major role in driving the DOD to re-examine its medical practices.

Last month he said: "Medical officers enjoy special privileges and status and are expected to abide by and stand up for their professional principles at all times and in all situations. This operation - the War on Terror - is no different... It is important to remember that the burden of leadership is to ensure that high moral and ethical practices are maintained in even the most demanding situations."

But, speaking about prisoner deaths while in U.S. custody, Gen. Xenakis charged, "To date, we have no indication that either the Army Medical Department or the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Health Affairs has conducted a thorough investigation of the medical care provided to detainees and the circumstances surrounding the known deaths."

The new guidelines, said Dr. William Winkenwerder Jr., assistant secretary of defense for health affairs, consolidates "principles and procedures for U.S. military medical personnel when working with detainees under control of U.S. armed forces."

The guidelines specify that military medical personnel must observe medical ethics, make medically appropriate decisions, and report inhumane treatment. Military healthcare professionals must "be guided by professional judgment and standards similar to those that would be applied to members of the U.S. armed forces, including duty to protect the physical and mental health of the detainee" and "will not participate in any activity that is not consistent with applicable law."

But in a briefing for reporters, Winkenwerder declined to say whether the guidelines would prohibit some of the activities described by former interrogators and others. He said the medical personnel "were not driving the interrogations" but were there as "consultants".

Winkenwerder added that "only a very, very small number of reports of observation of possible abuse" have been recorded. Pentagon officials have previously said that the practices at Guantánamo did not violate ethics guidelines.

The Pentagon invited representatives of a number of health-related professional associations, including the American Medical Association, to pay a one-day visit to Guantanamo Bay. But they were not allowed to interview any detainees.

One of those attending, Prof. Nancy Sherman, who teaches philosophy at Georgetown University and has written extensively about ethics in the military, said that the DOD had worked hard to present a positive, upbeat image of what occurred at Guantánamo. "I think what was being sought was some sort of confirmation that their practices were ethically sound" and that some of the news accounts were wrong, she said.

Professor Sherman added that the distinction between using psychiatrists and psychologists as consultants rather than as providers of medical care was a tenuous one that invited ethical problems.

Winkenwerder said the new procedures separate individuals who are providing care from health professionals who work in other capacities in detention operations. Medical personnel who are in a provider-patient relationship with detainees -- those who actually provide treatment -- "shall not and will not undertake detainee-related activities for purposes other than to provide health care," he said.

"Such healthcare personnel shall not actively solicit information from detainees for purposes other than healthcare purposes," he explained.

But medical professionals in other roles in detention operations should not provide actual care for detainees, the new guidelines say. Such individuals might include behavioral-science specialists, such as FBI profilers; forensic psychiatrists, who are often appointed by a court to evaluate the mental competency or sanity of an individual; prison psychologists, who evaluate the potential danger of somebody to society; or public-health experts, who evaluate potential for disease outbreaks.

Which still leaves us with nagging questions: Aren't forensic psychiatrists physicians? Aren't they, as well as behavioral science specialists and prison psychologists, governed by the ethical rules of their professions?

Medical doctors take an oath to "do no harm". While psychologists and behavioral science specialists may not have to take such an oath, they are nonetheless committed to doing good, not harm.

And what part of "do no harm" don't they understand? It doesn't require an oath to act ethically. And there is nothing ethical about advising interrogators about how to "break" detainees.






























.

BALL IN THE SUPREME'S COURT

By William Fisher

This week the U.S. Supreme Court will hear what will almost certainly be one of the landmark cases of the past fifty years.

Their decision will determine whether the Supreme Court will continue to assert its authority to review and check the executive’s power to detain and try individuals caught up in the “war on terror.”

The case is called Hamdan versus Rumsfeld. The Hamdan is Salim Ahmed Hamdan, who has been a prisoner at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, since 2002. The Rumsfeld is Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, whose department has jurisdiction over all detainees held at U.S.-controlled military prisons.

Since the Court agreed to hear Hamdan’s case, the administration of President George W. Bush filed an extraordinary motion to dismiss it. The government argues that a law passed by Congress late last year was intended to deny the right of habeas corpus to all prisoners in U.S. custody -- including not only new cases, but those that were pending at the time Congress acted. The Bush administration contends that Congress intended to strip the high court of its jurisdiction to hear any challenge arising out of the detentions at Guantanamo Bay.

But according to Deborah Perlstein, an attorney with legal advocacy group Human Rights First, “Apart from the weakness of the Administration’s case on the merits, the statute passed by Congress last year makes clear its intent to apply only to cases arising after Hamdan’s.”

Perlstein told us, “It’s hard to see even this new Court accepting that kind of frontal assault on its own power.”

Two new Justices have been appointed to sit on the Supreme Court in the past few months. John Roberts has become chief justice, replacing William Renquist, who died. And Samuel J. Alito Jr. has joined the court, replacing Sandra Day O’Connor, who resigned after 24 years as an associate justice.

Even if the justices resolve the court-stripping issue, it will be left to decide two other weighty questions: Does the President have the authority to convene military commissions to try alleged terrorists and ignore the procedural protections that Congress and the Constitution have long afforded those facing U.S. military trials? And are the Geneva Conventions – the laws of war that the United States long ago ratified and made part of U.S. law – enforceable by individuals in federal court?

According to Perlstein, “Either one of these questions is generational in nature. Taken together, they give Hamdan the potential to be one of the most important cases the Supreme Court has heard on the issue of presidential power in the past half-century.”

To complicate matters further, Chief Justice Roberts has recused himself from the Hamdan case because he participated in ruling on it in a lower court before his recent appointment. That means eight justices will hear the arguments, thus eliminating the possibility of the 5-4 decision often made by this court in contentious cases.

But, says Perlstein, “More significant than the absence of Chief Justice Roberts, is the absence of Justice Rehnquist and O’Connor in this kind of case. Those justices had for the past nearly 30 years been at the leading edge of the Court’s assertion of its own power, above Congress and the Executive, as a co-equal branch of government. Whether the absence of their voices will have left a court more reluctant to weigh in on matters of individual rights in the face of government power remains to be seen.”

The Hamdan case has been bouncing around the U.S. justice system for several years, beginning in 2004, when the DOD Formally referred charges against the 34-year-old Yemeni national, one of six Guantánamo detainees who were designated by President Bush in July 2003 as subject to trial by military commission under the President’s Order of November 13, 2001. Hamdan was captured by Afghan forces and handed over to the U.S. military in Afghanistan in late 2001.

The government accuses Hamdan of serving as Osama Bin Laden’s bodyguard and personal driver, delivering weapons to al Qaeda members and purchasing vehicles for Bin Laden’s security detail. He is formally charged with conspiracy to attack civilians, attack civilian objects, murder, destruction of property, and terrorism.

Held at the U.S. Naval Base at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, since early 2002, Mr. Hamdan is currently represented by Navy Lt. Cmdr. Charles Swift, who brought suit in 2004 seeking Hamdan’s release from solitary confinement and declaring the commissions unconstitutional.

Documents unsealed in early August reveal allegations that Hamdan was beaten, threatened, and kept in isolation for upwards of eight months. A military commission preliminary hearing began the week of August 23, 2004.

In September 2004, the petition was re-filed in the federal district court for the District of Columbia, and, in November 2004, that court found the military commission unlawful because the process violated the laws of war and military law, and stayed the commission.

In July 2005 the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia reversed the district court and upheld the commission as lawful. Hamdan’s lawyers appealed the ruling, and in November 2005 the Supreme Court agreed to hear the case.

In January 2006, the government filed a motion for the Supreme Court to dismiss the case on the ground that the Detainee Treatment Act of 2005 (the Graham/Levin amendment) divested Hamdan of the right to seek habeas corpus in a federal court.

That law entered congress as an amendment to a massive war-spending bill. It was introduced as a compromise by Sen. Lindsey Graham, a conservative Republican from South Carolina and a former military judge, and Sen. Carl Levin, a liberal Democrat from Michigan.

HRF’s Perlstein told IPS the Graham-Levin compromise was “a mistake”. She says that she understands Senator Graham’s motivation – “to try to address the uncertain legal status of those held in a U.S. detention system that includes thousands of people worldwide.”

However, she adds, “The great irony of Congress’ action here was to guarantee that the question of the legal status of those stuck in limbo already for years would remain unresolved, and would continue to be litigated for some time to come. Apart from the Amendment’s legal infirmities – trying to strip the federal courts of the power to enforce the Constitution against an executive branch strikingly uninterested in law – as a matter of security policy, it effectively made matters worse.”

Brian J. Foley, a professor at Florida Coastal School of Law, told us he was uncertain about whether the Graham-Levin measure “clearly supports an argument that it is prospective only. Legislative history may say otherwise, but courts might not consider legislative history if they think the text is clear. It will be up to the courts”

However, he adds, “Congress did make clear that it doesn't want to give these prisoners a way to 'complain' about conditions of confinement, including torture. Congress made clear that it doesn't want to give them a way to 'complain' that they are not being given a hearing, or that getting a decision in a hearing is taking too long. Congress was foolish to pass this law, because these enormous presidential powers can so easily be turned against US citizens. What if a US citizen is rounded up and never given a hearing to test whether he's an enemy combatant -- or even a US citizen? Well, he can't access the courts, thanks to this statute. The only hope is that the Constitution's right to habeas corpus transcends this statute. That will ultimately be a major issue in the Supreme Court, and we can only hope that the justices don't simply side with the Administration.”

The High Court’s decision will not be public until July. Meanwhile, American citizens ought to be pondering whether it wants to become a monarchy, ruled by a president. They also ought to give some serious thought to the kind of message indefinite detention of prisoners without a real trials sends to the rest of the world.

IRAQ TOLD TO REBUILD ITSELF

By William Fisher

Last week’s announcement that Iraq will now have to pay for its own reconstruction has left some observers wondering whether the yet-to-be-formed government there will be up to the task.

Iraq's deputy finance minister, Kamal Field al-Basri, said it was "reasonable" for the United States to sharply cut back its reconstruction efforts after spending about $21 billion. "We should be very much dependent on ourselves," al-Basri said in an interview the American newspaper, USA Today.

That will prove to be a very tall order. In 2003, the World Bank estimated the total rebuilding cost would be $60 billion. Current estimates put the bill at $70-100 billion.

The new estimate comes at a time when little progress has been made in increasing Iraq’s oil production – which represents more than 90 per cent of the country’s income. Slowed to a near halt by insurgent attacks, Iraq now spends about $6 billion annually to import oil.

Iraq must increase oil exports from their current level of about 1.6 million barrels a day to 2 million barrels a day, said Daniel Speckhard, director of the U.S. Iraq Reconstruction Management Office. The deputy finance minister said Iraq needs foreign investment to lift exports to three million barrels a day. That would equal the oil exports achieved by Iraq in the 1980s. Oil production today is far below prewar levels.

According to the Pentagon's prewar planning, oil production was supposed to provide the funds for Iraqi reconstruction. Vice President Richard Cheney and other senior Bush Administration officials emphasized this point repeatedly in their pre-war effort to justify the U.S. invasion.

Also facing the country is a massive rebuilding of infrastructure. Lack of security has also stymied efforts to rebuild electrical, sewer and water systems. A report last month by the special U.S. inspector general overseeing reconstruction said so much money was being spent on security that most sewer, irrigation, and drainage projects had been canceled.

Production by Iraq's national electrical grid remains at 4,000 megawatts, 400 megawatts below pre-war levels, with the average Iraqi receiving less than 12 hours of power a day. The shortfall has been attributed mainly to sabotage by insurgents.

Approximately 16%-22% of each reconstruction dollar spent by the U.S. has gone to protect projects and contractors.

Speaking on condition of anonymity because he is involved in the current Iraqi political process, a leading Middle East expert told us, “Because the U.S. did understand Iraqi culture, it did not anticipate the insurgency. Because it did not anticipate the insurgency, it could not have planned for the huge sums that would have to be spent on security.”

Critics of the Bush Administration see the end of American reconstruction funding as vindicating this position. Typical is Prof. Beau Grosscup, professor of international relations at California State University at Chico. He told us, “Having destroyed Iraq, the U.S. can't and now refuses to put it back together again. This decision reflects the disastrous reality of the U.S. occupation for the Iraqi people as it is obvious there won't be peace until the U.S. leaves. Meanwhile, the make-over of the Iraqi economy has been completed.”

But the Pentagon defends the reconstruction project as the best that could be achieved under very difficult and dangerous security conditions.

With the billions of dollars appropriated by the U.S. for Iraqi reconstruction almost all spent, other nations and multinational institutions will be asked to shoulder the burden for funding the large number of unfinished projects.

Speckhard said the U.S. aid program sought to "kick-start the economy" and "lay a foundation" that Iraq could build on. He added, "That kick-starting process has occurred.”

However, the extent of U.S. commitment to reconstruction has always been somewhat murky. "The U.S. never intended to completely rebuild Iraq," Brig. Gen. William McCoy, the Army Corps of Engineers commander overseeing the work, told reporters at a recent news conference. In an interview, McCoy reportedly told The Washington Post newspaper, "This was just supposed to be a jump-start."

But McCoy’s assertion seems to be at odds with previous administration statements. For example, in a speech on Aug. 8, 2003, President George W. Bush said, "In a lot of places, the infrastructure is as good as it was at prewar levels, which is satisfactory, but it's not the ultimate aim. The ultimate aim is for the infrastructure to be the best in the region."

While President Bush gave the impression that Iraq was slated for a complete makeover, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld appeared less certain. He told the Senate Appropriations Committee in March 2003, “I don't believe that the United States has the responsibility for reconstruction…(reconstruction) funds can come from…frozen assets, oil revenues and a variety of other things, including the Oil for Food, which has a very substantial number of billions of dollars in it.”

On the other hand, that view seems to contradict a report submitted the same year by the prime consulting contractor hired by the Pentagon to lay out the future of Iraq’s economy. The company, BearingPoint Inc. of McLean, Virginia, said, “The reconstruction of Iraq has begun. Not the reconstruction of vital public services such as water, electricity or public security, but rather the radical reconstruction of its entire economy.”

Clearly, this has not happened. And the Administration’s recent decision not to ask Congress for additional funding for reconstruction suggests it is not likely to happen any time soon.

With many of Iraq’s key ministries in disarray and some dogged by persistent corruption, and with no permanent government in place, observers say it is doubtful that the country’s government will have either the resources or the expertise to manage the large-scale reconstruction projects that remain unfinished

Relatively little of the $30 billion allocated for reconstruction since the invasion
remains to be spent, and spending authority is scheduled to run out in June 2007.

According to a recent report by the U.S. special inspector general for Iraq (IG), reconstruction officials cannot say how many planned projects they will complete, and there is no clear source for hundreds of millions of dollars a year needed to operate the projects that have been finished.

The IG’s report described some progress but also cited a number of projects that have failed. For example, expensive electrical substations were built but not connected to the country's electrical grid.

Much of the reconstruction funding has been diverted to other projects. At least $2.5 billion earmarked for infrastructure and schools was diverted to building up a security force. Funds originally intended to repair the electricity grid and sewage and sanitation system were used to train special bomb squad units and a hostage rescue force. The U.S. has also shifted funds to build 10 new prisons to keep pace with the insurgency, and safe houses and armored cars for Iraqi judges.

Hundreds of millions of dollars from the reconstruction fund was also used to hold elections and for four changes of government, and to establish a criminal justice system, including $128 million to examine several mass graves of Saddam Hussein’s alleged victims.

In addition to the diversion of funds to other types of projects, the reconstruction efforts have been plagued by substantial corruption and overcharging by contractors.

The cost of security has eaten up as much as 25% of each project, according to the IG. A U.S. congressional report last October forecast that many reconstruction projects were unlikely to get off the ground because of security costs. Iraqi authorities estimate that 10 billion dollars are needed for the health sector alone, to build or rehabilitate and provide equipment for hospitals and clinics.

The bottom line here is that while Iraqi politicians squabble over the composition of their future government, Iraq’s infrastructure remains in shambles. If these leaders – and wannabe leaders – really care about their country more than they do about their party or their egos, real reconstruction provides a huge incentive for them to get on with the job.

THE OXYCOPS

By William Fisher

Wheelchairbound multiple sclerosis patient Richard Paey is serving 25 years in a Florida prison for “trafficking” 1/2 gram of OxyContin, even though the prosecutor concedes that Paey never sold any of his medications. In prison, he now receives more pain-killing drugs than he was convicted of having.

Dr. William Hurwitz, a pioneering pain physician, was tried and convicted of violating the Controlled Substances Act -- which is intended to curb the illicit use of drugs -- and is serving a 25-year term in federal prison. He was also fined $2 million.

These are but two of hundreds of cases in which, in its zeal to stamp out the illegal drug use, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) is cracking down on doctors who prescribe medications to relieve chronic pain, and the patients who depend on these drugs to live normal lives.

Hundreds of physicians have been put on trial for charges ranging from health insurance fraud to drug distribution, even to manslaughter and murder for over-prescribing prescription narcotics. Investigators have also seized doctors’ homes, offices, and bank accounts, leaving them with no resources for their defense.

In March 2004, DEA administrator Karen Tandy told Congress her drug warriors have "been successful in addressing OxyContin diversion as evidenced by a reduction in the rate of increase of OxyContin prescriptions being written and a leveling-off of OxyContin sales." But Ronald Libby, a professor of political science at the University of North Florida, told us he doubts that sales of opioids like Oxycodone have declined since 2004.

Drug diversion means the diversion of legal drugs for illicit purposes. Prescription drug abuse accounts for almost 30% of the overall drug problem in the United States, representing a close challenge to cocaine addiction. Sometimes these diverted prescription drugs end up for sale on the street, where they reap large profits for traffickers.

Starting in the mid-1990s, and ratcheting up in 2001, the DEA -- part of the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) -- has been leading an aggressive effort to eradicate the illegal "diversion" of certain prescription painkillers. A particular target has been OxyContin, one of a class of drugs known as opioids, which was aggressively marketed by its manufacturer, Purdue Pharma.

In 2001, the DEA launched a campaign called the "OxyContin Action Plan”. The DEA says the plan is necessary due to increasing abuse of prescription drugs, particularly by youth. The agency, which has teamed up with state and local authorities, typically employs law enforcement methods developed in the government’s “War on Drugs”, including aggressive undercover investigation, asset forfeiture, and informers. It says its goal is to stop violations of the Controlled Substances Law.

But critics charge that the DEA has focused too narrowly on doctors, exacerbating the already widespread problem of untreated or under-treated pain. As a result, well-meaning doctors are finding themselves subject to costly, potentially career-ending investigations. Several doctors and many of their patients have already been sent to prison.

The DEA maintains that only “criminal doctors” are being targeted, and that its efforts to prevent the sale of prescribed medications have no effect on the legitimate treatment of pain.

The pain-management community disagrees. Authorities say the DEA program reportedly is having a chilling effect on physicians, who are leaving their pain management specialties for safer practices, and on their patients, many of who literally cannot function without medication. The Village Voice newspaper reports that medical schools are now advising students to avoid pain management practice altogether.

Ironically, the DEA crackdown comes at a time when the medical profession knows more than ever about how to treat the chronic pain that makes life intolerable – sometimes impossible – for the estimated 50 to 70 million Americans who live in chronic disabling pain.

Until about 20 years ago, the medical profession knew little about pain management. Today, pain management has become a recognized medical specialty, and it is estimated that there are some 5,000 pain management doctors practicing in the U.S.

The DEA’s programs also come at a time when there are more effective pain-killing drugs on the market and when the Internet makes it easier than ever to obtain them.

The DEA’s dilemma is separating legitimate prescribers and users from drug dealers. And the DEA’s task is made more difficult, not only by its zeal, but by the fact that those investigating and prosecuting are not doctors but lawyers and law enforcement agents.

Before he was ever charged with a crime, Dr. Hurwitz recommended that the DEA “suspend current prosecutions against physicians who treat pain unless and until a review by a panel of nationally recognized experts in medical pain management has found that there is an absence of good faith by the physician. If only the physician's adherence to standards of care can be questioned, then the case is not an appropriate one for the criminal process, and should be referred to the professional regulatory authorities,” he said.

The Association of American Physicians and Surgeons, in a letter to the judge in the Hurwitz case, charged he was convicted on the basis of “false expert testimony”, which it described as “egregious.”

Their letter said, “That a tiny percentage of his patients then broke the law with their prescriptions does not justify imprisoning Dr. Hurwitz for the rest of his life. A conviction based on this false medical testimony should not stand….”

The Hurwitz situation is not isolated. Throughout the U.S., physicians have been prosecuted, jailed, or have lost their licenses to practice medicine. In addition to Hurwitz, Dr. Ronald McIver is serving 30 years, Dr. Freddie Williams is serving life, and Dr. James Graves received a 62-plus-year sentence for diversion in 2002.

According to Prof. Libby, who has become an authority on the subject, “Many doctors have been convicted and almost no one has been acquitted.” He told us, “Most attorneys tell their clients to cop a plea and not fight it in court.”

Richard Paey was convicted of fraudulently submitting multiple copies of opioid prescriptions to treat chronic pain. He was in New Jersey where his doctor treated him, but then moved to Florida where he was unable to find a physician to write prescriptions to treat his pain.

Frightened by what they term a “brutal display of executive power”, most doctors, including those in the field of pain management, have simply abandoned this sickest and most vulnerable segment of our population. Patients suffering from mild to moderate pain, and requiring low dosages of opioids may still find care, but those patients with high dosage requirements are increasingly shut out of care altogether.

In 2004 it was estimated that many of the 5,000 pain specialists in the United States, would not prescribe opioids. Those few medical practices that do treat chronic pain with opioids impose severe restrictions on patients’ freedoms. Prof. Libby told us that many doctors are now prescribing over-the-counter medications such as aspirin and Tylenol, “which are far more dangerous than opioids if taken in large quantities.”

The DEA claims it investigates less than one per cent of physicians who prescribe OxyContin or other drugs covered by the Controlled Substances Act. The agency reported arresting 34 doctors out of 963,385 registered doctors in 2003, for selling opioids to addicts or drug dealers for money, sex, or favors. That is less than 0.001% of the total number of licensed doctors, the DEA said.

But critics dispute that figure. Prof. Libby told us, “In 2001, the DEA carried 861 investigations of doctors. If we use this figure instead of 34 arrests it means that more than 17 percent of the roughly 5,000 doctors who treat pain patients were investigated. That means that than one out of every six doctors who treat chronic pain patients were under criminal investigation.”

A not-for-profit advocacy group, the Pain Relief Network, is suing to have the Controlled Substances Act declared unconstitutional, and is seeking to enjoin the DEA from enforcing the law against physicians.

To calm its critics, the DEA commissioned several pain specialists to work with
Federal officials to create guidelines for physicians who treat pain with opioids. These guidelines were posted on the agency's website, and most doctors were led to believe that following the recommendations would keep them safe from prosecution.

But that understanding didn't last long. Late last year the guidelines were taken off the DEA's website. The agency claimed it wasn't bound by any standards or practices when it came to determining what physicians it would investigate.

Removal of the guidelines coincided with Dr. Hurwitz’s trial. The doctor’s attorneys attempted to have the guidelines admitted as evidence on the belief that Hurwitz's practice conformed to their parameters. They failed. A few weeks after Hurwitz's judge refused to admit the guidelines as evidence, the DEA renounced them, and essentially declared it had carte blanche to launch an inquiry.

David Jorenson, the academic pain specialist who headed the committee that
authored the original guidelines, sent the agency a sharply-worded rebuke. Three other professional associations representing pain specialists followed with a second letter. And the National Association of state Attorneys General wrote to the DEA, expressing concern that the agency was overstepping its bounds and interfering with the legitimate treatment of pain. The letter was signed by 30 AGs from both parties.

However, the DEA remains unmoved, insisting its revocation of the guidelines did not represent a shift in policy and that its pursuit of doctors should have no
effect on legitimate pain treatment.

Dr. Alexander DeLuca, MPH, a member of the American Academy of Preventive Health and a Policy Analyst and Board Member of the Pain Relief Network, told us, ”Relations between physicians and the DEA have probably never been worse in modern times.”

He added, “Law enforcement does not deserve a place at the table where physicians, social workers, and politicians of good will need to meet to deal with drug use and pain problems as public health, not criminal, matters.”

EDITORIAL WRITERS: THE SILENCE OF THE SHEEP

By William Fisher

As the third anniversary of the invasion of Iraq passed into history, the White House continued to dumb down what defines “victory”, Bush administration officials regurgitated their upbeat talking points, and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld wrote an op-ed claiming, “The terrorists seem to recognize that they are losing in Iraq. Now is the time for resolve, not retreat.”

We may or may not agree with the president and his people, but at least they have an opinion.

Sadly, the same can’t be said of the editorial writers for America’s most influential mainstream media.

The St. Louis Post Dispatch, the Washington Post, the Boston Globe, the San Francisco Chronicle all were silent on the subject. The Wall Street Journal touched on the anniversary as part of an editorial praising the Bush Administration’s decision to release most of Saddam Hussein's secret documents, and said, almost en passant, “The Iraq War is a long way from being over, and anything we can know about the accuracy of our judgments before and during the fight is well worth trying to uncover and understand.”

But the vast majority of daily newspapers that published editorials marking the anniversary were long on facts and analysis, excellent in their syntax, but virtually mute on solutions beyond “stay the course” and “support our troops”.

Proffering solutions was pretty much left to the op-ed punditocracy and, on television, to the seemingly endless parade of journalists, academics, and retired military generals who have learned how to increase their incomes as talking heads.

As for newspaper editorials, a few examples:

The Chicago Tribune: “Iraqi leaders are meeting, and some progress is being reported by (the U.S. Ambassador to Iraq). The reality in Iraq now: The path to security is mainly political, not military. All must give, or all will lose.”

The New York Times: “Our goal must be to minimize the damage, through the urgent diplomacy of the current ambassador and forceful reminders that American forces are not prepared to remain for one day in a country whose leaders prefer civil war to peaceful compromise. While we are distracted by picking up the pieces, there is no time to imagine what the world might be like if George Bush had chosen to see things as they were instead of how he wanted them to be three years ago. History will have more time to consider the question.”

The Los Angeles Times: “As it enters its fourth year, the war in Iraq defies simplistic characterizations from both ends of the political spectrum. The heroism of U.S. forces and of ordinary Iraqis going about their daily lives is inspiring. But the future of Iraq remains shrouded in gray uncertainty.”

Only two major dailies offered any ideas about the future – both totally predictable: “Stay the Course”.

The New York Daily News said, “America has been spared another terrorist attack, perhaps because the enemy is otherwise engaged. Libya has given up its nukes. Pakistan's atomic bazaar has closed. Resistance to despotic, terror-sponsoring regimes, like Syria's, has blossomed. There's been a great cost, of course. More than 2,000 U.S. troops have lost their lives, with thousands more injured. Americans - and the world - owe a huge debt to these heroes. Alas, in this Age of Terror, the choice not to fight can be disastrous; 9/11 proved that. As Iraq stabilizes and terrorists are eliminated, a recurrence of that day's horrors seems less likely. That's worth fighting for, anyway.”

And Mr. Rupert Murdoch’s New York Post opined, “Three years later, Iraq has a formalized government - after a fashion, anyway - and the very fact that it is there at all is the worst possible news for the gangsters who labored so desperately to prevent its arising. For all the heartbreak, for all the despair, this is still a fact, and it is one worth celebrating. It is not yet happily ever after. But it's what there is, or now, three years on. If the current course is wrong, what's the alternative? The answer: There is no alternative. U.S. troops must stay in Iraq until that country can defend itself from those who would turn it into a jidahi haven.”

By contrast, many of the editorials in the Middle East press tied the Iraq anniversary to the terrorist attacks of 9/11.

Typical was the Saudi English-language daily Arab News, which wrote that the world has not become safer since 9/11 because, "There is now no international unity in the face of terrorism -- shattered as it was by Washington's attempted hijacking of it to fight the wholly unconnected war in Iraq, by the desire of other governments to use the situation for their own political purposes, and by the cowardice of some when themselves directly targeted by terrorists."

For U.S. print media, it was as if there never were any proposals beyond “Stay the Course” and “Support Our Troops”.

Where were the editorial writers’ opinions on whether it was all worth it? On whether the U.S. could continue to finance the Bush adventure? On whether America ought to be involved in nation-building? On the variety of proposals made for new diplomatic initiatives? On the many plans that have been put forward for withdrawal?

Absent. AWOL. Silent.

And the reason, it seems to me, is not fear of being called “unpatriotic”. The reason is that most editorial writers don’t have a clue about how to go forward.

In which case, probably to their shock and awe, they have a lot in common with our president.

But not with their readers.

GIVE US YOUR HUDDLED MASSES – OR NOT

By William Fisher

There are some 10 million undocumented immigrants in the U.S. today, and there is no sign that the flow is going to decrease any time soon.

They pick and pack our agricultural produce, serve patrons at our hotels and restaurants and resorts, and help build our new houses. Most of them come from the southern border with Mexico. Many of them have been here for years and have children who were born in the U.S.

So serious is the problem of illegal immigration that Governors of some of the states on the U.S.-Mexican border – Texas, Arizona, New Mexico, California -- have actually declared “states of emergency” in an effort to get the attention of Federal officials and lawmakers. Many raise the specter of Al Qaida allies sneaking in to commit acts of terrorism.

The Department of Homeland Security, which governs border control, appears incapable of dealing with the problem. That has led to the formation of citizens’ vigilante groups patrolling the border to “help” Border Patrol agents to identify and capture lawbreakers.

Meanwhile, skilled hi-tech workers, prospective university enrollees, and even State Department-sponsored exchange students, can’t get visas to come here. And those who come seeking asylum from political persecution or domestic abuse face an increasingly impossible task of convincing immigration judges of the validity of their claims.

Given these facts, the mantra of just about everyone who speaks on this subject has become “America’s immigration system is broken and must be fixed”. But that’s about where the agreement ends. As to what do about the problem, there are almost as many “solutions” as there are immigrants.

This was to be the year of comprehensive immigration reform legislation. President Bush spent a good deal of his once-hefty “political capital” to advocate for a “guest worker” program. But so polarized are the views of state officials, legislators and advocacy groups representing all points on the political spectrum that Congress-watchers are expressing serious doubt that 2006 will see any meaningful progress toward such reform.

Tom Barry, Policy Director for the International Relations Center (IRC), predicted flatly, “There will be no comprehensive reform proposal approved by the U.S. Congress during this session or any session in the near future because the immigration restrictionists have seized control of the debate.”

What is likely, experts agree, is a battle royal between two critical GOP constituencies: the “law-and-order conservatives” and business interests that rely on immigrant labor. One camp wants to tighten borders and deport people who are here illegally; the other seeks to bring illegal workers out of the shadows and acknowledge their growing economic importance.

The issue is complicated by the competing -- and sometimes counter-intuitive – demands of a wide range of groups and coalitions. Usually conservative business interests, particularly in the fields of agriculture, construction, and hospitality, want to open American borders to avail themselves of cheaper labor.

Groups representing states on the U.S.-Mexican border propose adopting draconian measures – including construction of a “security fence” -- to stem the tide of illegal immigrants. Others are advocating legislation that would tighten U.S. border security but give some legal status to newcomers. Still others are focusing on providing “a path to citizenship” for the more than 10 million undocumented immigrants already in the U.S.

Legislation reflecting the varied panoply of solutions has already been introduced. Led by conservative Republican Representative James Sensenbrenner, Jr. of Wisconsin, chairman of the House Committee on the Judiciary, the House passed a bill in January that would create a giant fence along the Mexican border, and increase criminal penalties for immigration violations -- including some mandatory minimum sentences -- for people who encourage illegal immigration and for immigrants who return to the United States after being deported. It would also broaden the range of deportable aliens so that, for example, repeat drunk drivers can be kicked out of the country.

The House bill would also force employers to verify employees' Social Security numbers against a national database, reimburse sheriffs in the counties that border Mexico for the costs of holding illegal immigrants, and make both detention and deportation of illegal immigrants easier. The Bush administration, which earlier had proposed a “guest worker” program, supported the House the bill, which was passed 239 to 182.

Critics of the House restrictions, including many Senate Republicans, say the curbs would trample states' rights and lead to more unlicensed drivers while ignoring what they believe to be the crux of the problem: the millions of undocumented people already entrenched in the workforce.

In the Senate, two pieces of major legislation were introduced last year. One bill, sponsored by Senator John McCain, an Arizona Republican, and Senator Edward M. Kennedy, a Massachusetts Democrat, calls for increased border security but also creates a guest worker program. It would require illegal aliens to pay all regular fees as well as a $1,000 fine to join the program and, after six years, another $1,000 fine to obtain a green card signifying legal permanent residence. Green card holders eventually can apply for citizenship.

Another bill was introduced last year by two border-state Republicans, Senator John Cornyn of Texas, and Senator John Kyl of Arizona. It proposes a “work-and-return” rationale rather than the McCain-Kennedy “work-and-stay” approach.

Currently at the center of the task of attempting to craft passable Senate legislation is Senator Arlen Specter, a Pennsylvania Republican who heads the powerful Senate Judiciary Committee. His "Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act of 2006," would allow new immigrants to work in the country for up to six years without applying for citizenship. It would create a temporary status for the estimated 11 million to 20 million illegal aliens already here, provided they pay their taxes, remain employed, and pass background checks. The Specter bill does not limit the amount of time those workers may remain in that status.

Specter's proposal is likely to meet stiff opposition from champions of the much tougher immigration bill passed by the House. Some observers believe the differences in approach between House and Senate are irreconcilable.

One of the principal supporters of the House approach, Rep. Tom Tancredo, a Colorado Republican and one of the shrillest voices in the immigration debate, said of the Specter proposal, "Words almost fail to describe the threat this bill poses to our national and economic security."

While most civil liberties and immigration experts favor any of the Senate proposals over the “enforcement only” bill passed by the House, they nonetheless express reservations about such issues as privacy, asylum, and due process protections for immigrants.

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) calls attention to what it calls the lack of privacy protections in the Specter proposal. It says that under the bill’s “Employment Verification System”, all workers would be required to obtain a federal agency’s permission to work. All employers would be required to participate in a national employment eligibility verification program.

But, the ACLU says, “Legislators have not mandated that the private information flowing to and from the government be encrypted or that the databases be secured. Thus, the data provides a ripe target for identity thieves.”

“Even assuming a near-perfect accuracy rate in the program, millions of legal, eligible American workers could still have their right to work seriously delayed or denied -- while they fight bureaucratic red tape to resolve errors,” the ACLU charges.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which represents millions of employers, has also expressed strong objections to the employment verification provisions.

The ACLU says the government also would be given “extraordinary powers to detain non-citizens indefinitely without meaningful review.” This move, it claims, “would potentially place many non-citizens in a legal ‘black hole’ that subjects them to a life sentence after having served a criminal sentence, or, in some cases, without ever having been convicted of a crime.”

Another immigration authority, Karen Musalo, Director of the Center for Gender and Refugee Studies at the University of California's Hastings College of the Law of the University of California, told us, “The central goal of any comprehensive immigration legislation should be to build and maintain an immigration and judicial system based on core American values like fairness, family, and recognition for one's work; one that recognizes that the consequences of removal for most immigrants and their families are severe. Such legislation must contain safeguards and ensure due process for vulnerable groups seeking protection in the U.S., including refugees, children and victims of trafficking.”

She criticized Senator Specter's legislation for imposing “harsh criminal penalties on undocumented workers and other immigrants for even minor or technical infractions that cause them to lose their legal status, creates a permanent sub-class of immigrant workers with no real protections and no provisions for acquiring long-term legal status, and strips immigrants of judicial review.”

The IRC’s Barry told us, “The battle within the Republican party has been instigated by largely by social conservatives, and it is likely that their positions on enforcement will be adopted by the Republican party leadership, leaving the Democrats looking in the public mind as if that they are the ones without a clear stance against illegal immigration.”

He says the Kennedy-McCain bill is the “most comprehensive” legislation being considered, but adds, “This is a nonstarter in Congress and in U.S. society because of the fierce restrictionist sentiment that now frames the political debate over immigration in the United States.”

Apparently drowned out by the shrill charges and counter-charges in the immigration debate is a simple truth articulated by George Hunsinger, McCord professor of theology at Princeton Theological Seminary and coordinator of Church Folks for a Better America. He told us, “No human being -- whether citizen or non-citizen -- should be placed outside the protections of the law. No one who performs needed work should be denied fair wages and decent conditions. A society that exploits immigrants for their labor while declaring them illegal is caught in a tangle of contradictions.”

But this is an election year for the U.S. Congress. So I wouldn’t hold my breath waiting for that simple truth to sink in.

EDITORIAL WRITERS: THE SILENCE OF THE SHEEP

By William Fisher

As the third anniversary of the invasion of Iraq passed into history, the White House continued to dumb down what defines “victory”, Bush administration officials regurgitated their upbeat talking points, and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld wrote an op-ed claiming, “The terrorists seem to recognize that they are losing in Iraq. Now is the time for resolve, not retreat.”

We may or may not agree with the president and his people, but at least they have an opinion.

Sadly, the same can’t be said of the editorial writers for America’s most influential mainstream media.

The St. Louis Post Dispatch, the Washington Post, the Boston Globe, the San Francisco Chronicle all were silent on the subject. The Wall Street Journal touched on the anniversary as part of an editorial praising the Bush Administration’s decision to release most of Saddam Hussein's secret documents, and said, almost en passant, “The Iraq War is a long way from being over, and anything we can know about the accuracy of our judgments before and during the fight is well worth trying to uncover and understand.”

But the vast majority of daily newspapers that published editorials marking the anniversary were long on facts and analysis, excellent in their syntax, but virtually mute on solutions beyond “stay the course” and “support our troops”.

Proffering solutions was pretty much left to the op-ed punditocracy and, on television, to the seemingly endless parade of journalists, academics, and retired military generals who have learned how to increase their incomes as talking heads.

As for newspaper editorials, a few examples:

The Chicago Tribune: “Iraqi leaders are meeting, and some progress is being reported by (the U.S. Ambassador to Iraq). The reality in Iraq now: The path to security is mainly political, not military. All must give, or all will lose.”

The New York Times: “Our goal must be to minimize the damage, through the urgent diplomacy of the current ambassador and forceful reminders that American forces are not prepared to remain for one day in a country whose leaders prefer civil war to peaceful compromise. While we are distracted by picking up the pieces, there is no time to imagine what the world might be like if George Bush had chosen to see things as they were instead of how he wanted them to be three years ago. History will have more time to consider the question.”

The Los Angeles Times: “As it enters its fourth year, the war in Iraq defies simplistic characterizations from both ends of the political spectrum. The heroism of U.S. forces and of ordinary Iraqis going about their daily lives is inspiring. But the future of Iraq remains shrouded in gray uncertainty.”

Only two major dailies offered any ideas about the future – both totally predictable: “Stay the Course”.

The New York Daily News said, “America has been spared another terrorist attack, perhaps because the enemy is otherwise engaged. Libya has given up its nukes. Pakistan's atomic bazaar has closed. Resistance to despotic, terror-sponsoring regimes, like Syria's, has blossomed. There's been a great cost, of course. More than 2,000 U.S. troops have lost their lives, with thousands more injured. Americans - and the world - owe a huge debt to these heroes. Alas, in this Age of Terror, the choice not to fight can be disastrous; 9/11 proved that. As Iraq stabilizes and terrorists are eliminated, a recurrence of that day's horrors seems less likely. That's worth fighting for, anyway.”

And Mr. Rupert Murdoch’s New York Post opined, “Three years later, Iraq has a formalized government - after a fashion, anyway - and the very fact that it is there at all is the worst possible news for the gangsters who labored so desperately to prevent its arising. For all the heartbreak, for all the despair, this is still a fact, and it is one worth celebrating. It is not yet happily ever after. But it's what there is, or now, three years on. If the current course is wrong, what's the alternative? The answer: There is no alternative. U.S. troops must stay in Iraq until that country can defend itself from those who would turn it into a jidahi haven.”

By contrast, many of the editorials in the Middle East press tied the Iraq anniversary to the terrorist attacks of 9/11.

Typical was the Saudi English-language daily Arab News, which wrote that the world has not become safer since 9/11 because, "There is now no international unity in the face of terrorism -- shattered as it was by Washington's attempted hijacking of it to fight the wholly unconnected war in Iraq, by the desire of other governments to use the situation for their own political purposes, and by the cowardice of some when themselves directly targeted by terrorists."

For U.S. print media, it was as if there never were any proposals beyond “Stay the Course” and “Support Our Troops”.

Where were the editorial writers’ opinions on whether it was all worth it? On whether the U.S. could continue to finance the Bush adventure? On whether America ought to be involved in nation-building? On the variety of proposals made for new diplomatic initiatives? On the many plans that have been put forward for withdrawal?

Absent. AWOL. Silent.

And the reason, it seems to me, is not fear of being called “unpatriotic”. The reason is that most editorial writers don’t have a clue about how to go forward.

In which case, probably to their shock and awe, they have a lot in common with our president.

But not with their readers.

THE AGE OF ANXIETY REDUX

By William Fisher

Airplanes crashing into buildings. Daily body counts from Iraq and Afghanistan. Hospitals filled with hideously mutilated young service men and women. Prisoners being tortured and abused. People being beheaded. Religious leaders urging us to “take out” heads of state. Katrina survivors stranded on rooftops while FEMA fiddles. Tsunami victims stranded nowhere -- just gone.

These are only a few of the kinds of grisly images bombarding the American people every day.

To which we can add the 24/7 menu of relentless television alarums: 90-mile-an-hour car chases, online child pornographers getting busted, corporate executives and congressmen being frog-walked to the slammer in handcuffs, judges receiving death threats, murdered children found in shallow graves, millions dead and displaced in Darfur, children dying from HIV-AIDS and many totally curable diseases, ports being turned over to ‘Muslim terrorists’, phone calls and emails being intercepted, and on and on and on.

And, as a not-so-delicate counterpoint to this scary dirge, the secretary of Health and Human Service tells us to buy extra cans of tunafish and powdered milk to put under our beds to ward off an avian flu pandemic, and the president exhorts us yet again to “stay the course”, go about our business as usual, but be sure to pay attention to the brainless haute couture color codes intended to tell us how scared we should be on any given day.

There is an old axiom in the news business: “If it bleeds, it leads.” So the blood and gore is nothing new. What’s new is its sheer volume and pervasiveness. And if anyone still believes it’s not having a profound and profoundly negative effect on the lives of ordinary Americans, we ought to ask them what they’ve been smoking.

This is not pop-psych 101. This is real. We are living though an age of high anxiety (for which the government’s favorite cliché is “the post-9/11 environment”) that is likely to have a very long-lasting effect on the American psyche.

One of the public’s responses to that post 9/11 environment is popping pills. Since that dreadful day, there has been a rapid and dramatic increase in sales of anti-anxiety, anti-depressant, and sleep aid drugs, according to one Atlanta-based health information service provider, NDC Health, which tracks retail pharmaceutical sales.

New prescriptions for sleep aid rose 27.5%. Anti-anxiety drug prescriptions are up 25% and anti-depressants up 17%. New prescriptions for anti-anxiety drugs and anti-depressants are up 13%, while sleep aid prescriptions are up 8%. Nationwide, anti-anxiety prescriptions are up 8.6%, anti-depressants up 2.6%, and sleep aids up 7.5%.

Therapists are reporting agitation, sleeplessness, survivor guilt and depression -- and not just among those directly affected by the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. A New York psychiatrist says her practice increased by 25% since September 11 and that half of those patients had no direct connection to the attacks. "These people feel they have no control over their lives," she said. Another shrink reports that his practice increased by 50% since the attacks and that he didn't expect it to fall off anytime soon.

But many other medical authorities report that the sorry state of the nation’s mental health is deteriorating for reasons that reach far beyond 9/11. And far beyond World Trade Center and the Pentagon. In large and small, urban and rural communities in places like Kansas and Arkansas and Maine, citizens find themselves trying to live “old normal” lives but are unable to find respite from the low-level but persistent environment of fear, anxiety, and conflict that has come to be known as the ‘new normal’.

We all recall Karl Rove’s cynical observation that 9/11 would be a boffo campaign issue in the 2004 election. And it was. Now, equally cynical politicians from both sides of the aisle are using and will continue to use the “new normal” to divide us. Nation against nation. Left against right. Interest group against interest group. Church against State. Religion against religion. Immigrants against citizens.

When President Bush was elected (sic) in 2000, he promised to unite us through “compassionate conservatism”. Since when he has worked tirelessly to unite only his base. The result has been what John Edwards calls the “Two Americas”.

Many Americans are trying to cope by popping more pills.

But some of us continue to harbor some faint hope that by 2006 or 2008, the loyal opposition will come together with some manifesto that goes beyond “anyone but Bush”.

If they fail, we will all continue to live in fear. And pop more pills.

QUOTH THE CRAVEN EVERMORE*

By William Fisher

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- For those who enjoy the political theater of the absurd, the Dubai Ports World soap opera was the only show in town last week.

And it was a hoot! The actors came straight out of Central Casting.

Here was George W. Bush admitting he knew nothing about the deal, but vowing resolutely to defend it to the death in the interest of national security. The United Arab Emirates were among our most steadfast allies in the “Global War on Terrorism”.

Quickly appeared the Majority Leader of Senate Republicans and presidential hopeful, Dr. Bill Frist, doing another drive-by Terry Schiavo diagnosis and quickly rushing to distance himself from his poll-challenged president, only to flip-flop the next day in favor of a 45-day ‘national security investigation’.

Enter Senator Hillary Clinton and her senior partner, Senator Chuck Schumer, racing to get to the right of George W. Bush to prove that the Dems are really hawkish on national security. Pushing to ban any foreign “government-owned” company from “buying” any American seaport, ever. Especially a country that sent us two of the 9/11 hijackers and used their banks to launder money to help terrorists.

Then there were those courageous Republicans across the Capitol in the House of Representatives, all up for reelection in November, all terrified by being led by an unpopular second-term president, virtually all voting in lockstep to kill the ports deal – and, at the same time, putting as much daylight as possible between their stumbling selves and their stumbling Dubya and, as a bonus, inflicting a bit of ego-flexing payback to the commander-in-chief who ignored them for six years.

It’s an old adage in Washington that the most dangerous place to be is between a politician and his microphone. And our always-patriotic lawmakers lost no time in using their mikes to whip up a toxic cocktail of misinformation to get their constituents drunk with jingoistic paranoia.

A project in which they were immeasurably helped by “The media”, which ran story after clueless story about this government-run Arab company “buying” our ports.

Small wonder then that, outside the Beltway, the people of America stopped watching The Simpsons long enough to rise up to speak with a single shrill voice: “No foreigners (read Arabs) running our ports!”

Not to worry that most of “the people” had never heard of the United Arab Emirates, couldn’t find Dubai on a map, and had not the slightest clue that most of America’s seaport terminals are already managed by foreign companies – including the largest, Long Beach, California, run by a company owned by our great friend and staunch ally, the Government of China.

It’s consoling to know that the people had so much in common with the Congress. And with the media.

Doubtless with a little friendly arm-twisting from Secretary of Defense Don Rumsfeld, Secretary of State Condi Rice, and the venerable Senator John Warner of the Armed Services Committee, Dubai Ports World threw in their keffiyehs. They announced they would sell their U.S. port assets to “a U.S. entity” (providing they could avoid taking a financial bath in the process).

We still don’t know precisely what this means, but that’s OK; that’s the least we don’t know.

Among the unanswered questions:

If, as has been widely reported, there is only one U.S.-owned port management company, and it’s too small to take on the Dubai Ports World job, who’s going to run these port terminals?

If the Coast Guard and our Customs folks are ultimately responsible for port security, does it really matter who runs the terminals?

What, if anything, is wrong with the Treasury-led inter-agency review process that approved the UAE deal without telling the President, anyone in the Cabinet, or anyone in the Congress -- and what’s going to be done to fix it?

How is our public diplomacy maven, the culturally-challenged Karen Hughes, going to ‘win the hearts and minds’ of all those who think we’re doing a little unsubtle ethnic profiling of all things Arab?

And, most importantly, what exactly has our wildly dysfunctional Department of Homeland Security been doing to strengthen our seaport security? And at what cost?

These are serious questions. But don’t expect serious answers. It’s an election year.

Call Central Casting.

* With apologies to Edgar Allen Poe for playing with his words (Quoth the Raven Nevermore) in his poem, “The Raven”.

The Court-Martial of Willie Brand

The following is a transcript of a segment that appeared on CBS' "60 Minutes" broadcast on Sunday, March 5.

You wouldn't figure Willie Brand for a killer. He's a quiet young soldier from Cincinnati who volunteered to be a guard at a U.S. military prison in Bagram, Afghanistan. But when 60 Minutes met him, Brand was facing a court-martial in the deaths of two prisoners. The prisoners were found hanging from chains in their isolation cells. They had been beaten; one of them was "pulpified," according to the medical examiner.

Brand told correspondent Scott Pelley what he did wasn't torture, it was his training, authorized and supervised by his superiors. So how is it he was charged with assault, maiming and manslaughter?

"I didn't understand how they could do this after they had trained you to do this stuff and they turn around and say you've been bad you shouldn't have done this stuff now they're going to charge you with assault, maiming and 'unvoluntary' manslaughter, how can this be when they trained you to do it and they condoned it while you were doing it," says Brand.

"[The] Army says you are a violent man," Pelley said.

"They do say that, but I'm not a violent person," Brand replied.

But there was violence in the prison. A man named Habibullah and a cab driver called Dilawar died only days after they had been brought in on suspicion of being Taliban fighters.

"They brought death upon themselves as far as I'm concerned," says Capt. Christopher Beiring, who was Brand's commanding officer as head of the prison guards. Beiring was charged with dereliction of duty, but the charge was later dropped.

Asked whether compared to other detainees Habibullah was more or less aggressive, Beiring says, "Yes, absolutely more. He was probably the worst we had."

What kind of prisoner was Dilawar?

"I wouldn't categorize him as the worst but he, but he definitely, several of my soldiers would say that he would test them, fight with them kick, trip, try to bite, spit. That's typically what a fighter does," Beiring recalls.

Dilawar was picked up outside a U.S. base that had been hit by a rocket. Habibullah was brought in by the CIA, rumored to be a high-ranking Taliban. Both of them were locked in isolation cells with hoods over their heads and their arms shackled to the ceiling.

Their shackled hands, according to Brand, were at about eye level. The point of chaining them to the ceiling, Brand says, was to keep the detainees awake by not letting them lie down and sleep.

Interrogators wanted the prisoners softened up.

Asked what the longest period of time Brand saw a detainee chained like that, Brand says, "Probably about two days."

"Two days? Without a break?" Pelley asked.

"Without a break," Brand replied.

Capt. Beiring says he doesn't know of prisoners chained that long. But in general, he had no problem with the procedure.

"They weren't in pain. They weren't, as far as I'm concerned they weren't being abused. It seemed OK to me. If I was a prisoner, I would think that would probably be acceptable," says Beiring.

Brand says something else was thought to be acceptable in the prison: a brutal way of controlling prisoners - a knee to the common peroneal nerve in the leg, a strike with so much force behind it that the prisoner would lose muscle control and collapse in pain.

Brand says he vaguely remembers giving knee strikes to Habibullah.

How did the detainee react to that?

"The same way everybody else did. I mean he would scream out 'Allah, Allah, Allah'; sometimes his legs would buckle and sometimes it wouldn't," Brand explained.

It wasn't only Willie Brand. A confidential report by the Army's criminal investigation division accuses dozens of soldiers of abuse, including "slamming [a prisoner] into walls [and a] table," "forcing water into his mouth until he could not breathe," giving "kicks to the groin" and once, according to the report, a soldier "threatened to rape a male detainee." Soldiers even earned nicknames including "King of Torture" and "Knee of Death."

Habibullah and Dilawar were found dead in their cells, hanging from their chains. The military medical examiner says Dilawar's legs were pulpified. Both autopsy reports were marked "homicide." But the Army spokesman in Afghanistan told the media that both men had died of natural causes. With two deaths in a week, the Army decided to investigate. But the facts only began to become public months later in an article in The New York Times.

"I could smell that I was looking at what I thought was a cover-up," says retired Army Col. Lawrence Wilkerson.

Back in Washington, Wilkerson smelled trouble, and so did his boss. Wilkerson was chief of staff to Secretary of State Colin Powell. In 2004, during the Abu Ghraib abuse scandal in Iraq, Powell asked Wilkerson to investigate how Americans had come to torture.

"I was developing the picture as to how this all got started in the first place, and that alarmed me as much as the abuse itself because it looked like authorization for this abuse went to the very top of the United States government," says Wilkerson.

In 2002, the "top of the government" was divided over whether the Geneva Convention applied to prisoners in Afghanistan. The resulting presidential directive tried to have it both ways ordering that the "…armed forces shall continue to treat detainees humanely" but Geneva would apply only "to the extent appropriate and consistent with military necessity...."

It's Wilkerson's opinion that the Army chose to ignore Geneva when it issued new rules for interrogations in Afghanistan and Iraq.

"That essentially says to the troops at the bottom of the rung that you have a new game," Wilkerson says. "You can use the methods that aren't in accordance with Geneva. You can use methods that are other than when you've been taught, trained and told you could use. That, that is an invitation, a license to go beyond that, especially when you're also putting on them tremendous pressure to produce intelligence."

Capt. Beiring acknowledges that there was some confusion. "Because a lot of people didn't really know, what are their status? Who are these people? Did they sign the Geneva Convention? Who are they and what do we do with them? So there was some confusion," he says.

"Can you tell me whether anyone up the chain of command above you was aware that the prisoners were being shackled with their hands up about shoulder high?" Pelley asked.

"Absolutely," Beiring said.

"Who knew?" Pelley asked.

"Several of my leaders knew because we had them like that, you know, there was probably one or two like that any given day. And we didn't change the procedure if someone came through whether they were a colonel or a general, we left them the same. They seen (sic) what was going on there," Beiring answered.

Pelley asked Brand if other leaders knew what was going on.

Gen. Daniel McNeill, the top officer in Afghanistan, said "we are not chaining people to the ceilings."

Brand disagreed. "Well, he's lying obviously. I mean because we were doing it on a daily basis," he says.

"Gen. Theodore Nicholas, he was the top military intelligence officer in Afghanistan said that he did not recall prisoners being shackled with their arms overhead. Is that reasonable?" Pelley asked.

"No," Brand replied.

"Lt. Col. Ronald Stallings told investigators, quote, 'he had no idea,' end quote, that prisoners were being chained overhead for 24 hours and more. What you seem to be saying is that it was common knowledge," Pelley said.

"Yes," Brand said.

"It wasn't being kept a secret from the chain of command?" Pelley asked.

"No," Brand replied.

We don't know whether Gen. McNeill toured the prison, Brand doesn't specifically remember him there. But Gen. Nicholas and Lt. Col. Stallings were there. 60 Minutes wanted to speak with all three, but they declined.

There were inspection tours at the prison, run by the Red Cross. But the Red Cross didn't see everything. For example, it didn't see the instructions written on a dry erase board that told the guards how long prisoners were to be chained.

"We didn't want them to know - we didn't think they had an operational reason to know," says Capt. Beiring. "It also had other things on there like if a detainee was fighting or being punished for doing stuff wrong or if he didn't eat his food or he wasn't drinking, but yes, we erased that board so the ICRC we didn't think they had the need to know."

There was a lot the Red Cross didn't know. Medical experts say that Dilawar's injuries were so severe that, if he had lived, both his legs would have required amputation. Even worse, one soldier testified that most of the interrogators thought Dilawar had been arrested only because he was in the wrong place at the wrong time. They had come to believe he was just a cab driver.


"And so we killed an innocent man, and that's something else that got me as I went though this, got me very concerned as to not just what we are doing to perhaps al Qaeda or al Qaeda-like terrorists or even insurgents when we come to Iraq, but what were doing to innocents," says Wilkerson.

Wilkerson says the Secretary of State, who devoted much of his life to the Army, was enraged. As the Abu Ghraib torture scandal was breaking, Wilkerson says his boss snapped up the phone and called Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld.

"And he essentially said, 'Don, don't you know what you're doing to our credibility around the world don't you know what you're doing to our image?' And for Secretary Powell to raise his voice that way was quite extraordinary. I've only heard him do it maybe five times in 16 years," says Wilkerson.

"What do you mean he raised his voice?" Pelley asked.

"I'm sure Secretary Rumsfeld was probably holding the phone away from his ear," Wilkerson replied.

In August, Willie Brand faced court-martial. Prosecutors said he and other guards had struck the prisoners dozens and dozens of times.

"People watching this interview are thinking, 'Look, this guy came into this facility, he was there five days and he was dead. He died in five days' time,' How did that happen?" Pelley asked.

"I don't really know how that happened," Brand replied.

"You hit him, you hit him numerous times. Did you think it was you?" Pelley asked.

"No," Brand replied.

"The Army would have us believe that you were operating outside the rules," Pelley said.

"This is what we were trained to do, and this is what we did. And not only that I was not the only one, there were many other people hitting them - and this was going on on a daily basis and nothing was said about it," Brand said.

But Capt. Beiring says those were not his orders. He says those knee strikes were to be used only for self-defense.

"You've read the Army investigation, and in it some of the witnesses say one of the soldiers was nicknamed the 'King of Torture' another one had quote the 'Knee of Death.' You were there; were you not seeing this?" Pelley asked Beiring.

"No, I was not," Beiring replied. "Some nicknames, as a commander you are fairly removed from the junior soldiers, so nicknames could have occurred that I did not know about."

"It's not the nicknames, it's how they got the nicknames that matters," Pelley said.

"I can't say for sure, I can only say I never witnessed any of my soldiers do anything that was out of line," Beiring said.

Still, a letter of reprimand has been written that blisters Beiring. It says his "command failures enabled an environment of abuse." But the charges that could have brought court-martial against him were dropped. An investigating officer said that Beiring "may not have done his duty perfectly, but he did it well." Beiring is appealing the reprimand.

Asked if he, in retrospect, has any sympathy for Habibullah and Dilawar, Beiring says, "Sure, I have some sympathy. I wish they were born Americans."

At his court-martial, Willie Brand was convicted of assault and maiming. He faced 16 years. But the jury of soldiers had it both ways. They convicted him and let him go with a reduction in rank, nothing more. So far, 15 soldiers have been charged in the Bagram abuse. The sentences range from letters of reprimand to five months in jail. No one above the rank of captain has been charged.

Retired Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, after serving 31 years in the Army, has drawn his own conclusions about how interrogation procedures were changed in Afghanistan and later in Iraq.

How did it go wrong?

"It went wrong because we had a secretary of defense who had never served on the ground a day in his life, who was arrogant and thought that he could release those twin pressures on the backs of his armed forces, the twin pressures being a wink and a nod, you can do a lot of things that you know don't correspond to Geneva, don't correspond to your code of conduct, don't correspond to the Army field manual, and at the same time I want intelligence, I want intelligence, I want it now," says Wilkerson.

While Secretary Rumsfeld never served in combat, he was a Navy aviator and retired from the reserves as a captain. 60 Minutes wanted to talk with Secretary Rumsfeld, but the Pentagon declined our requests. Since the deaths at Bagram, chaining from the ceiling has been banned. The number of prisoners there has increased fivefold, to roughly 500. The prisoners don't get lawyers, and they can't appeal their detentions. But, the military tells 60 Minutes, it reviews each prisoner's file for release at least once a year.

Satan is Resting Easy: The Power of Christ "Propels" Them

By JASON MILLER

Remember, Big Brother is watching, listening and reading. In light of the illegal surveillance they are conducting at the behest of their incompetent, rogue, and murderous Commander-in-Chief, I am dedicating this essay to the NSA.

To George Bush, Dick Cheney, Daniel Pipes, and their soulless war-mongering compadres, I proudly admit that I support the Palestinians (and their democratically elected Hamas leaders) in their struggle against their brutal Israeli oppressors. In fact, consider me a member of the so-called Fifth Column identified by Pipes. I abhor virtually all of the foreign and domestic policies the Machiavellian disciples of Strauss have implemented through wielding their ill-gotten power and influence. However, the United States is as much my country as it is theirs. I fully intend to remain here and work persistently against them by continuing to tenaciously pursue human rights and social justice for humanity, not simply for a select few in the United States and Israel.

Quoting the eloquent and infamous words of the incredibly articulate Mr. Cheney, I say, "Fuck you!" to their malignant cabal. While this nefarious faction and its loyalists may consider me a traitor, I refuse to pledge allegiance to a pack of criminals who have hijacked the government of the people of the United States. If it is treason to dissent against corrupt thieves and murderers who have shredded our sacred Constitution, I stand guilty as charged.

There are lies and there are damned lies…

One of the boldest and most insidious lies propagated by the leadership of the Zionists, the Dominionists, the Religious Right, and by their whores in Washington is that the Middle East is populated primarily by Islamic extremists with an insatiable thirst for the blood of "innocent American Christians" and who are hell bent on eliminating "those poor chronic victims" illegally occupying the land of the Palestinians and committing genocide against them.

Somehow, in a twist of logic only Lewis Carroll could fully comprehend, many people in the United States have been indoctrinated to believe that our nation, which possesses the largest stockpile of weapons of mass destruction in the history of mankind, is the only nation to have used those weapons on a massive scale (just ask the Japanese), and bears direct and indirect responsibility for the murder of tens of millions of innocent civilians over the last century, is a benevolent super-power illuminating a beacon of hope for humanity. I readily recognize that other nations and governments have committed their share of atrocities, but I do not see them waving the Red, White and Blue, piously trumpeting platitudes about spreading freedom and democracy, and simultaneously waging pre-emptive strikes against nations which they merely “perceive to be a potential threat”. Holier than thou, dost thou think? The golden chalice of the United States runneth over with putrid sanctimony.

The terror of gazing at one’s own reflection…

For over a year now, I have written numerous essays which have been widely published on the Internet. My primary goal has been to inspire Americans to apply the same humanitarian standards to our nation that we use to stringently and hypocritically measure other nations. I have also attempted to convince more Americans to engage in introspection and self-examination. When I began plumbing those depths about 13 years ago, I did not like what I saw. I have steadily acted to reshape my values, outlook, and decisions to align with ideals such as human rights, social justice, peace, equality, thrift, dignity, honesty, respect, and responsibility. While I have not achieved the high moral plain of a Gandhi by any means, I have become more a part of the solution than the problem.

Based on the hateful, denigrating, and sometimes threatening emails I receive from about a third of the readers responding to my essays, I conclude that my message threatens the sense of security many Americans derive from supporting the status quo. I have also determined that I am swimming upstream against an addictive torrent of vitriolic propaganda spewed by Fox News, Rush Limbaugh, Michael Savage, Jonah Goldberg, and a host of others. Sorry to disappoint those of you who have told me to leave the country, kill myself, or renounce being a “traitor and a "self-hating American" (yes, they often parrot the rhetoric of the likes of Daniel Pipes), but I have no intention of moving, killing myself, or abandoning my deeply rooted antipathy for the enemies of humanity (and the Earth) who have stolen the United States from We the People.

Jesus as a commodity… and a weapon

One of the American elite’s (amongst whom I include their complicit disseminators of propaganda in the mainstream media) most repulsive means of grabbing and maintaining power has been its shameless use of spiritual manipulation, a heinous form of psychological abuse. Preying on fear, insecurity, and ignorance, they have perverted true Christianity to the extent that a third of those voting for George Bush, a man as morally repugnant as Dorian Gray, were a part of the radical Religious Right.

With the help of mendacious, avaricious, and highly sophisticated hucksters like James Dobson, Jerry Falwell, and Ted Haggard, the American plutocracy has packaged and commercialized spirituality like an Extra Value Meal at McDonald’s. You want fast food salvation done the American way? Look for the Golden Crosses, zip into the drive-through, drop some donation money, and accept Christ as your savior! Forget spiritual pain or sacrifice. Jesus died to grant you a path to easy street. So be on your merry way with your Big Mac of two all beef patties and guaranteed eternity in heaven. Chase it down with an enchanting Golgotha collector’s cup filled with smug certainty that you are now morally superior to the rest of humanity. Savor a side of Schadenfreude fries delightfully spiced with visions of the abject torment the “heathens” will face when Jesus the Avenger returns to Earth to smite the sinners.

Acknowledging that not all those comprising the Religious Right are created equal, and that there is a great deal of diversity amongst their beliefs and practices, there is enough commonality to conclude that the malefactors at the helm of the US have leveraged the hateful, narrow-minded beliefs of enough of these fanatics to garner sufficient support to commit egregious acts of torture, passive mass murder (New Orleans ring a bell?), massive slaughter under the guise of military intervention, and theft of public funds.

Men like Dobson shepherd their flocks to vote for bellicose champions of the wealthy because these “moral stalwarts” have pledged their undying support to a "culture of life". Despite their "devotion" to making abortion illegal, ending the use of human embryos (even those which would otherwise be discarded) for stem cell research, and denying equal rights to 5-10% of our population (gays and lesbians), the power brokers have perpetually been incapable of making good on their promises. While championing these “family values”, they have mesmerized their Religious Right followers into supporting the false dichotomy of Christianity vs. Islam, an imperialistic and murderous agenda in Iraq and throughout the Middle East, and domestic policies which significantly erode the economic well-being of their radical Christian base (and the rest of us amongst the working class). Thomas Frank explored this mind-blowing phenomenon in great detail in his book, What's the Matter with Kansas.

Realize that I am not disparaging the Christian religion in general. Personally, I am a spiritual person with a belief in a Higher Power, but I am not Christian. However, I recognize that there are many rational, compassionate, and decent human beings who practice Christianity. If one reads many of my essays, one will discover that I often find myself defending Islam and its followers in my writing. I do this because they have been the victims of Western imperialism for years. I make no claim that either the Muslims or Christians are better. I am simply deeply concerned about the Western genocide and acts of imperialism committed against Islamic peoples since oil became a valued commodity. In spite of the despicable misdeeds committed in our names, we wonder why so many in the Middle East harbor such hostility against the United States and its residents. We act befuddled, violated, and validated in our belief that we are morally superior when obscenely oppressed and exploited people resort to “terrorism” in a desperate attempt to defend themselves from the mightiest military and economy in the history of the world.

I abhor the violence committed by both sides, but we are not the “good guys”. The prevaricators leading our nation and writing our history have portrayed Americans as wearing the white hats for far too long. Transgressions and atrocities have been committed by many nations and people throughout history, including the United States and its leaders. Consider the most recent example in Iraq. Our occupying force has killed over 100,000 innocent Iraqi civilians. This is state terrorism at its worst and it needs to end. With our resources, the United States could become a humanitarian force. Sadly, the Neocons have chosen guns over butter (using our tax dollars and a mountain of borrowed money) to a shameless degree, enraging many of us who still have a social conscience.

Do as we say, not as we do….

Just as some Islamic fundamentalists wield religion as a weapon, the morally bankrupt aristocracy of the United States utilizes religion as a tool of war. Employing the power of spiritual manipulation to muster the support of their minions of extremist Christians, the authors of the Project for the New American Century mobilized enough popular support to invade a nation which had not harmed the United States, to eradicate the poor in New Orleans through passive mass murder and a Diaspora, to sell our children's future by committing to $8 trillion worth of debt to power their war machine, to cut taxes on the rich, and to increase war spending while cutting spending on programs which benefit humanity.

I hate to burst the bubble of those still deluded enough to accept the false premise (advanced by the Bush Regime) that we are a Christian nation embroiled in a modern day crusade against the followers of an Islamic religion which teaches them to hate democracy and brutally violate human rights. Here is a dose of reality. Over the last century, this "good Christian nation" and our friends in Israel have slaughtered, murdered, and tortured millions of Islamic people, both directly and indirectly (through proxy dictators). In contrast, Islamic murders of Americans, Christians and Jews are a relative drop in the bucket. Rather than "spreading freedom and democracy", Bush has the United States spreading imperialism, torture, and murder of innocent civilians. Saddam Hussein’s removal from power was a mere sideshow. If the United States was so concerned with its moral obligation to remove a ruthless dictator from power, there were many others they could have targeted. It was oil, power, and increased security for our terrorist proxy occupying Palestine that motivated the United States to invade Iraq.

Speaking of concern for human rights and humanitarian intervention, when is the United States going to stop funding Israel and launch an invasion against them to stop the Palestinian genocide? When groups like Hamas have the audacity to resist oppression and murder, Americans and Israelis label them as "terrorists". Now that Hamas is the democratically elected ruling party of the PA, the United States has elected to cut its aid to the Palestinians, a people who are already wallowing in the misery of Israeli-inflicted poverty and racial extermination. (As a side note, the Israelis are able to inflict genocide on the Palestinians because of the obscene amounts of financial and military aid they receive from the United States). To add insult to injury, Israel has determined that they can once again disregard international law by withholding the Palestinian tax revenues they collect (the Palestinians’ chief source of income). As is typical, the United States and its proxy are free to violate treaties, international laws, UN mandates, and humanitarian standards with impunity while applying the same laws to the rest of the world to the nth degree.

How about calling us a pluralistic nation with freedom of religion?

The notion that the United States is a Christian nation is false on numerous levels. Certainly we are heavily influenced Christianity, but to say we are a Christian nation flies in the face of the raison de’ etre of America.

Consider the following:

1. According to the 1990 US Census, 91.6% of Americans were Christians. By 2000, the percentage had decreased to 85%. We 42 million “heathens” represent a pretty significant portion of the population.

2. Many of the Western Europeans who settled the original thirteen colonies fled their nations of origin to evade religious persecution and state-imposed religions.

3. Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin, two of our most prominent Founding Fathers, were Deists. Washington and Jefferson were not particularly religious but tended more toward Deism than Christianity.

4. Thomas Paine, whose writings were a powerful catalyst for the American Revolution, vehemently attacked Christianity in one of his polemical works and refused to embrace Christianity, even on his death-bed.

5. God is not mentioned in our Constitution. The Declaration of Independence simply mentions "Nature's God" and a "Creator", neither of which specifically imply a Christian god.

6. Per the Treaty of Tripoli, endorsed by President John Adams and ratified unanimously by the US Senate in 1797: "As the Government of the United States is not in any sense founded on the Christian religion..."

7. If Christians lay claim to the United States as their nation, that means they bear the sole responsibility for the evils of slavery, the virtual annihilation of the Native Americans, and the many acts of state terror perpetrated by the US military and CIA over the years.

8. In 1864, the equivalent of today's Religious Right cowed Congress into passing legislation mandating that the US begin stamping "In God We Trust" on several of our coins. Besides caving to the powerful influence of Christian fundamentalists, our federal government also recognized the psychological boost the power of Christian symbolism would give them after the blow to their authority rendered by the Civil War.

9. McCarthy-inspired anti-Communist hysteria motivated Eisenhower to sign Public Law 140 in 1956. Going forward, all US coins and paper money bore the propagandistic slogan "In God We Trust" to reassure Americans that we were better than the godless Communists. The same year, the words "under God" were added to the Pledge of Allegiance. It took 180 years for this Christian nation to fully embrace its identity. Or perhaps it simply took our plutocratic rulers that long to recognize the power of spiritual coercion….

As an aside, the original motto on the United States was E Pluribus Unum (Latin for “Out of many, one”), which obviously encourages more unity and cohesion than an exclusionary national motto dedicated to a god worshipped by one segment of the population.

Sleeping like babies….

Aside from the power of radical Christianity to subjugate the masses, this disturbing perversion of healthy spirituality does come with an added “benefit”. It enables its devotees to support politicians who rob from the poor to give to the rich, who wage murderous and imperialist wars to enrich the military industrial complex, and who allow their corporate collaborators to blatantly abuse employees, consumers, and the environment. Thanks to the salve provided to their consciences by "knowing" they live in a Christian, morally superior nation (not to mention the security provided by their "guaranteed blissful after-life"), the mélange of groups and people comprising the extreme Religious Right can swear their allegiance to a group of monstrous human beings without feeling a twinge of guilt.

As many of my antagonists have pointed out, I am not without limitations (and I do not claim to be). Remaining in the United States to wage a non-violent struggle for human rights and social justice virtually assures that I will be a party to enabling the US war machine and corporatocracy in some way. Besides the fact that I pay federal taxes (fairly unavoidable for a working class family person), buy some products from grossly corrupt corporations (albeit as few as possible), and have my share of personal spiritual struggles, my other glaring sin is the hostility I harbor toward the enemies of humanity sitting atop the throne of power in our nation. However, even Jesus himself directed outrage at the money-changers and legalistic religious leaders of his day. If someone of his moral capacity directed anger at the corrupt establishment, who am I to presume I could overcome my rancor against the malevolent forces comprising the United States ruling elite? If their numerous crimes against humanity were not fanning the flames of my anger, I would no longer be breathing. My challenges are to prevent my ire from evolving into festering hatred or desire for revenge and to strive to maintain constructive anger (which motivates me to seek justice and positive change). That is a challenge to which I can rise, despite my human short-comings.

Please excuse my use of profanity above, but it felt so good to echo Cheney's choice sentiments back to him and his unwholesome cohorts. Meanwhile, send Satan a postcard on his vacation. Our imperialistic rulers do not need him to perpetrate their acts of profound moral depravity. They glide on the momentum generated by fanatical followers who believe they have the market cornered on morality and that Jesus will soon return to Earth as the ultimate WMD.

Jason Miller is a 39 year old sociopolitical essayist with a degree in liberal arts and an extensive self-education. When he is not spending time with his wife and three sons, doing research, or writing, he works as a loan counselor. He is a member of Amnesty International and an avid supporter of Oxfam International and Human Rights Watch. He welcomes responses at willpowerful@hotmail.com or comments on his blog, Thomas Paine’s Corner, at http://civillibertarian.blogspot.com/ .