The Heart of the Matter
I’ve had a couple of near Tim Russert moments over the last decade. In fact, I’ve got two stents in the left anterior descending, the vessel that sank him. I like to kid that I keep a locker at Yale New Haven Hospital and have a zipper installed in my femoral artery for quickie catherizations.
All my half dozen or so catherizations were done at Yale--except for one. The exception was performed seven years back at the Hôpital Cochin at the Port Royal in Paris.
The American health care debate tends to be ideological and/or financial. The right wingers demonize any proposal for a public system as socialistic, a death ray pejorative that instantly zaps any scheme for civic improvement in its tracks. Liberals point out that our private system is heading from atrociously expensive to monstrously unaffordable.
I once got involved in the details of those differences. But since enjoying the hospitality of a French hospital, I just tell my story when the subject comes up. For me, that pretty much sums up the issue. Here it is:
Suffering severe chest pain, I was taken by ambulance from my Montparnasse hotel to the nearby hospital. A catherization was immediately performed. It was determined my stents were okay and I had no new blockages. They kept me overnight for observation. I was released in the morning. The doc in charge of my case gave me a DVD of the procedure to bring back to my cardiologist at home.
Meanwhile, my wife was on the phone to the states getting authorization for payment from Yale Health Plan. On the way out the next morning, we stopped at la caisse to pay the bill. The tab was the equivalent of $1,300. The cashier gave me two pieces of paper: my credit card chit and a hospital bill listing just two items: specialité cardiac and 2 forfait journalier (room charge for two days). Had I been a French citizen, I would not have paid a centime. There was no charge for the ambulance, that being a free public service for anyone who happens to need one in France.
Back at home, my health plan was paying somewhere between $16,000 and $25,000 for my catherizations. The bills, of course, looked like the Manhattan phone book. On the few occasions I needed an ambulance, that was an extra grand or so.
At the time I wrote a more detailed op-ed on this incident for the Hartford Courant. It was headlined “Getting Sick in a Healthy Country.” At the end, I advised the Yale Health Plan that they could fly their catherization candidates first class to Paris, put them up at the Ritz, throw in a couple of three-star meals and ooh-lah-lah shows and still save themselves a few bucks on on the deal.
The difference between France’s socialized medicine and our commercialized medicine is obvious. The aim in France and the rest of the first world is to keep their citizens healthy at a reasonable cost to the society. The aim here is to make profits on their sickness. The French live longer and healthier lives than we Americans at far less cost to their nation. We produce billionaire hospital and pharmaceutical executives. Take your pick.
Wednesday, June 18, 2008
Wednesday, June 11, 2008
Will Obama Be Our Alarm Clock?
Back in 1968 the world exploded in protest against business as usual. Students and workers across Europe rose up against both capitalist and communist regimes. Latin American dictatorships found themselves challenged by revolutionary guerrilla movements. China had its Great Cultural Revolution. Here in the U.S. young people inspired hope for a brief moment that a new world was aborning. I was there in the thick of things, and of a proper age to both enjoy it and take it seriously.
Its 2008 and the world is restless again. Traffic has come to a halt across Europe with truckers protesting the price of fuel. Fish are not be found in the markets because fishermen are doing the same. Masses of South Koreans have shaken their government with protests against American beef imports and other trade and sovereignty issues. Even Japanese salary men, the gold standard for corporate docility, are fed up with being screwed.
This time, the U.S. is out of the loop. So far, an endless war, sinking economy and skyrocketing fuel and food prices have yet to stir more than minimal protest. You get the feeling that people are clueless and/or hopeless about changing things by way of concerted democratic action.
Many, I surmise, are waiting for Obama to provide a new beginning. They think that because he’s young, smart and cool he’ll “change” stuff. What exactly, no one seems to know or care.
Few seem to notice that beneath that cool is a business as usual politician who has already declared his loyalty to the empire, which even in its death throes remains the most important, expensive, dangerous and self-destructive thing we do as a nation. Indeed, the problem, as usual, is that he will ignore the home front in favor of violent and inevitably self-defeating efforts to revive it.
JFK, Obama’s role model, was big on the empire. He was hot to play Terry and the Pirates with the commies in the back alleys of exotic lands. Still, the brief Kennedy era helped to ease us into the sixties. Having a young and hip president brightened the mood even if his politics amounted to more of the same.
Being an alarm clock for our sleeping spirits may be the best we can hope for Obama.
Back in 1968 the world exploded in protest against business as usual. Students and workers across Europe rose up against both capitalist and communist regimes. Latin American dictatorships found themselves challenged by revolutionary guerrilla movements. China had its Great Cultural Revolution. Here in the U.S. young people inspired hope for a brief moment that a new world was aborning. I was there in the thick of things, and of a proper age to both enjoy it and take it seriously.
Its 2008 and the world is restless again. Traffic has come to a halt across Europe with truckers protesting the price of fuel. Fish are not be found in the markets because fishermen are doing the same. Masses of South Koreans have shaken their government with protests against American beef imports and other trade and sovereignty issues. Even Japanese salary men, the gold standard for corporate docility, are fed up with being screwed.
This time, the U.S. is out of the loop. So far, an endless war, sinking economy and skyrocketing fuel and food prices have yet to stir more than minimal protest. You get the feeling that people are clueless and/or hopeless about changing things by way of concerted democratic action.
Many, I surmise, are waiting for Obama to provide a new beginning. They think that because he’s young, smart and cool he’ll “change” stuff. What exactly, no one seems to know or care.
Few seem to notice that beneath that cool is a business as usual politician who has already declared his loyalty to the empire, which even in its death throes remains the most important, expensive, dangerous and self-destructive thing we do as a nation. Indeed, the problem, as usual, is that he will ignore the home front in favor of violent and inevitably self-defeating efforts to revive it.
JFK, Obama’s role model, was big on the empire. He was hot to play Terry and the Pirates with the commies in the back alleys of exotic lands. Still, the brief Kennedy era helped to ease us into the sixties. Having a young and hip president brightened the mood even if his politics amounted to more of the same.
Being an alarm clock for our sleeping spirits may be the best we can hope for Obama.
Wednesday, June 4, 2008
Peons for President
Smilin’ Jack McCain looked to be deep into downers last night. How the hell does he still manage to peregrinate and prevaricate at the same time? Hillary’s eyes went dead around the time she let her sang-Freud slip about Bobby Kennedy getting shot in June. Obviously, the campaign, already a grueling 16 months of 24/7 weeks with another five to go, has wasted them physically, mentally and emotionally. Obama, being the youngest, remains the hardiest. But he’s got to be tuckered to boot.
What’s frying them is not just the fire in their bellies. Though they are A list politicians giving their all to gain the putatively most powerful job in the universe, they are in actuality the peons of a secondary industry.
In every other nominally democratic country, elections remain a civic rite. Campaigns run for a set period, usually a month or two. Typically, free air time is mandated and equally distributed to candidates. France even prescribes equity in billboard space and placement. In parliamentary regimes, citizens vote for party lists rather than personalities--meaning they have to comprehend issues enough to know what each party is peddling.
There was a time when voting was a civic rite here as well. Rowdy and often rigged, elections nevertheless were about selecting solons for office. Then they succumbed to the stainless steel rule of American-style capitalism: any human activity that can be turned into a business will be turned into a business. It’s original purpose, whether choosing politicians or educating school kids, will become appurtenant to the drive for monetary profit.
Well, how do you commercialize elections? You have only to flick your tv remote to see. You transform them into advertising venues by making 15 and 30 second spots the chief means of contact between candidates and voters. Then you charge the candidates full freight, since occasional ads don’t qualify for the discounts given to regular advertisers. Finally, you make sure that the ads are not in fact occasional by making campaigns last longer and longer and longer.
Over the last couple of decades, what was once a small seasonal business for media companies, equivalent to, say, Halloween, has turned into a megamillions monster. Not only are there the candidate ads, but all the additional bucks raked in by the pundit shows and audiences drawn by the manufactured controversies endlessly churned out by the cable news nets. If you think that Keith Olbermann and Bill O’Reilly are there to trade barbs, think again. CNBC and Fox pay them to treat politics like a car wreck you can’t help gaping at.
If the candidate had the slightest concern for their own health, if the parties cared about their own power, if their fat cat contributors cared about where their millions were going, and if voters were really sick of the infinity of ideological idiocies imposed on them, they would join to put an end to this ridiculous business and go back to picking leaders according to to some rationale method.
But they won’t. The voters hardly care they’re being conned. And the other players would never dare challenge even a secondary corporate sector like media. If they had those kind of guts, we wouldn’t be the only people in the modern world who have to ask financial companies whether it’s profitable for them to let us see the doctor when we’re sick.
The lesson here is that if Clinton, Obama and McCain are literally willing to endure systemic exhaustion at the behest of Fox, NBC, ABC and their corporate parents, imagine the prodigies of prostration they perform for the bigger biggies on Wall Street!
Funny, isn’t it, that those at the very top of the food chain are as enslaved by rampant capitalism as its most miserable victims?
Smilin’ Jack McCain looked to be deep into downers last night. How the hell does he still manage to peregrinate and prevaricate at the same time? Hillary’s eyes went dead around the time she let her sang-Freud slip about Bobby Kennedy getting shot in June. Obviously, the campaign, already a grueling 16 months of 24/7 weeks with another five to go, has wasted them physically, mentally and emotionally. Obama, being the youngest, remains the hardiest. But he’s got to be tuckered to boot.
What’s frying them is not just the fire in their bellies. Though they are A list politicians giving their all to gain the putatively most powerful job in the universe, they are in actuality the peons of a secondary industry.
In every other nominally democratic country, elections remain a civic rite. Campaigns run for a set period, usually a month or two. Typically, free air time is mandated and equally distributed to candidates. France even prescribes equity in billboard space and placement. In parliamentary regimes, citizens vote for party lists rather than personalities--meaning they have to comprehend issues enough to know what each party is peddling.
There was a time when voting was a civic rite here as well. Rowdy and often rigged, elections nevertheless were about selecting solons for office. Then they succumbed to the stainless steel rule of American-style capitalism: any human activity that can be turned into a business will be turned into a business. It’s original purpose, whether choosing politicians or educating school kids, will become appurtenant to the drive for monetary profit.
Well, how do you commercialize elections? You have only to flick your tv remote to see. You transform them into advertising venues by making 15 and 30 second spots the chief means of contact between candidates and voters. Then you charge the candidates full freight, since occasional ads don’t qualify for the discounts given to regular advertisers. Finally, you make sure that the ads are not in fact occasional by making campaigns last longer and longer and longer.
Over the last couple of decades, what was once a small seasonal business for media companies, equivalent to, say, Halloween, has turned into a megamillions monster. Not only are there the candidate ads, but all the additional bucks raked in by the pundit shows and audiences drawn by the manufactured controversies endlessly churned out by the cable news nets. If you think that Keith Olbermann and Bill O’Reilly are there to trade barbs, think again. CNBC and Fox pay them to treat politics like a car wreck you can’t help gaping at.
If the candidate had the slightest concern for their own health, if the parties cared about their own power, if their fat cat contributors cared about where their millions were going, and if voters were really sick of the infinity of ideological idiocies imposed on them, they would join to put an end to this ridiculous business and go back to picking leaders according to to some rationale method.
But they won’t. The voters hardly care they’re being conned. And the other players would never dare challenge even a secondary corporate sector like media. If they had those kind of guts, we wouldn’t be the only people in the modern world who have to ask financial companies whether it’s profitable for them to let us see the doctor when we’re sick.
The lesson here is that if Clinton, Obama and McCain are literally willing to endure systemic exhaustion at the behest of Fox, NBC, ABC and their corporate parents, imagine the prodigies of prostration they perform for the bigger biggies on Wall Street!
Funny, isn’t it, that those at the very top of the food chain are as enslaved by rampant capitalism as its most miserable victims?
Monday, May 26, 2008
Memorial Day
By my reckoning America fought three justifiable wars: the Revolution, the Civil War and World War II. All the others, from 1812 through Iraq, were to dilate or defend the empire.
Imperial wars were once unpopular. Lincoln, Emerson and Thoreau opposed the Mexican War by which we grabbed up everything from Texas to California. Andrew Carnegie and Mark Twain were luminaries in the broad anti-imperialist movement fired up by the Spanish-American War.
We won those wars. And since there’s no argument with success, anti-imperialism didn’t catch on. Today we have a small generic peace movement but no anti-imperial effort to speak of. Indeed, Americans accept like the weather that millions of their bodies and trillions in their taxes should go to Washington and Wall Street’s quixotic quest for full spectrum domination of the earth below and the heavens above.
Few bother to mull the iron logic that four percent of the world’s people cannot long boss the other 96 percent, not even with an infinite array of monstrous weapons. Even fewer notice that this mission impossible is failing badly. They quickly change channels on those ever fewer occasions when the media notice Iraq and the crumbling U.S. position in the rest of the Middle East.
Latin America, now integrating and breaking free of Washington in the most dynamic political upheaval since the Spanish got booted two centuries ago, is utterly ignored. At best, Americans know that everything now comes from China--so that it’s no longer cool to badmouth communism.
Four presidential candidates had the guts to acknowledge and criticize the empire. For this among other sins of candor, Ron Paul, Mike Gravel, Dennis Kucinich and Ralph Nader were quickly exiled to Extremia, the Devil’s Island for truthful pols. But ignoring the hippo in the hot tub doesn’t make it slink away.
America’s choice has always been clear: Either abandon the imperial endeavor and learn to live in a world of parity, or suffer Vietnams and Iraqs unto insolvency and ignominy. The first requires a sentient citizenry and a popular movement. Without them, the second will simply continue to happen until our ruins match those of Rome.
By my reckoning America fought three justifiable wars: the Revolution, the Civil War and World War II. All the others, from 1812 through Iraq, were to dilate or defend the empire.
Imperial wars were once unpopular. Lincoln, Emerson and Thoreau opposed the Mexican War by which we grabbed up everything from Texas to California. Andrew Carnegie and Mark Twain were luminaries in the broad anti-imperialist movement fired up by the Spanish-American War.
We won those wars. And since there’s no argument with success, anti-imperialism didn’t catch on. Today we have a small generic peace movement but no anti-imperial effort to speak of. Indeed, Americans accept like the weather that millions of their bodies and trillions in their taxes should go to Washington and Wall Street’s quixotic quest for full spectrum domination of the earth below and the heavens above.
Few bother to mull the iron logic that four percent of the world’s people cannot long boss the other 96 percent, not even with an infinite array of monstrous weapons. Even fewer notice that this mission impossible is failing badly. They quickly change channels on those ever fewer occasions when the media notice Iraq and the crumbling U.S. position in the rest of the Middle East.
Latin America, now integrating and breaking free of Washington in the most dynamic political upheaval since the Spanish got booted two centuries ago, is utterly ignored. At best, Americans know that everything now comes from China--so that it’s no longer cool to badmouth communism.
Four presidential candidates had the guts to acknowledge and criticize the empire. For this among other sins of candor, Ron Paul, Mike Gravel, Dennis Kucinich and Ralph Nader were quickly exiled to Extremia, the Devil’s Island for truthful pols. But ignoring the hippo in the hot tub doesn’t make it slink away.
America’s choice has always been clear: Either abandon the imperial endeavor and learn to live in a world of parity, or suffer Vietnams and Iraqs unto insolvency and ignominy. The first requires a sentient citizenry and a popular movement. Without them, the second will simply continue to happen until our ruins match those of Rome.
Sunday, May 25, 2008
Friday, May 23, 2008
Most Powerful Job? Sure
Gibbon observed that one of the marks of a declining empire is when the vassals start exploiting the empire rather than vice versa.
Israel and Cuba are two of the world’s smaller states. Their combined populations wouldn’t add up to a suburb in China. Yet you cannot get elected president of the putatively all-powerful United States of America without ritually kissing the ass of the former and kicking the ass of the latter.
This weird rite has little to do with either Israel or Cuba and almost everything to do with the power of lobbies. The Israel and Cuban lobbies perpetuate and enlarge their clout by constantly intruding themselves between Washington and the two countries. They thrive on conflict, manufactured when not available in reality.
Both represent themselves far better than they do their clients. At best, the Israeli lobby speaks for the most rightwing elements in that country. For its part, the Cuban lobby’s constituency lives in Florida rather than Cuba. If Israel was at peace with its neighbors, the Israeli lobby would have no more influence than the Iceland lobby. If Washington was cool with Havana, the Cuban lobby would have as much juice as the Cyprus lobby.
Gibbon observed that one of the marks of a declining empire is when the vassals start exploiting the empire rather than vice versa.
Israel and Cuba are two of the world’s smaller states. Their combined populations wouldn’t add up to a suburb in China. Yet you cannot get elected president of the putatively all-powerful United States of America without ritually kissing the ass of the former and kicking the ass of the latter.
This weird rite has little to do with either Israel or Cuba and almost everything to do with the power of lobbies. The Israel and Cuban lobbies perpetuate and enlarge their clout by constantly intruding themselves between Washington and the two countries. They thrive on conflict, manufactured when not available in reality.
Both represent themselves far better than they do their clients. At best, the Israeli lobby speaks for the most rightwing elements in that country. For its part, the Cuban lobby’s constituency lives in Florida rather than Cuba. If Israel was at peace with its neighbors, the Israeli lobby would have no more influence than the Iceland lobby. If Washington was cool with Havana, the Cuban lobby would have as much juice as the Cyprus lobby.
Thursday, May 22, 2008
The Way the Media Work 2
Jeffrey Dahmer rules over an anthropaphagusian autocracy with Charlie Manson as his secretary of defense. He accepts Wall Street investments and hosts a U.S. military base. He buys lots of pots and pans and knives from American firms. The media dub him a “moderate” and a “valuable ally” in the war against terror.
Jesus Christ returns, bringing Heaven to a small corner of earth. The Empyrean economy is share and share alike. Jesus declines both U.S. investment and military alliance. The media classify him an “extremist” and a “dangerous enemy” in the war on terror.
Jeffrey Dahmer rules over an anthropaphagusian autocracy with Charlie Manson as his secretary of defense. He accepts Wall Street investments and hosts a U.S. military base. He buys lots of pots and pans and knives from American firms. The media dub him a “moderate” and a “valuable ally” in the war against terror.
Jesus Christ returns, bringing Heaven to a small corner of earth. The Empyrean economy is share and share alike. Jesus declines both U.S. investment and military alliance. The media classify him an “extremist” and a “dangerous enemy” in the war on terror.
Sunday, May 18, 2008
Idiocy or Stupidity? You Decide
It was on tv and everything!
1. Last November the U.S. intelligence community released an official finding that Iran shut down its nuclear weapons program in 2003. The official position of the International Atomic Energy Agency is that there is no evidence that Iran even had such a program. Iran has repeatedly denied it has, is building, or wants nuclear weapons. What’s more, the Iranians, nee Persians, are pleased to share the easily Wikied info that they have not attacked another nation in several centuries.
Nevertheless, Obama, Clinton, McCain, Democrats, Republicans, the media and, not least of all, the Bush administration keep right on warning us around the clock that the nuclear threat from Iran is growing around the clock. Indeed, Hillary promised to “obliterate” Iran (i.e., erase 70 million human beings and one of humanity's oldest civilizations) should it nuke Israel with weapons no serious observer believes it has.
2. Over the last five years, the hard-line conservative Bush administration has directed the best units of the world’s self-proclaimed most powerful military against an enemy in Iraq that the administration characterizes as a “very small minority of dead-enders and losers.” That elite military is lately obliged to pay tens of millions a month in tribute to those dead-enders so that they won’t attack it. Furthermore, it is unable to defend its own headquarters from daily mortar and rocket attacks. Given the fact that the vaunted Israeli army remains unable after 41 years to pacify three million Palestinian Arabs imprisoned on a couple of postage stamp-sized bits of land, neither John McCain or anyone else has so far explained how a much smaller American force will eventually pacify 27 million Iraqi Arabs spread over a country the size of California.
3. Google up “corruption in Iraq” and you can busy yourself for decades exploring 2.5 million results. The basic story is that countless billions taken from our taxes or, increasingly, the profits of Chinese enterprises, have disappeared. Most, it’s assumed, was filched by contractors. But it should be remembered that Iraqis have no place but home to stash their valuables, and that our heroic war consists mainly of busting into private homes in search of young men and weapons. That Iraqi family jewels should end up in San Diego pawn shops is no big surprise.
This presidential campaign, a billion dollar profit center in its own right, is already 16 months old with seven to go. Among the major issues thus far has been the non-existent threat from Iran. Among the major non issues has been the utter incompetence and cosmic corruption of the Iraq war effort. As of this week and probably for months to come, a key topic will be whether a President Barack Obama will be as “tough” as the failures, fools and fraudsters currently running the show in Washington.
Idiocy or Stupidity? You Decide.
It was on tv and everything!
1. Last November the U.S. intelligence community released an official finding that Iran shut down its nuclear weapons program in 2003. The official position of the International Atomic Energy Agency is that there is no evidence that Iran even had such a program. Iran has repeatedly denied it has, is building, or wants nuclear weapons. What’s more, the Iranians, nee Persians, are pleased to share the easily Wikied info that they have not attacked another nation in several centuries.
Nevertheless, Obama, Clinton, McCain, Democrats, Republicans, the media and, not least of all, the Bush administration keep right on warning us around the clock that the nuclear threat from Iran is growing around the clock. Indeed, Hillary promised to “obliterate” Iran (i.e., erase 70 million human beings and one of humanity's oldest civilizations) should it nuke Israel with weapons no serious observer believes it has.
2. Over the last five years, the hard-line conservative Bush administration has directed the best units of the world’s self-proclaimed most powerful military against an enemy in Iraq that the administration characterizes as a “very small minority of dead-enders and losers.” That elite military is lately obliged to pay tens of millions a month in tribute to those dead-enders so that they won’t attack it. Furthermore, it is unable to defend its own headquarters from daily mortar and rocket attacks. Given the fact that the vaunted Israeli army remains unable after 41 years to pacify three million Palestinian Arabs imprisoned on a couple of postage stamp-sized bits of land, neither John McCain or anyone else has so far explained how a much smaller American force will eventually pacify 27 million Iraqi Arabs spread over a country the size of California.
3. Google up “corruption in Iraq” and you can busy yourself for decades exploring 2.5 million results. The basic story is that countless billions taken from our taxes or, increasingly, the profits of Chinese enterprises, have disappeared. Most, it’s assumed, was filched by contractors. But it should be remembered that Iraqis have no place but home to stash their valuables, and that our heroic war consists mainly of busting into private homes in search of young men and weapons. That Iraqi family jewels should end up in San Diego pawn shops is no big surprise.
This presidential campaign, a billion dollar profit center in its own right, is already 16 months old with seven to go. Among the major issues thus far has been the non-existent threat from Iran. Among the major non issues has been the utter incompetence and cosmic corruption of the Iraq war effort. As of this week and probably for months to come, a key topic will be whether a President Barack Obama will be as “tough” as the failures, fools and fraudsters currently running the show in Washington.
Idiocy or Stupidity? You Decide.
Friday, May 16, 2008
The Way the Media Work
Day 1: George Bush says two and two is five.
Day 2: Washington Post reports two and two is four is “a suddenly controversial concept.”
Day 3: Fox News decries Arabic numerals as anti-American.
Day 4: Hillary tells Fox that Brubeck’s Take Five is her favorite tune.
Day 5: ABC investigation implicates Lebanese accountant.
Day 6: Full page ads by mathematicians back two and two is four and defend freedom to add.
Day 7: Gail Collins of NY Times chides “extremists on both sides.”
The Way I Work
Two and two is four everyday--except on vacation when deux et deux font quatre.
Day 1: George Bush says two and two is five.
Day 2: Washington Post reports two and two is four is “a suddenly controversial concept.”
Day 3: Fox News decries Arabic numerals as anti-American.
Day 4: Hillary tells Fox that Brubeck’s Take Five is her favorite tune.
Day 5: ABC investigation implicates Lebanese accountant.
Day 6: Full page ads by mathematicians back two and two is four and defend freedom to add.
Day 7: Gail Collins of NY Times chides “extremists on both sides.”
The Way I Work
Two and two is four everyday--except on vacation when deux et deux font quatre.
War with Iran Cheat Sheet
Knowledgable people are saying Bush will attack Iran as a grand parting shot. The justification and/or provocation will be total bullshit. Nevertheless, the Democrats and the media will buy it. Facts to keep in mind:
* Iran’s faith-based regime, which intones death to America and Israel on a daily basis, has yet to attack another country after 30 years in power.
* In fact, Iran, nee Persia, has not attacked another country in 270 years.
* The U.S. has already attacked Iran twice. In 1953, a CIA coup overthrew the democratically-elected government and installed a brutal dictatorship. American companies, with the Brits as junior partners, took over Iran’s oil. The dictatorship and the oil companies were kicked out by the current regime in 1978. Washington armed and advised its then ally Saddam Hussein’s 1980 invasion of Iraq, providing components for the chemical weapons that Hussein used against the Iranians and his own people. The U.S. eventually sold weapons to both sides. A million Iranians and Iraqis died in the eight year war.
* The war will be about oil and dominance. The U.S. regards the Persian Gulf as it does the Long Island Sound. In particular, Washington and Wall Street do not accept that the people who live there have a right to their own oil. "Iran has legitimate aspirations that need to be respected," Henry Kissinger recently wrote in the Washington Post, “but those legitimate aspirations do not include control over the oil that the United States and other industrial countries need.”
* Iran is three times bigger than Iraq in area and population. It has a very large army equipped with modern weapons, including thousands of medium and short range missiles. So it can mount at least three times the war we now have in Iraq.
* Then again, the Iranians might respond minimally and allow the ensuing rocketing of oil prices, plunge into global depression, explosion of anger in the Islamic world, upshot in terrorism, and isolation of the U.S. by a disgusted world punish America instead.
* Seventy percent of the people in the region, including most Iranians, are Shiites. Iran supports various Shiite movements, some of them armed, throughout the Middle East. By the same token, Saudi Arabia supports armed Sunni movements, including those making the great majority of attacks on U.S. forces in Iraq. The U.S. and Israel support Christian, Sunni and Shiite clients in the region, and also bankroll and advise various armed factions inside Iran that carry out terrorist attacks to destabilize the country.
* Iran denies it wants or is building nuclear weapons. An official US intelligence community report as of January 2008 and continuing reports by the UN’s nuclear inspection agency confirm Iraq’s denial.
* Any use of nuclear weapons against Iran or any other Muslim country by either the U.S. or Israel will guarantee that sooner or later a nuclear weapon will be used against Israel.
* The chances of Bush attacking Iran between now and January 20, 2009: seventy percent on the Peter Meter.
Knowledgable people are saying Bush will attack Iran as a grand parting shot. The justification and/or provocation will be total bullshit. Nevertheless, the Democrats and the media will buy it. Facts to keep in mind:
* Iran’s faith-based regime, which intones death to America and Israel on a daily basis, has yet to attack another country after 30 years in power.
* In fact, Iran, nee Persia, has not attacked another country in 270 years.
* The U.S. has already attacked Iran twice. In 1953, a CIA coup overthrew the democratically-elected government and installed a brutal dictatorship. American companies, with the Brits as junior partners, took over Iran’s oil. The dictatorship and the oil companies were kicked out by the current regime in 1978. Washington armed and advised its then ally Saddam Hussein’s 1980 invasion of Iraq, providing components for the chemical weapons that Hussein used against the Iranians and his own people. The U.S. eventually sold weapons to both sides. A million Iranians and Iraqis died in the eight year war.
* The war will be about oil and dominance. The U.S. regards the Persian Gulf as it does the Long Island Sound. In particular, Washington and Wall Street do not accept that the people who live there have a right to their own oil. "Iran has legitimate aspirations that need to be respected," Henry Kissinger recently wrote in the Washington Post, “but those legitimate aspirations do not include control over the oil that the United States and other industrial countries need.”
* Iran is three times bigger than Iraq in area and population. It has a very large army equipped with modern weapons, including thousands of medium and short range missiles. So it can mount at least three times the war we now have in Iraq.
* Then again, the Iranians might respond minimally and allow the ensuing rocketing of oil prices, plunge into global depression, explosion of anger in the Islamic world, upshot in terrorism, and isolation of the U.S. by a disgusted world punish America instead.
* Seventy percent of the people in the region, including most Iranians, are Shiites. Iran supports various Shiite movements, some of them armed, throughout the Middle East. By the same token, Saudi Arabia supports armed Sunni movements, including those making the great majority of attacks on U.S. forces in Iraq. The U.S. and Israel support Christian, Sunni and Shiite clients in the region, and also bankroll and advise various armed factions inside Iran that carry out terrorist attacks to destabilize the country.
* Iran denies it wants or is building nuclear weapons. An official US intelligence community report as of January 2008 and continuing reports by the UN’s nuclear inspection agency confirm Iraq’s denial.
* Any use of nuclear weapons against Iran or any other Muslim country by either the U.S. or Israel will guarantee that sooner or later a nuclear weapon will be used against Israel.
* The chances of Bush attacking Iran between now and January 20, 2009: seventy percent on the Peter Meter.
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