Friday, January 19, 2007

Readers Can Now Post Their Own Views On VelvelOnNationalAffairs.Com

January 19, 2007

Re: Readers Can Now Post Their Own Views On VelvelOnNationalAffairs.Com.

From: Dean Lawrence R. Velvel
VelvelOnNationalAffairs.com


Dear Colleagues:

In accordance with a suggestion made by one of my readers, we are going to make it possible for readers to themselves post, on VelvelOnNationalAffairs.com, comments they may wish to make about essays I post, or about the general topics of the essays, or about any other readers’ comments on the essays or topics. The hope in letting people post their views themselves is that they will want to write and post intelligent, informative comments (whether brief or lengthy), and will thereby contribute to the public dialogue on important matters. Since excellent comments have long sent to me by email at Velvel@mslaw.edu, I know that many of you have very good points to make. I hope you will now make and post them on VelvelOnNationalAffairs.com. Of course, anyone who wants his or her comment to remain private can send it to me at Velvel@mslaw.edu, as before.

Needless to say, all comments that readers write and post will be the views of the writers, not of myself or MSL.

Again, I hope you will post your own views and thereby contribute to the public dialogue.*



* This posting represents the personal views of Lawrence R. Velvel. If you wish to comment on the post, on the general topic of the post, or on the comments of others, you can, if you wish, post your comment on my website, VelvelOnNationalAffairs.com. All comments, of course, represent the views of their writers, not the views of Lawrence R. Velvel or of the Massachusetts School of Law. If you wish your comment to remain private, you can email me at Velvel@mslaw.edu.

VelvelOnNationalAffairs is now available as a podcast. To subscribe please visit VelvelOnNationalAffairs.com, and click on the link on the top left corner of the page. The podcasts can also be found on iTunes or at www.lrvelvel.libsyn.com

Lessons From The Philippines Insurrection And Our Overthrow Of Mossadegh, Part II.

January 19, 2007

Re: Lessons From The Philippines Insurrection
And Our Overthrow Of Mossadegh, Part II.

From: Dean Lawrence R. Velvel
VelvelOnNationalAffairs.com


Dear Colleagues:

On July 11 and July 31, 2006, this writer posted essays based on a 2006 book by Stephen Kinzer called Overthrow: America’s Century Of Regime Change From Hawaii To Iraq. One essay involved the Philippines Insurrection around the turn of the 20th Century. The other involved the fact and the still bedeviling consequences of the American overthrow of Prime Minister Mossadegh of Iran in 1953. It also set forth some ideas regarding peace in the Middle East.

Unfortunately but expectably, the facts and ideas discussed in those postings are still as relevant six months later as when the original postings occurred. For six months later, of course, we are still dealing with continuous American military interventionism, grave problems with Iran, and a disaster in Iraq. Indeed, certain of these problems, maybe all three of them, may be rushing to a head. And now, after the November 7th elections, there may also be increased receptivity to the ideas in the two July posts.

For all these reasons, two postings based on Kinzer’s book have been or are being reposted, one yesterday and the other today. The (forlorn?) hope is that they might make some modest contribution to the debate over conflicting ideas that is currently taking place in this country.

The July 31, 2006 essay on the overthrow of Mossadegh, and its consequences for the United States, is appended below.*





July 31, 2006

Re: Overthrowing Mossadegh; Iranian Hatred For The U.S.;
And The Crisis In Lebanon.

From: Dean Lawrence R. Velvel
VelvelOnNationalAffairs.com


Dear Colleagues:

In the post discussing Stephen Kinzer’s writing on the Philippines Insurrection in his recent book entitled Overthrow: America’s Century Of Regime Change From Hawaii To Iraq, it was said that a future post would discuss what Kinzer wrote about our conduct in Iran. There, in 1953, we manufactured the overthrow of an Iranian patriot and nationalist manned Mohammed Mossadegh. We had him replaced by a cruel tyrant, the Shah, Mohammed Reza Palevi -- who, among other repressive actions, created the notorious and ultra cruel secret police force called Savak. The Iranians, who generally liked America before we orchestrated the overthrow of Mossadegh, have largely hated us ever since. Our 1953 action paved the way for the rise to power of the mullahs, led to the Shah’s overthrow and the one year seizure of our embassy personnel in 1979, and, as said, led to enduring hatred of the United States.

Fortuitously, the present time is, of course, a somewhat odd moment to write about our horrendous misconduct towards Iran. For few if any doubt that Iran, along with Syria, is behind Hezbollah and in reality is, again with Syria, the cause of what one might sardonically call the current unpleasantness in the Middle East. This is not a time when this writer would feel very charitable towards Iran or Syria. (The Syrians also are, as I have always understood it, a very cruel people. Witness the first Assad’s leveling of the Syrian city of Hama because it was a center of dissent, and to his murder of, it is estimated, 30,000 to 40,000 of Hama’s people. Also, twenty-some years ago, when touring the Golan Heights, this writer was shown Syrian machine gun positions in caves where, to prevent the gunners from retreating or running, the gunners, the Israelis said, had been chained to the walls until killed. I know of no reason, then or now, to disbelieve the Israelis, and one’s reaction, as with the slaughter at Hama, is “nice people, those Syrians.”)

The current unpleasantness makes it more likely than ever that we are going to have to decide what, if anything, to do about Iran and Syria: we may be unable to continue to use America’s favorite foreign policy tactic of pretty much ignoring something until faced with budding or partially accomplished disaster, as we did before Pearl Harbor and as occurred with regard to Muslim fundamentalism in the 1990s and up until September 11, 2001 despite various bombings such as bombings of the World Trade Center (in 1993), of American embassies, and of the Cole. For one can just imagine what the situation might be in the current unpleasantness if Iran now possessed nuclear weapons, or what the situation would be in the future. Hezbollah’s fantastic build-up on the Lebanon-Israel border did not occur because Iran and Syria desire abiding peace in the Middle East -- at least so long as there is an Israel -- and it would be better to deal with those bums now than to wait until Iran is nuclear armed. For at that point maybe the Iranians would sponsor, cause, encourage -- use whatever word you want -- the building-up and progressive worsening of situations that could lead at minimum to a vast regional conflagration and, quite plausibly, to nuclear war. Israel is not going to go gently into that good night wished for Israelis by the Iranians and the Syrians, you know. It will be more like Samson pulling the temple down on the Philistines, or in this case on the effing Syrians and Iranians. Or maybe the U.S., Britain and other western countries will have to join a large Middle Eastern conventional war against those two countries. Who knows what might happen? Better to deal with it now, before Iran is nuclear armed. Maybe -- let us fervently hope, let us devoutly pray (to use Lincolnian phraseology) -- that negotiations, jaw jaw jawing instead of war war warring (as I think was said by Churchill), resolve or at least immensely tamp down the Middle Eastern furor. But we may as well concede that, so long as Iran and Syria persist in seeking the destruction of Israel, there can be no permanent peace in the Middle East. They have to be dealt with -- and before Iran has the bomb.

Even though one has no use whatever for the current governments of Iran or Syria, it may nonetheless be useful to know what we did to Mossadegh, so that one will understand a major reason why Iran hates us, and can understand as well how the ground got prepared for the rise in Iran of Muslim cleric fundamentalists, mullahs, who seem to preach hatred against us and the west for religious reasons as well as nationalistic ones.

* * * * *

Kinzer’s Iranian tale starts with John Foster Dulles.

Dulles was a child of exceptional privilege. A man who made decisions by lengthily communing with himself, his legal mind and the extraordinary contacts arising from his privileged birth and upbringing propelled him quickly to the top of what became one of America’s leading law firms, Sullivan & Cromwell. His clients were a roster of leading multinational corporations. He played ball with the Nazis until a threatened revolt of his law partners forced him to stop.

Dulles was devoutly, maybe even “wacked outly” religious, and after World War II, became a wacked out anticommunist, partly because of his religiosity. His views also were those of the elite, the privileged, and the multinational corporations he spent most of his adult life representing.

As a person he was stiff, confrontational, adversarial, and “wished neither to meet, accommodate, or negotiate with the enemy.” (P. 116.) (He thus counseled Eisenhower against summit meetings.) And, as said, he communed with himself to make decisions.

Dulles wanted to be Secretary of State. He machinated for this purpose, and “[d]uring the 1952 presidential campaign . . . . made a series of speeches accusing the Truman administration of weakness in the face of Communist advances.” (P. 117.) This was bushwa of the worst order, I would say; it was Truman who went into Korea (without Congressional authorization), after all. Dulles “promised that a Republican White House would ‘roll back’ Communism by securing the ‘liberation’ of nations that had fallen victim to” it. (P. 117.)

From John Foster Dulles, Kinzer turns to Britain and Mossadegh. From 1901 until the 1950s, Britain, through the largely government owned Anglo-Iranian oil company (today BP, I believe), had a monopoly on Iranian oil, on which England’s military power, industries and standard of living was largely dependent. Anglo-Iranian had a “grossly unequal contract, negotiated with a corrupt monarch” for the oil; the contract “required it to pay Iran just 16 percent of the money it earned from selling the country’s oil.” (P. 117.) It probably paid even less in actuality, “but the truth was never known” since no outsiders could audit the books. (P. 117.) However, it apparently is known that “Anglo-Iranian made more profit in 1950 alone than it had paid Iran in royalties over the previous half century.” (Pp. 117-118.)

Iran, in short, was a country that had long been and was continuing to be screwed over by Britain.

Enter Mossadegh. An aristocrat, idealistic, a believer in both nationalism and democracy, he became Prime Minister of Iran in 1951. In Spring, under his leadership, the Iranian oil industry was nationalized, just as, he would say, Britain had nationalized its coal and steel industries for its own people’s benefit (or so the British thought at the time). Iran paid compensation for the oil industry; Kinzer thinks it was paying much more than it fairly had to.

The British were outraged. They could not believe that a “backwards country like Iran” could deal them a blow, sahib. (P. 118.) “They scornfully rejected suggestions that they offer to split their profits with Iran on a fifty-fifty basis, as American companies were doing in nearby countries. Instead they vowed to resist.” (Pp. 118-119.)

This they did:

At various points they considered bribing Mossadegh, assassinating him, and launching a military invasion of Iran, a plan they might have carried out if President Truman and Secretary of State Dean Acheson had not become almost apoplectic on learning of it. The British sabotaged their own installations at Abadan in the hopes of convincing Mossadegh that he could not possibly run the oil industry without them; blockaded Iranian ports so no tankers could enter or leave; and appealed unsuccessfully to the United Nations Security Council and the International Court of Justice. Finally, they concluded that only one option was left. They resolved to organize a coup. (P. 119.)

Having “suborned” (p. 119) many local leaders over generations (as colonialists always did), Britain set in motion a coup d’etat. But Mossadegh discovered it and “ordered the British embassy shut and all its employees sent out of the country. Among them were the intelligence agents who were organizing the coup.” (P. 119.)

What’s a girl, er Britain, to do? Enter John Foster Dulles, his brother, CIA head Allen Dulles, and the “chief of CIA operations in the Middle East, Kermit Roosevelt,” the grandson of Theodore. (P. 120.)

When Kermit Roosevelt passed through London from the Middle East shortly after Eisenhower was elected, the Brits proposed to him that the CIA carry out the coup. He told them there was no chance of this under the Truman administration, which was still in office, but the incoming Republicans might be a different story. Even before Eisenhower was inaugurated, therefore, the Brits sent a man to Washington to talk to Foster Dulles, told him that Mossadegh must be overthrown because he was leading Iran to Communism -- which was a bunch of cock and bull -- and “gave Dulles the idea that he could portray Mossadegh’s overthrow as a ‘rollback’ of Communism” -- though Dulles knew Mossadegh was not a Communist. (P. 121.) Dulles knew that he would be able to work well with the CIA because his brother Allen was its Director, and together they overcame Eisenhower’s concerns at a National Security Council meeting. This gave Dulles the green light to pursue ‘two lifelong obsessions: fighting Communism and protecting the rights of multinational corporations.” (P. 122.)

Under the plan drawn up for us by the British, we would bribe journalists, preachers and other opinion leaders to create hostility to Mossadegh, would hire thugs to attack people, making it look as if the attacks were ordered by Mossadegh, would bribe parliament members, and would have General Zahedi, whom we anointed as future leader of Iran, arrest Mossadegh if necessary. Thus:

Roosevelt slipped into Iran at a remote border crossing on July 19, 1953, and immediately set about his subversive work. It took him just a few days to set Iran aflame. Using a network of Iranian agents and spending lavish amounts of money, he created an entirely artificial wave of anti-Mossadegh protest. Members of parliament withdrew their support from Mossadegh and denounced him with wild charges. Religious leaders gave sermons calling him an atheist, a Jew, and an infidel. Newspapers were filled with articles and cartoons depicting him as everything from a homosexual to an agent of British imperialism. He realized that some unseen hand was directing this campaign, but because he had such an ingrained and perhaps exaggerated faith in democracy, he did nothing to repress it. (P. 124.)

When Mossadegh nonetheless managed to initially thwart this plan, Roosevelt came up with a new plan. He would have the shah sign royal decrees dismissing Mossadegh as prime Minister and replacing him with Zahedi, with soldiers to arrest Mossadegh if he refused to step down. The courage-free shah was afraid to do this and vacillated, so Roosevelt had first the Shah’s sister and then the first General Norman Schwarzkopf speak to him. The unbrave Shah, a pilot, agreed on condition that he would immediately fly away as soon as he signed the decrees. Not for him the line of fire. But Mossadegh had discovered and managed to thwart this Rooseveltian plot too.

Now what was a girl (Roosevelt) to do? He called in “two of his top Iranian operatives,” who “had excellent relations with Tehran’s street gangs,” and told them he wanted ‘to use those gangs to set off riots around the city.” (Pp. 126-127.) The two agents didn’t want to do it because they feared arrest. Roosevelt gave them a choice. Accept $50,000 to do the job or he would kill them. They accepted the $50,000, “left the embassy compound with a briefcase full of cash” (p. 127), and

That week, a plague of violence descended on Tehran. Gangs of thugs ran wildly through the streets, breaking shop windows, firing guns into mosques, beating passersby, and shouting “Long Live Mossadegh and Communism!” Other thugs, claiming allegiance to the self-exiled shah, attacked the first ones. Leaders of both factions were actually working for Roosevelt. He wanted to create the impression that the country was degenerating into chaos, and he succeeded magnificently. (P. 127.)

Mossadegh did not engage in counter street fighting, and did not realize that many of the commanders of police units which he sent to restore order were on Roosevelt’s payroll. Tehran “fell into violent anarchy.” (P. 127.) Roosevelt “drove to a safe house where he had stashed General Zahedi, who proceeded to proclaim “that he was ‘the lawful prime minister by the Shah’s orders,’” and attackers tried to storm Mossadegh’s house, finally succeeding by using tanks. Mossadegh surrendered, the Shah came back, and Palevi told Kermit Roosevelt “‘I owe my throne to God, my people, my army -- and to you.’” (Pp. 127-128.)

After Mossadegh was gotten rid of, the Shah got rid of Zahedi, who was a strong figure, and from then on would be “free to shape Iran as he wished.” (P. 200.) With America as “Iran’s most important, political, economic, and military partner” (p.200), our oil companies -- Gulf, Standard of New Jersey, Texaco and Mobil -- received a 40 percent share in the new National Iranian Oil Company, and the shah established a tyrannical dictatorship, with the dreaded Savak doing dirty work for him. Dissent was not tolerated by the shah, and he

repressed opposition newspapers, political parties, trade unions, and civic groups. As a result, the only place Iranian dissidents could find a home was in mosques and religious schools, many of which were controlled by obscurantist clerics. Through their uncompromising resistance to the regime, these clerics won the popular support that secular figures never achieved. That made it all but inevitable that when revolution finally broke out in Iran, clerics would lead it. (P. 201, emphasis added.)

In the late 70s, a revolt against the Shah began gathering steam:

. . . angry crowds began surging through the streets of Tehran and other Iranian cities crying “Death to the American shah!” That amazed many in the United States. Worse shocks lay ahead. The cleric who emerged as the revolution’s guiding figure, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, turned out to be bitterly anti-Western. His movement became so powerful that at the beginning of 1979, it forced the shah to flee into exile. A few months later, the new Khomeini regime sanctioned the seizure of the United States embassy in Tehran and the taking of American diplomats as hostage.

The hostage crisis deeply humiliated the United States, destroyed Jimmy Carter’s presidency, and turned millions of Americans into Iran haters. Because most Americans did not know what the United States had done to Iran in 1953, few had any idea why Iranians were so angry at the country they called “the great Satan.” (P. 202.)

Thus, our coup against Mossadegh in 1953, says Kinzer, left Iran under the “shah’s harsh rule for a quarter”

of a century. His repression ultimately set off a revolution that brought radical fundamentalists to power. Not satisfied with the humiliation they visited on the United States by holding fifty-four American diplomats hostage for fourteen months, these radicals sponsored deadly acts of terror against Western targets, among them a United States Marines barracks in Saudi Arabia and a Jewish community center in Argentina. Their example inspired Muslim fanatics around the world, including in neighboring Afghanistan, where the Taliban gave sanctuary to militants who carried out devastating attacks against the United States on September 11, 2001. None of this, as one Iranian diplomat wrote half a century after Operation Ajax [the coup] might have happened if Mossadegh had not been overthrown. (Pp. 202-203.)

So our misconduct of yesterday contributed greatly to, probably caused, the terrible situation in the Middle East we find ourselves in today.

What to do? Even though we disastrously were the cause of the current Iranian government and position, that government and position nonetheless do exist, and we can hardly say, “Sorry. Since we were the cause of the Iranian government and position, we will let Syria and Iran freely sponsor terrorism in the world and proceed to destroy Israel if they wish and are able to.” As bizarre as it sounds to say so, maybe we should apologize to Iran for what we did, just as the U.S. government has apologized for slavery and as doctors are now beginning to use apologies to help prevent bitter malpractice actions. But an apology is as far as we could go, and anyway don’t hold your breath waiting for the Bush/DICK administration to issue one.

Of course, it is obviously desirable at this point -- maybe even essential at this point -- that there be some kind of overall Middle East settlement, or as close to one as we can get, regardless of the fact that we largely caused the Iranian part of the problem. With this in mind, my off-the-top-of-the-head recommendation, which should be attempted via a general conference of all the parties (including Hezbollah and Hamas -- let’s have none of the shape of the table bullshit of Viet Nam days) would be this:

1. Pace George/DICK, but the United States would apologize to Iran for what America did to Mossadegh.

2. Syria, Iran, Hamas, and Hezbollah would agree no longer to ever attack Israel in any way, whether directly, by guerrillas or by terrorists.

3. The area of Lebanon south of the Litany River will forever be a demilitarized zone: no rockets, no tanks, no artillery, no mortars, no heavy weapons of any type. This will be monitored and enforced by either a United Nations or a NATO force.

4. Hezbollah will disarm completely.

5. Israel will pledge not to bomb or invade southern Lebanon or any part of Lebanon.

6. There will be a Palestinian state in Gaza and wherever else it has already been decided that there should be such a state. That state will be a demilitarized one: no rockets, no tanks, no fighter planes or bombers, no artillery, etc. This will be monitored and enforced by either a United Nations or a NATO force.

7. Hamas will be totally disarmed.

8. Israel will agree never to militarily attack the Palestinian state (which will in turn agree never to attack Israel (and will be demilitarized anyhow).

9. Iran (and Syria too) will forsake nuclear weapons.

10. Iran and Syria will agree not to sponsor, assist, or finance terrorism anywhere in the world.

11. The United States will agree not to invade or take military action against Iran or Syria.

12. A group of the world’s more powerful nations, together perhaps with some Muslim countries, will be the guarantors of the entire arrangement, with the obligation to act militarily against a violator if necessary to prevent or stop the violation. The guarantors will include the United States, even though it will also be an obligated party under the agreement and could in theory be the target of military action by other guarantors if it were to violate the agreement.

It is always possible for, and often occurs that, international agreements are broken or prove unenforceable. Nonetheless, an agreement along the foregoing lines would, one think, mean peace. Is such an agreement achievable? Is it not achievable because it asks too much, is too idealistic as to what can be accomplished? Quite possibly, especially because all parties would have to be reasonable for it to be achieved. Unhappily, history shows that a need for reasonableness is the biggest argument against it. But it may nonetheless be worth a try. For it is transparent that a failure of settlement -- of overall settlement -- could be truly fraught.

It is a measure of how badly off our own country has become that another of the major obstacles to successfully using what, perhaps curiously, is an opportunity could conceivably, God forbid, be the stubbornness, lack of intelligence and lack of imagination of Bush, Cheney, Rice & Co. They are so wacked out on the subject of restraint-free, unilateral use of American power, from which we have suffered so much disaster under their so-called leadership, that they might be unwilling to impose on the U.S., the restraints which a true overall settlement might be likely to require. And to hope for the courage-and-intelligence-free congress and media to fill in the administration’s mental void with intelligent discussion that creates pressure would be to hope for too much.

Sad to say, another and possibly insuperable obstacle to the opportunity that is before the world is, quite conceivably, the hatred for Jews held by such as the Palestinians, Hezbollah, the Syrians, and maybe even the Iranians. There are those among those four groups who hate Jews far more than they love life. Far more than they love their children’s lives. Who are willing to fight to the last man and woman. It is people like that who may one day cause Armaggedon if people – often their allies of better will -- don’t control and suppress them, as Lebanon did not control or suppress Hezbollah. Will the world stand up to such people now? Will the world say, “You must not do this. You must make peace now, and we will stop you now from proceeding with your plans to eventually destroy Israel?

Why do I think the world will not do this? Why do 2000 years of history (and emails I receive from nutbags of left and right) persuade me that most of the world will not give a damn about the Jews? Which may leave Israel itself with only one choice to make. Shall it destroy the front line of the anti-Israel movement now, i.e., Hezbollah and likely Hamas too, and then maybe turn its attention to the Syrian and Iranian governments if it possesses the power and a need? Or shall it wait, hoping against hope that the balm of time will cure matters over the next 50 or 100 years, while it will nonetheless face a possibly ever-increasing threat of destruction, at least early on, if time works against a permanent peace instead of for it (e.g., the Iranians get the bomb and Israel’s opponents became emboldened against it)?

All such calculuses are very unhappy ones. Better by far to resolve the whole business with a comprehensive peace now. But such a peace is reachable only if mankind puts aside its historical unreasonableness and sheer stupidity, not to mention its millennia of Jew hating. Sadly, one is not hopeful.

* This posting represents the personal views of Lawrence R. Velvel. If you wish to comment on the post, on the general topic of the post, or on the comments of others, you can, if you wish, post your comment on my website, VelvelOnNationalAffairs.com. All comments, of course, represent the views of their writers, not the views of Lawrence R. Velvel or of the Massachusetts School of Law. If you wish your comment to remain private, you can email me at Velvel@mslaw.edu.

VelvelOnNationalAffairs is now available as a podcast. To subscribe please visit VelvelOnNationalAffairs.com, and click on the link on the top left corner of the page. The podcasts can also be found on iTunes or at www.lrvelvel.libsyn.com

Thursday, January 18, 2007

Lessons From The Philippines Insurrection And Our Overthrow Of Mossadegh, Part I.

January 18, 2007

Re: Lessons From The Philippines Insurrection
And Our Overthrow Of Mossadegh, Part I.

From: Dean Lawrence R. Velvel
VelvelOnNationalAffairs.com


Dear Colleagues:

On July 11 and July 31, 2006, this writer posted essays based on a 2006 book by Stephen Kinzer called Overthrow: America’s Century Of Regime Change From Hawaii To Iraq. One essay involved the Philippines Insurrection around the turn of the 20th Century. The other involved the fact and the still bedeviling consequences of the American overthrow of Prime Minister Mossadegh of Iran in 1953. It also set forth some ideas regarding peace in the Middle East.

Unfortunately but expectably, the facts and ideas discussed in those postings are still as relevant six months later as when the original postings occurred. For six months later, of course, we are still dealing with continuous American military interventionism, grave problems with Iran, and a disaster in Iraq. Indeed, certain of these problems, maybe all three of them, may be rushing to a head. And now, after the November 7th elections, there may also be increased receptivity to the ideas in the two July posts.

For all these reasons, two postings based on Kinzer’s book are being reposted, one today and the other tomorrow. The (forlorn?) hope is that they might make some modest contribution to the debate over conflicting ideas that is currently taking place in this country.

The July 11, 2006 essay on the Philippines Insurrection, and its effect on and lessons for the United States, is appended below.*




July 11, 2006


Re: Stephen Kinzer, The Philippines Insurrection, And America Today.

From: Dean Lawrence R. Velvel
VelvelOnNationalAffairs.com


Dear Colleagues:

Some readers of this blog, and some reviewers of the printed collection of posts called Blogs From The Liberal Standpoint: 2004-2005, have commented that this blogger seems to read a lot of books. Well, this writer doesn’t begin to approach Theodore Roosevelt or Gladstone or Gladstone’s biographer, Roy Jenkins, in this respect, but by modern American standards the comments may have some truth. It was to be able to read books, indeed, that this blogger gave up most television watching, just as a famous Harvard economist of the mid 20th Century, Alexander Gerschenkron, gave up reading newspapers so that he would have time to read books.

Some of the books one reads are read purely for pleasure. Others are read for that reason, but also to conduct one hour-long television interviews with authors about their books. Still others are read for pleasure but also to have some knowledge of them when their authors give talks about the works at our law school as part of an authors’ discussion series. Regardless, however, rarely has this blogger used a posting to present, in extenso, the arguments, and facts supporting the arguments, of a particular book. That, however, is exactly what will be done in this posting (and in some forthcoming ones). It is being done here because the book in question, a work by Stephen Kinzer entitled Overthrow: America’s Century of Regime Change From Hawaii To Iraq (Times Books, Henry Holt and Company, 2006), strikes me as being of surpassing importance, as being a book that should be absorbed by every American who is concerned about the current war and our place in the world. The summaries to be given here, however, like any summary or review of a book, can only scratch the surface. One strongly recommends that people buy the book and read it cover to cover - - more than once.


* * * *

“History is bunk,” I believe Henry Ford said. Someone else, whose name escapes me, said that “history is agreed upon lies.” These are unhappy propositions that one is loathe to believe. Yet, when you look at how the Civil War and Reconstruction were so long distorted -- were lied about and rendered unrecognizable -- by a uniformly accepted, psychologically driven southern school of writing, one can only conclude that at times there is something to the idea that history is nothing but agreed upon lies. Or plain bunk.

Kinzer’s book deals with a similar phenomenon, one that has cast a disastrous shadow for over a century, is causing disaster today (as it did in the 1960s), and, unless corrected after a century, would bid fair to create disaster in the future too. As a historian, this blogger is a rank amateur, but he has read enough to know that what Kinzer says is apparently true, that he has collected in one place events that usually are treated disparately though there is a common thread, and that he has presented an all too true side of American history that you don’t learn in high school or in College History 101.

Kinzer’s book deals with the fact that at least since 1898, or, one could argue, from 1893, this country has believed in and practiced the use of force to overthrow governments that our leaders don’t like or from which our leaders and large corporations covet land, resources or markets. In overthrowing governments from 1898 (or 1893) until today, using overt military force where necessary or secretly sponsored (and often American-controlled) coups where desirable, our leaders have always given false reasons for, told lies about, our motivations. We were going to bring freedom and civilization to our “little brown brothers” or to the “gooks” or to others we referred to by racist appellations, or we were going to bring them the benefits of a market economy, or we were shouldering “the white man’s burden” of improving the world, or we were maintaining what Theodore Roosevelt said were the great fighting qualities of the Anglo Saxon race instead of going soft (and were assuaging certain of Roosevelt’s personal psychiatric demons arising from his father’s failure to serve in the Civil War and his own frailty as a youth). But at bottom, the most important reasons for doing what we did were selfish economic ones. George Bush is not the first President to lie like a rug about the reasons for war, nor the first to take us into war for selfish reasons. He is only the latest in a long line, stretching from McKinley (or the second Harrison) through Theodore Roosevelt, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Nixon, and Reagan. Oh, and let us not forget Foster Dulles, one of the all time champeens in this arena.

In 1898 when it decided to go to war with Spain (or maybe in 1893 when we sponsored the overthrow of the Hawaiian government), this country went very wrong, made a horribly wrong turn, and did so almost on a dime. In 1898 this country decided, with a jingoism worthy of any comparison you wish to make, that it was going to become an imperialist power that fought wars on other people’s soil, and on oceans all over the world, in order to establish itself as a world power. True, it had fought an imperialist war with Mexico in the 1840s in order to get hold of one half -- one half! -- of that country’s territory, an imperialist war reviled by both Abraham Lincoln and Ulysses S. Grant, the two men who saved the Union less than two decades later. And true, this country and its forbears had been destroying the Indians and stealing their land since the mid to late 1600s. But never before had it gone abroad to fight wars and take over countries. In 1898 this all changed. We fought on the territory of Cuba, Puerto Rico and the Philippines, we fought in the waters of the Philippines and Cuba, and we took over those countries. If you count 1893, 1898 was the second time of fourteen, in a total of just over 100 years, in which, Kinzer says, we were the major cause of regime change abroad. His count doesn’t even include either of the two World Wars, but does include such abysmal American performances -- and often long run disasters -- as getting rid of Mossadegh in Iran in 1953, overthrowing Arbenz (who was killed) in Guatemala in 1954, getting rid of Diem (who was killed) in Viet Nam in 1963, getting rid of Allende (who was killed) in Chile in 1973, and, what at least currently is a disaster, getting rid of Saddam in 2003.

Why was there a sudden change, what was the truly fundamental reason for a sudden change, for a sudden surge of imperialism in 1898, a surge that has not receded to this day, when we apparently have over 700 military bases, large and small, around the world, when much of the world understandably hates our guts because of our imperialistic actions, and -- it is only lately becoming safe to say in the United States -- countries which we revile (Iran, North Korea) want to obtain atomic bombs to deter us from attacking them as we attacked Iraq. Well, the fundamental reason for the change was economic, points out Kinzer (as have others recently, e.g., Andrew Bacevich). America’s industrial capacity had grown immensely since the Civil War. It was now the equal of, or surpassed, that of any other country. The home market, however, was incapable of absorbing all that our industry could produce. As well, “In the quarter century before 1898, much of the world suffered through a series of economic crises. The United States was not exempt, passing through depressions or financial panics in the mid 1870s, mid-1880s, and early 1890s. Political leaders saw overseas expansion as the ideal way to end this destructive cycle.” (Kinzer, p.105.)

One might ask, were the economic conditions at home so widely excellent that markets here were, realistically speaking, tapped out, making it necessary to go abroad? Not at all. Not at all. Though Kinzer doesn’t discuss it, until after World war II most people in this country were poor or, at best, part of the working class. But in 1898, it was felt that we must imperialistically go abroad to force foreigners to buy our goods, rather than develop the home market. For developing the home market would have involved some form of wealth redistribution that would lift people from poverty (as began much later with the New Deal). Heaven forbid we should in some way be redistributionalists at home. Better to be imperialists abroad.

By the end of the nineteenth century, farms and factories in the United States were producing considerably more goods than Americans could consume. For the nation to continue its rise to wealth, it needed foreign markets. They could not be found in Europe, where governments, like that of the United States, protected domestic industries behind high tariff walls. Americans had to look to faraway countries, weak countries, countries that had large markets and rich resources but had not yet fallen under the sway of any great power.

This search for influence abroad gripped the United States in 1898. Spreading democracy, Christianizing heathen nations, building a strong navy, establishing military bases around the world, and bringing foreign governments under American control were never ends in themselves. They were ways for the United States to assure itself access to the markets, resources, and investment potential of distant lands.

Although the American economy grew tremendously during the last quarter of the nineteenth century, much of the country’s fabulous new wealth enriched only a few thousand captains of industry. Conditions for most ordinary people were steadily deteriorating. By 1893, one of every six American workers was unemployed, and many of the rest lived on subsistence wages. Plummeting agricultural prices in the 1890s killed off a whole generation of small farmers. Strikes and labor riots broke out from New York to Chicago to California. Socialist and anarchist movements began attracting broad followings. In 1894, Secretary of State Walter Gresham, reflecting a widespread fear, said he saw “symptoms of revolution” spreading across the country.

Many businesses and political leaders concluded that the only way the American economy could expand quickly enough to deal with these threats was to find new markets abroad. (Kinzer, p.34.)

* * * * *

American leaders clamored for this [imperialist] policy because, they said, the country desperately needed a way to resolve its “glut” of overproduction. This glut, however, was largely illusory. While wealthy Americans were lamenting it, huge numbers of ordinary people were living in conditions of severe deprivation. The surplus production from farms and factories could have been used to lift millions out of poverty, but this would have required a form of wealth redistribution that was repugnant to powerful Americans. Instead they looked abroad.

By embracing the “open door” policy, the United States managed to export many of its social problems. The emergence of markets abroad put Americans to work, but it distorted the economies of poor countries in ways that greatly increased their poverty. As American companies accumulated vast sugar and fruit plantations in the Pacific, Central America, and the Caribbean, they forced countless small farmers off their land. Many became contract laborers who worked only when Americans needed them, and naturally came to resent the United States. At the same time, American companies flooded these countries with manufactured goods, preventing the development of local industry. (Kinzer, p.106.)

All of this sounds suspiciously like the wave of globalization that become an American mania in the 1990s and 2000s, does it not? The reason is: it was like it. Globalization is nothing new. (Indeed it goes back at least to the British mercantile system of the 1700s.)

As part of the economically driven imperialism of 1898 -- an imperialism that continues to this day -- American soldiers committed horrendous atrocities in the Philippines that prefigured Viet Nam, our treatment of prisoners under George Bush, and increasingly revealed conduct in Iraq, I shall discuss the atrocities in the Philippines in a moment. But let me say now that, as in Viet Nam and today, Americans “laughed off’ this conduct, so to speak. It was treated as just something unfortunately unavoidable in pursuit of some purported greater good:

The scandal over torture and murder in the Philippines, for example, might have led Americans to rethink their country’s worldwide ambitions, but it did not. Instead, they came to accept the idea that their soldiers might have to commit atrocities in order to subdue insurgents and win wars. Loud protests followed revelations of the abuses Americans had committed in the Philippines but, in the end, those protests faded away. They were drowned out by voices insisting that any abuses must have been aberrations and that to dwell on them would show weakness and a lack of patriotism. (Kinzer, p.106.)

When America sent armies into Cuba and the Philippines in 1898 to fight the Spanish it was claimed that the latter were booted out because of our armies. Actually, this was pretty far from the truth. There had been internal resistance and native armies fighting the Spanish, sometimes for decades, and they were making real progress, were even on the precipice of victory, when we invaded. They cooperated with us when we invaded. But when we got into their countries, we told the indigenous armies they could not participate in victory ceremonies, could not even enter major cities. The Cubans recognized our superior force, and accepted bitter terms that led to American sponsored dictatorship, Mafioso controlled gambling and tourism, and poverty for the Cuban people for the next 60 years. We, as Kinzer says, were the creators of Castro -- nobody else was. We were. And for our government to revile him for the last 45 years, I would say, long ago became simply stupid, since we are the cause of him and his revolution. It is frankly little wonder, given what we did to his country from 1898 until he took over, that he wanted the Russians to fire off the numerous operational nukes they had in Cuba in 1962.

The aftermath of our invasion of the Philippines was somewhat different, was much worse for a period, because the Filipinos fought us. There were ironies. When the war with Spain began, McKinley did not even know where the Philippines were and could not locate them on a map. (Does this sound like most Americans and Viet Nam and Afghanistan?) “McKinley was a devout Christian living in an era of religious revivalism.” (Kinzer, p. 47.) He said he had to wrestle extensively with the question of what to do about the Philippines, and “he fell to his knees in the White House on several evenings ‘and prayed Almighty God for light and guidance.’” (Ibid) (Maybe he was the real George Bush the first.) ‘“One night late, it came to me this way,’” he said. ‘“There was nothing left for us to do but to take them all, and to educate the Filipinos and uplift them and Christianize them, and by God’s grace do the very best we could for them, as our fellow men for whom Christ also died.’” (Ibid.) (Do you wonder why our enemies in the Middle East call us “crusaders”?) McKinley was going to Christianize the Filipinos -- Oh, boy. He did not even know that “most of [them] were already practicing Catholics,” which “suggested his ignorance of conditions on the islands.” (Does this sound like the current George Bush and Iraq, or what?)

When the Americans decided to take over their country, the Filipinos did “not go gently into that good night” to quote Dylan Thomas, causing Americans to write home that “they had come ‘to blow every nigger to nigger heaven,’” “‘until the niggers are killed off like Indians.’” (Kinzer, p. 50.) Lacking weapons, a dearth enforced by an American naval blockade (Ibid),

the guerrillas turned to tactics unlike any the Americans had ever seen. They laid snares and booby traps, slit throats, set fires, administered poisons, and mutilated prisoners. The Americans, some of whose officers were veteran Indian fighters, responded in kind. When two companies under the command of General Lloyd Wheaton were ambushed southeast of Manila, Wheaton ordered every town and village within twelve miles to be destroyed and their inhabitants killed.

During the first half of the Philippine War, American commanders imposed censorship on foreign correspondents to assure that news of episodes like this did not reach the home audience. Only after censorship was lifted in 1901 were Americans able to learn how the war was being waged. Newspapers began carrying reports like one filed early in 1901 by a correspondent from the Philadelphia Ledger.

Our present war is no bloodless, fake, opera bouffe engagement. Our men have been relentless; have killed to exterminate men, women, children, prisoners and captives, active insurgents and suspected people, from lads of ten and up, an idea prevailing that the Filipino, as such, was little better than a dog, noisome reptile in some instances, whose best disposition was the rubbish heap. Our soldiers have pumped salt water into men to “make them talk,” have taken prisoner people who held up their hands and peacefully surrendered, and an hour later, without an atom of evidence to show that they were even insurrectos, stood them on a bridge and shot them down one by one, to drop into the water below and float down as an example to those who found their bullet-riddled corpses. (Kinzer, pp. 50-51.)

In response to the killing of Americans, a colonel who had participated in the massacre at Wounded Knee “ordered his men to kill everyone over the age of ten and turn the island’s interior into a ‘howling wilderness.’” “’I want no prisoners,”’ he told his men, “’I wish you to kill and burn. The more you kill and the more you burn, the better you will please me.’” So the Americans “killed hundreds of people, burned crops, slaughtered cattle, and destroyed dozens of settlements.” (Kinzer, p. 53.)

Does this sound like Viet Nam?

In a prelude to Afghanistan and Iraq, Americans used torture with abandon:

After Balangiga, however, a flood of revelations forced [Americans at home] out of their innocence. Newspaper reporters sought out returned veterans and from their accounts learned that American soldiers in the Philippines had resorted to all manner of torture. The most notorious was the “water cure,” in which sections of bamboo were forced down the throats of prisoners and then used to fill the prisoners’ stomachs with dirty water until they swelled in torment. Soldiers would jump on the prisoner’s stomach to force the water out, often repeating the process until the victim either informed or died. (Kinzer, pp. 53-54.)

There was a backlash for a while against some of this, at least among some of our prominent citizens. Noted anti imperialist “Mark Twain”, whom some think is still our greatest writer, suggested that the time had come to redesign the American flag with the white stripes painted black and the stars replaced by the skull and crossbones.” (Kinzer, p.54.) The great philosopher, William James, “said that Americans were guilty of ‘murdering another culture’ and concluded one of his speeches by declaring ‘God damn the U.S. for its vile conduct in the Philippines!’” (Kinzer, p.54.) Regardless of how you may feel about the conduct of the U.S. in the last few years, can you even imagine saying publicly today “God damn the U.S. for its vile conduct in Iraq”? You would be slapped in jail -- especially if you’re Muslim, but even if you’re not -- faster than you can say George Bush or DICK Cheney.)

Of course, as often true today too (and in Viet Nam as well), the pols and the press soon rose to the defense of our horrid conduct, saying we had to fight fire with fire, or that our men’s reactions were understandable, or that it all had ‘“no bearing on fundamental questions of national policy,” or that “only a few soldiers were guilty”’ (when in fact the misconduct was pervasive), or that the American people “could not understand the challenges of bringing law to a semi-civilized people with all the tendencies and characteristics of Asiatics.” (Kinzer, pp.54-55.)

Kinzer concludes his chapter on the Spanish American war by saying that the guerrilla war in the Philippines “had been a far more costly operation than anyone had predicted at the outset. In three and a half torturous years of war, 4,374 American soldiers were killed, more than ten times the toll in Cuba. About sixteen thousand guerrillas and at least twenty thousand civilians were also killed. Filipinos remember those years as some of the bloodiest in their history. Americans quickly forgot that the war ever happened.” (Kinzer, p. 55.) As for the future of the Philippines, which we claimed to be preparing for democracy, it became -- and significantly remains -- a dictatorship, with massive thievery at the top (think Marcos), poverty and illiteracy. So much for us shouldering the “white man’s burden” to help our “little brown brothers.”

Kinzer is wholly right, of course, in saying that “Americans quickly forgot that the war [in the Philippines] ever happened. That war was not a part of our history books, and what the Viet Namese call “The American War” was more than half over before anyone thought to compare that disaster to the Philippines disaster that occurred only some 60 years previously (just a bit more timewise than Korea is today). The disappearance from our history books is another of the gross distortions of the history profession, which did not begin to be corrected until the rise of new generations of historians starting in the 1960’s. It was symptomatic of why, in what might now be called the old days, history too largely was bunk, too largely was “agreed upon lies.” And the disappearance of the episode from our history books paved the way, of course, for the imperialism, and the repetition of disaster, which reached their zeniths (we surely hope) in the disasters of, first, Viet Nam, and now Iraq.

Kinzer is owed a great debt for writing Overthrow, of which the chapter specifically devoted to the Spanish American War, including the Philippines Insurrection, is but one of many that detail American depredations, largely economically driven, and often driven, as Kinzer says, by our large corporations and the pols whom they influenced (or bought). Anyone who wants facts useful in trying to change the 100 year, errant course of the ship of state, and anyone who may be wondering why so many countries and people hate our guts, should buy and read his book. He has collected many episodes charting the direction of the off-course ship of state. And, for whatever tiny good it may do in contributing to the effort to change the course of the behemoth, which is now being sailed by the ignorant and malevolent supported by the like-minded and like-emotioned, this blogger will in future summarize some of the other misdeeds which are too often forgotten but are elaborated by Kinzer, such as those in Iran, Guatamala, Chile, and perhaps some others too.


* This posting represents the personal views of Lawrence R. Velvel. If you wish to respond to this email/blog, please email your response to me at velvel@mslaw.edu. Your response may be posted on the blog if you have no objection; please tell me if you do object.

VelvelOnNationalAffairs is now available as a podcast. To subscribe please visit VelvelOnNationalAffairs.com, and click on the link on the top left corner of the page. The podcasts can also be found on iTunes or at www.lrvelvel.libsyn.com

Wednesday, January 17, 2007

The Urgent Need For Information On The Results (I.e., The Outcomes) Of Medical Care

January 17, 2007

Re: The Urgent Need For Information On The
Results (I.e., The Outcomes) Of Medical Care.

From: Dean Lawrence R. Velvel
VelvelOnNationalAffairs.com


Dear Colleagues:

Much in the news now is the question of medical care, including the issue of a single payer system, i.e., government run health insurance for all, as it is usually considered. Whether or not a single payer system is, after balancing its pros and cons, the most desirable solution for a major problem is something this writer does not know. But there is something relating to the health care system that I feel fairly confident about. Listen up, as they say.

Recently, I interviewed a University of Virginia professor for one hour about health care for MSL’s television show called Books Of Our Time. The professor, Elizabeth Teisberg, has co-authored a book called Redefining Health Care with Professor Michael Porter of Harvard. Remarkably, both Teisberg and Porter are business school professors, not doctors or medical school professors.

They have of course studied the health care system extensively and, as I understand it, they believe that their most important idea is that competition in medicine must be, as they might put it, restructured in order to provide better care at lower cost. Yes, better care at lower cost because, contrary to what is wrongly intuitive to Americans (one often sees something of the same phenomenon in higher education), more expensive does not always mean better. Sometimes less expensive is better because, as Teisberg and Porter believe about health care, less expensive can reflect experience, sometimes vast experience instead of merely little experience, can reflect better ways of doing things, and can reflect avoidance of wasteful, useless, but expensive treatments.

What would restructuring the health care system mean in practice, according to Teisberg and Porter? Without getting into all the numerous details, let me give an example. It involves what the authors call competition at the “medical condition” level. Suppose the issue is spinal injuries. As Teisberg and Porter describe it (if my understanding is correct), today doctors in different departments of a hospital will be involved in the treatment. They will be orthopods, radiologists, surgeons, anesthesiologists, and what not. This, the authors say, is not the way it should be done. Rather, a hospital should have a department dedicated to spinal problems, with all the necessary different kinds of specialists being a part of that department. This will give all of them more experience with and knowledge of the relevant kind of medical problem -- spinal problems -- will foster communication among the different specialists and thereby lead to better treatments, will create a body of knowledge among the different specialists about what treatments do or don’t work, will encourage desirable experimentation to discover better methods, and so forth. There should be similar specialty departments for heart problems, brain problems, diabetes, kidney problems and all sorts of “medical conditions.”

Teisberg and Porter say that not every hospital, clinic, etc. should attempt to have a specialty department for every “medical condition.” Rather, each should have specialties in what it can do well but not in other medical conditions. This will eliminate the horrendous cost of purchasing very expensive machines, used for particular medical conditions, that lie fallow too much of the time in given hospitals or clinics and, when used, are used by doctors who lack sufficient experience with the particular medical condition.

The competition in medicine, the authors say will be to provide both the best and least expensive care at the “medical condition” level -- the best and least expensive care for spinal problems, kidney problems, heart problems, etc., etc. Hospitals or clinics which provide the best care at the least cost will get the most business and, very importantly, other doctors and institutions will begin using (will find it competitively necessary to use) the practices which the successful ones have shown are the best to date.

Teisberg and Porter also say that their ideas are not out of the blue. Rather, there are institutions which have begun using those ideas, both ideas mentioned here already plus others discussed below. I must say that, since interviewing Teisberg, I have noticed occasional articles that would appear to bear out the claim that various institutions are adopting, or making use of, the pertinent ideas.

As said, the authors believe that their most important idea is that of competition at the medical condition level. That is why I’ve explained the idea, albeit briefly (and only as I best understand it). But presumptuous as it is for this writer to say so -- since I know so little about the subject -- one is not absolutely sure that the idea they think their most important is in fact their most important. For the existence of competition at the medical condition level depends on another factor which they extensively discuss and which is important to true competition (not the phony competition that so often prevails) in any field. It depends on information being available to the public on quality and cost. Information on quality and cost is the necessary fundament of true competition. Otherwise people are buying blind, are buying high cost items because advertising has persuaded them, etc.

Teisberg and Porter make clear that, currently, information about quality and cost of care is preeminently unavailable in the health care field. Doctors, clinics, hospitals, etc. are not required to assess the quality of the care they are providing -- i.e., the outcomes of that care -- or whether they are providing it less expensively or more expensively than other providers are. There are few statistics about these matters. So people don’t really know whether one cancer center is doing a better job than another (i.e., is achieving better outcomes), whether one heart center is doing a better job than another, whether a given surgeon is a disaster who loses a disproportionate number of patients, whether a given internist misdiagnoses patients at an unacceptably high level, etc. Patients don’t know this, nor do their family doctors who refer them to one specialist or hospital rather than another, nor do insurers or HMOs who pay doctors. In short, everyone is flying blind.

This might not matter if all doctors, hospitals, clinics, etc. were equal and therefore fungible. But differences in quality and results (i.e., medical outcomes) are staggering, are off the wall, if one is to believe Teisberg and Porter, as this writer surely does on this score because there are always vast differences among practitioners of any field. (There recently was an article, I think in The Boston Globe, which said that statistics about Massachusetts heart surgeons showed that there were some whose results (outcomes) were so much worse than others that they were “outliers” -- and had left the state. That there could be “outliers” of this kind and degree in heart surgery is frightening.) Because of the vast discrepancy in the quality of different providers (in their medical outcomes), it is obviously essential to hoped-for improvements in medicine that extensive statistics begin to be kept and made available. This will enable doctors and other medical advisers to refer patients to, and will cause patients to “patronize,” the better providers, who, if Teisberg and Porter are right, also will often be the less expensive ones because their quality will in part reflect experience and, in various ways, consequent efficiency. It likely will also cause “inferior” providers to clean up their acts, by emulating the techniques of the better ones out of both pride and the necessities of business.

The idea that there is a vast discrepancy in the quality of health care providers, and that statistical comparisons of quality (outcomes) and cost are basically unavailable in medicine today, leads to several questions or comments. Doctors, one gathers, are usually very intelligent persons these days. For decades, after all, medical schools have chosen from among the cream of the intellectual crop. Doctors also are said to work ungodly hours. How is it, then, that (aside from drunkenness) some of them practice at a level as low as is indicated by Teisberg and Porter? Well, Teisberg said in the TV interview that there is just too much information for doctors to keep up with it all. Even so, a layman is a little hard pressed to understand why differences in quality are so marked.

Then, too, there is the matter of the importance of statistical information on quality (outcomes) and cost becoming available regardless of what other types of improvements are made in the health care system -- regardless of whether doctors and institutions begin structuring their practices around and competing at the “medical condition” level, as the coauthors would like, whether we go to a single payer system (which the coauthors do not favor because they fear that consequent universally required rules would stifle innovation), or whether other changes are made. Whatever is done in health care, it seems to this writer, at least, that information on relative quality and cost is a sine qua non of improvement. Even in a single payer system, for example, you would want statistical analyses of quality (outcomes) and cost so that all providers could adopt the practices that work best, and may be less expensive as well.

Then there is the fundamental question of whether it is possible to develop the kinds of accurate statistical analysis of quality (outcomes) and cost that are needed. For decades, I think, medicine has often resisted comparisons of the quality of care because doctors don’t want to be shown up, and because of concern that the statistics could be misleading because, for example, a hospital (such as a teaching hospital) could show bad mortality rates, but that would be due to the fact it took the most difficult cases. Yet the difficulty of the cases would not be taken account of.

Teisberg and Porter say that it now is possible to produce “risk adjusted” figures on the quality of care (on outcomes), figures that by appropriate techniques take account of the differences in the difficulty of cases. They further claim that there already are some medical institutions which are doing this, say that the practice is increasing, and make suggestions as to the types of organizations which could appropriately create the metrics (e.g., organizations of medical specialties, insurers, health maintenance organizations).

To this writer, as said, the most crucial necessity in medical care is to begin making the needed information available to patients, referring doctors, medical advisers, the general public, etc. Just as in every other walk of life -- let me repeat that -- just as in every other walk of life, a lack of publicly available information, sometimes because of deliberate secrecy, leads to bad results (a fact which all are acquainted with when it comes to governmental matters of all types and to unethical and dishonest conduct by large corporations, and which some are acquainted with in other fields, e.g., accreditation of law schools or certain other types of institutions). If we want to improve the situation in the field of health care, it is essential, it seems to me, to vastly improve the amount of information that is publicly available about outcomes and costs.

Two last points. At various places in their book, Teisberg and Porter mention various institutions which, they say, create, to one degree or another, the kinds of information about outcomes that people need. At the end of the television interview, which will be shown on Comcast’s Channel 8 on Sunday, January 21st in New England and on a Sunday in February in the Mid-Atlantic states, our producers have listed the names, addresses, phone numbers and email addresses of the institutions that Teisberg and Porter mention. The producers have done this so that persons who want or need the information will have access to it. For the same reason, I have appended the list at the end of this posting.

Also, some might want to see the interview (because of the importance of the coauthors’ points and because, while I think I’ve got things right in this post, Teisberg is a far more knowledgeable expositor). For those who might want to see and hear what she has to say, the interview, in addition to being broadcast on Comcast’s CN8 on Sunday, January 21st, at 11:00 a.m. in New England and on a Sunday in February in the Mid-Atlantic states, will also be viewable in its entirety on the web as of Thursday, January 18th at noon. Go to Google, click on video, and then type the name of the program, Redefining Health Care.*

List Of Institutions That, According To Redefining Health Care, Create Analyses Of Medical Results (Outcomes) To One Degree Or Another

Consumers Medical Resource
Toll-Free: 1-888-426-7435
Best Time to Reach between hours 8:30 a.m. – 5 p.m. EST, M-F

Best Doctors, Inc.
One Boston Place, 32nd Floor
Boston, MA 02108
617-426-3666
Toll-Free: 1-800-223-5003
Email: info@bestdoctors.com

Preferred Global Health
133 Federal Street
Boston, MA 02110
617-369-7900

National Quality Forum
601 13th Street, NW, Suite 500 North
Washington, DC 20005
202-783-1300
Email: info@nqfexecutiveinstitute.org

Pinnacle Care International
250 West Pratt Street, Suite 1100
Baltimore, MD 21201
1-866-752-1712

The Leapfrog Group
c/o Academy Health
1801 K Street, NW, Suite 701-L
Washington, DC 20006
202-292-6713
Email: info@leapfroggroup.org

Wisconsin Collaborative for Healthcare Quality
P.O. Box 258100
Madison, WI 53725-8100
608-250-1223
Email: info@wchq.org

The National Committee For Quality Assurance
2000 L Street, Suite 500
Washington, DC 20036
202-955-3500

Institute For Healthcare Improvement
20 University Road, 7th Floor
Cambridge, MA 02138
617-301-4800
Toll-Free: 1-866-787-0831

Pacific Business Group On Health
221 Main Street, Suite 1500
San Francisco, CA 94105
415-281-8660
Email: info@pbgh.org

United Resource Networks
MN010-E169
6300 Olson Memorial Highway
Golden Valley, MN 55427
Toll-Free: 1-800-847-2050

Alpha-1 Foundation
2937 SW 27th Avenue, Suite 302
Miami, FL 33133
305-567-9888
Toll-Free: 1-877-2-CURE-A1


* This posting represents the personal views of Lawrence R. Velvel. If you wish to respond to this email/blog, please email your response to me at velvel@mslaw.edu. Your response may be posted on the blog if you have no objection; please tell me if you do object.

VelvelOnNationalAffairs is now available as a podcast. To subscribe please visit VelvelOnNationalAffairs.com, and click on the link on the top left corner of the page. The podcasts can also be found on iTunes or at www.lrvelvel.libsyn.com

Tuesday, January 16, 2007

Two Disparate Examples of The Principle That You Can Depend Upon Most People To Do The Wrong Thing Most Of The Time.

January 16, 2007

Re: Two Disparate Examples of The Ever-Operative Principle
That You Can Depend Upon Most People To Do The Wrong Thing Most Of The Time:
Cutting Off Funds For Iraq And The Presidency Of Harvard.

From: Dean Lawrence R. Velvel
VelvelOnNationalAffairs.com


Dear Colleagues:

When writing a slightly fictionalized four volume memoir in the early and mid parts of this decade, I began to understand the partial truth of a proposition that, until then, I had always thought exactly backwards. One had often read the statement by writers that writing enabled them to understand what they think about a matter. To me this had always seemed backwards. For I had thought you write about a matter because you have a view on it, not that you develop a view on it because you write about it. In writing a memoir, which forces one to focus on what, if anything, was the meaning of decades of life, however, I began to realize that writing about events can indeed be the cause of views on them, rather than only the result of views already held. In particular, writing about decades of experience, and reflecting on the events being described, caused me to conclude that you can depend upon most people to do the wrong thing most of the time. That you can depend upon most people to do the wrong thing most of the time is not a happy thought, and can be considered a cynical one, but nonetheless is, I’m afraid, a fundamentally true one.

A couple of recent examples of this unhappy principle have hit the news recently in wildly disparate fields. One involves cutting off funds for the war in Iraq. The other involves the presidency of Harvard.

Lots of Democrats are strongly against appropriating funds to finance the increased number of troops that Bush wants in Iraq. Most, probably all, of these Democrats believe that increasing the number of troops we have in Iraq will not lead to success.

As a strictly logical matter in the circumstances that obtain, and as an undoubted fact of the world as well, the Democrats who don’t want to increase our troops because they think this will not bring success also happen to think that the war is a 24 carat failure at the current level of troops. Yet, just as they don’t want to increase funds to support more troops because this will not avoid failure, so too they are refusing to cut off funds for the existing level of troops though that level is a failure.

This is obviously immoral. If you don’t think that even 20,000 more troops will avoid failure, then all you are doing by continuing to fund existing troop levels is that you are condemning hundreds, probably thousands, of Americans and God knows how many thousands of Iraqis to deaths and maimings because of American actions and for no purpose. That seems to me to be the very epitome of immorality, and to be an unfortunately terrific example of the principle that you can depend on most people to do the wrong thing most of the time.

Now as to the Presidency of Harvard. The Boston Globe recently carried a story saying that the powers that be at Harvard had cut down the candidates for its Presidency to a short list. The list included some prominent women academics. One of them was the Dean of the Harvard Law School, Elena Kagan. Because of the principle that you can depend on most people to do the wrong thing most of the time, it is odds-on that Kagan will ultimately be the selection for President.

Why would making her President illustrate this principle? Because she has shown herself extensively insensitive to a fundamental principle of the academic world: that professors must not plagiarize the work of others, or have others, such as students, write books and articles for which the professors then claim authorship, indeed sole authorship. Yet, as was discussed here in a large number of postings in 2004 and 2005, although such wrongful claims are exactly the claims that were made by a couple of very prominent Harvard law professors, when the matters became exposed Kagan did not act properly. She did not impose the serious punishments that should have been imposed -- and that would have been imposed on a Harvard student who was caught out doing such things. Instead, Kagan had the matter investigated confidentially by high ranking Harvard officials (including Harvard’s former and currently interim President), who treated them rather lightly. She allegedly imposed some punishment, but what those punishments were was kept confidential and they obviously were very light -- if they in fact existed at all -- since there is no sign that the careers of the professors were in any way affected (as occurred to some professors at other universities who plagiarized). And she issued statements, at least once in conjunction with (the lamentable) Lawrence Summers, that soft pedaled the extreme seriousness of what the professors did. (And all of this is totally apart from the fact, as to which she expressed great pride, that she hired, to be a Harvard law professor, one of the lawyers who contributed to a Justice Department memo giving the green light to some of the horrible acts that Bush ordered up during his so-called war on terror.)

For anyone who is interested in knowing the details regarding the Kaganian actions mentioned above, they have been set forth in extenso in postings in VelvelOnNationalAffairs.com, dated September 10, 2004, September 24, 2004, September 30, 2004, October 4, 2004, October 16, 2004, November 10, 2004, November 11, 2004, November 29, 2004, December 15, 2004, January 16, 2005, April 22, 2005, May 6, 2005, May 26, 2005. These postings were subsequently printed, in a book entitled Blogs From The Liberal Standpoint: 2004-2005, at pp. 86-88, 93-100, 336-400. I shall not here reiterate the details available elsewhere. Here, rather, the point is that, judged by the lightness, the non-grave quality, of her actions, Kagan gave hardly a tinker’s damn about a truly crucial aspect of academic life -- about not (fraudulently) claiming credit for work done by others. She was evidently far more moved by the prestige of and a desire to protect (and brag about) the prestigious offenders than she was by the cardinal necessity of academic honesty. Yet, one knows that she nonetheless is well thought of at Harvard; the people there don’t seem to care much about her transgressions against academic honesty. The very fact that she is on the short list for the Presidency confirms her high standing at Harvard and the lack of concern there about what she did. And under the ever-operative principle that you can depend on most people to do the wrong thing most of the time, one thinks that, precisely because it is very wrong to appoint as President of Harvard a person whose actions bespeak indifference to the cardinal necessity of academic honesty, it is odds-on that she will in fact be selected President. Indeed, the other candidates on the short list may as well give up and withdraw, unless they too can point to some disqualifying dereliction they committed.*


* This posting represents the personal views of Lawrence R. Velvel. If you wish to respond to this email/blog, please email your response to me at velvel@mslaw.edu. Your response may be posted on the blog if you have no objection; please tell me if you do object.

VelvelOnNationalAffairs is now available as a podcast. To subscribe please visit VelvelOnNationalAffairs.com, and click on the link on the top left corner of the page. The podcasts can also be found on iTunes or at www.lrvelvel.libsyn.com

Thursday, January 11, 2007

Correction to blog response

Dear Dean Velvel,
      Without in any way meaning to detract from your arguments respecting Congress' power to prohibit funds from being used to increase the number of troops in Iraq, it seems to me that Article I Section 8 clauses 14 and 16 authorize Congress to pass a law requiring the Secretary of Defense and the chiefs of the military branches to order back to their U.S. bases a sufficient number of troops to bring troop levels down, by a specified dates, to whatever levels Congress chooses should the President not take those steps.   The broad authority there granted to Congress to make rules for the government and regulation of the armed forces was intended to prevent the armed forces from becoming an instrument solely of the Executive Branch.

          Alvin Goldman

Dear Professor Goldman:

     Being rather ignorant in the premises, I do not know whether clauses 14 and 16 provide the power you suggest.  I defer to your interpretation of their purpose.

     I do think, however, that Congress has the power under Clauses 11 and 18 (the declaration of war and necessary and proper clauses) to enact your suggested type of law ordering troop levels in Iraq down to numbers established by Congress (including the number zero) by dates specified by the legislature.  As said in my post, it has been well established, at least since the Bas and Talbot cases in 1800 and 1801, that Congress sets the parameters of a war effort - - that it can establish what uses of force shall or shall not be permissible, that it can determine how big or small a war shall be fought.  Your suggested type of law would be an exercise of this undoubted congressional power to set the limits on war.  It would also, I note, avoid the false fear that a cut off of funds would jeopardize our troops (which a cut off would not do, of course, if it contained an exception, as it should, for the use of funds needed to protect the troops during withdrawal).

     To further show that Clause 11 would sustain your suggested law, one need only ask whether Congress has the constitutional power to end the war by voting to repeal its authorization of war, and to override a veto of the repealer:  Of course Congress has the constitutional authority to do these things.  There can be no legitimate argument on this score.  As I see it, your suggested type of law is merely an alternative way of carrying out the congressional power to terminate a war.

     Let me thank you, then, for a most excellent suggestion on what Congress might do.  Congress should pay close attention to the possibilities of enacting the type of law you have suggested, if it does not actually cut off funds for the war.

     All the best.

Sincerely yours,

Lawrence R. Velvel

Wednesday, January 10, 2007

Response to Blog

Dear Dean Velvel,

Without in any way meaning to detract from your arguments respecting Congress' power to prohibit funds from being used to increase the number of troops in Iraq, it seems to me that Article I Section 8 clauses 14 and 16 authorize Congress to pass a law requiring the Secretary of Defense and the chiefs of the military branches to order back to their U.S. bases a sufficient number of troops to bring troop levels down, by a specified dates, to whatever levels Congress chooses should the President not take those steps. The broad authority there granted to Congress to make rules for the government and regulation of the armed forces was intended to prevent the armed forces from becoming an instrument solely of the Executive Branch.

Alvin Goldman

Dear Professor Goldman:

Being rather ignorant in the premises, I do not know whether clauses 14 and 16 provide the power you suggest. I defer to your interpretation of their purpose.

I do think, however, that Congress has the power under Clauses 8 and 18 (the declaration of war and necessary and proper clauses) to enact your suggested type of law ordering troop levels in Iraq down to numbers established by Congress (including the number zero) by dates specified by the legislature. As said in my post, it has been well established, at least since the Bas and Talbot cases in 1800 and 1801, that Congress sets the parameters of a war effort - - that it can establish what uses of force shall or shall not be permissible, that it can determine how big or small a war shall be fought. Your suggested type of law would be an exercise of this undoubted congressional power to set the limits on war. It would also, I note, avoid the false fear that a cut off of funds would jeopardize our troops (which a cut off would not do, of course, if it contained an exception, as it should, for the use of funds needed to protect the troops during withdrawal).

To further show that Clause 8 would sustain your suggested law, one need only ask whether Congress has the constitutional power to end the war by voting to repeal its authorization of war, and to override a veto of the repealer: Of course Congress has the constitutional authority to do these things. There can be no legitimate argument on this score. As I see it, your suggested type of law is merely an alternative way of carrying out the congressional power to terminate a war.

Let me thank you, then, for a most excellent suggestion on what Congress might do. Congress should pay close attention to the possibilities of enacting the type of law you have suggested, if it does not actually cut off funds for the war.

All the best.

Sincerely yours,

Lawrence R. Velvel

Tuesday, January 09, 2007

Reply to Posting

From: Robert Dotson
Sent: Saturday, January 20, 2007 4:23 PM
To: velvel@mslaw.eduSubject: Replies to our exchange...

Larry,

...Well, the responses are certainly interesting and reflect the range of emotions that the Sectional debates still generate! Prof. Boyle's rather heated remarks were quite surprising in their vehemence. It is obvious that she has a very distorted and uninformed view of the South - "New" or "Old" - and it is unlikely that we will ever make headway in dissuading her from her beliefs that the southern part of the land and all of its inhabitants are racist, bigotted thugs... I could recount tales of such excesses in the North, too, but what would be gained by that? ...Really a sad sad thing for someone in such a position of influence. By the way, I am a big fan of AI, for what that's worth...

As I write this, I hear that our dear President will address the nation next Wednesday to promote his latest version of "Surge and Purge". Since Gulf War I, this country - our country - has been embarked on a course of nothing less than genocide against the people of Iraq. Bush I and II and Clinton I have killed - yes, killed as in MURDERED - more than a million innocents in that unhappy land. When you add in the deaths in Afghanistan and Somalia and the Balkans, then we really begin to get some numbers of significance. ...And Prof. Boyle is upset about cases gone bad in the South?

Let me say this as clearly as possible... The problem before us is not a backward or unreformed red-neck South (and, remember, one could generate similar statements about injustices in the North); rather, the problem is our entire nation! It has become psychopathic (and, I am using this in a true clinical sense) in its leadership and its actions. The world is being pushed nearer and nearer to the edge of irreversible disaster - not by communists, not by Muslim hordes, not by neo-Yanks or Neo-Rebs - but, by our own US Government - by Amerika, Inc., in all its bloody glory!!! By our silence - our lack of action - all of us venting and discussing here via this forum are complicit in this criminal insanity. We seem happy to be stuck mentally in the 1860's and hold on to our myths and prejudices and whine about relatively minor problems. Perhaps, that is a defense mechanism for us in the face of impending catastrophe of global proportions? We can yell and scream at our neighbor, feel superior and righteous, shake our fingers in each other's face and feel satisfied that we are fighting for "the " cause!

Again, we must get past these old sectional rivalries and work together to try and make things better! Like it or not we're in the same fucking bus and it is headed over a cliff at 80 miles an hour! It really doesn't matter at this point in time who is sitting in the back of the vehicle...

In solidarity for a better America...

Robert

Monday, January 08, 2007

We May Need A Huge March On Washington To Force Democrats To Put An End To The War Instead Of Immorally Merely Worrying About Their Political Futures.

January 8, 2007

Re: We May Need A Huge March On Washington
To Force Democrats To Put An End To The War
Instead Of Immorally Merely Worrying About Their Political Futures
And Putting Forth A Known-To-Be-False Yooian Theory
Of The Commander-In-Chief Power To Give Themselves Cover.

From: Dean Lawrence R. Velvel
VelvelOnNationalAffairs.com


Dear Colleagues:

When it recently began to look as if George Bush would send more troops to Iraq despite the verdict of November 7th, it was suggested here, only half facetiously, that opponents of the war should begin to plan a two to five million person march on Washington to protest. Now that it is a certainty that Bush, like Lyndon Johnson in Viet Nam, intends to escalate by sending more troops, the suggestion is being repeated, with not the slightest degree of facetiousness. It is entirely serious. For it may well be that only a massive march of unheard of dimensions, one vastly exceeding in size the famous march at which Martin Luther King made his “I have a dream” speech, will cause the American government to stop conduct which furthers the conversion of this nation from a democracy, in which voting results like those of November 7th have meaning, into the political and economic plutocracy it has increasingly become. It is already far enough along this horrible path.

Indeed, it is only because the country is far along this path that members of the Executive and many members of the Congress can seriously consider saying the defacto equivalent of “To hell with you” in response to the results of November 7th. We have not seen flouting like this since Viet Nam, when ultimately there was even a certain amount of violence catalyzed by a government that was out of control under Johnson and Nixon. It may not be wholly outrageous to suggest that, if the Pretexter-In-Chief is allowed his escalatory druthers now, and especially if America’s worldwide interventionism subsequently increases (ala the “fighting spirit” of John McCain, who apparently never met a war or proposed military action he didn’t like), we will one day in the not too distant future have to reckon with a certain amount of internal violence once again.

Better a protest march of unprecedented size in Washington, a march sufficient to succeed in causing this war to be shut down, than an escalation of Bush’s folly with hundreds or thousands more American deaths, many thousands of American maimings, and tens, scores or hundreds of thousands of Iraqi deaths.

There is, of course, a hope that, despite Bush’s obduracy and lack of acumen, this war could be shut down by purely political means, without a protest march. This would require the Congress to cut off funds for use in Iraq, except for funds necessary to protect our troops during a rapid withdrawal by a specified date. Is such a purely political solution possible? One doesn’t know. Pelosi and Reid have, of course, sent Bush their letter saying his forthcoming escalation in the number of troops is a terrible idea, and Pelosi has said she may not approve funds for more troops in Iraq. But both of them equally have said they will not cut off funds to be used by troops who are already in Iraq -- which means we could have 160,000 or so troops fighting in Iraq for years. And after Bush rejects their position on escalation, as he is certain to do, will they follow up by pushing any kind of cut-off through Congress, even a mere cut off of the use of any funds whatever for an escalation in troops, and will they ensure its success by attaching it to a bill that is veto proof? (Veto proof in the sense that, although Bush doubtlessly will veto any bill that contains a cut-off, no matter how crucial the bill is to American government, the bill will be of such importance that Congress will have to override the veto?) One doesn’t know. One does know, of course, Pelosi currently is rejecting the possibility of a bill that cuts off all funds for troops presently in Iraq except funds necessary to protect those troops during a rapid withdrawal by a specified date.

The currently expressed view of Pelosi regarding a cut off of all non-withdrawal funds for troops now in Iraq points to a major political problem standing in the way of such a bill. The problem is that there are Democrats who do not wish to support a cut off bill due to purely political considerations. They are afraid that they will suffer politically if they put a stop to this war. (This is not, of course, the motivating factor for a pseudo Democrat warmonger like Joseph Lieberman, but is the motivation for others.) I would think that, for most of these Democrats, the fear is not warranted. But, more importantly, what this fear means is that, for mere political considerations, they are willing to allow the deaths and maimings of who knows how many more thousands of Americans and Iraqis rather than do the right thing and stop American participation in the war. They know that stopping American participation is the right thing to do, but, being politicians, they are more concerned about their own political futures than about the deaths of thousands. This is, of course, deeply immoral, and they are no better than George Bush, for whom this war is, from the beginning has been, and remains largely a matter of merely political calculation, albeit dressed up in other kinds of (false) claims.

What is more, one of the reasons given by Democrats for not passing a cut off bill is, or is virtually, a fraud, and a lot of them know it. Unfortunately, the inept American media merely quotes or otherwise presents this phony reason without any analysis -- which would quickly show its utter speciousness.

The phony reason used by some Democrats as hoped-for cover for their political cowardice is the claim that, because the President is Commander-In-Chief, he lawfully can continue to fight the war, can send more troops, etc., regardless of what Congress may do. Though they apparently do not recognize it, the Democrats who have said or implied this are doing nothing other than echoing the claim of John Yoo that under the Constitution the President, as Commander-in-Chief, can do whatever he wants regardless of Congressional laws. In other contexts, of course, they wholly reject Yoo and his fascistic, now completely discredited claim. But when it suits their political purposes, they echo it, apparently not even realizing that they are doing so.

Nothing could be further from the truth than the claim that, because he is Commander-in-Chief, Bush has the legal right to ignore a bill cutting off funds. In fact, the claim is viciously ironic. Ever since the earliest days of Viet Nam, we have been hearing that the way Congress can control Presidential warmaking, if it does not like what the President is doing, is to cut off funds. But now we hear, completely to the contrary, that such a cut off is of no legal consequence? And we hear it, yet, from legislators who claim they want to put an end to the war? Oh, boy.

Not to be forgotten is that a fund cut off, enacted over Nixon’s veto (after something of a compromise between Nixon and those who wanted to end the war) was how Congress stopped our remaining military action in Indo China, the bombing of Cambodia. As well, it was established by the Supreme Court, in a couple of cases as far back as 1800 and 1801, that it is Congress which sets the parameters of any war effort. (The cases were Bas v. Tingy and Talbot v. Seeman, with the opinion in Talbot being written by John Marshall.)

Nor was the Commander-In-Chief power ever intended to allow the President, as a military man, to override Congress. To the contrary, it was enacted to ensure that the military remains subordinate to civilian control (just as George Washington, when Commander-In-Chief of the Continental Army, was subordinate to the civilian authority of the Continental Congress).

So there is no merit whatever to some Democrats’ Yooian claim that as Commander-in-Chief Bush could legally do whatever he wants in Iraq regardless of enactment of a cut off of funds. For Bush to ignore Congress in this way would be both illegal and precisely the type of high crime and misdemeanor that is intended to be impeachable under the Constitution’s impeachment clause. Democrats’ claim that Bush could legally do whatever he wants is only so much bushwa. It is merely a false attempt to obtain political cover for immoral cowardice that places (wrongly perceived) political interest over morality.

It may be, of course, that even the Democrats who have made the Yooian, bushwa claim will feel they have enough political cover to do the right thing if currently planned hearings quickly show the deficiencies of Bush’s actions. It is not without import that even some officials who privately announced Bush’s forthcoming plan to the press were unwilling to say that the plan will succeed, and some are skeptical. (Imagine -- the Kurds are being depended on to help control Baghdad, when they want nothing more than to be rid of Iraq altogether.) Nor is there even any plan, apparently, for what happens if Bush’s plan does not succeed, as it won’t. Individuals who should know have long told me that Iraq is purely tribal -- a view now borne out to even the stupidest American who pays attention -- and that what the Iraqis are doing to each other now is no different from what the relevant groups have been doing to each other for more than a millennium. The chance that a last ditch U.S. effort will change the teaching of centuries are nonexistent, one would judge. (Even the new pro-Bushian-plan general whom Bush has placed in charge of this folly concedes that success would be two to three years away. That is kind, in reality is probably idiotic.)

True, Bush is going to come up with phony reasons to “surge” (e.g., the claim we can fix the situation, a claim that nations in the area will cooperate with us, etc.) But his phony reasons will be no more valid than his claim of WMDs, his claim on the Abraham Lincoln that the war was over, his claim that the capture of Saddam marked the beginning of the end, the claim that the killing of Zarqawi would put an end to the bad stuff, or any of the other false claims Bush has made. That Bush’s claims are bushwa is not surprising. From the time he was a kid at Andover, Bush has been nothing but an eff up -- in college, in business, in his drunken personal life, as President -- and his entire administration has been one big eff up, especially with response to Iraq, from WMDs to cooperation with the sectarian lynching that turned a criminal and mass murderer into a martyr. (Can you believe it?) (Can you imagine if we had hanged the top Nazis or Tojo in the same way that the Shiites hung Saddam?) Bush is living proof that, in future elections, Americans had better start paying attention to competence and prior evidence of it. And currently, if Democrats wait too long for hearings to show that Bush’s newest plan -- a “surge” -- is nothing but yet another in his unending line of eff ups, they will be immorally condemning thousands of American soldiers and Iraqis to death or maiming in pursuit of a failed and still failing policy.

Make no mistake. Absent a rapidly enacted cut off all funds except those needed to protect troops during a withdrawal by a specified date -- a cut off enacted without, or if necessary because of, a two to five million person march on Washington -- Bush will not only engage in a “surge,” but will continue the war in Iraq until his very last day in office. For the war is, for Bush, the alignment of the stars in heaven. That is to say, it is a product of, and inherent in, his major characteristics and background. He is not smart. He doesn’t read. He is incredibly stubborn (as one might expect from a spoiled brat who is used to always having his way because he was born with a silver spoon in his mouth). He bitterly resents opposition. He had no vision for his presidency, no plan for it, nothing, until 9/11 came around and opened for him the vista of a war on terror and a war in Iraq. He is constrained by no threat of criminal punishment for his illegal actions (e.g., torture), since we do not prosecute our federal criminals in high office, and by no threat of harm befalling anyone in his family in the war zone, since no one in his family is there. He staked his Presidency on the war on terror and in Iraq. If the Iraqi war is a failure (as it is), then his presidency and he are failures (as they are). Yet people think he will quit in Iraq unless he is forced to by a cut off of funds and the imminence of impeachment? Not bloody likely if you ask me. People who think it are fooling themselves, are deliberately blinking the truth as it is said. Unless Congress puts a stop to what Bush is doing in Iraq, there will be at least two more years of war and, possibly, hell to pay at home at some point because, while no draft threatens the average young man as it did in Viet Nam, starting with Viet Nam the people of this country have now had 40 years of knowing that their votes mean nothing, that our putative democracy means nothing, in the face of a plutocratic, lawless political class that does whatever it wants regardless of what voters think. Congress must quickly put a stop to Iraq. If Democratic lack of fortitude is so pronounced that stopping the war requires a march so huge that Washington has never seen anything like it and will in various ways be hard pressed by it, then so be it. Better such a march than two more years of this war, with our country playing a continuing role in causing the deaths and maimings of thousands of our own and tens or hundreds of thousands of Iraqis.*


* This posting represents the personal views of Lawrence R. Velvel. If you wish to respond to this email/blog, please email your response to me at velvel@mslaw.edu. Your response may be posted on the blog if you have no objection; please tell me if you do object.

VelvelOnNationalAffairs is now available as a podcast. To subscribe please visit VelvelOnNationalAffairs.com, and click on the link on the top left corner of the page. The podcasts can also be found on iTunes or at www.lrvelvel.libsyn.com