The JvL Bi-Weekly

 

James van Luik

Publisher & Editor

 

Wednesday, December  31^st, 2003

Volume 2, No. 23

 

 

 

5. Articles

 

1. Claim vs. Fact: 2003: A year of Distortion for the American People

2. Jessica Lynch Captures Saddam; Ex-Dictator Demands Back Pay from Baker

3. Iran and the Forgotten Anniversary

4. Nobel Peace Prize winner's acceptance speech – surprise to London and Washington

5. How to Fix the Medicare Mess

 

 

1. CLAIM VS. FACT: 2003: A YEAR OF DISTORTION FOR THE AMERICAN PEOPLE

PREPARED FOR

THE AMERICAN CENTER FOR AMERICAN PROGRESS

 

(On December 13, the White House issued a document entitled "2003: A Year of Accomplishment for the American People." The document made various inaccurate and deceptive claims about the Administration's record over the last year. This report from the Center for American Progress seeks to correct those distortions, matching the White House's rhetoric with facts.)

 

DRUG COVERAGE

 

WHITE HOUSE CLAIM: "The historic legislation the President signed will create a modern Medicare system, providing seniors with prescription drug benefits."

 

Fact: "The new law gives private insurers the authority to ration access to drugs funded by Medicare. Beneficiaries will have to choose a drug insurer without knowing exactly what drugs that insurer will cover. Premiums will be higher in areas with older or sicker seniors." – American Progress Fellow Jeanne Lambrew

 

Fact: "The Congressional Budget Office projects that 2.7 million retirees are expected to lose the drug coverage they currently received through their former employers because their employers will drop such converge when the Medicare drug benefit becomes available." – Center on Budget and Policy Priorities

 

Fact: "The insurance plan would provide little relief for about 3 million people with moderate assets and incomes near the poverty level and would cost seniors with drug expenses under $835 a year more than they currently spend." -  Boston Globe.

 

Fact: "The Congressional Budget Office estimates about 2.7 million seniors could lose benefits that may be more generous than those that will be offered under Medicare." -  USA Today

 

DRUG COSTS

 

WHITE HOUSE CLAIM: "Beneficiaries who lack coverage will cut their yearly drug costs roughly in half, in exchange for an approximately $35 monthly premium. The more than one-third of seniors with low incomes will be eligible for even greater drug savings, paying as little as $1 per prescription."

 

Fact: "Under the new plan, seniors in the middle income quintile will pay an average of $1650 a year in out-of-pocket expenses for prescription drugs in 2006. This figure is nearly 60 percent more than they paid in 2000, even after adjusting for inflation. Expenses are projected to continue to rise so that by 2013 middle-income seniors will be paying more than two and a half times as much for prescription drugs (adjusting for inflation ) as they did in 2000." – Ctr. For Economic and Policy Research

 

HEALTH SAVINGS ACCOUNTS

 

WHITE HOUSE CLAIM: "The historic Medicare legislation that the President signed included a provision establishing Health Savings Accounts (HSAs)…These HSAs will allow more Americans to save for health care needs, and will allow more small businesses to help workers secure health coverage."

 

Fact: The creation of "Health Care Savings Accounts" provides an "incentive to shift more costs to workers, who may be asked to 'match' their employer's contribution to a HSA with its high deductibles and high co-payments." Urban Institute economist Len Burman said HSAs will become "a boon to the healthy and wealthy and a bane" to older, sicker co-workers left to confront higher costs and premiums in traditional health plans. – Scripps Howard News

 

Fact: According to major studies conducted in the past by RAND, the Urban Institute, and the American Academy of Actuaries, "premiums for comprehensive, employer-based coverage could more than double if such accounts became widespread." – CBPP

 

ECONOMY

 

WHITE HOUSE CLAIM: "President Bush's economic leadership is producing positive results."

Fact: "More than 2.2 million jobs have been lost since Bush took office. Bush is still on pace to be the first President since Herbert Hoover to have a net job loss over his four year term."  BLS Data

 

Fact: In July 2003, the Counsel of Economic Advisors predicted that the President's latest round of tax cuts would create 1,530,000 jobs in the first five months. In fact, only 270,000 jobs were created over those five months for a cumulative shortfall of 1,259,000 jobs. – Economic Policy Institute

 

Fact: "Twenty five major American cities saw a 19% increase in the need for emergency food last year alone." – UK Guardian

 

Fact: "New jobs created during the 2004-05 period are forecast to pay an average of $35,855, far lower than the $43,629 average pay of those jobs lost between 2001-03." – U.S. Conference of Mayors

 

Fact: "Only 14% of CEOs are planning to increase the pace of hiring." – Business Council Poll

 

Fact: Poverty levels have risen for the second straight year in a row – the first time in more than 13 years.  Economic Policy Institute

 

WHITE HOUSE CLAIM: "Maintaining Fiscal Discipline: (The President has) continued to restrain spending."

 

Fact: The House recently passed a massive $373 billion spending bill, laden with pork-barrel spending and controversial provisions as far as the eye could see. "The size of the measure invites abuse. Spending set-asides for home-state projects have grown to extraordinary levels, filling scores of pages in the Congressional Record." President Bush issued a "personal appeal" to Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist ( R-Tn) to  "push the spending package through the Senate" without changes after the House passed the pork-laden bill." -  AP, Wall Street Journal

 

Fact: "For the 2003 budget year, which ended Sept. 30, the government recorded a deficit of 374.8 billion, according to revised figures. In November alone, the deficit swelled to nearly $43 billion." – AP

 

Fact: "Most observes familiar with the budget outlook, including the White House's Office of Management and Budget, agree that deficits will become even larger after 2013." – American Progress Senior Economist Christian Weller

 

WHITE HOUSE CLAIM: "91 million taxpayers received, on average, a tax cut of $1,126. Since the President took office, 109 million taxpayers have received, on average, a tax cut of $1,544. Without the fiscal measures implemented under President Bush, there would be a many as 2 million fewer jobs for American workers today."

 

Fact: 80% of taxpayers would receive less than $1,083, and half would receive $100 or less. The handful of millionaires who would get about $90,000 artificially inflates the average. – Citizens for Tax Justice, CBPP

 

Fact: "The economic consulting firm Economy.com found that the tax cuts were responsible for only 1.3 percent of the growth last quarter – meaning that we still would have seen GDP growth of abut 7 percent without the tax cut." -  American Progress Fellow Gene Sperling

 

WHITE HOUSE CLAIM: "23 million small business owners received tax cuts averaging $2,209."

 

Fact: "Nearly four out of every five tax filers (79%) with small business income would receive less than $2,209." Additionally, "52% of people with small business return would get $500 or less." – Urban Inst. –Brookings Tax Policy Center

 

'HEATLTHY FORESTS'

 

WHITE HOUSE CLAIM: "As part of the President's Healthy Forests Initiative, he signed bipartisan legislation to improve forest health and reduce the risk of catastrophic wildfires while upholding environmental laws, restoring our nation's forests, and preserving the forest economy."

 

Fact: The Congressional Research service reported that the "Health Forest" bill may actually increase the risk of fire. CRS expert Ross W. Corte said, "Timber harvesting removes the relatively large diameter wood that can be converted into wood products but leaves behind the small material, especially twigs and needles" that contributes to fires.  CRS report

 

Fact: In fact, the bill was sought by the timber industry "not because they wanted to remove brush and chaparral" which can cause forest fires but because it would "increase commercial logging with less environmental oversight." -  CBS News

 

POWER PLANT EMISSIONS

 

WHITE HOUSE CLAIM: "The Bush Administration proposed stringent new rules on power plant emissions."

 

Fact: "The Bush administration on Friday eased clean air rules to allow utilities, refineries and manufacturers to avoid having to install expensive new anti-pollution equipment when they modernize their plants." – CBS News

 

Fact: "More than a dozen state attorneys general yesterday sought to block the federal government from implementing a rule change they argued would lead to more air pollution from the nation's power plants. Fourteen states, and a number of cities – including  New York, San Francisco, and Washington, D.C. -  are seeking a court injunction to impede a measure by the Environmental Protection Agency before it goes into effect." – AP

 

Fact: "The chief of the Environmental Protection Agency's civil enforcement office has resigned, complaining the White House is undermining anti-pollution efforts at power plants that violate clean air laws. Eric Schaeffer, a lawyer at the EPA for a dozen years dating from the first Bush administration, said in a letter to EPA Administrator Christie Whitman that the White House "seems determined to weaken the rules we are trying to enforce." – CBS News

 

MERCURY EMISSIONS

 

WHITE HOUSE CLAIM: "The Bush Administration proposed stringent new rules which will result in dramatic reductions of sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, and mercury."

 

Fact: Two separate reports issued by the GAO and the Rockefeller Family Fund project and Council of State Governments stated that the Administration's relaxation of pollution rules for power plants would lead to reduced fines and pollution controls as well as 1.4 million tons more air pollution. – CBS News

 

Fact: "The Administration is proposing to use a provision of the Clean Air Act never before used to regulate toxics and setting a level of reductions of mercury emissions far below what the Clean Air Act toxic provisions would require. Using the [traditional] provisions of the Clean Air Act would achieve at lest a 90 percent reduction in mercury emissions from coal-fired plants by 2008. The Administration's proposals suggest only a 30% reduction to the benefit of coal-fired power plants and utilities." – Former EPA Administrator Carol Browner

 

EDUCATION

 

WHITE HOUSE CLAIM: "Parents, teachers, and principals are seeing a positive difference in America's schools. The No Child Left Behind Act is raising standards for students and putting the focus on student achievement."

 

Fact: "The sweeping federal law left cash-strapped states battered and confused in 2003. More nationwide provisions will take effect in 2004, along with the threat of losing millions of dollars for states that don't pass muster." – Stateline

 

WHITE HOUSE CLAIM: "The Bush Administration is investing more money in elementary and secondary education than at any time in American history."

 

Fact: "President Bush proposed a budget that was $9.7 billion below the amount needed to fund his own No Child Left Behind Bill. The budget eliminates 45 education programs, and slashes another 18 programs by $1.4 billion. Specifically, he proposes to cut $400 million (40%) out of after-school programs, resulting in 485,000 children being thrown off these programs. He proposes to freeze teacher training grants, meaning a loss of opportunity for 30,000 teachers. And, during a recession, he has proposed a $307 million cut for vocational/technical education grants, and a freeze on Pell grants." -  House Appropriations Committee report

 

CONSUMER PROTECTION

 

WHITE HOUSE CLAIM: "Enhancing Consumer Credit Protections. The President proposed and signed into law legislation to ensure citizens are treated fairly when they apply for credit. It also addresses the growing problem of identity theft by establishing a nationwide fraud alert system."

 

Fact: "In addition to previous votes that gutted state provisions to prevent financial institutions from sharing customers information with others, the final version of the bill will roll back states anti-identity-theft measures." – SF Chronicle

 

Fact: The Administration proposed new regulations that "would shield national banks from state laws enacted to protect consumers from predatory lending." The regulations were criticized by NY Attorney General Eliot Spitzer as preventing the states from prosecuting "nationally chartered financial services companies for charging outsized fees and interest rates to poor consumers who have bad credit." – Financial Times

 

VETERANS

 

WHITE HOUSE CLAIM: "Honoring Our Commitment to Veterans: America owes veterans and those on the front lines of freedom a great debt of gratitude."

 

Fact: The Administration is pushing a cut of $1.5 billion in military housing/medical facility funding, despite the fact that UPI reports "hundreds of sick and wounded US soldiers including many who served in the Iraq war are languishing in hot cement barracks here while they wait – sometimes for months – to see doctors." Wash Post

 

Fact: "One million children living in military and veteran families are being denied child tax credit help" in President Bush's tax cut. "More than 260,000 of these children have parents on active military duty." – Children's Defense Fund

 

WHITE HOUSE CLAIM: "President Bush was pleased to sign legislation that resolved the issue of concurrent receipt in a fair and responsible manner."

 

Fact: In the fiscal year 2003 defense authorization bill, Congress stipulated that veterans with disabilities would no longer have to give up part of the retirement pay they have earned. In other words, they would receive retired pay and disability pay concurrently. Bush threatened to veto the bill if it includes concurrent  receipt. Baltimore Sun, Washington Post

 

AIDS

 

WHITE HOUSE CLAIM: "Leading the Fight against HIV/AIDS: In his State of the Union address, President Bush announced the Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief an historic 5-year, $15 billion effort to turn the tide of the AIDS pandemic. Only 4 months later, Congress passed legislation authorizing the emergency Plan based on the President's proposal."

 

Fact: President Bush's budget introduced four days after his State of the Union "only sought $2 billion for the year" for AIDS – 33% less than the $3 Billion needed to keep his $15-billion-over-5-year pledge. When the Senate voted to increase the President's budget, the White House "repeated its strong opposition to any funding beyond $2 billion." – LA Times

 

Fact: "President Bush plans to ask Congress for relatively small funding increases to fight AIDS and poverty in the developing world, stepping back form his highly publicized pledge to spend huge sums to help fight them." WSJ

 

INTERNATIONAL FINANCING

 

WHITE HOUSE CLAIM: "At the Madrid donors' conference, 73 countries and 20 international organizations joined together and pledged over $30 billion for Iraq."

 

Fact: "Six weeks after organizers of an international donors conference in Madrid said that more than $3 billion in grants had been pledged to help Iraq with immediate needs, a new World Bank tally verifies grants of only $685 million for 2004."  - NY Times

 

INTERNATIONAL MILITARY HELP

 

WHITE HOUSE CLAIM: "Our mission has broad support from the international community, including troops from 18 out of 25 current and future NATO countries."

 

Fact: While the US has over 160,000 troops in Iraq, the next largest force contingent is Britain, with about 9,000 troops. Additionally, since President Bush asked for more military help in September, not one additional new international soldier has been sent to Iraq. – UK Guardian, 12/12/03

 

WMD

 

WHITE HOUSE CLAIM: "We are now learning the full truth about Saddam Hussein's regime: clear evidence of Saddam's illegal weapons program."

 

Fact: "A draft report on the search for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq provides no solid evidence that Iraq had such arms when the United States invaded the country in March." -  Reuters

 

Fact: "We have not uncovered evidence that Iraq undertook significant post-1998 steps to actually build nuclear weapons or produce fissile material…We have not yet been able to corroborate the existence of  a mobile biological weapons production effort…Technical limitations would prevent any of these processes from being ideally suited to these trailers…Iraq did not have a large, ongoing , centrally controlled chemical weapons program after 1991… Iraq's large-scale capability to develop, produce, and fill new chemical weapon munitions was reduced – if not entirely destroyed – during Operations Desert Storm and Desert Fox, 13 years of UN sanctions and UN inspections." – Bush Administration Weapons Inspector David Kay

 

SADDAM-AL QAEDA TIES

 

WHITE HOUSE CLAIM: "[We have found] previously undocumented ties to terror organizations."

 

Fact: The bipartisan September 11^th commission report "undercuts Bush Administration claims before the war that Hussein had links to Al Qaeda." – LA Times

 

Fact: "Since the fall of Baghdad, coalition forces have not brought to light any significant evidence demonstrating the bond between Iraq and Al Qaeda." – NY Times

 

Fact: "Three former Bush Administration officials who worked on intelligence and national security issues said the prewar evidence tying Al Qaeda was tenuous, exaggerated and often at odds with the conclusions of key intelligence agencies." – National Journal

 

NATIONAL SUPPORT

 

WHITE HOUSE CLAIM: "America and more than 20 allied countries are working to help the Afghan people rebuild their war-torn nation. More than 15 million Afghan citizens have been freed from the brutal zealotry of the Taliban."

 

Fact: The UN delegation reported that "insecurity caused by terrorist activities, factional fights and drug related crime remain the major concern of Afghans today." Insecurity is especially a problem in the southern part of the country where "attacks against non-governmental organizations was contributing to the slowing of reconstruction." Throughout the nation "individuals and communities suffer from abuses of their basic rights by local commanders and factional leaders." The problems are exacerbated in many areas of the country "by terrorist attacks from suspected members of the Taliban and Al Qaeda." Also of serious concern: "Arbitrary control exercised by local commanders and factional armies [that ] has resulted in heavy casualties." – UN Report

 

FUNDING

 

WHITE HOUSE CLAIM: "The US Congress passed the Afghanistan Freedom Support Act which authorizes $3.47 billion for Afghanistan over fiscal years 2003-2006.

 

Fact: While President Bush declared a "Marshall Plan for Afghanistan" in April 2002, the nation has "received only a fraction of the $10.2 billion" that the World Bank said was necessary over the first five years. – Senate Foreign Relations Committee Testimony

 

TERRORIST FINANCING

 

WHITE HOUSE CLAIM: "The Treasury Department has frozen over $136 million from over 240 terrorist-related entities."

 

Fact: "Federal authorities do not have a clear understanding of how terrorists move their financial assets and are still struggling to prevent the flow of money to terror groups." According to a new report by the GAO to be released Sunday – NY Times, 12/12/03

 

FIRST RESPONDERS

 

WHITE HOUSE CLAIM: "Helping State and Local First Responders: The President is continuing to give our nation's first responder and public health system the training and equipment to prepare, prevent and respond to any future terrorist attack."

 

Fact: "Emergency Responders are drastically undefended and dangerously unprepared. The United HOIUSEStates remains dangerously ill prepared to handle a catastrophic attack on American soil. On average, fire departments across the country have only enough radios to equip half the firefighters on a shift, and breathing apparatuses for only one-third. Police departments do not have the protective gear to safely secure a site following a WMD attack. Public health labs in most states still lack basic equipment and expertise  to adequately respond to a chemical or biological attack. Most cities do not have the necessary equipment to determine what kind of hazardous materials emergency responders my be facing." – Council on Foreign Relations Report by former Sen. Warren Rudman (R-NH)

 

Fact: "Despite a $2 billion federal investment, the nation's public health system is only marginally better prepared today to handle a bioterrorism attack or other health emergency than it was in 2001." – USA Today

 

Fact: The Federal Program that added more than 100,000 cops to local police forces is being rolled back because local governments can't afford to keep many of the officers on the street. Law enforcement analysts say that the largest federally funded buildup of local police in US history is being washed away by cutbacks." – USA Today

 

Fact: "The White House is now saying that its spending plan does not provide enough money to protect against terrorist attacks on American soil. It concedes that domestic counter terrorism programs were shortchanged." – NY Times

 

CYBER SECURITY

 

WHITE HOUSE CLAIM: "The President provided a framework for protecting our critical infrastructure by releasing for protecting our critical infrastructure by releasing the first ever National Strategy for the Physical Protection of Critical Infrastructure and the National Cyberspace Security Division."

 

Fact: The annual cyber security report card is out, and "the Department of Homeland Security – The government's lead agency on matters of Internet security – led the list of seven federal agencies that earned an 'F' grade for their own network security efforts in 2003." And "also earning an 'F' was the Justice Department, the agency charged with investigating and prosecuting many cases involving hacking and other forms of cyber crime." – Washington Post

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2. JESSICA LYNCH CAPTURES SADDAM; EX-DICTATOR DEMANDS BACK PAY FROM BAKER

BY

GREG PALAST

 

Former Iraqi strongman Saddam Hussein was taken into custody yesterday at 8:30PM Baghdad time. Various television executives, White House spin doctors and propaganda experts at the Pentagon are at this time wrestling with the question of whether to claim PFC Jessica Lynch seized the ex-potentate or that Saddam surrendered after close hand-to-hand combat with current Iraqi strongman Paul Bremer III.

 

Ex-President Hussein himself told US military interrogators that he had surfaced after hearing of the appointment of his long-time associate James Baker III to settle Iraq's debts. "Hey, my homeboy Jim owes me big time," Mr. Hussein stated. He asserted that Baker and the prior Bush regime, "owe me my back pay. After all I did for these guys you'd think they'd have the decency to pay up."

 

The Iraqi dictator then went on to list the "hits" he conducted on behalf of the Baker-Bush administrations, ending with the invasion of Kuwait in 1990, authorized by the former US Secretary of State Baker.

 

Mr. Hussein cited the transcript of his meeting on July 25, 1990 in Baghdad with US Ambassador April Glaspie. When Saddam asked Glaspie if the US would object to an attack on Kuwait over the small emirate's theft of Iraqi oil, America's Ambassador told him, "We have no opinion…. Secretary [of State James] Baker has directed me to emphasize the instruction … that Kuwait is not associated with America."

 

Glaspie, in Congressional testimony in 1991, did not deny the authenticity of the recording of her meeting with Saddam which world diplomats took as US acquiescence to an Iraqi invasion.

 

While having his hair styled by US military makeover artists, Saddam listed jobs completed at the request of his allies in the Carter, Reagan and Bush administrations for which he claims back wages:

 

1979: Seizes power with US approval; moves allegiance from Soviets to USA Cold War.

 

1980: Invades Iran, then the "unicycle of Evil," with US encouragement and arms.

 

1982: Reagan regime removes Saddam's regime from official US list of state sponsors of terrorism.

 

1983: Saddam hosts Donald Rumsfeld in Baghdad. Agrees to "go steady" with US corporate suppliers.

 

1984: US Commerce Department issues license for export of aflatoxin to Iraq useable in biological weapons.

 

1988: Kurds in Halabja, Iraq, gassed.

 

1987-88: US warships destroy Iranian oil platforms in Gulf and break Iranian blockade of Iraq shipping lanes, tipping war advantage back to Saddam.

 

In Baghdad today, [121503] the US-installed replacement for Saddam, Paul Bremer, appeared to acknowledge his predecessor Saddam's prior work for the US State Department when he told Iraqis, "For decades, you suffered at the hands of this cruel man. For decades, Saddam Hussein divided you and threatened to attack your neighbors."

 

In reaction to the Bremer speech, Mr. Hussein said, "Do you think those decades of causing suffering, division and fear come cheap?" Noting that for half of that period, the suffering, division and threats were supported by Washington, Saddam added, "So where's the thanks? You'd think I'd at least get a gold watch or something for all those years on US payroll."

 

In a televised address from the Oval Office, George W. Bush raised Saddam's hopes of compensation when he cited Iraq's "dark and painful history" under the US-sponsored Hussein dictatorship.

 

Saddam was also heartened by Mr. Bush's promise that, "The capture of Saddam Hussein does not mean the end of violence in Iraq." With new attacks by and on US and other foreign occupation forces, the former strongman stated, "It's reassuring to know my legacy of darkness and pain for Iraqis will continue under the leadership of President Bush."

 

While lauding the capture of Mr. Hussein, experts caution that the War on Terror is far from over, noting that Osama bin Laden, James Baker and George W. Bush remain at large.

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3. IRAN AND THE FORGOTTEN ANNIVERSARY

BY

ARNOLD OLIVER

 

The talk of regime change in Iran that now fills the air in Washington is not new. Although very few Americans are aware of it, August of this year marks the fiftieth anniversary of a vital, yet little-known chapter in American foreign policy—a military coup against the elected leaders of Iran orchestrated by the US Central Intelligence Agency.

 

Before hostilities with Iran once again expand past the point of no return, we really ought to have the kind of informed reasoned national debate that was so notably absent prior to the invasion of Iraq. In order to begin to do that, we will have to review the momentous events of 1953 and some of their far reaching consequences.

 

For several years after the Second World War, the US had a positive image with many Iranians. After helping to convince occupying Soviet forces to leave the country, and attempting to mediate an agreement between Iran and Great Britain, the American government was generally well regarded. But these good relations were not to last.

 

During the summer of 1953—in an eerie parallel to today's events—a major crisis developed between Teheran and  Washington. At that time Iran was an emerging democracy with elected leaders. Led by the popular Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadeq, it was embroiled in an conflict with the British over oil. The Anglo-Iranian Oil Company was owned by British interests and supported by the British government. In a grossly unequal colonial-style arrangement, the Iranians were not even allowed to examined the ledgers. As the dispute with the British intensified, the Iranians finally became determined to nationalize their country's oil industry. The British responded by freezing Iranian assets, imposing a world wide embargo on Iran's oil, and pulling their technicians out of the country. Oil output slowed to a trickle, Iran's economy went into a tailspin, and unrest grew. Britain's destabilization efforts were working.

 

Although the Truman government had been sympathetic to Iran, in 1953 the new Eisenhower administration accepted the British view that the Iranian regime had to go. On July 11^th President Eisenhower secretly signed an order to overthrow Iran's young democracy.

 

On August 19^th the US-orchestrated military coup emerged triumphant, and the exiled monarch, Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi, was installed on the Peacock Throne. A secret history of this CIA operation, written in 1954 by agent and participant Donald Wilber and leaked to the press a few years ago, leaves no doubt as to the central role played by the US.

 

Had the Shah been a benevolent ruler, the image of the US in Iran might not have become so tarnished, but benevolent he was not. And to make matters worse—much worse—American and Israeli intelligence agents organized SAVAK, the Shah's personal secret security force. Before long, Iran developed in a full-blown police state complete with thousands of informers, censorship, arbitrary arrest and imprisonment, and widespread torture and assassination. Of course, none of this was secret to the Shah's many US advisers.

 

According to the Harvard Human Rights Journal, many of SAVAK's 15,000 full-time agents were "trained in the United States and Israel where they learned 'scientific' methods to prevent unwanted deaths from 'brute force'." Electrified chairs fitted with metal masks were used "to muffle screams while amplifying them for the victim." Another historian called the Shah's methods of torture "horrendous," and "equal to the worst ever devised."

 

Aiming to terrorize an entire population, SAVAK repression was both extreme and widespread. Few Iranian families were spared, and among the victims were family members of the Shiite clerics who would later overthrow the Shah's regime in 1979, and spark the seizure and hostage-taking crisis at the US embassy.

 

An honest assessment of these events would lead to an understanding of why the US government is loathed by so many Iranians. They are fully aware of American complicity with the Shah's twenty-five year reign of terror. The pundits who are now predicting that the Iranian people will welcome "liberation" by American arms (many of them said the same thing about Iraq) could hardly be more in error.

 

Iran has already suffered one horrific "regime change" at the hands of the West. Rather than being threatened with another one, its people are morally and legally entitled to compensations as well as a formal apology. The US trade embargo against Iran should be lifted as well. The issue of weapons of mass destruction can only be resolved in the context of recognizing that Iran has legitimate, real, and rational security concerns.

 

For its part, Iran also needs to make changes. Its government must show far more respect for the rights of dissidents and demonstrators. All political prisoners should be released. The internal security agents who recently murdered Canadian journalist Zahra Kazemi must face justice. A judicious mix of honest atonement by both sides, along with other confidence  building measures, can lay the foundation for a new and mutually beneficial relationship between the two countries. But above all, Americans need to acknowledge that the overthrow of the Iranian government in 1953 was a dark chapter in the history of the US, and we must resolved that it not be repeated.

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4. NOBEL PEACE PRIZE WINNER'S ACCEPTANCE SPEECH – A SURPRISE TO LONDON AND WASHINGTON

BY

GHULAM MUHAMMED

 

The acceptance speech of this year's Nobel Peace Prize winner, Shirin Ebadi, the first Muslim woman from a Muslim country packed a real surprise for the US/UK capitals and their captive media, who had held the Nobel Peace Prize award to an Iranian Women's Rights activist, as one more tool to crack down on Iranian Mullahs and prepare her for possible leadership to rule Iran after the planned post-regime change in Iran.

 

In the event, Shirin Ebadi in her speech did not leave any doubt that she was a true-blooded liberal of the kind that has to make no apologies for Islam, in the subject of either women's rights, human rights or freedom of religions.

 

Standing on the world stage with the international media fully tuned to receive a pro-West and anti-Islamic and anti-Mullah diatribe that could further fuel western propaganda against Islam and Muslim Middle East, she proved that she was nobody's 'poodle'.

 

A strong person that had gone through life's ups and downs was not prepared to lose the chance to address the world audience with some very unpalatable truths.

 

She directly attacked the US/UK coalition for attacking Iraq and Afghanistan on the pretext of fighting international terror. She pointedly mentioned the horror of Guantanamo Bay prisoners, whose imprisonment was in abject defiance of international human rights and Geneva Convention commitments by the US.

 

She brought out the stark Western discriminations when she questioned "why is it that some, in the past 35 years, dozens of UN resolutions concerning the occupation of the Palestinian territories by the state of Israel have not been implemented promptly?" and "yet, in the past 12 years, the state and people of Iraq, once on the recommendation of the Security Council, and the second time in spite of  UN Security council  opposition, were subjected to attack, military assault, economic sanctions, and ultimately, military occupation ?"

 

She proudly registered her multiple identities, as an Iranian, a Muslim and a woman and vowed to work in the cause of defending human rights in Iran as well as all around the world.

 

In conclusion, she said: If the 21^st century wishes to free itself from the cycle of violence, acts of terror and war, and avoid repetition of the experience of the 20^th century – that  most disaster-ridden century of humankind, there is no other way except by understanding and putting into practice every human right for all mankind, irrespective of race, gender, faith, nationality or social status.

 

Post-speech, there is the imminent danger that Shirin Ebadi will be dropped by the US/UK/Israel axis as persona non grata for the ungrateful tone of her speech criticizing the West from one of the most Nobel platforms of the world, over the worst of criminal offences that US and UK are inflicting on a hapless world. If she had been as pliable as the US/UK/Israel axis had expected of her, she could have been projected as the next leader of Iran, if and when the axis could manage a regime change in Iran, either through invasion or manipulations. After all they would not have okayed a Nobel Peace prize for anything less than their own grand designs.

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5. HOW TO FIX THE MEDICARE MESS

BY

BEN PECK

 

The Medicare overhaul legislation that Congress passed just before Thanksgiving does too much to help special interests and too little for the seniors and people with disabilities who rely on Medicare for their health care.

 

If Congress had been designing this legislation with people in mind, it would have added a drug benefit to the original Medicare program and insisted that Medicare negotiate directly with the drug companies for low prices on their drugs.

 

Unfortunately Congress only considered human  need after it addressed the demands of the drug industry, the insurance industry and those ideologically zealous Congressional leaders who would like Medicare, as older Americans have come to know and rely on it, to wither on the vine.

 

First, Congressional leaders ensured that the legislation did not offend the drug companies—major patrons of both major political parties, but overwhelmingly generous donors to the Republican party.

 

The drug companies' primary concern is protection of the high prices they charge in the US. Dutifully, Congress included a provision in the legislation prohibiting Medicare from using the market power of 41 million members to negotiate lower prices. The cost of that provision: $139 Billion in additional profits to the drug industry over eight years.

 

Next, the legislation had to appease the ideologues who insist that private health insurance plans be given a greater role in the Medicare program. Since private plans have recently been leaving the Medicare program in droves, the only way to lure them back was to pay them—big times. The 10-year cost of luring private plans back into Medicare: $12 billion in new subsidies on top of $67 billion in existing subsidies. Somehow we have a Congress saying that we save money by paying for-profit insurers about 25 percent more than original Medicare to provide coverage.

 

The ideologues argue that people with Medicare need more opportunity to enroll in private plans and that private plans will be a powerful new tool to control the costs of the program. They believe both of these claims in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary.

 

Dollars directed to drug companies or private insurance companies are dollars drained from health benefits, including coverage of prescription drugs, for people with Medicare.

 

After the second round of tax cuts enacted earlier this year, White House funding for a Medicare drug benefit already was too little to provide comprehensive coverage. But after Congress attended to the interests of the drug and insurance industries, there was even less. The result is a drug benefit that many will find meager.

 

For most of the 41 million people with Medicare, the benefit would cut off once a person's total drug costs reach $2,250 and would not start again until their drug costs hit $5,100. That means that many people who depend on prescription drugs to control their blood pressure, cholesterol, diabetes or a host of other medical needs will be unable to afford their medicine come July or August. For some, the erratic nature of the benefit may be more dangerous than no coverage.

 

What is more, the benefit gets much worse as drug prices rise in the future. In 2013, the eighth year of the program, those with the largest drug costs would be responsible for approximately $5,000 in drug costs. The legislation will be a huge step backward for millions of people with better coverage from their employers who will drop that coverage as a result of the passage of this legislation. For the poorest of the poor, the legislation offers more coverage than they currently enjoy from their states' Medicaid programs.

 

However, for some, the legislation does offer real benefits. The near poor would enjoy enhanced benefits and once people's total drug costs reach $5,100 the legislation offers generous coverage, paying 95% of costs. However, even the coverage for the low-income is limited by an assets test, which would mean that half of those eligible would not get the benefit because they would not be able to surmount the bureaucratic barriers to coverage.

 

The willingness of zealots to attack the program's fundamental character represents a relatively new development in Medicare, which enjoyed broad bipartisan support for most of its first thee decades. This changed in 1994, when Newt Gingrich and other ideologically driven crusaders came to power in Congress.

 

Voters now need to hold the members of Congress who passed this bill accountable. They need to vote them out of office in 2004 and send back to Washington a congress that will fix this mess.

 

A new Congress should start bay passing legislation that focuses on the needs of people with Medicare. The government should be given not just the power, but the mandate, to negotiate directly with the drug companies for lowers prices.

 

Congress should enact legislation imposing prescription pricing parity with Canada. US citizens should not pay double the prices for life-saving medicines that citizens in Canada and the rest of the industrialized world pay do not have to pay.

 

Message to Congress: take away the Christmas gifts for the drug and insurance industries and, for once, make the health of older and disabled Americans the national priority it deserves to be. [Editor's note: Why shouldn't complete health care apply—under Medicare—to children and to the rest of the population generally?]

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