Thursday, June 30, 2005

What insurgency?...or, yet another throe-away statement by the Bush administration

I must admit that although I had the idea for this post once I heard about Rumskull's comments about how long insurgencies last, much of the information herein was presented first by The Daily Show in a segment from June 27 entitled "War of the Words" (for the near future, a video of the segment can be seen here). With that in mind, make sure you have your hip waders handy, 'cuz the bullshit is going to get mighty deep.

The tipping point: Cheney on Larry King

On May 30, 2005, Larry King interviewed Vice President Cheney. Of course, the subject of Iraq was addressed:
KING: When do we leave?

D. CHENEY: We'll leave as soon as the task is over with. We haven't set a deadline or a date. It depends upon conditions. We have to achieve our objectives, complete the mission. And the two main requirements are, the Iraqis in a position to be able to govern themselves, and they're well on their way to doing that, and the other is able to defend themselves, and they're well on their way to doing that. They just announced that in the last day or two here, there've been stories about a major movement of some 40,000 Iraqi troops into Baghdad to focus specifically on the problem there.

KING: You expect it in your administration?

D. CHENEY: I do.

KING: To be removed. It's not going to be -- it's not going to be a 10-year event?

D. CHENEY: No. I think we may well have some kind of presence there over a period of time. But I think the level of activity that we see today, from a military standpoint, I think will clearly decline. I think they're in the last throes, if you will, of the insurgency. We've had reporting in recent days, Larry, about Zarqawi, who's sort of the lead terrorist, outside terrorist, al Qaeda, head of al Qaeda for Iraq, may well have been seriously injured. We don't know. We can't confirm that. We've had reporting to that effect.
(emphasis added). For the sake of convenience, here are the main points from the above excerpt:
  • The U.S. will leave Iraq in less than 10 years.
  • The U.S. will leave before the end of the Bush administration.
  • The insurgency is in its last throes.
A U.S. General and the Iraqi Prime Minister say something different.

On June 23, 2005, General John Abizaid, Commander of U.S. Central Command and the highest ranking officer for the Middle East, testified before the Senate Armed Services Committee. As reported by the AP:
The top American commander in the Persian Gulf told Congress on Thursday that the Iraqi insurgency has not grown weaker over the past six months, despite a claim by Vice President Dick Cheney that it was in its "last throes."
*******
Abizaid told the panel: "I believe there are more foreign fighters coming into Iraq than there were six months ago." As to the overall strength of the insurgency, Abizaid said it was "about the same" as six months ago.
The New York Times quoted General Abizaid as adding, "There's a lot of work to be done against the insurgency." Gosh, that ain't quite what Cheney said, now is it?

Last week Iraqi Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari was in Washington, and he spoke at the Council of Foreign Relations last Thursday. The New York Times reporting the following:
Dr. Jaafari, speaking at the Council of Foreign Relations here, supported the White House argument that the situation in Iraq was steadily improving, despite continuing attacks. He also warned against setting a timetable for troop withdrawal. When he was asked Thursday evening about Mr. Cheney's recent comments, he sidestepped the issue.
*******
Yet despite his care not to differ with the White House, Dr. Jaafari appeared at one point to side with General Abizaid, who told Congress that foreign fighters were still entering Iraq. Mr. Jaafari agreed that Iraq's borders were still not secure and that terrorists continued to flow into Iraq. He made no effort to quantify how many have entered the country, or how important they have been in the insurgency.
As shown below, Cheney tried to seriously spin his "last throes" comments, but there is no reasonable argument that he did not intend to convey that the insurgency was close to being finished. The statements last Thursday by the top U.S. military commander in the region and the Iraqi Prime Minister plainly show the contrary, and there is no reasonable argument to the contrary.

Cheney the Prime Spin-ister

Following Gen. Abizaid's testimony, Cheney was interviewed on CNN by Wolf Biltzer.
BLITZER: Let's talk about some controversial comments you recently made suggesting the insurgents in Iraq were in, your words, in their "last throes." Do you want to revise or amend those comments?

CHENEY: No, but I'd be happy to explain what I meant by that. If you go back over a year ago, we intercepted a message from Zarqawi, the top terrorist in Iraq, sent to Osama bin Laden. And it basically said that, if the Iraqis were successful in establishing a democracy in Iraq -- standing up a viable government -- that he'd have to pack his bags and go elsewhere. And he was obviously very concerned about that possibility.

And what's happened since then, of course, is that we've had considerable success. We've transferred sovereign authority about a year ago, held elections in January. [The] first free elections in Iraq in a very long time. We've set up an interim government. There's a constitutional process in place now. ...

Later this year, there'll be a referendum on the constitution, and then national elections ... at the end of the year in the fall. So the political process is ... making significant progress.
To be fair, there has been some progress. However, there is some question as to just how "established" the Iraqi government is (see Larry Diamond on "democracy" in Iraq). Still, let's just assume that all the progrees cited by Cheney is at the level he proclaims it to be. Cheney's theory is that establishing a democracy in Iraq will end the insurgency. Thus, the best case scenario under Cheney's analysis is that by the end of 2005 the insurgency will be finished. Of course, just because a new Iraqi government will be elected by the end of the year does not guarantee an end to the violence, as evidenced by the continued violence--and insurgency--since the elections in February. Now I know what some of you are thinking. The level of violence has decreased since the February elections, so Cheney is right. Well, I'll let Rumskull address that argument, but for now understand that Cheney's "explanation" does not in any way address the facts as stated above by Gen. Abizaid and Prime Minister Jaafari. In Cheneystan, democracy will magically bring an end to the insurgency--just like the Iraqis would greet us as great liberators and there would be no insurgency.

Ah, but Cheney was not finished.
BLITZER: The commander of the U.S. Military Central Command, Gen. John Abizaid has been testifying on Capitol Hill.

CHENEY: Right.

BLITZER: He says that the insurgency now is at a strength undiminished as it was six months ago, and he says there are actually more foreign fighters in Iraq now than there were six months ago. That doesn't sound like the last throes.

CHENEY: No, I would disagree. If you look at what the dictionary says about throes, it can still be a violent period -- the throes of a revolution. The point would be that the conflict will be intense, but it's intense because the terrorists understand if we're successful at accomplishing our objective, standing up a democracy in Iraq, that that's a huge defeat for them. They'll do everything they can to stop it.
Notice that Cheney really avoided answering the question. He did not in any way dispute what Gen. Abizaid said. Instead, he focused on "what the dictionary says about throes." Dictionary.com defines "throes" as "A condition of agonizing struggle or trouble: a country in the throes of economic collapse." Merriam-Webster Online defines the term as "a hard or painful struggle." So, on the one hand, Cheney was right in saying that throes can be a violent period, but he did not use only the word "throes." He said "last throes." That means that Cheney was indeed saying that the insurgency was about to end. And that meaning stands in stark contrast to what Gen. Abizaid and Prime Minister Jaafari said.

Some choice Rumskull riffs

This past Sunday morning, Rumskull appeared on Fox News Sunday. Host Chris Wallace specifically asked Rumskull "Is the insurgency in its last throes?" Rumskull metaphysically grabbed his bongos and started laying down one of his copascetic musings:
Well, you know, everybody's running around trying to make a division between what the vice president said or someone else said.

The fact is that if you look at the context of his remarks, last throes could be a violent last throe, just as well as a placid or calm last throe. Look it up in the dictionary.

Now, is that any different from what General Abizaid said or General Casey? No.


I mean, the insurgency is going on. It ebbs and flows
. At the moment, the insurgents know they have a great deal to lose. The election was a big success. There's political progress. There's economic progress. The insurgency's been about level. And the progress on the political side is so threatening to the insurgents that my guess is it could become more violent between now and the constitution referendum and the election in December.

But does progress on the political side suggest that the insurgency ultimately will lose? I believe so, and I believe that others believe that. If you think about it, that's what General Abizaid said and General Casey and General Myers all said yesterday, that they do not believe that there's a, quote, "quagmire" as people are trying to characterize it.
(emphasis added). Let's address the emphasized portions one at a time.
  • As seen by the dictionary definitions above, there is no such thing as a placid or calm throe.
  • I have seen nothing to indicate that Gen. Abizaid said that a "throe" could be calm or that the insurgency was in its last throes. Indeed, when specifically asked if he agreed with Cheney's "last throes" statement, Abizaid said, "I don't know that I would make any comment about that other than to say there's a lot of work to be done against the insurgency."
  • Saying that the insurgency exists and ebbs and flows is not the same thing as saying it is in its last throes.
  • If you think about, Abizaid did not say that political success would mean the end of the insurgency. He said that it was as strong as six months ago and that there is a lot of work to be done.
In other words, Rumskull was full of shit. Still, he was at that time doing his best to back up Cheney. And then later in the interview, Rumskull said something in total contravention of Cheney:
That insurgency could go on for any number of years. Insurgencies tend to go on five, six, eight, 10, 12 years.
Un-freaking-believable. Five to twelve years does not in any conceivable way constitute last throes. For once, I agree with Rumskull. This insurgency could go on for years.

Rumskull went from Fox over to NBC's Meet the Press, where the following exchange took place:
MR. RUSSERT: For the sake of clarity for the American people, what about this insurgency? Is it in its last throes or is it alive and well and vibrant and strong as it was six months ago?

SEC'Y RUMSFELD: Well, there are various ways to measure it. If you measure the number of incidents, it's gone up during the election period and now it's back down. If you look at lethality of those instances, it's up.
This is not quite as good as his "We know what we know..." missive, but it nonetheless controverts any argument that the violence has decreased since the February elections, which in turn weakens Cheney's theory that the elections in December will end the insurgency.

So...who are you going to believe?

The top U.S. military commander in the region and the Iraqi Prime Minister are in positions of having firsthand knowledge of the actual facts in Iraq, and they say the insurgency has not weakened, that foreign fighters continue to come in through Iraq's still unsecured borders, and that there remains a lot of work to be done. Then, despite his best efforts to confuse everyone, the Secretary of Defense says the insurgency could last for as many as 12 years. And lastly there is Dick Cheney, who says that the insurgency is in its "last throes" and should be finished in 6 months. If any of you are thinking that Cheney is the one to believe, I offer you these words from Juan Cole:
This is the man who "knew where exactly" Saddam's alleged weapons of mass destruction were and who was sure Iraqis would deliriously greet the US military as liberators.

Wednesday, June 29, 2005

An update on Bush's exclusion of veterans and active duty personnel from his "culture of life"

This morning I surfed over to Political Animal to find a post from Kevin Drum entitled "Shortchanging the VA." The basis for the post is an article from today's Washington Post entitled "VA Faces $2.6 Billion Shortfall in Medical Care." Here are some highlights:
The Bush administration disclosed yesterday that it had vastly underestimated the number of service personnel returning from Iraq and Afghanistan seeking medical treatment from the Department of Veterans Affairs, and warned that the health care programs will be short at least $2.6 billion next year unless Congress approves additional funds.

Veterans Affairs budget documents projected that 23,553 veterans would return this year from Iraq and Afghanistan and seek medical treatment. However, Veterans Affairs Secretary Jim Nicholson told a Senate committee that the number has been revised upward to 103,000 for the fiscal year that ends Sept. 30. He said the original estimates were based on outdated assumptions from 2002.

"The bottom line is there is a surge in demand in VA [health] services across the board," Nicholson told the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee.

Just last week, the VA revealed that the rise in demand for VA health facilities had caused a $1 billion shortfall in operating funds for the current year. That would more than double in the coming year without congressional intervention.
Before explaining why Nicholson and the Bush administration are completely full of shit, let's take a look at how the Washington Post describes some reaction from Republicans:
Senate Republicans, embarrassed and angered over the revelations, yesterday announced plans to pass emergency legislation this morning to add $1.5 billion to the fiscal 2005 appropriation. The move is designed to appease angry veterans groups and preempt a Democratic proposal calling for $1.42 billion in increased VA spending.

The action represents a reversal of GOP policies toward the VA. For the past four months, House and Senate Republicans have repeatedly defeated Democratic amendments to boost VA medical funding.

Nicholson, a former chairman of the Republican National Committee, faced criticism from House and Senate committee chairmen at two hearings.

"I sit here having recently learned that the information provided to me thus far has been disturbingly inaccurate," Senate Veterans Affairs Committee Chairman Larry E. Craig (R-Idaho) told Nicholson. House Appropriations Committee Chairman Jerry Lewis (R-Calif.) told Nicholson that the failure to alert Congress earlier about the VA's money problems "borders on stupidity."
(emphasis added). Borders on stupidity? The best thing one could say is that it goes beyond stupidity and borders on criminal negligence. Does that seem extreme? If so, then read the paragraph and see what you think.

Kevin Drum also links to some analysis by Michael Froomkin, who cites a report from today's "Morning Edition" on NPR. The NPR report is definitely worth a listen, but Froomkin provides a good summary:
The Senate is voting today on a $1.5 billion extra appropriation for VA health care. The VA based its inadequate request in the current budget on the amount it needed in 2002, i.e. planning for medical care as if there were not a war in Iraq. Similarly, when the administration asked for a supplemental appropriation for Iraq—having left it out of the budget to be able to claim the deficit was smaller than everyone knew it actually was—Democratic Senator Patty Murry proposed adding more money for the VA. The administration said it wasn’t needed.

In the NPR clip, a Republican senator asks Secretary Nicholson why the VA couldn’t see this medical funding budget gap coming. Nicholson, in a truly idiotic move, said his department didn’t get caught by surprise—they’ve known about it since April—but just didn’t tell Congress!!!

Yesterday Sen. Murray asked Nicholson if, having said there was no problem when she proposed the extra money for the supplemental appropriation [and, I might add, having repeated that lie two months ago], Nicholson is [not] willing to say that we have a problem now. All he’d say is “we have a situation.”
(emphasis added). And that "situation" is that there is a massive mound of steaming bullshit on the ground.

Kevin Drum provides some spot on analysis to close his post:
This is a pathetic performance from an administration that pretends to care about national security. Bush can give all the primetime speeches he wants about his duty to our troops, but stuff like this makes it obvious that he's willing to throw that duty aside if it means taking even a tiny political risk on their behalf. What's more, congressional Republicans, who have been warned about this repeatedly by both Democrats and fellow Republicans, are equally culpable, despite their shocked professions of anger and embarrassment yesterday.
And all of this goes back to my point that Bush is a shameless fraud when he talks about a "culture of life" because he has utterly neglected the needs of disabled people who have served in our nation's military, many of whom have been injured in a war that he ordered. I have said it before, and I will say it again: this goes beyond hypocrisy and heads straight ino immorality.

Tuesday, June 28, 2005

A message from Wes Clark about prisoner abuse

The time has come to investigate the Bush Administration's role in the prisoner abuse and humiliation that has motivated our enemies in the war on terror and endangers the well-being of our fighting forces.

Today, the reports of abuse and humiliation at detainment facilities in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Cuba are distracting the world from focusing on winning the war on terror. Although the military chain of command seems to have properly investigated the role of its personnel and held accountable those in the wrong, the civilian leadership in this country has failed to do the same.

For generations, the United States has been a powerful voice of moral authority in the world. After World War II, we led the world in creating the Geneva Conventions and prosecuting war criminals at Nuremberg, and later became one of the first nations to ratify the Convention Against Torture. Even today, Slobodan Milosevic is being tried for war crimes thanks to a U.S.-led NATO air strike against his brutal campaign of ethnic cleansing in the Balkans.

Unfortunately, the Bush Administration has squandered our legacy of moral leadership.

I need your help to protect the honor of our men and women in uniform and to set us on the right course to win the war on terror. Although the President has said the United States is "committed to the worldwide elimination of torture and we are leading this fight by example," the Administration's actions don't match his words. In his infamous memo, Alberto Gonzales advised President Bush to ignore the Geneva Convention on the treatment of prisoners of war – a treaty that protects our soldiers captured abroad – to give the president more "flexibility." This so-called "flexibility" along with other Administration policies and statements may have ultimately contributed to the environment in which the abuses at Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo Bay and Afghanistan have occurred.

Among the disturbing practices identified so far: the rendition of prisoners to countries where they can be tortured, failing to register "ghost prisoners" to deny them visits by the Red Cross, employing civilian contract agents to conduct interrogations outside military rules, and the reported prolonged degrading treatment of some detainees in U.S. custody. All of these deserve further investigation.

With the right leadership and accountability, couldn't the Administration have prevented the embarrassment of Abu Ghraib and the controversy at Guantanamo Bay? While some are blaming individual soldiers, doesn't at least some of the responsibility rest with the civilian leadership of our government? Don't the American people deserve the truth? Shouldn't Congress lead an investigation?

How can we win the war on terrorism, a fight for democracy and freedom in America and around the world, if we forsake the very principles and institutions for which we are fighting?

The laws of war are designed to regulate combat and to protect non-combatants from the violence and degradation of war. The conduct of this Administration may ultimately lead to a green-light for our enemies to torture our soldiers when captured -- we owe it to our men and women in uniform and their families to investigate.

American soldiers deserve better than to see our allies pointing their fingers at Guantanamo Bay and calling it an "American problem." We are doing their work too – defeating terror is a global priority.

People of good conscience cannot afford to stay silent. Please join me today, and then invite everyone you know to stand with us.

Sincerely,



Wes Clark

Monday, June 27, 2005

George W. Bush and his apparent exclusion of people from the "culture of life"

Overview

In the previous post, I discussed Reason 1 why Bush is a fraud when he talked about Terri Schiavo and his "culture of life." I began that post with statements by Bush made on March 17, 2005, and March 31, 2005. For the purposes of this post, here are the highlights:
Those who live at the mercy of others deserve our special care and concern. It should be our goal as a nation to build a culture of life, where all Americans are valued, welcomed, and protected--and that culture of life must extend to individuals with disabilities.
*******
I urge all those who honor Terri Schiavo to continue to work to build a culture of life, where all Americans are welcomed and valued and protected, especially those who live at the mercy of others. The essence of civilization is that the strong have a duty to protect the weak.
(emphasis added). I have argued that despite the generalities, Bush's statements equated "culture of life" only with keeping Terri Schiavo alive. In this post I will provide further support for that claim.

In the Schiavo case, Bush supported Congress's efforts to halt all other business and pass a bill that applied only to Terri's parents; he cut short his Easter vacation so he could sign that bill into law; and he wanted the courts to make different decisions. He made all these efforts on behalf of only one person.

As the autopsy results show, Terri Schiavo had massive, irreversible brain damage, was incapable of any cognitive thought, and could not have responded to any possible treatment. And, by the way, that is what the record built through all the court proceedings showed (this site has a timeline with links to the judicial decisions). George W. Bush was willing to do everything within his power to keep this one person alive as part of his "culture of life"--a culture that George his own self said would place priority on the weak and those with disabilities. And while he was saying and doing these things on behalf of one person who had no chance to experience true life, he was disregarding the needs of hundreds of weakened and disabled persons--and these hundreds obtained their disabilities in the service of this country. And that is Reason 2 why George W. Bush is a shameless fraud when he speaks of a "culture of life." What follows are examples of Bush's disregard for these lives.

Example 1: amputee rehab center

A March 25, 2004, article from the Army News Service reported that plans were in place to build a new amputee rehabilitation facility at Walter Reed Army Medical Center. At that time, funding for the project had not been obtained, but, as Chuck Scoville, manager of the amputee patient care program, said, "We’re trying to find funding quickly because there is such an immediate need."

On November 19, construction on the new facility started. The Army News Service reported that the facility would cost $10 million and be completed by December 2005. A November 20, 2004, AP article described the state-of-the-art rehabilitation center:
"Our guys and gals, they don't want to just walk household distances; they want to be able to return to running, they want to be able to return to duty," Lt. Col. Jeff Gambel, clinical chief of the amputee clinic, said yesterday at a groundbreaking ceremony. "And if they don't return to duty, they want to be able to rock climb and do all those other things."

The center brings together new and existing facilities and counseling services for amputees in a 30,000-square-foot, three-story addition to the hospital.

When it opens in December 2005, the center will feature a running track, obstacle courses and a one-of-a kind hydraulic platform to simulate different terrain, from mud to sand to gravel. Computer labs will help amputees learn to control advanced prosthetics, and a gait lab will help patients learn to walk and run again.
Retired General Frederick M. Franks, Jr., himself an amputee, was the guest speaker at the groundbreaking. The Army News Service decribed some of his remarks as follows:
To troops injured and recovering, Franks said, “It’s not getting knocked down that’s important, it is the getting back up again and going on. It is the reaching inside and finding that steel in all of us.”

Franks said the groundbreaking for the amputee training center continues to fulfill the military’s promise to never leave a fallen comrade behind.
This all sounds great, but there is a potential problem. The latest round of Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) is well under way, and Secretary of Defense Rumskull has recommended that Walter Reed Army Medical Center be consolidated with Bethesda National Naval Medical Center, which is just a few miles away from Walter Reed. In other words, the facilities at Walter Reed will be closed. Under the BRAC process, such recommendation must be approved by the BRAC Commission, the President, and ultimately Congress. The point is that as of now the Bush administration wants to close all the facilities at Walter Reed, meaning that the state-of-the-art rehab center likely will not be completed.

The reality is that there will likely be no new rehab facilities for military amputees anytime soon. One of the reasons for BRAC is to save money and eliminate duplication and waste. Indeed that is a primary reason given for closing Walter Reed. The Washington Post quoted William Winkenwerder, Jr., assistant secretary of defense for health affairs, as saying "It is very expensive to run a hospital. It just did not make sense to have two tertiary facilities within seven miles of each other." The Pentagon estimates that the merger of Walter Reed and Bethesda, along with expansion of the hospital at nearby Fort Belvoir, will save $301 million over 20 years.

"Tertiary care" is defined as "Specialized consultative care, usually on referral from primary or secondary medical care personnel, by specialists working in a center that has personnel and facilities for special investigation and treatment." Treatment of amputees comes within this definition. This is significant because the current BRAC recommendation calls for all tertiary care to be moved to Bethesda. Thus, it is possible that a facility could be built at Bethesda, but who knows if there is enough room there for a new 30,000-square-foot rehab center for amputees?

This emphasis on efficiency and saving money is a major reason why I say there will be no new rehab facility. The Washington Post reported that "Construction at Fort Belvoir and Bethesda probably would not begin until about 2009, Winkenwerder said, and the last medical programs would have to move from Walter Reed by 2011." At first glance, this might not seem to be a problem. After all, construction on the amputee rehab facility at Walter Reed is already under way, and it could stay there until 2011. However, let's look at the fiscal realities. The DoD wants to save money and be more efficient. How efficient would it be to spend millions of dollars on a facility that you know is going to be open a maximum of five years? If you build a facility, operate it for a few years, and then close it, chances are you will need to build a new facility. None of that is very efficient, and I do not see how it could save DoD any money. Let's assume that there are currently plans for a similar rehab facility at Bethesda. According to DoD, construction at there will not be finished until 2009. So why would DoD--given that a major objective is saving money--spend millions building two facilities to do the same thing, especially when one is going to be shut down in a few years? That does not seem likely.

I have not yet found any information on the current status of the rehab center or future plans for any rehab center at Bethesda or any other location. Still, given the foregoing, it seems to me that construction on the amputee rehab facility at Walter Reed will be halted, and that means that until DoD decides otherwise, there might not be such a facility until 2009.

That hardly seems consistent with Bush's statements about the "culture of life."

Example 2: making the wounded pay for meals

On January 27, 2005, Salon.com published an article by Mark Benjamin entitled "Insult to Injury." Benjamin describes how some patients at Walter Reed--all military personnel injured in the war--are having to pay for their own meals. This policy does not apply to inpatients, but does apply to some outpatients. Benjamin explains the basic sytem:
But until Jan. 3, outpatient soldiers who served in Iraq or Afghanistan ate for free in the chow hall. Now outpatient soldiers there longer than 90 days pay for meals in cash. Although Walter Reed did not disclose the exact number of soldiers affected, the policy is most likely to affect at least the estimated 600 soldiers getting long-term outpatient care at the hospital in what the Army calls "medical hold."

Soldiers in medical hold are considered outpatients, but they usually live on hospital grounds -- some are put up in nearby hotels if housing on the grounds is full -- and have little choice but to buy food at the Walter Reed chow hall. Even as outpatients, soldiers in medical hold often have serious injuries. Some have been blown up by roadside bombs or crumpled in Humvee wrecks. They have serious head wounds and amputations. Others are struggling with post-traumatic stress disorder after being flown out of Iraq with shellshock. Some soldiers in medical hold are waiting to get processed out of the Army because their wounds are so serious that they will never return to duty. But processing at Walter Reed can take over a year[.]
The Army's explanation for the new policy is the elimination of soldiers getting a monthly food allowance AND free meals. In other words, the Army is trying to cut expenses--a fact which supports my conclusion above that fiscal realities will keep a new amputee rehab center from being built. Benjamin explains how this policy hurts soldiers financially:
Enlisted soldiers get an extra $267.18 every month in their paychecks for food. So before this month, all soldiers at Walter Reed got free food at the chow hall and extra cash. Soldiers say they received that extra food money while they were serving in Iraq, too, and they just let their families spend it on groceries. Now, though, the outpatient soldiers forced to buy meals at Walter Reed say they could spend around $15 a day if they eat three square meals at the dining hall--about $3 for breakfast and around $6 each for lunch and dinner. That adds up to $450 a month, $183 more than soldiers' food allowance from the military. (The situation is even worse for officers, who get only $183.99 extra each month for a food allowance.) The soldiers at Walter Reed point out that that they don't have the option of eating at home to save money because they are stuck at the hospital.
Is this the way to treat people who put their lives on the line in service of this country and have come back with life-altering injuries? Not surprisingly, there are some who think the answer is "no."
A veterans' advocate who lost the use of his legs fighting in Vietnam said the meal charges constitute a personal affront to soldiers. "I don't care what bureaucratic bullshit they come up with, this is an insult," said Bobby Muller, chairman of the Vietnam Veterans of America Foundation and director of the foundation's Alliance for Security.
*******
The meal charge policy "is an example of a much larger problem relating to the overall cost of the war. It is all an indication of extreme costs they are trying to make up on the backs of these men and women," said Steve Robinson, a retired Army Ranger and the executive director of the National Gulf War Resource Center. "If the war is costing too much, the one place you don't skimp is on soldier and veteran programs. The administration has no problem deficit-spending on the needs of conducting war, and we see no reason not to apply the same methodology to veterans' benefits and soldier care."
*******
Beyond the creeping food bill, perhaps what's most bothersome to soldiers about the meal charge rule is the principle of the thing: Paying for food at an Army hospital after fighting in a war doesn't seem right. "You know they treat us like shit up here," said the soldier from Pennsylvania. One officer from the Army Reserve who served in Iraq told Salon he was "highly disgusted" at being asked to pay for food after being stuck at Walter Reed. "It affects me to a point, but it has a tremendous impact financially on the junior enlisted soldiers," he said. "After these kids get physically or mentally injured in combat, and then you expect them to take away from their personal finances to feed themselves? That is what disturbs me the most."
And anyone who--like George W. Bush--speaks so passionately about a "culture of life" and the need to provide for the injured and disabled should also be disturbed when people serving in our military are treated this way.

Example 3: Guardsmen, Reservists, and medical care

A USA Today article from February 18, 2005, described the problems faced by National Guardsmen and Reservists regarding medical care:
National Guardsmen and reservists who are injured on active duty face daunting and sometimes insurmountable hurdles to get medical care, soldiers and military officials told a congressional panel Thursday.

The troops described an Army bureaucracy that loses track of wounded reservists, drops medical coverage before some are healed and often inflicts hardships on families.

Rep. Tom Davis, R-Va., chairman of the House Committee on Government Reform, described the problems injured Guardsmen and reservists face as "the equivalent of financial and medical friendly fire."

The panel heard sometimes-emotional testimony from Guard soldiers who have been wounded in battle and administrators responsible for helping them navigate the medical system.

Gregory Kutz, a Government Accountability Office official who helped prepare a new report on deficiencies in Guard and reserve benefits, said that the Army has made improvements in treating Guard and reserve soldiers since 9/11. Still, he said, "many problems remain."

Among the shortcomings:

* The GAO said that soldiers, including many with severe injuries, are given little help navigating a thicket of regulations and procedures necessary to gain access to military doctors.
* Injured soldiers sometimes have to pay their own medical bills or go into debt because their active-duty tours end and they are physically unable to go back to their civilian jobs.
* As recently as April, more than one-third of injured soldiers who applied to have their benefits extended were denied.
Now, to be fair, Bush is not directly responsible for these problems. However, have you ever heard him address any of these problems? As Commander-in-Chief, as the man to whom the military bureaucracy ultimately answers, he is in a position to speak about these problems and try to get something done. Instead, he speaks out passionately about a "culture of life" and Terri Schiavo and says nothing about taking care of the men and women he sent to war.

Example 4: budget problems

Here are some excerpts from a March 10, 2005, article from Stars and Stripes:
Hundreds of disabled veterans booed and jeered Republican House members on Tuesday for their budget proposal for veterans’ health care, which critics call inadequate to deal with the future needs of current troops.
*******
The proposed 2006 budget includes a 1.1 percent increase for the Department of Veterans Affairs, which officials from the DAV called too little to deal with the large number of service members expected to return from Iraq and Afghanistan with missing limbs, mental illnesses and other service injuries.

In addition, the budget would require veterans without combat injuries and who make more than $25,000 a year to pay a $250 enrollment fee to use department health services.
Senator Barack Obama (D-Illinois) went to Walter Reed in April to visit with the wounded. As he wrote on his website,
Walter Reed is about a half hour away from the Capitol, and during the drive over, I had the opportunity to talk with representatives from the Army about some of the grim statistics behind the war in Iraq. So far, 1,545 have been killed, and 11,664 have been wounded. And, in part because of improved medical technology, I was aware that this war will generate a far higher proportion of disabled veterans than in previous wars. Also, through my service on the Veterans Affairs Committee, I've learned that soldiers are already coming home with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, with Traumatic Brain Injury that could lead to epilepsy, and with conditions that may result in over 100,000 soldiers requiring mental health treatment when they come home.
This shows that there is a need for sufficient funding for medical care for disabled veterans. Sen. Obama went on to say that the courage of the wounded soldiers made him proud to be an American, but
What doesn't make me proud is the failure on the part of politicians to adequately support these veterans after they're discharged from active duty.
*******
There are roughly 480,000 compensation and pension claims still unprocessed, but this year's veterans budget provides for only 113 new employees to help deal with this backlog. There are thousands of veterans who can't afford to get the health care they need, but the President's original budget called for a $250 annual enrollment fee just to enter into the health care program, it proposed doubling prescription drug co-payments, and the budget tells veterans who make as little as $30,000 a year that they're too wealthy to enroll in the VA health care system. There are VA hospitals on the brink of closing down around the country, but this year's budget cuts $351 million in funding for veterans' nursing homes, and eliminates more than $100 million in state grants that are desperately needed by VA facilities.
Again, I ask is this the way to treat people who put their lives on the line in service of this country and have come back with life-altering injuries?

Now I know what some of you are thinking...why should we take the word of some freedom-hating Democrat? Well, perhaps the word of the National Commander of the Disabled Veterans of America will be more credible. James E. Sursely is a disabled veteran who lost an arm and both legs in Vietnam. He testified before Congress on March 8, 2005, and he had plenty to say about budgetary matters:
Although the medical care and services they are receiving from the military today is second to none, I am concerned about their ability to receive quality health care in a timely manner from the VA in the future, if our government continues to fund VA programs at inadequate levels or undermines the “critical mass” of patients needed to provide a full continuum of quality health care to disabled veterans currently enrolled in the VA health care system and those who will enroll at some future date.
*******
On December 20, 2004, I was briefed by the Under Secretaries for Health, Benefits, and Memorial Affairs on the various VA programs under their jurisdiction. I also received a briefing on VA’s fiscal year (FY) 2005 budget outlook. While I was acutely aware of the fact that the FY 2005 budget approved by Congress for VA was totally inadequate, falling short by $1.5 billion to $1.7 billion, based on the recommendations of the House Veterans' Affairs Committee and The Independent Budget, respectively, I was shocked and dismayed to learn that the $1.2 billion increase for VA health care provided by Congress above the Administration’s request, resulted in a zero net gain for the VA health care system.
*******
Within a month of the passage of the FY 2005 appropriations bill, stories began to appear around the country about the shortfalls in VA health care funding and its adverse impact on VA’s ability to care for our nation’s sick and disabled veterans.
*******
As called for in the President’s budget, total VA funding for the next fiscal year would increase about 1%, from the current $67.5 billion to $68.2 billion. More than half of the budget would go for mandatory programs such as disability compensation and pensions. Medical care for veterans would rise from $27.7 billion to $27.8 billion, a mere 0.4% increase. In testimony, VA is on record as stating that it needs an annual 13% to 14% increase in medical care funding to provide current services.

The DAV and other major veterans service organizations are united in calling on Congress to provide $31.2 billion for veterans medical care, $3.4 billion more than the President has requested, and we are united in opposition to imposing new fees and higher co-payments on certain veterans who choose to get their care from the VA.

The Administration wants to impose a new $250 annual user fee on certain veterans who also would see their prescription drug co-payments more than doubled, from $7 to $15. Those veterans, some of whom are DAV members, already pay for the health care they receive from the VA. Adding to their out-of-pocket costs would force them out of the system and put even greater strain on resources needed to treat their fellow veterans. The cost of medical care for these veterans is the least costly care of any group of veterans treated by VA, and these groups bring in the highest level of collections.
*******
This budget proposal is bad news for the nation’s veterans, made even more distressing in light of the war in Iraq and military operations in Afghanistan and elsewhere.

Messrs. Chairmen, let us not forget that benefits and services for disabled veterans, in fact all veterans, remain primarily the responsibility of our government. The citizens and government of a country that sends its young sons and daughters to defend its homeland and fight its wars have a strong moral obligation to repay them for bearing such a heavy burden. Our indebtedness to veterans is more important than any other part of our national debt because, without their sacrifices, we would not exist as a nation, nor would the citizens of many foreign nations enjoy the freedoms many Americans take for granted.
(emphasis added). Kind of hard to argue with that last paragraph, isn't it? As this section shows, the Bush administration has not sufficiently funded programs needed to treat the veterans of our armed services, in particular those who have returned disabled physically and mentally from a war that Bush ordered. And yet has Bush spoken out about this? Has he ever said that his "culture of life" includes disabled veterans? And if he has, why has he not done anything to address the budgetary problems described above?

Conclusion

I am not saying that Bush was wrong in speaking up in the Schiavo case. I am not saying that Bush was wrong in speaking about a "culture of life." I am not saying that it is absolutely the obligation of the government to provide all the needed health care for veterans (although I agree with Sursely about the moral obligation). What I am saying is that Bush's impassioned statements about a "culture of life"--especially his express pleas to take care of disabled persons--are simply abject hypocrisy when he makes them on behalf of a single person who is beyond help and disregards disabled people who are very much alive and very much in need of help. And the fact that these people happen to be military personnel in general and especially people who served in a war that Bush ordered goes beyond hypocrisy and heads straight ino immorality.

Thursday, June 23, 2005

George W. Bush, "culture of life," and Texas law

Bush speaks of Terri Schiavo and the "culture of life."

Here's an official statement from Bush on March 17, 2005:
The case of Terri Schiavo raises complex issues. Yet in instances like this one, where there are serious questions and substantial doubts, our society, our laws, and our courts should have a presumption in favor of life. Those who live at the mercy of others deserve our special care and concern. It should be our goal as a nation to build a culture of life, where all Americans are valued, welcomed, and protected - and that culture of life must extend to individuals with disabilities.
(emphasis added). And then on March 31, 2005, Bush spoke briefly about Terri Schiavo:
Today millions of Americans are saddened by the death of Terri Schiavo. Laura and I extend our condolences to Terri Schiavo's families. I appreciate the example of grace and dignity they have displayed at a difficult time. I urge all those who honor Terri Schiavo to continue to work to build a culture of life, where all Americans are welcomed and valued and protected, especially those who live at the mercy of others. The essence of civilization is that the strong have a duty to protect the weak. In cases where there are serious doubts and questions, the presumption should be in the favor of life.
(emphasis added). This post will give the first of at least two reasons why Bush is a shameless fraud when he speaks of the "culture of life."

Reason 1

Texas statutory law has a Health & Safety Code, and Chapter 166 of that Code is entitled "Advance Directives," and it addresses situations such as the Schiavo case. Pursuant to § 166.031(1), a "directive" is "an instruction...to administer, withhold, or withdraw life-sustaining treatment in the event of a terminal or irreversible condition." Section 166.039 is particularly interesting:
PROCEDURE WHEN PERSON HAS NOT EXECUTED OR ISSUED A DIRECTIVE AND IS INCOMPETENT OR INCAPABLE OF COMMUNICATION.

(a) If an adult qualified patient has not executed or issued a directive and is incompetent or otherwise mentally or physically incapable of communication, the attending physician and the patient's legal guardian or an agent under a medical power of attorney may make a treatment decision that may include a decision to withhold or withdraw life-sustaining treatment from the patient.

(b) If the patient does not have a legal guardian or an agent under a medical power of attorney, the attending physician and one person, if available, from one of the following categories, in the following priority, may make a treatment decision that may include a decision to withhold or withdraw life-sustaining treatment:

(1) the patient's spouse;

(2) the patient's reasonably available adult children;

(3) the patient's parents; or

(4) the patient's nearest living relative.

(c) A treatment decision made under Subsection (a) or (b) must be based on knowledge of what the patient would desire, if known.

(d) A treatment decision made under Subsection (b) must be documented in the patient's medical record and signed by the attending physician.

(e) If the patient does not have a legal guardian and a person listed in Subsection (b) is not available, a treatment decision made under Subsection (b) must be concurred in by another physician who is not involved in the treatment of the patient or who is a representative of an ethics or medical committee of the health care facility in which the person is a patient.

(f) The fact that an adult qualified patient has not executed or issued a directive does not create a presumption that the patient does not want a treatment decision to be made to withhold or withdraw life-sustaining treatment.

(g) A person listed in Subsection (b) who wishes to challenge a treatment decision made under this section must apply for temporary guardianship under Section 875, Texas Probate Code. The court may waive applicable fees in that proceeding.
(emphasis added). Take a good look at the emphasized portions, because they pretty much describe the Terri Schiavo case. This version of this provision became effective on September 1, 1999. The bill which contained this statute was SB 1260 in the 76th Legislative Session. The list of actions taken on SB 1260 shows it was signed by both the House and Senate (required under Texas law) on May 20, 1999, and sent to the Governor's Office the following day. It was signed into law by the Governor on June 18, 1999. And what is the significance of these events? On June 18, 1999, the Governor of Texas was...George W. Bush.

Please notice that § 166.039 does not require a court order. Under Texas law that Bush approved, the decision to stop life-sustaining treatment can be made by the attending physician and the legal representative of the patient. Michael Schiavo had been declared Terri's legal guardian. Even if he was not her legal guardian during the last round of litigation, under Texas law he would have had top priority--as her husband--to be the person to make the decision along with the doctor. And the whole process does not require a court. Remember that when you read what Scotty Boy McClellan said about Bush's views.

Before getting to McClellan's statements, let's look at another provision in Chapter 166, namely § 166.046. Thomas W. Mayo is a professor at SMU's Dedman School of Law, and an adjunct professor at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical School. He is also one of the leading authorities on medical law. On a sidenote, Professor Mayo's first year at SMU was also my first year of law school, and I had the great privilege to take several of his classes. As he explains on his blog, he helped write Chapter 166. Here is how he describes the effect of some sections of Chapter 166:
Under chapter 166 of the Texas Health and Safety Code, if an attending physician disagrees with a surrogate over a life-and-death treatment decision, there must be an ethics committee consultation (with notice to the surrogate and an opportunity to participate). In a futility...in which the treatment team is seeking to stop treatment deemed to be nonbeneficial, if the ethics committee agrees with the team, the hospital will be authorized to discontinue the disputed treatment (after a 10-day delay, during which the hospital must help try to find a facility that will accept a transfer of the patient).
Please note that an "ethics committee" means a committee of the particular health care provider. Section 161.046 falls within the process described by Professor Mayo. Here is § 166.046(e):
(e) If the patient or the person responsible for the health care decisions of the patient is requesting life-sustaining treatment that the attending physician has decided and the review process has affirmed is inappropriate treatment, the patient shall be given available life-sustaining treatment pending transfer under Subsection (d). The patient is responsible for any costs incurred in transferring the patient to another facility. The physician and the health care facility are not obligated to provide life-sustaining treatment after the 10th day after the written decision required under Subsection (b) is provided to the patient or the person responsible for the health care decisions of the patient unless ordered to do so under Subsection (g).
Notice two things about this provision: 1) life-sustaining treatment can be stopped at the discretion of the health care provider, regardless of the wishes of a family; and 2) once again, there is no requirement of a court order or court involvement.

And so why am I discussing Texas law? Well, I am not trying to argue the wisdom or lack thereof in the law. My objective is to show 1) how the Schiavo case might have played out had it taken place in Texas; 2) that George W. Bush, as Governor of Texas, signed these provisions and thus made them the law in Texas, meaning he gave his approval to these provisions; and 3) that his past actions are in contravention to his recent proclamations about a "culture of life."

Bush's approval of Texas contradicts his "culture of life" statements.

Now I know what some of you are thinking--Bush never expressly said that he thought Terri Schiavo should have been kept alive, nor did he take a clear position one way or the other on the matter. Anyone who really believes that should undergo a serious reality check.

I challenge anyone to make an argument that Bush was not equating "culture of life" with Terri Schiavo. Go ahead--I dare you. If any of you are feeling bold, you should first check out what Bush's official mouthpiece, Scotty McClellan, had to say. You will notice two things. First, no matter what the question, Scotty says basically the same thing with the same catch phrases. Second, there is no way to differentiate the "culture of life" from Terri Schiavo.

You will also notice that I am using lengthy excerpts. I apologize for this, but, as you will see, McClellan has the annoying habit of never really directly answering any question. This means that in order to show what Scotty is actually saying, one must read quite a bit to see through the bullshit.

On March 21, 2005, McClellan talked with reporters aboard Air Force One. That was the day that Bush signed a bill passed by Congress giving Terri Schiavo's parents the right to bring an action in federal court which they otherwise could not have filed. This law applied only to the Schiavo case. The reporters asked several questions about this law.
Q: Scott, does the President believe that Congress should take wider, broader action to--along the lines of what the House originally passed, to cover all patients, like they are covering Terri Schiavo?

MR. McCLELLAN: I haven't heard any discussion of that within the White House. This is an extraordinary case. It is a complex case, where serious questions and significant doubts have been raised. And the President believes the presumption ought to be in favor of life. But the presumption, particularly in a situation like this, where you have someone that is at the mercy of others, ought to be in favor of life. And that's the President's view. This was narrowly tailored to address this case.

Q: So then why not extend --

MR. McCLELLAN: Because this was an extraordinary circumstance.

Q: What makes it extraordinary, beyond a lot of attention being paid to it?

MR. McCLELLAN: The questions that have been raised. It's unclear what her wishes are. And her family, her parents have expressed that they would care for her for the rest of her life. So there are serious questions and significant doubts raised. I think most Americans recognize the extraordinary circumstance involved here. And the President is always going to stand on the side of defending life.

Q: Scott, if Congress would have passed a broader bill, you're saying he wouldn't have signed it?

MR. McCLELLAN: That's speculative at this point. For the President -- Democrats and Republicans alike came together to pass this legislation and give Terri Schiavo's parents another opportunity to save their daughter's life. And the President appreciates the efforts by Congress and he was pleased to sign the legislation last night.
*******
Q: Why not grant all parents that right? Why limit it to this one case?

MR. McCLELLAN: I think I addressed that previously Anne, when you brought it up. This is an extraordinary circumstance. And this law was narrowly tailored. It didn't create any new substantive rights under federal or state law, but it is an extraordinary circumstance. We stand with Terri Schiavo's parents. We stand with members of Congress, Democrats and Republicans, and all those who are on the side of defending life. There are a number of questions that have been raised in this case and the President believes we ought to err on the side of life in this situation.
(emphasis added). The emphasized portions show that immediately before or after McClellan says "culture of life" or being on the "side of defending life," he mentions the Schiavo case. He does not mention any other specific circumstances. And even when he did speak more in generalities, he always said something to the effect that the Schiavo case was an example of such generalities. In other words, McClellan's statements on March 21 indicate that for Bush the "culture of life" meant keeping Terri Schiavo alive. Scotty was just getting warmed up...

At the March 29, 2005, press briefing, the Schiavo case was discussed.
Q: In the Terri Schiavo case, there seems to be more efforts to exhaust legal wranglings to reinsert Terri Schiavo's tube. What are the President's thoughts about this. As he said, there's nothing else he could have done.

MR. McCLELLAN: Well, I don't think that's what the President said, first of all. Let me correct you on that. The President is saddened by the situation. We continue to stand on the side of defending life. We stand on the side of the parents and all those who are working to defend life. This is a complex case, and the President believes in a situation like this, we should always err on the side of life. And so we will continue to stand with all those who are seeking to defend life.

Q: So is he working with the senators in some kind--working the phones, some kind of backdoor approach to possibly work out some kind of emergency situation to reinsert this tube?

MR. McCLELLAN: As he spoke about last week, we looked at all our options, we explored all our options from the executive branch side, and we made a decision to support the congressional efforts. And Congress passed legislation that the President signed; that legislation gave her parents another opportunity to try to save their daughter's life. They are continuing to work, as well as others, to save their daughters life. And we will continue to stand with those who are on the side of defending life. The President believes that our nation, in situations like this, where someone is at the mercy of others, we should have a presumption in favor of life.

Q: Has the President, since he feels so strongly about this, has he reached out to the parents of Terri Schiavo?

MR. McCLELLAN: I don't have any updates on phone calls he's had with them, but obviously, like I said, we continue to stand on the side of the parents and all those who are working to defend life in this situation.
(emphasis added). The analysis of McClellan's March 21 statements applies to these statements as well, but in these statements, McClellan more directly said that"standing with those who defend life" meant trying to keep Terri Schiavo alive. But wait...there's more.

At the March 31, 2005, press briefing, Scotty Boy did more than merely repeat all his catch phrases. But first--let's see some catchphrases:
Q: Okay. The President said that in cases where there are serious doubts and questions, the presumption should be in the favor of life. Should we expect to see the President now pushing for new legislation regarding changes to the way we make end-of-life decisions, the appeals processes for innocent -- possibly innocent inmates on death row, and other issues where life hangs in the balance?

MR. McCLELLAN: First of all, this is a day of sadness, and the President expressed his condolences to the parents of Terri Schiavo and to all those who supported her and prayed for her during the past few weeks. This has been a difficult period.

The President viewed this case as an extraordinary one. There were extraordinary circumstances involved in this case. But the President has also made it very clear that he believes our nation should build a culture of life, that we should be working together to build a culture of life in America, and that means protecting life at all stages, particularly those who are at the mercy of others, like Terri Schiavo.
You know, it just might be time to make McClellan the star of his very own variation of "Hi, Bob!" That is an obscure pop culture reference, but if you know what "Hi, Bob!" is, then I think you will agree that a similar game could be centered around McClellan.

Anyhoo, the new material on March 31 concerned the judicial system.
Q: On the Terri Schiavo case, in a statement, Tom DeLay expressed disappointment at federal courts for what he says was their ignoring the intent of the Terri Schiavo law. His statement actually was quite forceful. He said a time will come for the men responsible for this to answer for their behavior, but not today. Given the fact that the President felt strongly enough to interrupt his Easter recess to rush back here to Washington to sign that very legislation, does the President share that sentiment?

MR. McCLELLAN: The President is always going to stand on the side of defending life. He's made that very clear through his words, as well as through his action. We have taken important steps, through legislation, to promote a culture of life in America. But, ultimately, the President believes that we have to change our culture and we have to change hearts. And that's something that will require continued diligence on behalf of all Americans who want to build a culture of life. There are many ways we can work together to promote a culture of life in America.

Now, in terms of this specific situation, I think you've heard the President's views on it. We would have preferred a different decision from the courts. That's why the President supported the legislation that was passed by Congress, and he is saddened by this situation, and he is saddened on this day.

Q: Does he feel that the courts erred?

MR. McCLELLAN: He would have preferred a different outcome. But, ultimately, we have to follow our laws and abide by the courts.
(emphasis added). First, The Bug Man should go intercourse himself. Second, although Scotty said that there has been legislation "to promote a culture of life," the only legislation he discussed on March 31 was the legislation that allowed Terri Schiavo's parents to file a suit in federal court, which once again equates "culture of life" with the Schiavo case. And last, but certainly not least, McClellan's statements establish that Bush wanted the courts to decide Terri Schiavo's fate and that Bush wanted the courts to make a different decision.

And that brings us back to the Texas law approved by Bush when he was Governor. Recall that under that law, a decision to cease life sustaining medical treatment can be made by 1) the attending physician and the patient's legal guardian, or 2) the attending physician and the patient's spouse (if there is not a legal guardian), or 3) the attending physician and the health care provider's ethics committee, even if their decision is against the family's wishes. AND all of those decisions can be made without the need of any court involvement. Indeed, as Professor Mayo--who helped write Chapter 166, if you recall--said, "the statute doesn't require a court order. Indeed, the statute was designed to keep these cases out of court, if possible."

So, for Bush "defending life" and trying to establish a "culture of life" came down to wanting the courts to step in and decide to keep Terri Schiavo alive even though her guardian/husband and the courts had previously decided to the contrary. Thus, Bush's position on the Schiavo case is completely different than the law he his own self approved and signed into law in Texas in 1999. Let me put it this way: had the Schiavos been living in Texas, Michael Schiavo and doctors not only could have decided to end Terri's life-sustaining treatment, but they could have made a legally enforceable decision to that effect without having to go to court at all. As a result, had the Schiavo case taken place in Texas, George W. Bush would have had to say that he was trying to circumvent the very provisions that he personally made the law of the State of Texas.

No doubt that some wingers out there are going to insist I am simply wrong about that, and they will likely rely on more statements from Scotty Boy, specifically those made before reporters on March 21, 2005.
Q: Scott, you may remember this from your Texas days. A member of Congress in Florida, Deborah Wasserman Schultz, got on the floor yesterday and said that the President, when he was Texas Governor, signed a piece of legislation into law that, she said, would allow -- when there's a dispute, would allow a feeding tube to be removed and that -- she was a little bit murky on exactly what the law was, but, essentially, she was saying that the President signed something into law that's contradictory to what he is doing now.

MR. McCLELLAN: That's absolutely incorrect. The legislation he signed is consistent with his views. You know, this is a complex case and I don't think such uninformed accusations offer any constructive ways to address this matter. The legislation that he signed into law actually provided new protections for patients. He had previously vetoed legislation in 1997, when he was Governor, which essentially would have sanctioned current law in Texas that allowed hospitals to stop providing life-sustaining treatment -- because under Texas law, prior to the passage of the '99 legislation that he signed, there were no protections. And so this legislation was supported by many; it enjoyed strong bipartisan support; concerned citizens, various groups came together to support this legislation and put in place new protections for patients.
Assuming that Scotty is correct in asserting that Chapter 166 as enacted in 1999 provided protections for patients that did not exist before, that in no way addresses the plain meaning of that law as described in the above paragraph that starts with "And that brings us back to the Texas law..." Scotty then went from not really answering the question to misstating the law.
The legislation was there to help ensure that actions were being taken that were in accordance with the wishes of the patient or the patient's family. And let me give you an example. Prior to that legislation being passed I think there was a 72 hour period where if the hospital notified a patient -- or the family that represented the patient that they were going to deny life-sustaining treatment, then they had just that 72 hour period to find a place to transfer the patient, that would provide the treatment.

This legislation, some of the new protections it put in place were--included, the ethics committee review by the hospital, in working with the families as well, making--you know, to discuss those decisions, determinations. And it also provided a 10-day period, so they had 10-day notice to be able to transfer the patient to another health care provider. And it also authorized court proceedings to extend that 10-day period in order to extend that transfer, if necessary.
(emphasis added). Let's set the record straight. As shown above, § 166.046(e) allows the health care provider (including its ethics committee) to take actions that are the opposite of the wishes of the patient or the patient's family. For that matter, § 166.039 allows for the same possibility when the patient's legal guardian or representative is not a family member (as in blood relative). Next, McClellan correctly stated that "the ethics committee review" allows for discussion of opposing views, but the person involved is "the person responsible for the health care decisions of the individual" [See § 166.046(b)], and that might not be a family member. Lastly, in speaking of court proceedings, McClellan left out the real explanation. Scotty was referring to § 166.046(g):
(g) At the request of the patient or the person responsible for the health care decisions of the patient, the appropriate district or county court shall extend the time period provided under Subsection (e) only if the court finds, by a preponderance of the evidence, that there is a reasonable expectation that a physician or health care facility that will honor the patient's directive will be found if the time extension is granted.
(emphasis added). What this means is that the primary question to be answered by the court is whether there is another doctor or facility that will take the patient and provide the life sustaining treatment. The only other issue to be determined is the length of the extension. In other words, the court DOES NOT AND CANNOT determine whether the life-sustaining treatment should be stopped or not. The court thus will not and cannot make the type of decision that Bush wanted in the Schiavo case.

Conclusion

There you have it, folks. George W. Bush wanted the courts to decide to keep Terri Schiavo alive. George W. Bush wanted that because that is what he meant by establishing a "culture of life." Why is it, then, that in 1999 George W. Bush, as Governor of Texas, approved a series of statutes that are in complete contravention of what he now wants as a "culture of life?" I do not have a definitive answer to that question, but I do know that the Texas law and Bush's actions and statements regarding Terri Schiavo are irreconcilable. And that is the first reason I call Bush a shameless fraud when he proclaims he wants a "culture of life."

The second reason is that Bush focused all his efforts on one person whose condition was irreversible and irreparable and neglected scores of people with disabilities who were injured in the service of our country. And that will be covered in the next post.

Schiavo autopsy results

As reported by Reuters, here are some of the key findings from the autopsy of Terri Schiavo:
  • Schiavo was severely brain damaged and had no hope of recovery. Her brain weighed only about half what a healthy human brain would and the damage was irreversible.
  • The findings were consistent with court rulings on clinical diagnoses while she was alive: that she was in a "persistent vegetative state." This means she was unable to think, feel, or interact with her environment.
  • The brain damage also meant she was blind.
  • There was no evidence she was abused, as Schiavo's blood relatives had suggested, or that her collapse had been caused by a strangulation attempt. The autopsy found any fractures could be attributed to severe osteoporosis, or weakening of the bones, which Schiavo suffered during the years after her collapse.
  • She was dependent on tube feeding for nutrition and hydration. Contrary to suggestions from the parents, Thogmartin said Schiavo could not have swallowed if she had been fed by mouth and would have choked.
Another report by Reuters stated that "The autopsy found no amount of therapy would have helped to regenerate Schiavo's brain[.]" The same article contained quotes from two of the doctors who performed the autopsy. At a June 15 press conference, Dr. Stephen Nelson, a forensic pathologist, said, ""She would not have been able to form any cognitive thought. There was a massive loss of brain tissue." At that press conference, Dr. Jon Thogmartin, the Medical Examiner for Pinellas County in Florida, said, "Her brain was profoundly atrophied...This damage was irreversible."

Please keep all of this information in mind as you read the series of posts on Bush's "culture of life."

Sunday, June 19, 2005

Preview of a series on Terry Schiavo and Bush's "culture of life"

Well, boys and girls, the results from the Terry Schiavo autopsy are in, and it is time to rip George W. Bush and many of the promonent congressional Republicans a new one. In this series I am going to focus on 1) the self-righteous, hypocritical bullshit these people shamelessly displayed, and 2) the ways in which they misused and abused their power.

One thing to keep in mind is that Congress passed a law that applied only to Terry Schiavo in order to keep her alive--after every court that heard the case ruled in favor of Michael Schiavo and the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear the case. I am not going to discuss the issue of whether government in any form should determine whether someone on life support should live or die. That issue is completely irrelevant to this series given that the Republican-controlled Congress decided that the answer to that question is "yes."

Thursday, June 16, 2005

Larry Diamond on "democracy" in Iraq

Toward the end of my latest criticism of Paul Wolfowitless, I said that "the Bush administration is not really interested in spreading democracy unless it is U.S.-style democracy over which we have influence and control." I published that post on the afternoon of June 14, and then that night Larry Diamond appeared on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. Diamond's bio and the description of his book, Squandered Victory : The American Occupation and the Bungled Effort to Bring Democracy to Iraq, are in the previous post, which focuses on the post-war planning. In the interview, Diamond also made comments which support my claim about the kind of "democracy" Bush wants.
DIAMOND: I went there to advise on the drafting of the interim constitution, and at that point we were starting a new plan–our third or fourth at the time–for political transition in Iraq, bring democracy to the country, so I thought we were there to promote Iraqi democracy, and we were trying, but the third day I’m there and one of my colleagues who had been at a meeting of the Iraqi Governing Council–which we had appointed to try and represent Iraqis–comes into the office at the end of a long day and evening, slams her purse down on the desk in frustration and says, “We have a problem, and nobody wants to deal with it. The Iraqi Governing Council is starting to issue orders, and the ministers are starting to obey them.”

STEWART: That was the problem?

DIAMOND: That was the problem in the minds of the CPA in terms of the way we were looking at the desire to shape and control the situation.

STEWART: We wanted them to have democracy but not to exercise it. We wanted them to have the bearings of it–a car with no engine is what we wanted.

DIAMOND: Well, we wanted democracy, but in our vision, at our pace, with our being able to shape it. You know, the problem we had when I went out there is that the most important religious leader in Iraq, Ayatollah Sistani, was calling for direct elections for the parliament of the country–which has now been elected and is sitting–and the United States was saying “No, we’ve got this wonderful caucus system that we have to elect the Iraqi parliament indirectly.” And so we had the most important Shiite Muslim religious leader of the country saying “we want a directly elected parliament,” and the United States saying “no, caucuses should be okay.”
(emphasis added). And remember, folks, as I said in the previous post, "Here we have statements from someone who not only has firsthand knowledge of what was done and not done in terms of the post-war period, but was personally asked by Condoleezza Rice to go to Iraq."

The nerve of those Iraqis--thinking that democracy entitles them to run their country. Honestly, where do they get such crazy ideas?

Wednesday, June 15, 2005

Recent info on a lack of planning in Iraq

Actually, this post will cover only one aspect of such new information. This post will not discuss the recent disclosure of an official British briefing paper from eight months prior to the war complaining about the woeful lack of planning by the Bush administration for the post-war period (for a discussion of that topic, check out the blog of Faithful Progressive). Instead, this post will discuss an interview from June 14 on The Daily Show.

Jon Stewart's guest was Larry Diamond. Here is a biography of Diamond:
Larry Diamond is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, and founding coeditor of the Journal of Democracy. He is also codirector of the International Forum for Democratic Studies of the National Endowment for Democracy. At Stanford University, he is professor by courtesy of political science and sociology and coordinates the democracy program of the new Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law. During 2002–3, he served as a consultant to the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and was a contributing author of its report Foreign Aid in the National Interest. Currently he serves as a member of USAID's Advisory Committee on Voluntary Foreign Aid. He has also advised and lectured to the World Bank, the United Nations, the State Department, and other governmental and nongovernmental agencies dealing with governance and development.

During the first three months of 2004, Diamond served as a senior adviser on governance to the Coalition Provisional Authority in Baghdad. He is now lecturing and writing about the challenges of postconflict state-building in Iraq. Diamond has also worked with a group of Europeans and Americans to produce the Transatlantic Strategy for Democracy and Human Development in the Broader Middle East, published in 2004 by the German Marshall Fund of the United States. During 2004–5, he has been a member of the Council on Foreign Relations' Independent Task Force on United States Policy Toward Arab Reform.

Diamond has lectured, taught, and conducted research in some 25 countries over the past thirty years. During 1982–83 he was a Fulbright Visiting Lecturer at Bayero University in Kano, Nigeria. In 1997–98 he was a visiting scholar at the Sun Yat-Sen Institute of the Academia Sinica in Taipei, Taiwan. His research and policy analysis are focused on the relationship between democracy, governance, and development in poor countries, particularly in Africa.
(emphasis added). Diamond appeared on TV in part to promote his new book, Squandered Victory : The American Occupation and the Bungled Effort to Bring Democracy to Iraq. Here is a description of the book:
In the fall of 2003, Stanford professor Larry Diamond received a call from Condoleezza Rice, asking if he would spend several months in Baghdad as an adviser to the the American occupation authorities. Diamond had not been a supporter of the war in Iraq, but he felt that the task of building a viable democracy was a worthy goal now that Saddam Hussein's regime had been overthrown. He also thought he could do some good by putting his academic expertise to work in the real world. So in January 2004 he went to Iraq, and the next three months proved to be more of an education than he bargained for.

Diamond found himself part of one of the most audacious undertakings of our time. In Squandered Victory he shows how the American effort to establish democracy in Iraq was hampered not only by insurgents and terrorists but also by a long chain of miscalculations, missed opportunities, and acts of ideological blindness that helped assure that the transition to independence would be neither peaceful nor entirely democratic. He brings us inside the Green Zone, into a world where ideals were often trumped by power politics and where U.S. officials routinely issued edicts that later had to be squared (at great cost) with Iraqi realities. His provocative and vivid account makes clear that Iraq-and by extension, the United States-will spend many years climbing its way out of the hole that was dug during the fourteen months of the American occupation.
(emphasis added). While the description of the book does not expressly mention the planning aspect, Diamond did talk about it in the interview.
STEWART: In your mind–because you talk about how you respect the people that are working in Iraq day in and day out–is this a situation with Washington just not being responsive to the real problems on the ground and the situations there?

DIAMOND: Washington was not responsive before we went to war or after we went to war to the need for adequate resources to see this mission through.

STEWART: But during the six weeks of war...

DIAMOND: Hey, that was great. We won the victory in the war, and we squandered it after the war because of the lack of commitment of resources and knowledge.

STEWART: Still hope?

DIAMOND: There’s still hope. I think it could still be turned around, but it’s going to cost more, and take a lot longer, and it’s going to be a much more painful experience than it need have been if we succeed, and there’s no guarantee of that.
(emphasis added). Here we have statements from someone who not only has firsthand knowledge of what was done and not done in terms of the post-war period, but was personally asked by Condoleezza Rice to go to Iraq. Read his comments again. If you still think--like Wolfowitless--that there was a great deal of planning for the post-war period, you should do three things: 1) drink a entire pot of strong coffee with a Red Bull chaser so you can truly wake up and face reality; 2) read Franks on planning for the post-war period; 3) read "Blind Into Baghdad" by James Fallows.

Mike Scioscia better step back.

This is a post about baseball, and I am not going to explain it in detail.

There was a confrontation last night between Mike Scioscia, the manager of Anaheim (I refuse to call the team "Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim," which is the now official name), and Frank Robinson, the manager of Washington. To make a long story short (perhaps a first for me), Robinson had the umpires inspect the glove of an Angels pitcher, and the umpires ejected the pitcher for having a foreign substance on his glove. Scioscia got in Robinson's face and started talking smack.

Listen up, Mike Scioscia...You may have won a World Series as a manager and a player, but you are nowhere near man enough to be talking trash to Frank Robinson. You acted like a punk. Moreover, although he is 69 and you are 46, Frank Robinson could kick your ass, so you better watch yourself. Punk.

Tuesday, June 14, 2005

Example #3 of the Bush agenda: Paul Wolfowitz

A look at Wolfowitless's record

Next is one of my favorites, Paul Wolfowitz. For a partial rundown of why I say Wolfowitless is, well, witless, check out More on Wolfowitz and the blunders of the Bush administration, Wolfowitz’s Reason 2 why Shinseki was wrong, More on Wolfowitz and the blunders of the Bush administration, and Wolfowitz's Reason 3 why Shinseki was wrong. What some people might not be aware of is that Wolfowitless was primarily responsible for drafting the blueprint for the Bush/neocon world view. In 1992, Wolfowitless, then undersecretary of defense for policy, co-wrote the draft of a document entitled "Defense Planning Guidance." From an article entitled "Meet the Neocons," here is a good description of Wolfowitz's writing:
In 1992, then-Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney had a strategy report drafted for the Department of Defense, written by Paul Wolfowitz, then Under-Secretary of Defense for Policy. In it, the U.S. government was urged, as the world’s sole remaining Superpower, to move aggressively and militarily around the globe. The report called for pre-emptive attacks and ad hoc coalitions, but said that the U.S. should be ready to act alone when “collective action cannot be orchestrated.” The central strategy was to “establish and protect a new order” that accounts “sufficiently for the interests of the advanced industrial nations to discourage them from challenging our leadership,” while at the same time maintaining a military dominance capable of “deterring potential competitors from even aspiring to a larger regional or global role.” Wolfowitz outlined plans for military intervention in Iraq as an action necessary to assure “access to vital raw material, primarily Persian Gulf oil” and to prevent the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and threats from terrorism.
Gee, doesn't that sound familiar? If you want to read more, check out articles from the Washington Post and New York Times. PBS's "Frontline" reported that "Controversy erupts after the draft is leaked to the press. The White House orders Defense Secretary Cheney to rewrite it. In the new draft there is no mention of preemption or U.S. willingness to act alone." So in 1992, Wolfowitz's ideas were rejected, but in 2002, they were implemented. And this strategy has worked out so well in Iraq, right? Also, keep in mind some of Wolfowitless's other brilliant proclamations about Iraq. In his Congressional testimony of February 27, 2003, Wolfowitless said that the troop requirements after the war would be minimal because many other countries–even those that opposed the war–would send troops for the occupation, Iraqis would provide much of the manpower, the Iraqis would welcome us as liberators, and that the cost of rebuilding Iraq would be paid by Iraqi oil, not U.S. taxpayer money. Wolfowitz provided no data or evidence to support these assertions, which all turned out to be flat wrong.

So what does Bush do? Instead of firing Wolfowitz, instead of even criticizing him, Bush decides to appoint Wolfowitless as the next president of the World Bank. On the one hand, that means that Wolfowitless will no longer have a direct role in our military, which is good. On the other hand, he has been put in a position to further spread the Bush/Neocon philosophy in world affairs, and that is bad.

An overview of the World Bank


The World Bank briefly describes its purpose as follows:
The World Bank Group’s mission is to fight poverty and improve the living standards of people in the developing world. It is a development Bank which provides loans, policy advice, technical assistance and knowledge sharing services to low and middle income countries to reduce poverty. The Bank promotes growth to create jobs and to empower poor people to take advantage of these opportunities.
Another brief description appears in "10 Things You Never Knew About the World Bank:"
Our work in more than 100 countries is challenging, but our mission is simple–to reduce poverty. Over the last 20 years, our focus has changed, and so has our approach. We are now dealing with newer issues like gender, community-driven development and the rights and role of indigenous people in development. Our support for social services like health, nutrition, education and pensions has grown from 5 percent in 1980 to 22 percent in 2003. Today, countries themselves are coming to us with their own plans for helping poor people, and we have adopted new ways of working with them.
The World Bank's website also has a page that has a more detailed explanation of the organization, and here is part of it:
Not a bank, but rather a specialized agency. The World Bank is not a “bank” in the common sense. It is one of the United Nations’ specialized agencies, and is made up of 184 member countries. These countries are jointly responsible for how the institution is financed and how its money is spent. Along with the rest of the development community, the World Bank centers its efforts on reaching the Millennium Development Goals, agreed to by UN members in 2000 and aimed at sustainable poverty reduction.

The "World Bank" is the name that has come to be used for the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD) and the International Development Association (IDA). Together these organizations provide low-interest loans, interest-free credit, and grants to developing countries.

Some 10,000 development professionals from nearly every country in the world work in the World Bank's Washington DC headquarters or in its 109 country offices.
(emphasis added).

What does the World Bank president do?

In case you are wondering why Bush got to appoint Wolfowitless to this position, the United States traditionally appoints the president of the World Bank while Europe selects the leader of the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

This BBC article gives a description of the World Bank president's job:
Think of him as a company chief executive.

He is responsible for the day-to-day running of the organisation, overseeing the bank's six regions and managing global operations.

As top dog, the president ensures the smooth running of the World Bank, making sure that everyone in the organisation knows the direction it is headed.

The president also liaises with world leaders, looking at ways of cutting poverty and improving conditions, but is forbidden by the bank's charter from taking a political stance.

As well as operational responsibilities, a bank president has a key role as a representative of the world's poorest people.

Through lobbying and speeches, the president is able to draw attention to the problems faced by developing nations such as unfair trade conditions and crippling debt repayments.

A president is responsible for the strategy and flavour of the World Bank.
Wolfowitless is a bad choice--unless the Bush agenda is good.
  • And just why is Wolfowitless qualified for this job?
At first glance, it is hard to see how Wolfowitless is at all qualified to lead the World Bank. He has served in the Department of Defense in three administrations, and has no apparent financial, economic, or diplomatic expertise. Compare this with his predecessor, James Wolfensohn, who has a Harvard MBA and had extensive experience as an investment on Wall Street and in London prior to heading the World Bank. However, Wolfowitless's official DoD biography shows some relevant experience:
During the Reagan administration, Dr. Wolfowitz served for three years as U.S. Ambassador to Indonesia - the fourth largest country in the world and the largest in the Moslem world. There he earned a reputation as a highly popular and effective Ambassador, a tough negotiator on behalf of American intellectual property owners, and a public advocate of political openness and democratic values. During his tenure, Embassy Jakarta was cited as one of the four best-managed embassies inspected in 1988.

Prior to that posting, he served three and a half years as Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs, where he was in charge of U.S. relations with more than twenty countries. In addition to contributing to substantial improvements in U.S. relations with Japan and China, Assistant Secretary Wolfowitz played a central role in coordinating the U.S. policy toward the Philippines that supported a peaceful transition from the dictatorship of Ferdinand Marcos to democracy.
Even if one accepts without further investigation that Wolfowitless is thus qualified to be World Bank president, he is still a bad choice because of "the Bush agenda."
  • Wolfowitless's probable "strategy and flavour"
When Bush first appointed Wolfowitless to the World Bank, the major problem was described in a March 17, 2005, article from The Financial Times:
On Wednesday Jeffrey Sachs, special adviser to Kofi Annan, U.N. secretary-general, and one of the world's foremost development experts, said: "It's a very surprising and in many ways inappropriate nomination. International aid organizations warned that the World Bank needed to maintain its mission to minimize poverty, rather than reframe its purpose to spread liberty in an effort to combat Islamic militancy."
Despite Wolfowitless's recent words to the contrary, there is no reason to believe that Sachs's view is incorrect. Remember that Wolfowitz wrote the blueprint for the Neocon philosophy--which has become the Bush Doctrine. That philosophy--as shown above--matches the concern expressed by Sachs, especially in light of Bush's bold pronouncements in his last State of the Union Address (see America's new calling, An update on "America's calling," Political buffoonery, and the three subsequent posts for discussions about that speech). Paul Reynolds of the BBC opened an article with another description of the primary concern for many people:
By nominating Paul Wolfowitz to be head of the World Bank, President George Bush appears to be sending a message to the world that he intends to spread into development policy the same neo-conservative philosophy that has led his foreign policy.
The problem is that Bush's foreign policy has been a cluster intercourse. For those of you who don't think so, first go get some really strong coffee so you can wake up and face reality. Secondly, take a look at the centerpiece of that foreign policy, Iraq, and Wolfowitless's role therein.
  • A second look at Wolfowitless's record: Iraq
Wolfowitless wanted to use the U.S. military to get rid of Saddam long before George W. Bush became President. He co-authored a December 1, 1997, Weekly Standard article about Iraq entitled "Overthrow Him." As this excerpt shows, Wolfowitz was then advocating that Iraqis stage a coup, and that "What is needed is the assurance of economic, military, and political support of those Iraqis prepared to take charge of their own future..." In September 1998, Wolfowitless went before Congress, and his prepared statement included the following:
A strategy for supporting this enormous latent opposition to Saddam requires political and economic as well as military components. It is eminently possible for a country that possesses the overwhelming power that the United States has in the Gulf. The heart of such action would be to create a liberated zone in Southern Iraq comparable to what the United States and its partners did so successfully in the North in 1991.
*******
This would be a formidable undertaking, and certainly not one which will work if we insist on maintaining the unity of the UN Security Council.
So, while in 1998 Wolfowitless was not advocating a full U.S. invasion of Iraq, he was advocating a U.S. military takeover of southern Iraq, AND he was saying that we should do so without Security Council approval. That's called unilateral military action, folks.

Fast forward to September 15-16, 2001. Bush summoned all the relevant players to Camp David for a major meeting. As reported by the 9-11 Commission, Wolfowitless wanted to attack Iraq right then. This paragraph from the Commission's report is particularly telling:
Secretary Powell recalled that Wolfowitz--not Rumsfeld--argued that Iraq was ultimately the source of the terrorist problem and should therefore be attacked. Powell said that Wolfowitz was not able to justify his belief that Iraq was behind 9/11. "Paul was always of the view that Iraq was a problem that had to be dealt with," Powell told us. "And he saw this as one way of using this event as a way to deal with the Iraq problem." Powell said that President Bush did not give Wolfowitz's argument "much weight." Though continuing to worry about Iraq in the following week, Powell said, President Bush saw Afghanistan as the priority.
(emphasis added). The Commission also detailed how Wolfowitless continued to press for an invasion of Iraq:
Writing to Rumsfeld on September 17 in a memo headlined "Preventing More Events," he argued that if there was even a 10 percent chance that Saddam Hussein was behind the 9/11 attack, maximum priority should be placed on eliminating that threat. Wolfowitz contended that the odds were "far more" than 1 in 10, citing Saddam's praise for the attack, his long record of involvement in terrorism, and theories that Ramzi Yousef was an Iraqi agent and Iraq was behind the 1993 attack on the World Trade Center.
Of course, we now know that Saddam had nothing to do with 9-11 (and actually we knew that before the war), and Wolfowitz was pretty much alone in calling for an Iraq invasion at that time. At that time, Bush had not adopted Wolfowitless's view, but, as Richard Perle told Vanity Fair for the May 2004 article "The Path to War," Wolfowitless had planted a seed.

An online article entitled "Paul Wolfowitz and the Neoconservative Movement" has this nice little summary of Wolfowitz and Iraq:
While Wolfowitz’s role in bring about the war to attack Iraq is obvious, one is left to question whether his influence was beneficial. Wolfowitz appears to have been so singularly obsessed with Iraq and bringing democracy there that he appears to have been out of touch with reality. His actions can be criticized from three different angles: that his whole plan to attack Iraq was unwise, he was willing to use dishonesty to reach his ideological ends, and his blind adherence to neoconservative ideology led to insufficient planning for post-war Iraq.
For those of you who think there was sufficient planning for post-war Iraq, first skip the regular coffee and head straight for a double espresso. Secondly, go to this link and check out all the links listed therein. Then read the next section, which puts Wolfowitless's obsession in perspective.
  • "The Black Knight always triumphs!"
The preceding quote is from "Monty Python and the Holy Grail." The Black Knight guards a bridge and does not allow anyone to pass. Anyone who tries is killed in combat by the Black Knight--until King Arthur comes to the bridge. Arthur proceeds to hack off the Black Knight's arms and one of his legs. Insisting that he has not lost the fight, the Black Knight proclaims "I'm invincible!" and "The Black Knight always triumphs!" in spite of the bloody obvious fact that he is beaten.

"Paul Wolfowitz and the Neoconservative Movement" provides the first part of this section's analysis:
It would appear that Wolfowitz was overly confident in his neoconservative ideology which predicted that American military might could spread the values of democracy.
*******
Unfortunately, Wolfowitz put his faith in his ideology instead of doing his homework. As a result, the security situation in Iraq has been compromised[.]...Furthermore, the inability to comprehend the necessity of a long-term commitment to Iraq has resulted in a military that is stretched for manpower and recently had to increase its size by 30,000 in order to meet its worldwide commitments. If Deputy Secretary Wolfowitz, one of the five members of the war’s planning group, had seriously looked into the required force needed for post-Saddam Iraq, he might have prevented the loss of many coalition and Iraqi lives as well as a host of political problems for the coalition. While others undoubtedly made the same mistake as Wolfowitz, much of the responsibility falls on his shoulders because he was one of the most prominent promoters of going to war in the first place. In addition, Wolfowitz has subverted facts to ideology on other issues such as national missile defense, which has extremely high monetary and political costs and may not even be scientifically feasible.
I agree with almost everything in this excerpt. The one exception is that much of the responsibility falls not on Wolfowitless, but on Bush and Rumskull because official doctrine gives them that responsibility (see Official campaign planning doctrine and the post-war period). Still, the point about Wolfowitless placing emphasis on ideology and ignoring facts and reality is well taken. One of the things that has always amazed me about Wolfowitless is his arrogance. His record in this Bush administration makes me think the man is downright stupid, and his arrogance just makes him seem even less intelligent.

So where does this overconfidence/obsession/stupidity/arrogance come from? Relying in part on James Mann's book, The Rise of the Vulcans: The History of Bush's War Cabinet, Timothy Noah put forth a theory in Slate on March 29, 2004.
Wolfowitz was corrupted by early success. Twenty-odd years ago, Wolfowitz took two very lonely positions that proved to be spectacularly right. As a consequence, he developed an unshakable belief that once he's thought through a problem (which, according to Mann, Wolfowitz does very slowly) he should ignore the cavils of lesser minds. Time will prove that he's right.
*******
To Mann, Wolfowitz's early ideas about Iraq and China contributed to Wolfowitz's eventual advocacy of unilateral American power around the world. But Chatterbox thinks they may also have given Wolfowitz too much confidence in his ability to render risky judgments. Wolfowitz was not yet 40 when he staked out these positions. Within the foreign policy establishment, that made him a baby. Now he's a "wise man" of 60, drawing on the lessons of his youth to address new foreign policy challenges. And the main lesson is: The Wolf Man is Never Wrong.
Right...just ask him, and that is what he will tell you--even when the facts are otherwise.
  • If not a unilateralist, then what?
In an interview with Newsweek, Wolfowitless was told that "the worry is that the bank will become a more unilateral American organization," and here was his response:
I think as they talk to me they get a little less worried, and I think they will understand that, contrary to reputation, I'm not a unilateralist.
I don't know whether to laugh or cry. This is the same man whose basic political philosophy is that the United States must be the sole superpower and must be willing to use our military might--even if we cannot get other nations to join us--to establish a new world order that deters all other nations from so much as aspiring to greater roles globally and even on a regional basis.

So if Wolfowitless is not a unilateralist, what is he? I say he seems like an imperialist. An "imperialist" is a believer in imperialism, and "imperialism" is "The policy of extending a nation's authority by territorial acquisition or by the establishment of economic and political hegemony over other nations."

And what does this have to do with his new job as World Bank president? Previously, I mentioned that the concern expressed by Jeffrey Sachs and that such concern was particularly relevant in light of the Burning Bush doctrine presented in Bush's last State of the Union Address. With that in mind, let's look at some more of the Newsweek interview.
Newsweek: A lot of people always thought of you staying in Washington and being in the cabinet rather than going off into the World Bank.

Wolfowitz: I think this is an incredibly important job. And I think in terms of the president's goal and all of our goal of expanding the realm of freedom in the world, there's both a political dimension and an economic dimension and they're not tightly linked, but they support one another.

Newsweek: Your opponents say you are going to use the bank to pursue the Bush administration's philosophy of pushing democracy all around the world.

Wolfowitz: No, but I think when the bank performs its mission, which is reducing poverty and promoting economic development, it makes it more possible for people around the world to achieve their own goals of freedom and democracy.
(emphasis added). Wolfowitz is now in a position to directly affect how economic development around the world takes place, and even though he says he is not going to pursue the Burning Bush doctrine, the rest of his words show otherwise.
  • There is no reason to think Wolfowitless will change.
Wolfowitless thought he was smarter than everyone in 1992 when he wrote "Defense Planning Guidance," and instead of everyone telling him so, his work was soundly rejected. Then along came George W. Bush, and Wolfowitless's long held ideology seemed to have been vindicated. One might think that the reality of Iraq--and Wolfowitless's errors--would humble him even a bit, but, alas, that is not the case.

On March 18, 2004, Wolfowitz was interviewed by Jim Lehrer. There are three remarkable aspects to this interview. First, he refused to admit that he was wrong about anything regarding Iraq. Second, he refused to take any responsibility for all the unsubstantiated bullshit he spouted before the war. Instead, he generally blamed the intelligence. Regarding his ridiculously arrogant dismissal of Shinseki's post-war troop estimates, Wolfowitz gave the lame excuse that "My biggest concern was, and I think he knew it, that General Franks was the combatant commander," and Wolfowitless thought it was wrong for anyone other than the combatant commander to make an estimate. Never mind that Shinseki gave his estimate in answer to a specific, direct question from a Congressman. The third remarkable thing about the interview is that it showed that Wolfowitless was still sticking to his core political philosophy. When asked whether he had any personal doubts about whether invading Iraq was the right thing to do, he gave this answer: "No, I don't. I think it's a huge victory. I think 25 million of some of the most talented people in the Muslim and Arab world have been liberated from one of the worst tyrannies of the last 100 years." As stated in "Paul Wolfowitz and the Neoconservative Movement,"
His frequent emphasis of this point throughout the interview leads one to think that bringing democracy to Iraq was his real reason for war all along. Therefore, it would appear that Wolfowitz’s consistent agitation for war against Iraq was consistent with his long held neoconservative beliefs.
In other words, even one year after the invasion of Iraq, Wolfowitz had not changed.

Now I know what some of you are thinking. That interview was over a year ago. Who's to say that Wolfowitless has not changed since then? Well, ol' Wolfowitless his ownself, that's who. The Newsweek interview referenced above was published on April 4 of this year. The excerpts in the previous section show that he has not changed his basic philosophy. The following excerpts show that he is still not admitting mistakes or taking any responsibility:
Newsweek: Do you take responsibility for any mistakes made in planning for the war in Iraq, and what do you see as the key mistakes? Dissolving the Army?

Wolfowitz: There's so much finger-pointing that goes on. It's a long exercise to dissect all the things that are wrong [in what has been] said about why this has proven to be difficult. And the notion that there was no planning is simply wrong.
Notice that Wolfowitless not only refused to really answer the question, he also tried to change the subject to planning.
Newsweek: You mean that there was planning for the aftermath?

Wolfowitz: The usual phrase is, there was no planning for the post-conflict phase. And the real problem is that the conflict hasn't ended and that there is an enemy still out there actively trying to prevent the emergence of a new Iraq. But on Jan. 30 [Iraq's Election Day], they were handed a stunning defeat by the Iraqi people, whom they attempted to intimidate. I think people shouldn't have been surprised that a regime that had burrowed into Iraqi society over 35 years and killed and tortured and intimidated people so effectively didn't quit just because they were driven out of Baghdad on April 9, 2003.
(emphasis added). First, he said there was planning, then he failed to describe that planning. Instead, he tried to say there can be no complaint that there was no post-conflict planning because we have yet to get to a post-conflict state. This isn't just bullshit--this is bad bullshit. This is not the first time Wolfowitless has tried using strained semantics (see Wolfowitz's Reason 3 why Shinseki was wrong). All his talk about elections, a regime that did not just quit, etc., does not say one damn thing about not having more troops, not securing the borders, not supplying food and water, etc. The interviewer made one last attempt to get a straight answer out of Wolfowitless.
Newsweek: But do you think there were mistakes? We said we were going in to get weapons of mass destruction but there were no weapons of mass destruction, so there were obvious mistakes, right?

Wolfowitz: And there were some great successes as well. And I think if people want to go through this exercise, they ought to first do an assessment and put the pluses up there with the minuses. And if the purpose is to learn lessons so that we can finish winning this war, I would say focus on why it is that the people who abused and tortured that country for 35 years have proven to be so resilient. That's where the problem lies.
He already answered the question to his "focus" by pointing out that the regime had been in power 35 years was not going to just quit, and yet he raised this "focus" instead of answering the question. Pointing out the successes does not minimize or explain or take responsibility for all the major mistakes that were made--and that includes the horrific lack of planning.

And by the way, Tommy Franks--the combatant commander Wolfowitless wanted to protect and respect--detailed in his book that horrific lack of planning (see Franks on planning for the post-war period).

This section shows that Wolfowitless is still adhering to his ideology--even in the face of reality, refuses to admit any error, refuses to take responsibility, and keeps stating positions that are flat out wrong. There is nothing to indicate that he is ever going to change his ways. And that is precisely why Bush appointed him to be president of the World Bank.
  • Wolfowitless's job will be to push Bush policy.
Based on the foregoing, I conclude that Wolfowitless's prime objective at the World Bank is indeed "to pursue the Bush administration's philosophy of pushing democracy all around the world." Wolfowitless provided the basis for that foreign policy, has adhered to it to the point of delusion, refuses to take responsibility for his own errors, blames others, says one thing and then acts to the contrary, etc. In other words, he is the epitome of a Bush administration official. Does anyone really think that Bush would appoint anyone to any office if that person was not going to be completely loyal and follow Bush's plans and desires? If so, just skip the coffee and espresso and come see me because I have some beachfront property here in North Texas that I will sell to you for a bargain.

Bush's plan is the Burning Bush doctrine--freedom is on the march, planting the flag of liberty, and all that jazz. Wolfowitless has already said that the World Bank has a role in that and that if the World Bank performs its mission, it will help spread democracy.

And now Wolfowitless is in a position to try to apply the Bush desires to developing the world economy. This is not a good thing. See, the Bush administration's vision of spreading democracy is not obtainable. I have discussed this in America's new calling, An update on America's calling, Political buffoonery, and Freedom is on the march--or is it?, but I will state four basic reasons why Bush's vision is at best blurred. The first is that we cannot spread liberty and democracy without the help of other nations. The second reason is that the Bush foreign policy SOP is to try to make every country do only what we want and on our terms, and that makes it difficult if not impossible to get other countries to help. The third reason is that the core neocon philosophy is that the U.S. must preserve its own superpower status and not allow any country to gain any more power and influence, and that philosophy doesn't exactly engender good will and cooperation. The fourth reason is that the Bush administration is not really interested in spreading democracy unless it is U.S.-style democracy over which we have influence and control. That just is not feasible. We do not have the resources to pull that off all over the world, especially without massive help from other countries. Wolfowitless has proved that he will unwaveringly follow ideology at all costs, and that is not a good thing for the World Bank--and for the world--when his philosophy and the Bush administration's goals are so impractical.

And that's why Wolfowitless is a bad choice for World Bank president.