The Bush administration plans to screen thousands of people who work with charities and nonprofit organizations that receive U.S. Agency for International Development funds to ensure they are not connected with individuals or groups associated with terrorism, according to a recent Federal Register notice.
The plan would require the organizations to give the government detailed information about key personnel, including phone numbers, birth dates and e-mail addresses. But the government plans to shroud its use of that information in secrecy and does not intend to tell groups deemed unacceptable why they are rejected.
The plan has aroused concern and debate among some of the larger U.S. charitable organizations and recipients of AID funding. Officials of InterAction, representing 165 foreign aid groups, said last week that the plan would impose undue burdens and has no statutory basis. The organization requested that it be withdrawn.
"We don't know who will do the vetting, what the standards are and whether we could answer any allegation," said an executive for a major nongovernmental organization that would be subject to the new requirements and who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he did not want to harm his organization's relations with the government.
The Global Health Council, an international membership alliance of public health professionals in more than 100 countries, yesterday described the plan as "a sweeping information-gathering and recordkeeping measure that would impose a high administrative burden."
The Federal Register notice said the program could involve 2,000 respondents and "will become effective on August 27," the last day that public comments about it are to be submitted. Harry Edwards, a spokesman for USAID, said yesterday that the agency may not stick to that starting date, but he said the agency would not discuss the origins or any details of the program until the comment period concludes.
The program is described in the notice as the Partner Vetting System. It demands for the first time that nongovernmental organizations file information with the government on each officer, board member and key employee and those associated with an application for AID funds or managing a project when funded.
The information is to include name, address, date and place of birth, citizenship, Social Security and passport numbers, sex, and profession or other employment data. The data collected "will be used to conduct national security screening" to ensure these persons have no connection to entities or individuals "associated with terrorism" or "deemed to be a risk to national security," according to the notice.
Such screening normally involves sending the data to the FBI and other police and intelligence agencies to see if negative information surfaces.
In related news:
Miss Teen U.S.A 2007 South Carolina makes a passionate plea for overseas development aid in the area of education.
And Johnny Television seconds her proposal, yet never answers the question himself.
A new killer disease on a par with HIV/Aids or ebola is likely to emerge in the next few years and threaten the lives of millions of people worldwide, the World Health Organisation (WHO) said today.
Potentially deadly new diseases are being identified at an "unprecedented rate", with global epidemics spreading more rapidly than ever, the United Nations agency warned in its annual world health report.
At least one new disease has been identified every year since the 1970s. Today, there are 39 that were unknown just over a generation ago.
And,
The agency said infectious diseases were spreading faster due to global travel, with more than 1,100 epidemics verified in the last five years, including bird flu, cholera and polio.
With more than 2 billion people travelling by air every year, the WHO said "an outbreak or epidemic in one part of the world is only a few hours away from becoming an imminent threat somewhere else".
"Infectious diseases are now spreading geographically much faster than at any time in history."
(Kind of developing into 'Iraq week' here at Global Health Nexus)
I swear Tony Karon must be one the most intelligent, insightful commentators on everything Middle East that I have ever read. And he just confirms my high opinion with his latest post Asking the Wrong Questions on Iran, posted yesterday. Consider:
Imagine, for a moment, that U.S. troops invading Iraq had, as they neared Baghdad, been fired on by an artillery unit using shells filled VX nerve gas — an attack that would have lasted minutes before a U.S. aircrew had taken out the battery, and may have brought a horrible death to a handful of American soldiers. Imagine, further, that the conquering troops had later discovered two warehouses full of VX and mustard gas shells. And later, that inspectors in a science lab had discovered a refrigerator full of Botulinum toxin or even anthrax.
The Administration and its allies in the punditocracy would have “proved” their case for war, and the media would have hailed President Bush as the kind of Churchillian visionary that he imagines himself to be. And goodness knows what new adventures the Pentagon ideologues would have immediately begun planning.
Now, ask yourself, had the above scenario unfolded and the “case for war” (on the terms accepted by the media and the Democrats) been proven, would Iraq look any different today? Would it be any less of a bloodbath; any less of a quagmire for U.S. troops; any less of a geopolitical disaster; any less of a drain on U.S. blood and treasure? Would the U.S. mainland or U.S. interests and allies worldwide be any safer today? In short, would the Iraq invasion seem any less of a catastrophic strategic blunder had the U.S. discovered some caches of unconventional weapons in Iraq?
The answer to all of those questions is obviously no.
And it’s from that point that we must begin our discussion on Iran, and the media’s role in preparing the American public for another disastrous war of choice. The “necessity” in the American public mind to go to war in Iraq was established through the mass media — a failure for which there has been precious little accounting. But that failure runs far deeper than is typically acknowledged even by critics: It was not simply a case of the media failing to properly and critically interrogate the spurious claims by the Administration of Iraq’s Weapons of Mass Destruction capability. Sure, even the likes of France and Germany suspected that Saddam may, in fact, have still had a few piles of chemical munitions left over from the Iran-Iraq war. The point, however, is that they did not see these as justifying a war. They recognized from the outset that invading Iraq would cause more problems than it would solve.
The more important failure of the U.S. media, then, is its failure to question the basic proposition that if Iraq had, indeed, had unconventional weapons, then an invasion and occupation of that country was a wise and prudent course of action.
Or,
For the record:
# First, there is no evidence that Iran is actually building a nuclear weapon; merely that it is building a civilian nuclear energy program with all elements of the fuel cycle permissible under the NPT that would, in fact, put nuclear weapons easily within reach should they opt to build them.
# Second, even if Iran did possess nuclear weapons, the idea that it would use them to initiate a conflict in which Tehran would certainly be destroyed is based on tabloid-style alarmism about the nature of the regime in Tehran — in fact, Iran’s Islamic Republic has long proved to be guided more by unsentimental realpolitik than by revolutionary fervor in the pursuit of its national interests and regional influence.
# Third, Iran is not “interfering” in Afghanistan and Iraq any more than the U.S. is; it has close ties with the dominant Shiite and Kurdish parties that represent three quarters of Iraqis, for whom its involvement in Iraq is welcome. Thus the recent rebuke to Bush by both Karzai and Maliki on the question of Iran’s role in their countries. Even the Administration’s claims that Iran is targeting U.S. troops in Iraq are largely unproven: In a remarkably shallow treatment of complaints about the New York Times coverage of the issue, its public editor concedes simply that the Times should have told readers of its previous coverage to provide “context” — there is no serious questioning of the contention that because Iran has been known to supply the know-how to build “Explosively Formed Projectiles” (EFPs), any time an EFP is used in an attack on U.S. soldiers in Iraq, the perpetrators are an Iranian proxy. This is worth dwelling on, because it’s typical of the ignorance on various issues — the extent of President Ahmedinajad’s authority in Iran, for example — propagated by the Times. A simple technical exposition of what an EFP is reveals that the technology is easily copied by anyone with know-how and access to very basic munitions. It’s not an actual weapon; it’s a method of building an improvised explosive device to pierce armor. The idea that the use of EFPs in Iraq is automatically a fingerprint of Iran is ridiculous. Someone ought to tell the Times. And by the way, even if Iranian proxies were attacking U.S. forces in Iraq, that wouldn’t signal intent to undermine the Iraqi government; it would simply be an escalation of the secret war between Washington and Tehran. And that’s a war that this President, his deepest psychological scars laid bare by his failure in Iraq — a wound that the psychotic Dick Cheney will press and press — may be ready to escalate by launching an attack on Iran’s Revolutionary Guard. Indeed, it is not Iranian “interference” that Iraq and Afghanistan fear; it is being caught in the crossfire between the U.S. and Iran.
# 1938? Don’t make me laugh. Nazi Germany was the most powerful military nation on earth, and in 1938 it was poised to invade its neighbors. To make the same claim about Iran is just plain ignorant. )
Or all the rest of it for that matter. Definitely a must-read.
I have always had a hard time believing that the Bush Administration would actually attack Iran, as opposed to just blustering. But I never thought Bush would even win the Republican nomination.
"Film that with your camera. Show it to President Bush."
Bush always appears ridiculous of course, but he comes across as completely ridiculous in recent appearances where I have seen him pronounce that the 'American people are experiencing war fatigue' because they 'don't like what they are seeing on their TV screens'. Its such an absurd statement because just where exactly on their 'TV screens' is the War in Iraq?
Its hardly ever there. Why? Because of media management on the part of The Pentagon, and because Iraq is so dangerous now. But when it does show up, the effect is jarring.
Sean Smith is a photographer and filmmaker for The Guardian. He was in Iraq before the invasion, and remained there throughout out the Allied campaign. Recently he spent two months embedded with U.S. troops both in Anbar province and in Baghdad with the 4th platoon, Apache Company. And from that experience he has produced the stunning film 'Inside the Surge' which is, it seems to me, the most realistic portrayal of what life must actually be like for the soldiers (and some civilians) on the ground in Iraq that I have seen since Gunner Palace. Its an equisite piece of journalism. Stunning for it access, and because though you know this stuff is going on all the time, to actually see such scenes and images seems so rare.
Here is Part 1 in Baghdad:
And here is The Guardian version which contains Part 2, following some Marines in Anbar province and in Baghdad.
For all I know these soldiers and Marines could be the most decent guys around, but whose decency, integrity, or sanity for that matter could survive this? Conducting warrantless searches and what look to me to be essentially home invasions? How is this winning the war? And how long is this supposed to go on? Arguing with and trying to police people whose relatives have been killed and whose language and culture you know nothing about?
A recent op-ed by seven soldiers in the Sunday New York Times has been getting a lot of attention in the blogosphere the last couple of days not only for what its has to say, but again, I think, for its rarity. Its just so rare to hear from and see people involved in the war who are neither officers nor your regular commentators achieving such a high media profile. And saying things like:
VIEWED from Iraq at the tail end of a 15-month deployment, the political debate in Washington is indeed surreal. Counterinsurgency is, by definition, a competition between insurgents and counterinsurgents for the control and support of a population. To believe that Americans, with an occupying force that long ago outlived its reluctant welcome, can win over a recalcitrant local population and win this counterinsurgency is far-fetched. As responsible infantrymen and noncommissioned officers with the 82nd Airborne Division soon heading back home, we are skeptical of recent press coverage portraying the conflict as increasingly manageable and feel it has neglected the mounting civil, political and social unrest we see every day. (Obviously, these are our personal views and should not be seen as official within our chain of command.)
The claim that we are increasingly in control of the battlefields in Iraq is an assessment arrived at through a flawed, American-centered framework. Yes, we are militarily superior, but our successes are offset by failures elsewhere. What soldiers call the “battle space” remains the same, with changes only at the margins. It is crowded with actors who do not fit neatly into boxes: Sunni extremists, Al Qaeda terrorists, Shiite militiamen, criminals and armed tribes. This situation is made more complex by the questionable loyalties and Janus-faced role of the Iraqi police and Iraqi Army, which have been trained and armed at United States taxpayers’ expense.
The Cunning Realist has been generating a good deal of controversy and attention for this post where he does some cursory exploration around the inevitable mixture of occupation and prostitution in Iraq, and the results aren't pretty.
VoteVets.org is an American Political Action Committee whose mission (as they say) is to "elect veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan to public office; hold public officials accountable for their words and actions that impact America's 21st century service members; and fully support men and women in uniform.". Recently Brandon Friedman, one of their members and author of The War I always wanted, went on Keith Olbermann to discuss the recent Pentagon report on the rising suicide rate amongst active and veteran soldiers of the war.
The Iraq War is coming home. And this is going to take a while.
UPDATE:
The Other War: Iraq Vets Bear Witness Chirs Hedges and Laila Al-Arain of The Nation interview fifty combat veterans of the war in Iraq, many of whom have come to oppose the war, about their interactions with Iraqi civilians.
As everyone is aware one of the inevitable (however, unconscious) consequences of seeking a militarist solution to whatever security or conflict situation is that the methods, techniques and machinery applied in this pursuit more often than not end up creating even more insecurity, which has serious long-term consequences of ill health and an amazing, profound and tenacious ability to live on in many forms and manners long after the initial battles are over.
In a perfect world such things should be the first consideration when deciding whether or not to launch a war, but rarely are.
To ponder the innumerable examples of this phenomenon could fill volumes. And does. To say that wars never really end is one of the oldest cliches going.
This seems to me to be the crux of the issue as far the necessity of the Iraq War is concerned - its supposed inevitability. Whether it had to be launched, with all its incumbent harm, in order to stave off something far worse. Most of the commentary pre-war, it seemed to me, was about what would - or even more specifically what might happen - if the invasion wasn't carried out, as opposed to what the 'Coalition' was actually about to do, and how, and what the results of that would be. Call it faith-based, or wishful thinking, but its a rationalization that continues to this day.
And I'm sure, even with all thats already happened, its still too soon to grasp a full picture of all the tragic consequences which have and will continue to flow from the initial decision to invade Iraq, but now that The War has in fact gone on longer than World War 1, with no apparent end in sight, I think we can say with some evidence that the dark, horrible edges are most certainly beginning to fill in a composition of some fatal relief. Be it the astonishing rate of civilian casualties, the enormous, emerging refugee crisis, the staggering financial cost or the full impact upon the health care systems, both American, and Iraqi (as well as others I'm sure). Its a stark future to be sure.
So perhaps in light of all that, revelations earlier this month emerging from U.S Government Accountability Office Report about thousands of weapons meant for the newly constituted Iraqi Army going missing, in the larger bloody scheme may seem relatively benign. Its not like there weren't a plethora of small arms in Iraq - pre-invasion. Indeed, for all I know Iraq could have been one of the most militarized societies around.
But as the universal can usually always be found within a particular, I do think this story speaks to some of the Iraqi War's more perfect qualities: A fatal, deep and profound lack of foresight. Scrambling, making it up as they go along. The constant returning narrative of the lost, 'innocent' Westerner abroad, doesn't speak the language, doesn't know the culture, and now doesn't even know who he's fighting, but figured he was always so well-intentioned. Saw what he wanted to see, perhaps what he needed to see. And now this kind of cyclical, murderous, spinning-of the-wheels. I can only speculate as to feelings and thoughts of many an American soldier who once tasked with the job of training new recruits to the Iraqi army, with their new weapons purchased with American money, now discovers that those same weapons are being used against him. Or her.
The US has lost about 190,000 weapons issued to Iraqi security forces since the 2003 invasion, according to an official report published in Washington.
The weapons include AK-47 machine guns, pistols, body armour and helmets, some of which will have ended up in the hands of insurgents.
The disclosure adds to the picture of the chaotic and clumsy administration of Iraq that has been emerging over the last four years.
The report, by the Government Accounting Office, which sent its report to Congress last week, found an alarming 30% gap between the number of weapons issued to Iraqi forces and records held by US forces in Iraq. No one in the Bush administration knows what happened to the weapons or where they are now.
The United States has spent $19.2 billion trying to develop Iraqi security forces since 2003, the GAO said, including at least $2.8 billion to buy and deliver equipment. But the GAO said weapons distribution was haphazard and rushed and failed to follow established procedures, particularly from 2004 to 2005, when security training was led by Gen. David H. Petraeus, who now commands all U.S. forces in Iraq.
The Pentagon did not dispute the GAO findings, saying it has launched its own investigation and indicating it is working to improve tracking. Although controls have been tightened since 2005, the inability of the United States to track weapons with tools such as serial numbers makes it nearly impossible for the U.S. military to know whether it is battling an enemy equipped by American taxpayers.
"They really have no idea where they are," said Rachel Stohl, a senior analyst at the Center for Defense Information who has studied small-arms trade and received Pentagon briefings on the issue. "It likely means that the United States is unintentionally providing weapons to bad actors."
One senior Pentagon official acknowledged that some of the weapons probably are being used against U.S. forces. He cited the Iraqi brigade created at Fallujah that quickly dissolved in September 2004 and turned its weapons against the Americans.
Stohl said insurgents frequently use small-arms fire to force military convoys to move in a particular direction -- often toward roadside bombs. She noted that the Bush administration frequently complains that Iran and Syria are supplying insurgents but has paid little attention to whether U.S. military errors inadvertently play a role. "We know there is seepage and very little is being done to address the problem," she said. (italics mine)
Stohl noted that U.S. forces, focused on a fruitless search for weapons of mass destruction after Baghdad fell, did not secure massive weapons caches. The failure to track small arms given to Iraqi forces repeats that pattern of neglect, she added.
The GAO is studying the financing and weapons sources of insurgent groups, but that report will not be made public. "All of that information is classified," said Joseph A. Christoff, the GAO's director of international affairs and trade.
In an unusual move, the train-and-equip program for Iraqi forces is being managed by the Pentagon. Normally, the traditional security assistance programs are operated by the State Department, the GAO reported. The Defense Department said this change permitted greater flexibility, but as of last month it was unable to tell the GAO what accountability procedures, if any, apply to arms distributed to Iraqi forces, the report said.
Iraqi security forces were virtually nonexistent in early 2004, and in June of that year Petraeus was brought in to build them up. No central record of distributed equipment was kept for a year and a half, until December 2005, and even now the records are on a spreadsheet that requires three computer screens lined up side by side to view a single row, Christoff said.
The articles also mention that in operations such as the Bosnian operation for instance, where there was little or no 'weapons seepage', the job of distributing weapons to the new Bosnian army was administered by the State Department. This would certainly fit a larger pattern of Defense Department incompetence in managing everything about this war, from the initial intelligence on down. Such is too often the case with their 'greater flexibility' .
If only we could attach some kind of GPS radio-tracking device to one or several of those lost AK-47's, as to a dolphin's flipper on one of those TV nature shows, in order to follow the rest of its journey in the years to come. Maybe even give it its own TV show. Its own reality TV show. Maybe then we could gain a richer appreciation of the full legacy of violence which tracks back from such limited initial decision making. As shit always rolls down hill.
For we do know that the AK-47, essentially, has a unique and special talent in this regard.
The AK-47 has become the world's most prolific and effective combat weapon, a device so cheap and simple that it can be bought in many countries for less than the cost of a live chicken. Depicted on the flag and currency of several countries, waved by guerrillas and rebels everywhere, the AK is responsible for about a quarter-million deaths every year. It is the firearm of choice for at least 50 legitimate standing armies and countless fighting forces from Africa and the Middle East to Central America and Los Angeles. It has become a cultural icon, its signature form -- that banana-shaped magazine -- defining in our consciousness the contours of a deadly weapon.
When one war ended, arms brokers gathered up the AKs and sold them to fighters in the next hot spot. The weapon's spread helps explain why, since World War II, so many "small wars" have lingered far beyond the months and years one might expect. Indeed, for all of the billions of dollars Washington has spent on space-age weapons and military technology, the AK still remains the most devastating weapon on the planet, transforming conflicts from Vietnam to Afghanistan to Iraq. With these assault rifles, well-armed fighters can dominate a country, terrorize citizens, grab the spoils -- and even keep superpowers at bay.
This post marks the beginning of our new 'Iraq' category. I'm sure there will be many more to come.
In a developing story, (and in accordance with our previous post on this subject) Rwanda has applied to the WTO to make use of Canada's Access to Medicines Regime. It is the first country to do so. It is the first country to apply to the WTO under the 'paragraph 6 system' of the TRIPS agreement of the WTO which was designed to allow for developing countries to be able to import generic drugs they cannot manufacture themselves.
For three years, the federal legislation has been on the books, but red tape – primarily licensing agreements between pharamceutical companies and generic drug firms – has prevented one pill from leaving Canada.
Now there is hope for 21,000 AIDS patients living in Rwanda.
It came yesterday after pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline Inc. agreed to allow Toronto-based generic drug manufacturer Apotex Inc. to use two of its patented molecules, zidovudine and lamivudine, to produce a three-in-one AIDS drug for Rwanda. Boehringer Ingelheim agreed last month to allow Apotex to use its product, nevirapine, to make Apo-triAvir.
That clears the way for Apotex to begin production of 15.6 million tablets, enough to treat more than 21,000 people for one year.
It's a drop in the bucket in a country where 190,000 people are infected with the virus.
Critics argue flaws in the legislation have prevented the export of any drugs. In fact, the federal government reviewed the bill this spring but failed to produce a report before the House rose in June.
"What we've learned from this three-year, incredibly cumbersome process is that this law is not working well," said Joanne Csete, executive director of the Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network. "It's almost a miracle Rwanda may be getting any drugs under this law."
Rwanda asked for Canada's help last month by notifying the World Trade Organization it would like to purchase 260,000 packages of a triple combination AIDS medication. Under the legislation passed in 2004, a voluntary, not a compulsory, licence is granted to the generic firm to make the drugs.
GSK gives consent under Canada’s Access to Medicines Regime for generic version of HIV/AIDS medicine for use in Rwanda
Not for distribution to US Media
Issued – 8th August 2007, London, UK, Mississauga, ON - As part of its broad commitment to improving access to medicines, GlaxoSmithKline today announced it has given consent through Canada’s Access to Medicines Regime to enable a Canadian company (Apotex) to manufacture a generic fixed dose combination (FDC) antiretroviral (ARV), containing two molecules over which GSK has patent rights (zidovudine and lamivudine) for the treatment of HIV/AIDS in Rwanda.
Canada’s Access to Medicines Regime reflects the WTO “31f” agreement of August 2003 and enables the government to authorise the production of certain patented medicines for export. The legislation includes controls which are designed to ensure that these essential medicines reach the patients for whom they are intended and the authorisation to be granted will be subject to these controls. GSK has agreed to waive royalties on the basis that Apotex’s triple combination generic ARV will be supplied on a no profit basis.
Paul Lucas, President and CEO, GSK Canadasaid, “Tackling the AIDS crisis is one of the greatest challenges the world faces. GSK continues to play its part to tackle this crisis through research and development, not-for-profit pricing and ongoing investment in dedicated community programmes. Our decision to allow Apotex to manufacture an FDC containing two GSK molecules is part of this broad commitment. It also shows that Canada’s Access to Medicines Regime operates effectively to enable supply of medicines from Canadaas envisaged under the 31f Agreement.”
About GlaxoSmithKline
GlaxoSmithKline – one of the world’s leading research-based pharmaceutical and health-care companies – is committed to improving the quality of human life by enabling people to do more, feel better and live longer.
GSK has issued eight previously announced voluntary licences to produce generic versions of GSK’s patented HIV/AIDS medicines for patients across Sub-Saharan Africa. In 2006 alone, GSK supplied 86 million tablets of preferentially priced ARVs to developing countries, while over 120 million ARV generic tablets were supplied by companies licensed by GSK.
But as the Star article makes clear: "But (Ellie) Betito (director of public and government affairs for Apotex) pointed out the drug firms can still change their minds at any time. And Stephen Lewis, former United Nations Special Envoy for HIV/AIDS in Africa, said Rwanda still has the option to buy from other sources. Still, he said it was a significant moment.
"Forgetting all the negotiations and shenanigans over the last few years, we can begin to save lives. That is what is crucial."
It was the U.S.-based Clinton Foundation that coached Rwanda to seek help from Canada under the Access to Medicines Regime. It said other African nations are expressing interest in getting cheaply priced medication.
"We got into this because we want to see countries have access to a product that countries were struggling to get at high quality and low price," said Ben Yarrow, spokesperson for the Clinton Foundation.
More countries are seeking triple combination AIDS medication like Apo-triAvir because the toxicity is lower than that linked with other combination drugs like stavudine, a leading first-line AIDS drug.
Rwandans have been hit hard by AIDS in the years following the 1994 genocide that left nearly one million dead. There are an estimated 210,000 AIDS orphans living in the small, central African nation according to the United Nations. It is one of the poorest countries in the world, and more than 80 per cent of its people live on less than $2 a day.
A surgeon general's report in 2006 that called on Americans to help tackle global health problems has been kept from the public by a Bush political appointee without any background or expertise in medicine or public health, chiefly because the report did not promote the administration's policy accomplishments, according to current and former public health officials.
The report described the link between poverty and poor health, urged the U.S. government to help combat widespread diseases as a key aim of its foreign policy, and called on corporations to help improve health conditions in the countries where they operate. A copy of the report was obtained by The Washington Post.
Three people directly involved in its preparation said its publication was blocked by William R. Steiger, a specialist in education and a scholar of Latin American history whose family has long ties to President Bush and Vice President Cheney. Since 2001, Steiger has run the Office of Global Health Affairs in the Department of Health and Human Services.
Richard H. Carmona, who commissioned the "Call to Action on Global Health" while serving as surgeon general from 2002 to 2006, recently cited its suppression as an example of the Bush administration's frequent efforts during his tenure to give scientific documents a political twist. At a July 10 House committee hearing, Carmona did not cite Steiger by name or detail the report's contents and its implications for American public health.
Carmona told lawmakers that, as he fought to release the document, he was "called in and again admonished . . . via a senior official who said, 'You don't get it.' " He said a senior official told him that "this will be a political document, or it will not be released."
After a long struggle that pitted top scientific and medical experts inside and outside the government against Steiger and his political bosses, Carmona refused to make the requested changes, according to the officials. Carmona engaged in similar fights over other public health reports, including an unpublished report on prison health. A few days before the end of his term as the nation's senior medical officer, he was abruptly told he would not be reappointed.
Steiger did not return a phone call seeking his comment. But he said in a written statement released by an HHS spokesman Friday that the report contained information that was "often inaccurate or out-of-date and it lacked analysis and focus."
Following the notion of the unitary executive, in which the departments and agencies have no independent existence under the president, the White House has relentlessly politicized them. Callow political appointees dictate to scientists, censoring or altering their conclusions. Career staff professionals are forced to attend indoctrination sessions on the political strategies of the Republican Party in campaigns and elections.
Last week, for example, the Washington Post reported that William R. Steiger, director of the Office of Global Health Affairs in the Department of Health and Human Services, suppressed the 2006 "Call to Action on Global Health" report of U.S. Surgeon General Richard Carmona, which explained the connection of poverty to health and urged that attacking diseases become a major U.S. international commitment. Steiger, who has no credentials in the field, is the son of a former congressman who was Vice President Cheney's earliest patron, giving Cheney his first congressional job as a staff intern. At the White House's behest, Steiger acts as a micromanaging political commissar. His insistence on approving every single overseas appointee of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has left many of its posts empty. "Only 166 of the CDC's 304 overseas positions in 53 countries are filled," the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported in April. "At least 85 positions likely will remain unfilled until 2008." Such is the theory of the unitary executive in action.
The administration, Dr. Carmona said, would not allow him to speak or issue reports about stem cells, emergency contraception, sex education, or prison, mental and global health issues. Top officials delayed for years and tried to “water down” a landmark report on secondhand smoke, he said. Released last year, the report concluded that even brief exposure to cigarette smoke could cause immediate harm.
Dr. Carmona said he was ordered to mention President Bush three times on every page of his speeches. He also said he was asked to make speeches to support Republican political candidates and to attend political briefings.
And administration officials even discouraged him from attending the Special Olympics because, he said, of that charitable organization’s longtime ties to a “prominent family” that he refused to name.
“I was specifically told by a senior person, ‘Why would you want to help those people?’ ” Dr. Carmona said.
The Special Olympics is one of the nation’s premier charitable organizations to benefit disabled people, and the Kennedys have long been deeply involved in it.
When asked after the hearing if that “prominent family” was the Kennedys, Dr. Carmona responded, “You said it. I didn’t.”
Though not a "final version", but "draft document that its authors expected to update and revise before making public" - here is a copy of the report itself
Similarly, Dr. Carmona wanted to address the controversial topic of sexual education, he said. Scientific studies suggest that the most effective approach includes a discussion of contraceptives.
“However there was already a policy in place that did not want to hear the science but wanted to preach abstinence only, but I felt that was scientifically incorrect,” he said.
Dr. Carmona said drafts of surgeon general reports on global health and prison health were still being debated by the administration. The global health report was never approved, Dr. Carmona said, because he refused to sprinkle the report with glowing references to the efforts of the Bush administration.
“The correctional health care report is pointing out the inadequacies of health care within our correctional health care system,” he said. “It would force the government on a course of action to improve that.”
Because the administration does not want to spend more money on prisoners’ health care, the report has been delayed, Dr. Carmona said.
“For us, the science was pretty easy,” he said. “These people go back into the community and take diseases with them.” He added, “This is not about the crime. It’s about protecting the public.”
They're so partisan they wouldn't even let the man speak at The Special Olympics. So why do they do this?
I have just finished reading Neil Sheehan's magnificent, sprawling epic historical nonfiction account of the Viet Nam War A Bright Shining Lie: John Paul Vann and America in Viet Nam - about eight hundred pages or so and well worth the journey. I picked it up in a used book shop on Bloor Street for like ten bucks. Highly recommend it.. And I was planning to incorporate what I had read from this book and the inspiration of this new Viet Nam War history kick that I have kind of been on lately into a future post which I have been working on about Iraq, and how the War there is going to play itself out - when as it happens, surfing around today I happen upon this article from The Nation, reminding everyone that today is the 42nd Anniversary of the Approval of the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution.
The Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, of course,though based on a total fabrication, paved the way for the major American escalation of the Viet Nam War - which in turn, would then take them another ten years from which to extricate themselves. It was passed, apparently, by the U.S. Congress, on August 7, 1965.
And I suppose I just hadn't realized that today was that day. After yesterday's Hiroshima Anniversary post, I guess that makes this U.S. Military Milestone Anniversary Week here at Global Health Nexus. Its amazing how these things develop. I don't what to do. I am going out to see a friend's Play. Perhaps I'll have a drink ... and toast ... what? I don't know. That we don't get fooled again?
In tribute I will try and write something about Viet Nam in the future.
But for now, the Nation article is actually a reprinting of a piece from 1969 and as they note:
Editor's Note: The late Ernest Gruening--Nation editor in the early 1920s, former territorial Governor of Alaska and longtime senator from that state--was one of only two senators to vote against the Tonkin Gulf Resolution of August 1964, which initiated the Vietnam War. In this essay from the May 5, 1969, issue, he argued for immediate withdrawal from Vietnam.
Perhaps its worth our time and reflection. The article is accompanied by this Youtube video:
