Psyche, Science, and Society

Achcar on current Iraq situation

Gilbert Achcar, one of the most knowledgeable and reasonable analysts of the Iraq situation, is interviewed on The Iraq Debacle by Stephen R. Shalom and Chris Spannos on Znet. A small excerpt:

Q. How would you assess Muqtada al-Sadr?

GA. First of all, Muqtada al-Sadr is, of course, a Shiite Islamic fundamentalist and very much so — just look at the “moral order” his followers impose in areas under their control. However, that is not his main single characteristic because there are many other brands of Islamic fundamentalism in Iraq and, for instance, all other major components of the Shiite United Iraqi Coalition are also Islamic fundamentalist forces. In reality, the distinctive feature of Muqtada al-Sadr’s current is the fact that it is a populist brand of Islamic fundamentalism. His populism translates, on the one hand, into a hard-line opposition to the occupation reflecting the aspirations of broad sections of the masses, especially in Baghdad where the occupation is faced most directly, and in some areas of the south. On the other hand, Sadr’s populism is expressed in the fact that his movement tries to speak for the masses in their protest against their very poor living conditions. They speak and organize against the lack of public services, against all such shortcomings, while making sure to always blame the occupation — and not Maliki’s (or before him Jaafari’s) government — as bearing responsibility for the miserable conditions. It is through championing such demands as well as through its radical anti-occupation stance that the Sadrist current was able to build, in a matter of a couple of years, an impressive force. At the beginning of the occupation, in the first months, Sadr’s was a small group and some tended to believe that it would remain negligible. But after a few months, it started growing until you had the clashes with the occupation in 2004. The Sadrist current was already acknowledged to have become a serious threat to the occupation, and it continued to build itself after that period mainly through political means, achieving a very strong presence in the country. It is believed to be the most popular militant current among the Shiites.

The sectarian anti-Shiite attack in Samarra in February 2006, almost one year ago, was a major turning point in the Iraqi situation and very much precipitated the slide into sectarian war. The Mahdi Army, that is the militias that claim allegiance to Muqtada al-Sadr, or at least major sections of the Mahdi Army, took part in the sectarian retaliations that occurred in reaction to the Samarra attack. In the year elapsed since then, sections of the Mahdi Army have been deeply involved in the sectarian war. In the eyes of their community, they appear as defensive forces protecting the Shiite areas against incursions by Sunni sectarian forces. But in Arab Sunnis’ eyes, they appear as a Shiite sectarian force and are accused of conducting sectarian crimes, reprisals, mass killings and so on. To be sure, this has greatly affected the credibility that Sadr enjoyed in 2004 and 2005 as a non-sectarian, Iraqi Arab nationalist force opposed to the occupation. His image is now reduced to that of a sectarian Shiite force, an armed wing of the Shiite community. This, of course, has badly affected his own political project, which was to build his leadership as a cross-sectarian Iraqi one.

Read the whole interview for an incisive analysis of the current situation.

Add comment January 22nd, 2007

Dead detainees: A national scandal

Dr. Scott Allen of Physicians for Human Rights and Dr. Stephen Xenakis have an Op Ed in todays’ Boston Globe describing the national scandal of over 100 detainees dead in US custody, including at least 43 homicides and 36 preventable deaths from enemy attacks. They also describe how the Bush administration has lowered the standards for medical care of detainees from previous standards requiring them to get care equal to that given US military personnel. The process of dehumanization and demonization characteristic of the “Global war on Terrorism” has proceeded in so many different ways:

Our duty to war detainees

By Scott Allen and Stephen Xenakis | January 22, 2007

AT LEAST 112 detainees have died in US custody in Iraq and Afghanistan between 2002 and 2005, according to military documents and press reports. Many of these deaths appear to have been preventable. Given the public record of detainee abuses and history of weakened administration support of detainee rights, the possibility of preventable deaths in US custody warrants careful review.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates should promptly authorize an independent investigation of possible military negligence and take action to ensure that the United States is living up to its obligations under the Geneva Conventions.

No such wide-ranging and independent inquiry has occurred. Recently, one of us published the most comprehensive, peer-reviewed study of the reported causes of these fatalities in Medscape General Medicine, finding that the leading causes of detainee death were homicide (43 cases) and enemy mortar attacks (36 cases).

According to the study, at least 11 of the 43 homicide cases involved blunt trauma or asphyxiation. At least three of the homicides reported have resulted in murder charges. Another three have resulted in charges of voluntary manslaughter. The 36 deaths caused by enemy mortar attacks, many of which occurred at Abu Ghraib, suggest clear violations of Geneva prohibitions against placing detainees in range of enemy attack.

Also, the study identified 20 deaths that were attributed to natural causes, and nine were listed as having an unknown cause of death. A group of eight deaths due to natural causes occurred in Iraq in August 2003, raising urgent questions about the conditions of confinement and the adequacy and availability of medical care. Given the difficulty in getting information on the deaths of detainees in US custody, and given the sensitivity of the subject, we believe this review is incomplete.

As physicians, we believe that these findings cast doubt on whether our colleagues in the US military caring for detainees are receiving the direction and resources they need to do their job effectively. Health professionals have professional ethical obligations to preserve and protect the lives of their patients. Congress must ensure that our military medical professionals are equipped and supported to accomplish their mission honorably.

America’s military medical corps has long been regarded as the most professional and ethical military medical service in the world. As of five years ago, military regulations instructed all uniformed medical personnel to provide medical care to detainees of an equal standard as that received by US soldiers.

After Sept. 11, however, the Pentagon detached the standard of detainee medical care from the standard of care for US personnel deployed in combat theaters. Also, planning for the security and provision of healthcare for detainees taken into custody early on in the Afghanistan and Iraq conflicts was grossly inadequate, as is tragically evident from incidents at Abu Ghraib, Sheberghan prison in Afghanistan, and other US detention centers.

The responsibility for the conduct of the medics at Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib rests with the senior leadership of the medical departments and the Pentagon. Since the onset of combat in both Afghanistan and Iraq, the leadership has faced difficult challenges regarding the appropriate conduct of medics in the treatment of detainees, the way medics handle casualties and deaths of prisoners, and the response to hunger strikes and other medical emergencies in the detention facilities.

The duty and authority for the relevant policies and practices can be neither deferred nor sidestepped. An independent inquiry into detainee deaths is the first step toward ensuring that commanders and policy makers are held accountable for how they treat detainees.

Dr. Scott Allen is a Medicine as Profession Fellow at Physicians for Human Rights. Dr. Stephen Xenakis, a practicing psychiatrist and retired brigadier general, is the former commander of the US Army’s Southeast Medical Command.

1 comment January 22nd, 2007

Ava Lowery: How This Must End

Young director Ava Lowery has created a video to encourage people to attend the antiwar rally this Saturday in Washington, D.C. In her YouTube description she says:

Over 3,046 U.S. Troops have died in Iraq. Thousands more have been wounded and tens of thousands of Iraqis have been killed. We already know how this war must end. Now it’s time for us to stand up and do something! Join us on the streets of DC this Saturday, January 27th, to tell the new Congress: Act NOW to bring the troops home! We the people have the power to control our country’s path. It’s up to use to use that power.

How This Must End

Remember as you watch it that there are hundreds of thousands of Iraqi scenes like the American ones shown here.

1 comment January 22nd, 2007

Krugman on health reform viciousness

Paul Krugman takes on the Decider’s disgusting health insurance “reform” plan, which taxes workers with good insurance to fund the well-off who choose not to have insurance. Not mentioned in Krugman’s critique is that tax breaks do not help poor people very much, not only because their tax rate is low anyway, but also because they don’t have the cash to put out all year in hopes of a refund the next spring.

Gold-Plated Indifference

by Paul Krugman

President Bush’s Saturday radio address was devoted to health care, and officials have put out the word that the subject will be a major theme in tomorrow’s State of the Union address. Mr. Bush’s proposal won’t go anywhere. But it’s still worth looking at his remarks, because of what they say about him and his advisers.

On the radio, Mr. Bush suggested that we should “treat health insurance more like home ownership.” He went on to say that “the current tax code encourages home ownership by allowing you to deduct the interest on your mortgage from your taxes. We can reform the tax code, so that it provides a similar incentive for you to buy health insurance.”

Wow. Those are the words of someone with no sense of what it’s like to be uninsured.

Going without health insurance isn’t like deciding to rent an apartment instead of buying a house. It’s a terrifying experience, which most people endure only if they have no alternative. The uninsured don’t need an “incentive” to buy insurance; they need something that makes getting insurance possible.

Most people without health insurance have low incomes, and just can’t afford the premiums. And making premiums tax-deductible is almost worthless to workers whose income puts them in a low tax bracket.

Of those uninsured who aren’t low-income, many can’t get coverage because of pre-existing conditions — everything from diabetes to a long-ago case of jock itch. Again, tax deductions won’t solve their problem.

The only people the Bush plan might move out of the ranks of the uninsured are the people we’re least concerned about — affluent, healthy Americans who choose voluntarily not to be insured. At most, the Bush plan might induce some of those people to buy insurance, while in the process — whaddya know — giving many other high-income individuals yet another tax break.

While proposing this high-end tax break, Mr. Bush is also proposing a tax increase — not on the wealthy, but on workers who, he thinks, have too much health insurance. The tax code, he said, “unwisely encourages workers to choose overly expensive, gold-plated plans. The result is that insurance premiums rise, and many Americans cannot afford the coverage they need.”

Again, wow. No economic analysis I’m aware of says that when Peter chooses a good health plan, he raises Paul’s premiums. And look at the condescension. Will all those who think they have “gold plated” health coverage please raise their hands?

According to press reports, the actual plan is to penalize workers with relatively generous insurance coverage. Just to be clear, we’re not talking about the wealthy; we’re talking about ordinary workers who have managed to negotiate better-than-average health plans.

What’s driving all this is the theory, popular in conservative circles but utterly at odds with the evidence, that the big problem with U.S. health care is that people have too much insurance — that there would be large cost savings if people were forced to pay more of their medical expenses out of pocket.

The administration also believes, for some reason, that people should be pushed out of employment-based health insurance — admittedly a deeply flawed system — into the individual insurance market, which is a disaster on all fronts. Insurance companies try to avoid selling policies to people who are likely to use them, so a large fraction of premiums in the individual market goes not to paying medical bills but to bureaucracies dedicated to weeding out “high risk” applicants — and keeping them uninsured.

I’m somewhat skeptical about health care plans, like that proposed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, that propose covering gaps in the health insurance market with a series of patches, such as requiring that insurers offer policies to everyone at the same rate. But at least the authors of these plans are trying to help those most in need, and recognize that the market needs fixing.

Mr. Bush, on the other hand, is still peddling the fantasy that the free market, with a little help from tax cuts, solves all problems.

What’s really striking about Mr. Bush’s remarks, however, is the tone. The stuff about providing “incentives” to buy insurance, the sneering description of good coverage as “gold plated,” is right-wing think-tank jargon. In the past Mr. Bush’s speechwriters might have found less offensive language; now, they’re not even trying to hide his fundamental indifference to the plight of less-fortunate Americans.

Meanwhile, the Washington Post reports that Universal Health Coverage Attracts New Support. Of course, this support is for a corporate-dominated private insurance system that creates a new entitlement program for the nations greediest insurance companies while doing little to reduce the costs of healthcare.

Add comment January 22nd, 2007