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Voici un texte du Spiegel. L’option russe dans la crise iranienne est considérée par l’expert allemand Ladurner comme “la seule possible”.

http://service.spiegel.de/cache/international/spiegel/0,1518,413737,00.html

Espérons que la coopération Russo-Allemande puisse jouer un role constructif, pro-actif, au service de la paix et de la multipolarité dans la crise iranienne.

Il semble que l’auteur de l’article ait des problèmes de compréhension de la langue anglaise…
Il n’y a dans le discours du Polonais aucune analogie entre les personnages politiques, mais bien dans la manière dont l’accord a été conclu entre l’Allemagne et la Russie. Et ceci est peut-être irrefutable (pour ceux qui conaissent un peu l’histoire)...
Même si le langage du nationaliste polonais est exagéré, il ne nous faut pas essayer de trouver dans ses mots plus de contenu qu’ils n’en ont véritablement.

greetings!

C’est amusant : vous ne citez pas un Général qui s’est révolté contre le pouvoir civil ! Enfin vous le citez, mais pas dans cette circonstance.

C’était un général français, en temps de guerre.
D’accord, il était aussi Secrétaire d’Etat à la Guerre, donc un peu civil.

Les Etats-Unis ont mis longtemps à savoir ce qu’ils devaient exactement faire avec ce “type-là”.

Et c’était De Gaulle, comme dirait Alain Peyrefitte.

Un nouvel article de l’excellente Hajnalka VINCZE*.
publié le samedi 29 avril 2006.

Ce n’est pas les Etats-Unis qui se comportent de façon inexplicable, mais nous les Européens. Washington agit de manière tout à fait prévisible, en fonction de sa position. Cela ne le rend pas moins dangeureux ni pour soi-même, ni pour autrui, de même que ne réduit pas le décalage énorme entre ses intentions affichées et ses aspirations véritables. Mais au fond, son comportement est éminemment logique. Il se trouve dans une situation dominante sans précédent et cherche à en tirer tous les avantages pour la préserver le plus longtemps possible. Rien de plus compréhensible.

L’un des instruments favoris de la puissance américaine est ce qu’ils appellent par euphémisme « diplomatie publique » (en d’autres termes : la propagande). C’est un corollaire naturel de toute puissance, mais dans le cas des Etats-Unis 1. elle est devenue une véritable industrie au point que c’est l’un des facteurs majeurs soutenant leur position hégémonique 2. elle connaît un flagrant échec, comme en témoigne la popularité en chute libre de l’Amérique aux quatre coins du monde.

Un document officiel du Pentagone, publié en novembre 2004 et intitulé « Communication stratégique » détaille ce fiasco tout en ne proposant que de perfectionner la même méthode. L’originalité du texte est qu’il contient une série de démentis des formules de propagande employées par les rédacteurs de la Maison Blanche et leurs acolytes dans le monde entier. Bien entendu, ces arguments sont tout sauf nouveaux, mais cette fois-ci ils viennent du « Defense Science Board » du Département de la Défense, ce qui les rend tout de même intéressants.

Déjà en réfutant les thèses sur la lutte entre les grandes valeurs américaines et les forces obscures : « les musulmans ne détestent pas notre liberté, ils détestent nos politiques ». Le rapport remarque également que Washington « a adopté une réponse de type Guerre froide » à « une situation stratégique très différente » et qu’il « cache sous la rubrique officielle de la ‘guerre contre le terrorisme’ son agenda visant à convertir un mouvement de route dans la civilisation islamique pour accepter les structures de valeur de la Modernité occidentale ».
Les auteurs constatent que « la perception du soutien des tyrannies dans le monde musulman par les Etats-Unis décrédibilise fortement notre message quand la diplomatie américaine parle d’apporter la démocratie aux sociétés islamiques », ceci « étant vu comme une hypocrisie autosuffisante ». En ce qui concerne l’objectif essentiel qui consiste à « séparer la grande majorité de musulmans non-violents des Islamistes-djihadistes radicaux et militants », le rapport constate que « les efforts américains ont non seulement échoué : ils ont pu également avoir réalisé l’opposé de ce qu’ils avaient prévu ». Quelle surprise.

Néanmoins, le rapport retrouve l’esprit conformiste qui caractérise l’establishment américain (et pas qu’américain) dès qu’il s’agit de proposer des solutions. A savoir : il faut faire mieux. On y reconnaît tous les éléments fétiches de la politique-marketing américain : approche innovatrice, plus de coordination, attitude plus pro-active, traitement sur mesure des « cibles mobiles » (les musulmans les plus susceptibles d’être influencés), rôle accru pour le secteur privé, mobilisation plus forte des célébrités, des programmes télé et des technologies d’Internet. En un mot il faut encore une fois revitaliser la machine de propagande.

De la part d’un rapport du Pentagone, nous ne pouvions pas attendre à autre chose, à vrai dire c’est même déjà beaucoup (et reflète bien le désarroi profond qui règne dans les arcanes du pouvoir washingtonien). Ils ont poussé au maximum les limites de leur marge de manoeuvre basée sur leurs propres intérêts et leur propre logique. Une critique et une alternative réelle ne peut, en effet, venir que de l’extérieur. C’est surtout nos élites (politiques et intellectuelles) européennes qui ne font pas leur travail. Ils se complaisent à critiquer les symptômes et la surface, faute d’avoir le courage d’affronter les causes réelles.

Quel meilleur exemple que le chorus ABBA (Anybody But Bush Again) qui hurlait à tue-tête partout dans le monde avant les élections américaines. En prétendant que les problèmes structurels ne sont que conjoncturels et en ne concevant que des améliorations d’image tactiques au lieu d’une vision stratégique. Car affronter la réalité, c’est d’abord affronter notre propre irresponsablilité. Laquelle n’est en rien moindre que celle des Etats-Unis, au contraire : puisque la nôtre est, de surcroît, inexblicable. Elle va même à l’encontre de toute logique.
D’une part, la construction de l’Europe politique (acteur stratégique autonome) servirait comme un facteur d’équilibre dans le système international actuel caractérisé par la prédominance américaine. Dont le publiciste britannique Timothy Garton Ash a remarqué que même un archange serait tenté d’en abuser. Et c’est cette même Europe politique dont l’absence criante est à l’origine de la plupart de nos misères internes d’aujourd’hui. En assumant notre souveraineté, nous nous guéririons : qu’il s’agisse de revigorer notre modèle social et économique, de résoudre les problèmes de légitimité démocratique ou de stabiliser notre voisinage.
(JPEG)
En réalité, ni M. Bush, ni l’Amérique ne sont pas le « grand méchant ». La faute est avant tout au système international déséquilibré, hautement malsain.

Pour y remédier, l’Europe devrait se transformer en une puissance géopolitique autonome à part entière - perspective qui non seulement divise les élites et les gouvernements européens, mais carrément terrifie une grande partie d’entre eux. George W. Bush et son équipe sont comme un leurre grotesque : tant que nous nous complaisons à nous lamenter sur leurs prestations, nous n’avons pas à nous interroger sur notre propre couardise intellectuelle et politique.

*Hajnalka VINCZE analyste en politique de sécurité, spécialisée dans les affaires européennes et transatlantiques. Ses recherches portent sur les rapports de force intra-européens et euro-américains, avec un accent sur les perspectives stratégiques et leur base technologique et industrielle.Elle se prononce pour une Europe autonome et politique. Son engagement pour la défense du modèle européen fait d’elle une partisane de longue date du concept d’avant-garde.  http://www.hajnalka-vincze.com http://www.nol.hu/cikk/346511

Nous plaidons coupables et vous laissons juges, lecteurs, de circonstances que nous espérons atténuantes. Nous sommes coupables à cause d’un lapsus de mémoire (“haven” pour “heaven”), explicable par le premier fait qu’en français l’on pourrait parler aussi bien d’“un paradis pour le terrorisme” (confusion du sens ajouté à la proximité des deux mots en anglais) et par le second fait qu’en français, “havre”, fort proche phonétiquement du “haven” anglo-néerlandais, nous semble surtout utilisé dans son emploi poétique, avec un sens spirituel (“havre de paix”, havre de grâce”) qui le rapproche incontestablement de la notion de “paradis”.

En vérité, nous avons lu, c’est-à-dire cru lire “heaven” et non “haven”.

Voilà notre plaidoirie. Elle n’excuse rien mais elle tente d’expliquer.

Nous laissons le texte en page tel qu’en l’état. C’est désormais un artefact de chroniqueur. Il dira de lui-même ce que les lecteurs voudront bien en entendre.

Nous présentons nos excuses à nos lecteurs.

Il se peut que vous jouiez sur les mots, en quel cas je n’ai probablement pas apprécié votre article à sa juste valeur. Mais il n’est probablement pas inutile de préciser que ‘haven’ signifie ‘port, asile’ (l’orthographe est la même qu’en Néerlandais), alors que le ‘paradis’ s’écrit ‘heaven’...

Régardez ici:
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/China/HE03Ad01.html

[...] Russian-German ties across the vast landscape of Central and Eastern Europe and Eurasia (and even stretching all the way to China) [...] are steadily, inexorably reconfiguring the international system.

Given that the German economy is rebounding as Europe’s No 1 powerhouse and given Russia’s growing status as the 21st century’s energy superpower - and not the least of all, China’s phenomenal rise - a lineup involving the three countries would profoundly impact Euro-Atlanticism.

Comme toujours, j’apprécie la précision et la rigueur de vos réflexions. La question, à mon sens est de savoir qui peut (et veut) régir contre la mise en place d’un pouvoir unique militaire et “libéral fasciste” sur le monde. L’invasion de l’Iraq, un temps dénoncée, ne semble plus émouvoir. L’attaque de l’Iran rencontre une opinion publique résignée en France, comme elle semble l’être à l’élection d’un président pro-US qui fermera définitivement la page gaullienne (et quelque part gauloise) de l’histoire de France. Quoi faire, comme disait l’autre?

Greetings to all Email Update Members,

Out of Australia comes an excellent article about the negative effects that the price of oil is having on everything.  http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2006/04/22/1145344320562.html  They create a global consumer society for the good of major corporate interests and then crush the consumers, yet the economist cannot figure out what is wrong.  It is a house of cards and it will come tumbling down.  Throughout history, they all have.

It does not take a Harvard MBA to figure out what the problem is.  They are sucking the life out of economies and the disposable income is being shrunk by energy prices that move on the slightest, bogus news story.  The saber rattling between the US and Iran, precipitated mostly by the Bush Administration, has no effect on supply versus demand.  They just want you to think it does so they can push the prices up.

This is the type of policies I keep referring to that had as their origin other bogus things and events that were created to make the policies acceptable to the general populations.  The 9-11 myth being the biggest lie since the Gulf of Tonkin incident and Pearl Harbor.

I got an email last Friday that is one of the most interesting I have received since 9-11.  The first photo below was embedded in that email by a person who has been trying to figure out what that piece of laminated glass goes to.

There was a piece of evidence exposed in plain sight that might solve once and for all that no 757 hit the Pentagon.

I am the person that first put on the table that it was an A3 Skywarrior that hit the Pentagon.  Many believe that and many others have gone out of their way to dispute it, unsuccessfully thus far.  If I list the pros and cons, I have over ten valid reasons to stick with the A3 as the likely doer and only one reason not to stick with it and it is a weak reason to look for a 757.

This might be the rarest photo of all regarding what was found at the Pentagon on the lawn.  It could be a piece of “blast proof glass” from the building but I have reasons to doubt that.  This type of glass, much heavier duty than is on your automobile, does not break like normal glass.  In that I mean it is laminated, multi-layer and if it shatters it will remain pretty much intact as seen or wind up in thousands of pieces all about the same size.  Sort of like when someone bashes in a car window and you get Burglar Diamonds all over the inside of your car.

For this piece to have that many shatter lines and remain intact means one of several things.  It is much thicker than normal glass and laminated, possibly even polarized or tinted, and is probably pretty close to the shape that is now although not in its frame.  I have been in the Pentagon and cannot remember seeing any polarized or tinted windows or laminated glass that thick or remotely being of that shape.

It is an oddity and I have not yet formed a final opinion on it but it is headed that way.

Note the straight edge (top) and that would be one possible centerline of the plane if my thoughts on this are accurate.  This is one possibility - the front straight edge would be oriented towards the nose of the plane and the curved line on the bottom would follow the right side of the airplane (or left side if inverted).  As an alternative view and positioning of the glass, in the Navy plane photo below (with pilot visible) the shortest edge above would be on the left side of the airplane and the longest curved line would be oriented toward the nose of the airplane.  The left could be the middle frame and the upper part the edge at the top of the fuselage.

The more we dug into this, the more likely it is that the second alternative is the right answer.

The original versions of the A3 Skywarrior had windows that nominally fit that shape and there were multiple canopy styles as we have learned from looking at the various versions of the A3.  Remember, those were made for the Navy as carrier based bombers, tankers and reconnaissance planes and they were made for the USAF as reconnaissance and downsized bombers. 

You know those Pentagon folks and defense contractors, they never quit re-engineering things so lots of money can be spent.  Some times they are improving but many times they are just spending money under the “use it or lose it” annual budget rule.

The later versions were a little sleeker and you can clearly see that the windows and overall configuration of the canopy was changed over time as was the nose of the airplane.  This picture below is one of the A3 Skywarriors operated by Raytheon – Hughes.  Note the slight recess of the window on the right which means that the outer shape you see might not be exactly the size or shape of the glass.  The shadow on the upper part of the rear window suggests that it might be slightly recessed.  The second photo below does not seem to have that same recess.  In the second photograph below, the rear window appears to be a little bigger, at least to me and the side window is different.  The next two photos show two different canopy styles.

Note the difference in the canopy above, no side window, and the one below with the side window.

Jon Carlson found this photo of an A3 on a carrier deck museum.  The rear piece (on the right) and possibly the piece overhead (above the main window the pilot sees through) are close. 

This slightly different view of the Raytheon – Hughes A3 shows that there is a window above the main windshield and also appears to be close in shape.  If you look real close you can tell there may be a metal strip down the middle on this particular airplane separating the glass on each side.  That is consistent with the old Navy photo on down the page.  That divider would produce a shape very much like the piece of laminated glass found on the Pentagon lawn.

This old Navy photo shows a different angle and the piece right above the pilot’s helmet just might be the piece found on the Pentagon lawn.  Maybe it is just me or the first photo in this email, but that piece on the Pentagon lawn appears to have a slight curvature to it, just like most of the windows on the A3.  Note that shortest edge would be above the pilot’s left shoulder.

I thought about how an overhead window could be popped out and land on the Pentagon lawn.  I then recalled a friend who hit a bridge abutment many years ago and his sunroof popped out and was found 50 feet behind his impact point and it was intact frame and glass.  The glass was shattered like in the first photo but did not come out of the frame.  Luckily he and the sunroof survived but the car did not.  His car recoiled about 3 feet and the sunroof landed 50 feet away in the reverse direction he was heading and did not shatter.

The crumpling and effects of impact would be significant as soon as the nose of an A3 or any airplane hit the Pentagon.  The inertial and torque forces would be almost instantaneous just like a car hitting an immovable object and the accordion effect sets into the body of the craft as it starts to crumple.  However, anything that is not flat faced, is perpendicular to the building wall, could pop out with the forces hurling away from the building rather than into it.  That is one of Newton’s law of physics, for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.

There is another clue on the Pentagon lawn to substantiate this.  The piece painted to be part of the American insignia, which is on the fuselage, was out on the lawn too.  If you look at it real close its curvature and size do not appear to be large enough for a 757 and it did not disappear into the building.  It want away from the building.

What you cannot find is a window of that shape or even remotely of that shape on a 757.  That is a fact and may well be a prosecutorial fact.

I think I will let the 9-11 folks munch on that awhile and see what they come up with.  Is it Pentagon glass?  Probably not.  Is it from a 757?  Definitely not unless that shattered remains did what laminated glass does not normally do.  Is it from an A3 Skywarrior?  Most likely source until someone can come up with a better explanation.

Seems Portland.Indy.Media cannot make up their minds about me.  First they bash me and then they allow a post that substantiates what I have been saying all along:

http://portland.indymedia.org/en/2005/01/307126.shtml

My read on that piece of laminated glass is simply this:  appears to be an overhead canopy window that is in two parts.  Some A3’s did in fact have divided overhead view ports. 

I still cannot find anything like it on any 737, 757, or 767. 

While we are on this particular photograph, note how much lower the 757 engines hang under the fuselage of the jet.  If that impact on that car was the edge of a 757 wing, there would be deep gouges in the Pentagon lawn where the 757 engines would be dragging below ground level.  Said another way, there would have been gouges, ripped up dirt and sod, wings ripped off, 757 engines and wings outside of the Pentagon that did not mysteriously disappear in the fire that was not hot enough to melt them down to nothing any way.

I think it is time to seat a grand jury.  Another 9-11 Commission would be a waste of time and it is way past time for justice.

Best regards,

Greetings to all Email Update Members,

There are very unmistakable patterns in the Bush Administration that are waking up more Americans with each passing day.  The arrogance and lies are wearing thin.  Many are seeing the greed and corruption as affronts to all of us.

The recent claim by Bush that he is the Great Decider for all of us is but a symptom and a self-admission to the extent that they are hiding the truth from you and every other American.

They avoid the DU issue like the plague for to not do so would open up inquiry into war crimes, crimes against humanity and other patterns that would shed light on the truth.

One of the most unmistakable patterns is the indifference shown to our veterans, the 1.3 million that have been called up to put their lives on the line for a faux Global War on Terror.  They are sent like canon fodder into Harm’s Way and when they return the government that exposed them to death and maiming, to an anthrax vaccine that CIDRAP deems harmful to their health and to DU that is like a ticking time bomb in their bodies, they ignore them and send yet more to be harmed for the rest of their lives.

They can only send so many before they will not have anyone to send.  The voluntary enlistments are down not only because Americans are rejecting the agenda but many are starting to see the light that as soon as they sign up the anthrax and DU will ruin the rest of their lives.  Those are facts and no amount of government spin will change that.  Many only re-enlist because the job creation engine of this nation is broken.

Even if they are lucky enough to return home in one piece, their health has been taken away and most Americans do in fact view health and quality of life as being connected. 

Today is my birthday so I am going to try to do some things today to enjoy my 55th birthday and reflect on where things are and where they need to be.

http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2006/05/01/coburn/index_np.html

Stiffing veterans
The underfunded V.A. is being overwhelmed by injured soldiers—and the administration that sent them to war won’t pay to take care of them.
By Judith Coburn
May 1, 2006

The underfunded V.A. is being overwhelmed by injured soldiers—and the administration that sent them to war won’t pay to take care of them.

May. 01, 2006 | On the eve of his Marine unit’s assault on Fallujah, Iraq, in November 2004, Blake Miller read to his men from the Bible (John 14:2-3): “In my father’s house, there are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I leave this place and go there to prepare a place for you, so that where I may be, you may be also.”

A photograph of Miller’s blood-smeared, filthy face, so reminiscent of David Douglas Duncan’s photos of war-weary Marines in Vietnam, is one of the Iraq war’s iconic images. Over a hundred newspapers ran it. But as the San Francisco Chronicle reported recently, Miller, a decorated war hero, has been shattered psychologically by Iraq. Disabled by flashbacks and nightmares, he continues to pay daily and dearly for his service there.

His eloquent commitment to his fellow Marines is the highest value in military life. But the Bush administration, which sent Blake Miller, his fellow Marines and 1.3 million other Americans (so far) to war in Iraq and Afghanistan, apparently does not share this commitment.

Much has been written about how President Bush and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld waged war on the cheap, sending too few ill-equipped young soldiers—30 percent of them ill-trained Reservists and National Guardsmen—into battle. But little has been reported about how shockingly on the cheap the homecomings of these soldiers have proved to be. The Bush administration awarded Miller a medal, but it has fought for three long years to deny soldiers like him the care they need. While Miller and his men were being thrown into the fire in Fallujah, the White House was proposing to cut the combat pay of soldiers like them. (Only an outburst of outrage across the political spectrum caused the administration to back off from that suggestion.)

The Department of Veterans Affairs, now run by a former Republican National Committeeman, has been subjected to the same radical hatcheting that the White House has tried to wield against the rest of America’s safety net. Cutbacks, cooking the books, privatization schemes, even a proposal to close down the V.A.‘s operations have all been in evidence. The administration’s inside-the-beltway supporters, such as the Heritage Foundation and famed antitax radical Grover Norquist, like to equate veterans care with welfare. Traditionally, however, most Americans have held that the V.A.‘s medical care and disability compensation were earned by those who served their country.

Unfortunately, in our draft-free country, the fight to protect the V.A. and to fully fund it has gone on largely out of public sight. Other than the Washington Post and the Associated Press, relatively few journalistic organizations have bothered to regularly cover the department. The fight over it that White House hatchetmen, V.A. political appointees and their allies in Congress have had with congressional critics (Democratic and Republican) along with veterans organizations has been monitored closely only by veterans’ Web sites like Larry Scott’s VA http://Watchdog.org, http://Veteransforcommonsense.org and http://Military.com.

While national deficits soar, thanks in part to skyrocketing war costs, veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan are flooding into the increasingly underfunded V.A. system. As of April 28, the Pentagon says that 2,401 Americans have died and 17,762 have been wounded in combat in Iraq (and 281 more have died in Afghanistan). But these casualty figures seem to be significant undercounts. After all, 144,424 American veterans have sought treatment from the V.A. system since returning from those wars, not including soldiers actually hospitalized in military facilities.

These figures were wrested only recently from the V.A. after years of fruitless demands from Democrats on the House Veterans’ Affairs Committee. The 144,424 figure includes not only many of the 17,762 reported wounded in combat by the Pentagon—if that figure is, in fact, accurate—but those wounded psychologically, those injured in accidents and those whose ailments were caused or exacerbated by service in the war. (Think of war, in this sense, as an extreme sport in its toll on the body.) Of course, neither Pentagon nor V.A. figures for the wounded include estimates of soldiers or veterans who don’t show up at a Department of Defense or V.A. facility. Among these casualties are post-combat-tour suicides (who obviously can’t show up) and the victims of diseases like leishmaniasis, caused by the ubiquitous sand flies in Iraq, who often suffer on their own.

Nonetheless, the V.A. has admitted—and it has been confirmed by an Army study—that a staggering 35 percent of veterans who served in Iraq have already sought treatment in the V.A. system for emotional problems from the war. Add this to the older veterans, especially from the Vietnam era, pouring into the system as their war wounds, both physical and emotional, deepen with age or as, on retirement, they find they can no longer afford private health insurance and realize that V.A. healthcare is—or at least was—more generous than Medicare.

Just as the Pentagon failed, after its March 2003 invasion of Iraq, to plan for keeping the peace, guarding against looting, fighting a resilient insurgency or handling a civil war, so has the Department of Veterans Affairs failed to plan for caring for casualties of the war. The V.A. admitted recently that 33,858 more vets showed up for treatment in just the first quarter of fiscal year 2006 than were expected for the entire year. Do the math yourself. Multiply times 4, assuming that the war goes on injuring Americans at current levels, and you get a possible underestimate of about 135,000 casualties for the year.

Even more distressing, the San Diego Union-Tribune recently reported that mentally ill soldiers are being sent back to war armed only with antidepressants and anti-anxiety drugs. The Union-Tribune quotes Sydney Hickey of the National Military Family Association as saying that “more than 200,000 prescriptions for the most common antidepressants were written in the last 14 months for service members and their families.” According to the Union, an Army study also found that 17 percent of combat-seasoned infantrymen suffer from major depression, anxiety or post-traumatic stress disorder after a single tour in Iraq. California Sen. Barbara Boxer has called for an investigation.

Are such chronic underestimates merely the result of incompetence? Not according to the Government Accountability Office, Congress’ investigative arm. In a series of reports on the V.A. over the past three years, the GAO found that the department’s top officials submitted budget requests based on cost limits demanded by the White House, not on realistic expectations of how many veterans would actually need medical care or disability support.

In repeated testimony before Congress, top V.A. political appointees have opposed demands by veterans groups like the American Legion and the Disabled Veterans of America to increase significantly funds for medical care and disability payments for the new patients now flooding the system. Top V.A. officials assured Congress that more money wasn’t needed because the agency had stepped up “management efficiencies.” But the GAO found that from 2003 to 2006, there were no obvious management efficiencies whatsoever to offset the increased treatment costs from the Iraq war, nor did the V.A. even have a methodology for reporting on such alleged efficiencies.

While the GAO’s findings, when describing the V.A.‘s budget manipulations, were couched in such relatively polite bureaucratic euphemisms as “misleading,” “lacked a methodology” and “does not have a reliable basis,” the conclusions nonetheless were striking. “The GAO report confirms what everyone has known all along,” American Legion national commander Thomas L. Bock commented. “The VA’s health-care budget has been built on false claims of ‘efficiency’ savings, false actuarial assumptions and an inability to collect third-party reimbursements—money owed them. This budget model has turned our veterans into beggars, forced to beg for the medical care they earned and, by law, deserve. These deceptions are especially unconscionable when American men and women are fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan.”

Some veterans are calling it fraud. Rep. Lane Evans, D-Ill., of the House Veterans’ Affairs Committee calls it “Enron-styled accounting.”

The economic realities of the wars the Bush administration has taken us into are, in truth, budget busting. A recent study by Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz and Harvard management expert Linda Biones—which actually factored the costs of “coming home” into war expenditures—sets the total cost of the Iraq war at between $1 trillion and $2 trillion, including $122 billion in disability payments and $92 billion in healthcare for veterans.

Pentagon healthcare costs for soldiers still in the military have doubled in the past five years and are projected to total $64 billion, or 12 percent of the official Pentagon budget, by 2015, according to William Winkenwerder Jr., assistant secretary of defense for health affairs. Soaring American medical costs are only partly to blame. Advances in combat medical care have also meant that far more wounded soldiers are being kept alive than in earlier wars, many of them with serious brain injuries and/or multiple amputations. Taking care of these tragically maimed soldiers for life will be extraordinarily costly, in both medical care and their 100 percent disability payments. (The V.A. rates disability on a scale of 0 to 100 percent, which then determines the size of the monthly disability payment due a veteran.)

Even before recent veterans began flooding the system, the V.A. was already underfunded and being criticized for poor services. Then, three years ago, Rep. Evans and Rep. Chris H. Smith, R-N.J., chairman of the House Veterans’ Affairs Committee, raised the alarm that the V.A., already short of funds, would face a catastrophe as the troops began returning from Iraq.

Smith was rewarded for his efforts to sound the alarm by being removed not just from his chairmanship, but from the committee altogether, by the House Republican leadership. Similarly, in November 2004, V.A. head Anthony Principi was forced out by the White House because of his opposition to the V.A. being shortchanged in the budget the White House demanded—so lobbyists for veterans believe. But Principi seems not to have suffered from his V.A. experience. The Los Angeles Times reported recently that a medical services company Principi headed, and returned to after running the V.A., earned over a billion dollars in fees, much of it from contracts approved while Principi was V.A. chief.

The V.A. admits its disability system was overburdened even before the administration invaded Iraq; and, by 2004, it had a backlog of 300,000 disability claims. Now, the V.A. reports that the backlog has reached 540,122. By April 2006, 25 percent of rating claims took six months to process—no small thing for a veteran wounded badly enough to be unable to work. An appeal of a rejected claim frequently takes years to settle. One hundred twenty-three thousand disability claims have been filed already by veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan. Yet, in its budget requests, the administration has constantly resisted congressional demands to increase the number of V.A. staffers processing such claims.

Congress has fought the White House over its low V.A. budgets for several years. In the fiscal year 2006 budget, all Congress could finally grant the V.A. was $990 million above the agency’s already meager request—an increase of just 3.6 percent over the previous year despite the rise in casualties to be treated. In fact, top V.A. officials now admit it would take a 14 percent increase in the present budget simply to keep up with the inflation in medical costs.

Rep. Evans estimates that there has been a $4 billion shortfall in V.A. funding in the years 2003-‘06. In 2005, the White House admitted that, for medical services alone, the V.A. was short $1 billion for the year—and would be short an additional estimated $2.6 billion in 2006.

What may ultimately swamp the V.A.‘s ability to cope is the emotional toll of combat—unless it jettisons thousands of returning soldiers. Nearly one in three veterans has been hospitalized at the V.A., or visited a V.A. outpatient clinic, because of an initial diagnosis of a mental health disorder, according to the V.A. Its numbers are consistent with a recent Army study on soldiers who served in Iraq or Afghanistan. Such a rate might add up over time (depending on how long these wars last) to almost half a million veterans in need of treatment—or more. A 2004 study of several Army and Marine units returning from Iraq and Afghanistan that appeared in the New England Journal of Medicine found only 23-40 percent of those with PTSD had sought treatment. And post-traumatic stress is called “post” for a reason—its most serious symptoms usually emerge long after the trauma is over.

Listen to the V.A.‘s own national advisory board on PTSD in a report released in February 2006:

“[The] VA cannot meet the ongoing needs of veterans of past deployments while also reaching out to new combat veterans of [Iraq and Afghanistan] and their families within current resources and current models of treatment.”

The V.A. is now paying out $4.3 billion a year for PTSD disability to 215,871 veterans. The report also found that a returning war veteran suffering from emotional illness has to wait an average of 60 days before he or she can even be evaluated for diagnosis, let alone treated. Forty-two percent of V.A. primary care clinics had no mental health staff members and 53 percent of those that did had only one. Eighty-two percent of new patients needed to be in the most intensive PTSD treatment programs, the V.A. report found, but 40 percent of those programs were already so full that they could take only a few more patients; 20 percent said they were too full to take any at all.

“VA’s data show a 30 percent increase in the number of [Iraq and Afghan war] veterans who have an initial diagnosis of post-traumatic stress disorder from the end of FY 2005,” says Rep. Michael Michaud, D-Maine. “I applaud the courage of these veterans who have sought help, but the administration refuses to acknowledge fully the demand and need for mental health services.”

Further down the line: How many Iraqi veterans will eventually join the ranks of the 400,000 homeless vets on the streets of American cities? (Right now the V.A. takes care of only 100,000 such vets, according to the National Coalition for Homeless Veterans.)

This dire situation has only encouraged the budget cutters and anti-government radicals like Norquist, who once joked that he hoped to shrink the government enough so that he could drown it in a bathtub. With PTSD rates soaring among vets, the hatchets have been out not just when it comes to treating them, but even when it comes to the diagnosis of PTSD itself. In 2005, the V.A., under White House pressure, announced that it was reopening 72,000 long-approved PTSD disability claims for review, many of them for Vietnam veterans. Right-wing columnists quickly swung into action with Op-Ed pieces insisting that many PTSD claims were fraudulent. The V.A. backed off—but only after a New Mexico newspaper reported that a troubled Vietnam veteran with a 100 percent PTSD disability killed himself upon fearing that the V.A. might review his case and a firestorm of criticism from Congress and veterans organizations followed.

Other White House ideas for cutting back the V.A., including making vets pay insurance premiums and higher co-pays and doubling vets’ costs for prescription drugs, have also been beaten back by Congress. One V.A. response to its huge backlog of claims has been to limit enrollment for its services. In January 2003, the White House ordered the V.A. to create a new, temporary cost-cutting category of “affluent” vets who would not be eligible to use the V.A.‘s services. But the new category seems headed for permanency. And it sets the cutoff level for eligibility for V.A. care so low—around $30,000 for a so-called affluent family of four—that many vets who have been cut off can’t possibly afford health insurance and medical care on the private market.

In World War II, 12 million Americans fought on behalf of a nation of 130 million. Twenty-five percent of American men served in that war. They came back heroes to a country more than willing to give them the latest medical care, compensate them for their wounds, send them to college and help them buy homes.

Fifty years later in Iraq—an unpopular war—only 1.3 million are fighting for a nation of 300 million. “Never have so few sacrificed so much for so many,” one Desert Storm veteran said recently. Iraq may be the wrong cause for sacrifice. But Vietnam veterans taught us that once war starts we must be willing to take care of everyone who gets hurt in it.

I have yet to see that Americans are ready to fight the fight that has to be fought.  We can change what is wrong, but no one person can do that. 

Watch the Hispanic demonstrations today.  Pay attention to the future certain people have planned for us.

Best regards,

Karl

haven n’est pas paradis mais havre

En lisant l’intéressant article : “Un cas légal pour l’insubordination constitutionnelle?” Il me semble revenir que le Commissaire Bourrel, dans les “cinq dernières minutes”, disait “Bon sang, mais c’est bien sûr ...”
Bien amicalement
JPB

Bonjour,

En réaction à l’article: “Un cas légal pour l’insubordination constitutionnelle?” (et au sujet d’un problème plus général):

Voici un article très intéressant, comme l’ensemble de ce site d’ailleurs. Vous devriez seulement ménager davantage la langue française. Un peu trop de coquilles, de fautes d’orthographe, de fautes de langue, etc. émaillent vos publications en ligne, et c’est bien dommage vue la qualité du fond.

Pour ce qui est de l’article en cause, j’y relève un “rien moins que” pour “rien de moins que”. Attention! Ces deux expressions ont un sens diamétralement opposé. Elles ne sont donc pas interchangeables.

Merci d’y prendre garde à l’avenir.

Cordiales salutations,

Z.H.

Dans “Bonjour paresse” de Corinne Maîer, amusante pochade anti-capitaliste assez française d’une “économiste” d’EDF dont le succès avait fait hurler Alain Juppé, et j’imagine Nicolas Baveux-rez (sic), elle donnait un conseil après un tableau apocalyptique et assez juste du “système” : “mais que faut-il faire ? Rien. Justement rien”. En effet, il suffit d’être. Exactement ce que les “élites” obsédées d’adaptation au “monde” veulent défaire. Il suffit d’être. Etre soi-même. “La meilleure chose que chacun puisse apporter au monde, c’est soi” a dit un ambassadeur de France-écrivain. Qui est ? Qui est? Paul Claudel. Tiens, un catholique ! Ceci aurait-il quelque chose à voir avec cela ?

Depuis quelques mois a Kaboul pour une mission de nature humanitaire, j’ai maintenant une idee plus precise de ce qui se passe en Afghanistan qu’avant mon arrivee, meme si je suivais la situation de tres pres, ayant avec ce pays des liens sur lesquels je ne m’etendrai pas.

Certaines regions sont encore sous influence des talibans, c’est un fait. Les forces armees etrangeres sont la cible de nombreuses attaques, c’est un autre fait. Les Americains parlent du retrait progressif de leurs troupes engagees dans la lutte contre le terrorisme en est encore un autre. Mais bien malin qui pourrait dire dans quelle situation exacte se trouve le pays sur le plan de la securite.

Plus qu’ailleurs, et c’est le cas depuis l’invasion sovietique il y a 25 ans, l’Afghanistan est traverse de multiples influences politiques, religieuses, economiques, ethniques, voire familiales, qui rendent toute analyse profonde extremement perilleuse. Disant cela, je ne suis pas alle bien loin. Alors je me risque a vous livrer rapidement mon sentiment (et celui de beaucoup de mes amis et contacts ici).

- La situation politique est tres fragile, le gouvernement Karzai ne jouisant pas vraiment du soutien populaire. On voit aussi le retour en force de nombreux “commanders” qui ont transforme leur position acquise pendant les annees de guerre et de resistance (contre l’URSS puis les talibans) en rente politique. Les coups bas sont tres nombreux et le niveau du debat est pitoyable.

- L’Afghanistan n’a que tres peu de chances de “decoller” economiquement puisqu’une bonne partie de l’argent de la communaute internationale (plus d’un tiers selon des sources autorisees) est detournee au profit de consultants etrangers (surtout anglo-saxons, tiens tiens) qui ont trouve la un filon tres genereux (j’ai personnellement vu des documents montrant que certains de ces “mercenaires en col blanc” emargent a 100 000 dollars par mois). L’Afghanistan mettra des decennies a se relever, si toutefois il cesse d’etre ponctionne par les innombrables sangsues actuellement a l’oeuvre, sachant que les autorites locales savent parfaitement prelever leur dime. Par ailleurs, le risque est grand de voir le pays se transformer en Narco-Etat, si cela n’est pas deja fait.

- Les forces americaines, engagees directement dans la lutte contre les talibans (qui disposeraient vraisemblablement de 50 000 “militants”), notamment dans les provinces situees le long de la frontiere pakistanaise, vont se retirer progressivement en ayant reussi le tour de force de ne rien regler sur le plan militaire tout en se faisant hair par la tres grande majorite de la population (les Americains et Britanniques sont interdits de sejour dans la fameuse vallee du Pansheer, pour ne citer que cet exemple).

- Les forces internationales de l’ISAF (UN) vont en revanche voir leurs contingents augmenter (notamment Canadiens, Britanniques, Hollandais et plusieurs pays de l’est) mais apparemment sans avoir de mandat tres clair. Nous avons vraiment le sentiment que ces militaires sont instrumentalises par leurs gouvernements qui veulent ainsi donner des gages a Whashington. Mais leur capacite a trouver une issue au probleme taliban est quasi-nulle. Ces “boys” vont sans doute continuer longtemps a se faire agresser a coups de hache (veridique) ou a voir leurs vehicules sauter sur des mines de fortune, sans comprendre les raisons reelles et l’interet de leur presence.

Je pourrais poursuivre longtemps ainsi, sans toutefois fournir plus d’elements de reflexion clairs. Ce qui me parait evident est que le pouvoir afghan est aujourd’hui incapable de faire face a la situation sans un soutien massif de l’ensemble de la communaute internationale (militaire, financier, technique). Mais cette derniere ne pourra pas toujours perfuser le pays comme c’est le cas aujourd’hui, surtout lorsque l’on sait, meme vaguement, ou passent les sommes immenses deversees ici.

Un retour a la guerre civile n’est nullement a exclure, d’autant que Kaboul et Islamabad, plutot que d’unir leurs forces pour ecraser ce qui reste des talibans, passent le plus clair de leur temps a s’invectiver sur differents themes comme celui de la nationalite des terroristes…