Alinsky's Way, The Highway or The Ditch!

A doctor asks for input re solving some of our medical problems as he outlines those he sees every day. (See 1 below.)

Netanyahu is right - help Palestinians economically and peace could possibly be around the corner and obtainable. (See 2 below.)

Netanyahu's speech gives isight into his thinking. (See 2a below.)

Stephanie Gutmann, was a journalist in Manhattan for about 16 years. She is
the author of "The Kinder, Gentler Military: Can America's Gender-Neutral
Fighting Force Still Win Wars?" and "The Other War: Israelis, Palestinians and
the Struggle for Media Supremacy."

In 'Liberal Land' being strong is not a virtue and, in fact, can be dangerous.
(See 3 below.)

The Alinsky way or the highway? (See 4 below.)

Where is The U.N., Human Rights crowd and Feminists when you need them? (See
5 below.)

The direction of Fatah's new leadership? (See 6 below.)


Jonathan Tobin does not see Obama's PR leading to peace. (See 7 below.)

Cal Thomas takes at look at what is going on in the health care debate. (See 8 below.)

Dorothy Rabinowitz believes Obama needs a hearing aid. (See 8a below.)

PUNT! (See 8b below.)

What the debate is all about and always has been. (See 8c below.)

Taliban scorecard. (See 9 below.)

According to a former New York Mayor, the love affair was intense but short lived and Pruden re-cycles. (See 10 and 10a below.)

Americans take a lot of crap from the world, the U.N. and from their own politicians. However, arrogance, haughtiness know it all attitudes and contempt finally hits home and they rebel as they are now doing. When they rebel calling them "Brown Shirts" and complaining that they are ruffians while exercising their free right to speak out will just inflame them further and is a boomeranging strategy which the Far Left is finally learning.

Democrats and Obama are losing their cool and are now fighting with the AARP crowd - one of their strongest consituents groups. Wonders never cease.

The messiah, the music man the gifted orator is finally having his day in court and the jury is not buying his story.


Dick






1)I am preparing a document that seeks to address the real problems in medicine in this country. I know better than most people what those problems are, but I would like to have some input from all of you on the issue. Here is my current list of real problems. There is no particular order of priority to the list. Please comment on this list and feel free to suggest some additions to the list.

1. Some people cannot buy health insurance because they cannot afford to do so or are not insurable.

2. Some people loss their insurance when they lose or change jobs.

3. Some employer based health insurance plans provide insufficient coverage for a person’s needs.

4. Some government plans are so poorly administered that doctors decline participation.

5. Frivolous lawsuits force higher malpractice insurance premiums.
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6. Some people are denied the physician of their choice by their insurance company or the government.

7. Hospitals lose money in providing care for persons who cannot or will not pay for hospital services.

8. Some patients demand expensive and unnecessary services which are done only to keep them from pursuing litigation.

9. Some insurance companies deny payment for services that both the patient and the physician agree are necessary.

10. Insured patients often have no sense of responsibility for services they consume since they think they have an entitlement by virtue of their insurance coverage.

11. A major amount of medical expenses are incurred in the last year of a person’s life.

12. Treatment of mental illness and substance abuse is very expensive.

13. While people do not have a constitutional right to free medical care, a human society has a duty to provide medical care to all in need.

14. Government health plans to include the Veterans Administration, the Indian Health Service, and the Department of Defense are inefficient and often less than optimally effective.

15. Many drugs are very expensive.

16. Some healthy people fail to buy medical insurance because they think they do not need to do so.

2)Green Shoots in Palestine II
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN
Ramallah, West Bank

Ever since the collapse of the Oslo peace accords in 2000, and the horror-show violence that followed, there has been only one thing to say about the West Bank: Nothing ever changes here, except for the worst. That is just not the case anymore — much to my surprise.

For Palestinians, long trapped between burgeoning Israeli settlements and an Israeli occupation army, subject to lawlessness in their own cities and the fecklessness of their own political leadership, life has clearly started to improve a bit, thanks to a new virtuous cycle: improved Palestinian policing that has led to more Palestinian investment and trade that has led to the Israeli Army dismantling more checkpoints in the West Bank that has led to more Palestinian travel and commerce.

Because the West Bank today is largely hidden from Israelis by a wall, Israelis are just starting to learn from their own press what is going on there. On July 31, many Israelis were no doubt surprised to read this quote in the Maariv daily from Omar Hashim, deputy chairman of the Chamber of Commerce of Nablus, the commercial center of the West Bank: “Traders here are satisfied,” said Hashim. “Their sales are rising. They feel that life is returning to normal. There is a strong sense of optimism.”

Make no mistake: Palestinians still want the Israeli occupation to end, and their own state to emerge, tomorrow. That is not going to happen. But for the first time since Oslo, there is an economic-security dynamic emerging on the ground in the West Bank that has the potential — the potential — to give the post-Yasir Arafat Palestinians another chance to build the sort of self-governing authority, army and economy that are prerequisites for securing their own independent state. A Palestinian peace partner for Israel may be taking shape again.

The key to this rebirth was the recruitment, training and deployment of four battalions of new Palestinian National Security Forces — a move spearheaded by President Mahmoud Abbas and Prime Minister Salam Fayyad of the Palestinian Authority. Trained in Jordan in a program paid for by the U.S., three of these battalions have fanned out since May 2008 and brought order to the major Palestinian towns: Nablus, Jericho, Hebron, Ramallah, Jenin and Bethlehem.

These N.S.F. troops, who replaced either Israeli soldiers or Palestinian gangs, have been warmly received by the locals. Recently, N.S.F. forces wiped out a Hamas cell in Qalqilya, and took losses themselves. The death of the Hamas fighters drew nary a peep, but a memorial service for the N.S.F. soldiers killed drew thousands of people. For the first time, I’ve heard top Israeli military officers say these new Palestinian troops are professional and for real.

The Israeli Army’s chief of staff, Lt. Gen. Gabi Ashkenazi, has backed that up by taking down roughly two-thirds of the 41 manned checkpoints Israel set up around the West Bank, many since 2000, to stifle Palestinian suicide bombers. Those checkpoints — where Palestinians often had to wait for two hours to just pass from one city to the next and often could not drive their own cars through but had to go from cab to cab — choked Palestinian commerce. Israel is also again letting Israeli Arabs drive their own cars into the West Bank on Saturdays to shop.

“You can feel the movement,” said Olfat Hammad, the associate director of the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research, who lives in Nablus and works in Ramallah. “It is not a burden anymore to move around to Ramallah for business meetings and social meetings.” Nablus recently opened its first multiplex, “Cinema City,” as well as a multistory furniture mart designed to cater to Israelis. Ramallah’s real estate prices have skyrocketed.

“I have had a 70 percent increase in sales,” Maariv quoted a Nablus shoe store owner as saying. “People are coming from the villages nearby, and from other cities in the West Bank and from Israel.”

But men and women do not live by shoe sales alone. The only way the Palestinian leadership running this show can maintain its legitimacy is if it is eventually given political authority, not just policing powers, over the West Bank — or at least a map that indicates they are on a pathway there.

“Our people need to see we are governing ourselves and are not simply subcontractors for Israeli security,” Prime Minister Fayyad told me. Khalil Shikaki, a leading Palestinian pollster, added that Abbas and Fayyad want “to be seen as building a Palestinian state — not security without a state.” That is why “there has to be political progress alongside the security progress. Without it, it hurts them very much.”

America must nurture this virtuous cycle: more money to train credible Palestinian troops, more encouragement for Israel’s risk-taking in eliminating checkpoints, more Palestinian economic growth and quicker negotiations on the contours of a Palestinian state in the West Bank. Hamas and Gaza can join later. Don’t wait for them. If we build it, they will come.

2a)PM Benjamin Netanyahu’s 10.8.09 Speech at Shomriya "our connection with this land - there is no future without the past"

We seek peace – genuine peace, a peace of recognition, a peace in which the
other side recognizes our rights in this land, our history in this land, in
the national right of the Jewish people to its own country, not because that
will lead to the legitimacy of recognition for us, but because it is the
only way our neighbors will begin to accept the fact of our existence and
our right to exist here.

Thank you very much.

I want to acknowledge the boys and girls and their families, and all the
public officials who are here: my friend, Minister Danny Hershkovitz,
Minister of Science and the minister responsible for helping me and the
government and you to conclude the assistance program to the evacuees, for
helping the evacuees of Gush Katif, the Gaza Strip and Northern Samaria,

Member of Knesset, Haim (Jumas) Oron, hello to you – one of the fine public
representatives who served and serve in the Israeli Knesset,

My friends who are here, working, shouldering the burden with me: Director
General of the Prime Minister’s Office, Eyal Gabay and Efi Stenzler,
Chairman of KKL-JNF, who is helping and assisting in the very important
changes that will benefit settlement in the State of Israel,

Shmulik Hayik, with whom in these brief minutes we have found the time to
discuss the JNF’s next project here in the Lachish Region,

Sigal Moran, Head of the Regional Council,

Tzviya Shimon, outgoing Director of the SELA Administration – this is an
opportunity to thank you, Tzviya, for the important assistance you provided
in the framework of the SELA Administration,

Danny Morovia, hello,

And many, many others who are here,

Distinguished guests,

On my way here I passed a hill. I stopped the motorcade, we walked around
and I climbed the hill. I have been near Tel Lachish many times, I have
stood beside Tel Lachish, but as far as I can remember, I have never climbed
Tel Lachish, at least not during the day. So I decided to climb it during
the day.

And before me, I saw the amazing sight of one of the most spectacularly
beautiful hills, and one of the richest in our history, in the history of
mankind. And it stands abandoned. Several minutes later, Zvi Hauser, the
Government Secretary, joined me and said: “There is no one here. This is a
huge site, but there are no people here.”

So, first I would like to ask about the children. Rabbi Yuval, have the
children been on Tel Lachish? This is our land. Climb the hill! Visit
this hill. Lead the people of Israel and foreign tourists in climbing the
hill. Sennacherib [King of Assyria] came here and conquered the area; he
came and went – we are here. After that the Babylonians came; they came and
destroyed, conquered; but they fell – we are here. Many others came – but
we are here, we are here in the Lachish Region, at Tel Lachish. It is in
our possession, part of the State of Israel, of the Jewish people who
returned to its land and re-established its sovereignty.

Near Lachish Hill there are many other regions – Efi mentioned them: there
is Tel Gezer as well. Simon the Hasmonean said about Tel Gezer: “Not a
foreign land have we conquered, but rather this is our land.” I would like
there to be young people at Tel Gezer. I would like to speak about our
heritage. I would like to speak about the land; I would like to speak about
our land, our history. There is no future without the past. First and
foremost, we must establish the past.

So one decision we made on the way here today at that stop was: we will
rehabilitate the spectacular sites of Jewish heritage, here and there and in
other sites. I have one request: I would like to see many more children
here, although the number of children here today is heartwarming. How many
are here today? 100 families? G-d willing, there will be 400 during my
next visit.

I have a request for these children, Rabbi: that they climb the hill and
learn, as I think children should learn in each and every school, about our
belonging here and our connection with this land. It is not by chance that
we are here. I said that there is no past without a future, but the present
connects the two. There have been tremendous hardships here. I think about
the suffering and the horrible trauma and the uprooting; about building a
life, lives destroyed and the need to rebuild them. We will build them; you
are already building them; and we will complete the task. This is our
commitment.

I asked for just one thing today: I asked that this completion should happen
here and now. I am taking a personal interest in this, and it is also part
of my responsibility as prime minister, and working by my side are the
ministers and members of Knesset. We want to bring this to an end. We want
solutions for everyone, but solutions now so that people, especially the
children, will know: this is my home, this is my future, this is my place,
and it provides peace of mind and returns things to their natural track. I
ask for the cooperation of each and every one of you so that we can complete
this work quickly. Quickly means a matter of months, certainly within a
year, because I think that you should move on in your lives, and this is
possible.

We cannot deny the mistakes made during the Disengagement, and
unfortunately, we see that what we got in exchange is an Iranian base. We
did not get peace or security. We suffered thousands of rockets fired at
our communities, from Gan Yavne to Be’er Sheva, to Ashkelon and Ashdod, and
of course, Sderot. We will not accept rockets fired on our communities.
There is nothing natural about this. Not a dribble, not a trickle, not a
hail of rockets and not “one” rocket. Israel will not suffer rocket fire.

We will respond to every rocket fired. Yesterday there was rocket fire –
and last night we responded. Our enemies should know that this is our
policy. We will not suffer rocket fire on our communities. This clarity,
this resolution should be clear to everyone.

And a second thing, we know that a unilateral abandonment, without an
agreement, without security arrangements, without an exchange, without
mutuality – all these create deterioration. We seek peace – genuine peace,
a peace of recognition, a peace in which the other side recognizes our
rights in this land, our history in this land, in the national right of the
Jewish people to its own country, not because that will lead to the
legitimacy of recognition for us, but because it is the only way our
neighbors will begin to accept the fact of our existence and our right to
exist here.

This is the first and most basic claim. The second thing – in addition to
our right – is security. We must always ensure that there be appropriate
security arrangements – not feeble ones that will later lead to attacks on
our communities, on our children. These are two basic principles that we
firmly insist on, and I think this is slowly being accepted by the
international community.

We are going to develop this region. Not only in the sense of
rehabilitating the evacuees and building new lives here, something that
inspires wonder. I must say to you, David Hatuel, that I was moved to tears
when hearing the story of your rehabilitation after murderers killed your
wife and your four daughters. And now you have built a new family with
Limor. You have children, and you live in Amatziya and are building a house
in Israel. We will help build up this region, not only for the evacuees,
but also the veteran communities that settled this land. We will transform
this into a region that is not only magnificent in its beauty, but one that
has strong foundations in prosperity, in growth – to ensure our future here
and in the other parts of our land.

I thank you for your strength of spirit, and ask that you invite me to the
inauguration of the new school soon. Invite me and I will come.

Good luck, and thank you very much.








3) Israel is just too successful for the losers of the Leftist intelligentsia
By Stephanie Gutmann

Oh dear, some of the Telegraph’s regular commenters may get a wee bit upset
by this next post. I suggest they take their blood pressure meds NOW before
reading any further.

The unpredictable, sometimes zany, but often brilliant conservative writer
George Gilder has just come out with a a new book, entitled The Israel
Test. Gilder is best known for his hugely influential 1981 book Wealth and
Poverty – a celebration of wealth creation and entrepreneurship that some
say served as a blueprint for Ronald Reagan’s rescue of the economy after
the great Jimmy Carter-imposed malaise.

Gilder seems to be fitted out with homing instinct for the controversial
topic and once again he’s found one that will have critics howling for his
head. The thrust of The Israel Test is that the real issue behind support
(it doesn’t have to be unconditional support) or disapproval of Israel (he’s
talking about significant disapproval, the kind we see marching in Trafalgar
Square draped in keffiyehs) are people’s deepest, most primal feelings about
achievement. Do you admire achievement and think it should be encouraged? Or
do you reflexively distrust it, think it comes at the expense of someone
else, and seek to limit it?

The issue comes up because Israel, against formidable odds, has become a
powerhouse in the fields of bio tech and high tech (industries Gilder
particularly admires) while also hosting healthy music, design, and
literature sectors.

“[T]iny Israel with its population of 7.23 million… stands behind only the
United States in technological contributions. In per-capita innovation,”
crows Gilder, “Israel dwarfs all nations.” And therein lie the problems:
Assuming that wealth is distributed from above, chiefly by government,
rather than generated by invention and ingenuity, Israel’s critics [in
academia, in organizations like the EU and the UN] see the world as a finite
sum of resources. Believing that Israel, like the United States, has seized
too much of the world’s resources, they advocate vast programs of
international retribution and redistribution. In their view, Israel’s wealth
stems not from… creativity and genius but from cadging aid from the United
States or seizing valuable land and other resources from Arabs….This vision
of zero-sum economics manifests itself around the globe. Perhaps some of you
readers share it …

You imagine that free international trade is a mixed blessing, with many
victims. You want to give much of Israel’s wealth to its neighbors. You
think that Israel’s neighbors — and the world — would benefit more from
redistribution than from Israel’s continuing prosperity and freedom. You
believe that Israel is somehow too large rather than too small. You believe,
fantastically, that poverty is caused not by envy and rapine but by
enterprise and property – that poverty is a major side effect of wealth.
When Gilder falls for a new idea he always falls hard and his tone is a bit
too over-the-top for me, but I think he’s getting at something important
here. For me it’s the more basic point that attitudes about Israel often
don’t really seem to be about Israel, that tiny scrap of rocky land,
squeezed between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea.

After spending several years doing research for a book on media coverage of
the conflict, I began to sense that Israel/Palestine is like a Rorschach
test, a projective screen for peoples’ personal sense of grievance. There
was the housewife in Tennessee who apparently devoted all her time in
between laundry loads and dishing out Hamburger Helper to her kids to a
website which meticulously catalogued Israel’s supposed injustices against
Palestinians. There was the retired man in New York state who used
hallucinogenic Nazi imagery (”the storm troopers ascend the stair; there is
the knock on the door…”) in a newspaper letter to describe what he “knew”
Israel was doing to Palestinians on a daily basis in the disputed
territories of the West Bank.

Criticisms of Israel are legitimate – as are criticism of the US, the UK,
and the Republic of New Guinea – but you have to suspect that “something
else is going on” as the psychologists put it, when you see the level of
passion, the seething, usually coming from people who’ve spent little time
in the area. There are dozens of human rights and disputed territory issues
about which they could stew and fume – Darfur, Tibet, Kashmir – but it’s
Israel/Palestine that seem to attract people like a magnet.
Disproportionate news coverage of the events in Israel/Palestine (and I
explain the often cravenly commercial reasons for the disproportionate
coverage in my book The Other War) is partly to blame.

Gilder identifies the out-sized and misplaced passions as coming from
conditioned distrust of achievement. But world attitudes are also based on a
canonization of victimhood. In these days of canonized victimhood,
survival, particularly if it has involved aggression (even if that
aggression is in self defense) is always suspect. At the start of the
period known as “the second intifada”, a Palestinian leader told New York
Times columnist Tom Friedman, “We will win this conflict because we die
better.” He was right. In battle after battle, the Islamist forces of
Hamas or Hezbollah publicize huge (though often inaccurate) numbers of
civilian casualties as evidence that Israel has somehow cheated in the
prosecution of a very mutual war. When the people of Southern Israel build
concrete bunkers in their living rooms, cover their kindergartens in
sandbags, and live life with one ear cocked to the incoming rocket alert
siren in order to survive the approximately 8,000 rockets which were
launched from Gaza between the period of 2005 and 2009, it is not seen as a
miracle of civil defense planning and stoicism but, again, as evidence that
Israel is up to something sneaky, unfair, “disproportionate.” Israelis
simply aren’t dying well enough for the intelligentsia of the world.

4) The Alinsky Way Vs. the American Way
By Kyle-Anne Shiver

It takes neither a genius, nor a shrink, to see why Alinskyite Democrat pols are so confused by all this 1776 Redux confronting them in their home-district townhalls. Since they are so accustomed to calling up pals in unions and various other community agitators for a little rent-a-mob action to bolster support for their agendas, they naturally project this tactic onto anyone opposing their issue positions.


They've become so immersed in the Alinsky Way that they've nearly plum darned forgotten the American Way, folks.


They seem to be moving closer to tar and feathers by the minute, so I hope they remember American-style angst pdq.



Now, there is a most telling anecdote in Horwitt's biography of Alinsky, which perfectly demonstrates the fundamental difference between the Alinsky Way and the American Way.


Back in Chicago (really, is there something weird in Chicago water?), when Saul Alinsky, young-and-rising social engineer, was just beginning his attempts at community agitation, he seized an opportunity to try out his still-developing method. The Back of the Yards neighborhoods in Chicago, during the late 1930s, were filled with groups of ethnic immigrants. Most were Catholics from East European countries, and each country of origin even had its own separate parish church. This separation, naturally, made for some very stiff competition and the language barriers made for lots of fighting and feuding too.


The men formed softball leagues (truly American; they were catching on) as a way of safely expending excess energy and walloping each other without throwing real punches. The competition was fierce. Saul, professional meddler that he was, hung out in the ‘hood a lot and ingratiated himself with the locals, so that on this day, he had a ringside seat on the action. Two days before a long-anticipated championship softball game between two competing groups of immigrants, one of the star players came down on the rotted step of his apartment house and broke his ankle, which rendered him unable to play in the big game.


Saul merely ventured, as the disgruntled players were discussing their misfortune, that it need never have even happened. "How so?" the men asked. Saul proceeded to explain that there was now federal-government money for housing and that if they wrote letters to the right people, they would get some money to get carpenters to fix things. Of course, they then wrote the letters, got some money and thereafter knew how to shakedown the taxpayers to get their needs met.


Saul became an immensely popular guy in the immigrant ‘hoods, something he had never been in his own, and thereafter knew that his Alinsky Way had legs. From suggesting letter-writing, he moved on to his angry-mob approach to problem solving and became the invisible hand behind nearly every public temper tantrum thrown in these United States for the past 40 years.


Now, if the first thought you parried, dear reader, while reading this account, was why on earth some guy in the ‘hood didn't see the rotted step, get himself a hammer, some nails, a new step board, and fix the darned step himself before one of his own children was injured, then you are an American through and through.


Pat yourself on the back and sing Hallelujah at the top of your free-as-a-bird lungs.


The fundamental difference between the Alinsky Way and the American Way is so darned simple that even a first-grader, who has had decent parenting, understands it. The Alinsky Way involves asking others to do for you that which you are plainly capable of doing for yourself, but prefer not to do. The Alinsky Way is the purely childish method employed by tantrum-throwing tyrants of all ages, and has existed in one form or another since the beginning of time. It is egocentric, childish human nature carried into adulthood and all the way to the end of life, as long as others are too weak to just say, "NO," or too beguiled to see through this silly, selfish ruse.


If you should ever happen to see an able-bodied grown man in a homeless shelter, supping at the table of charity, while snapping photos with a $500 techno-gadget, you have most likely spotted an Alinsky acolyte. If you should happen to see demonstrators carrying signs, obviously made in a professional sign shop, but the men holding the signs cannot read them, then you are most likely seeing Alinsky Way useful idiots.


The American Way, as we all know, is the do-it-yourself approach to life, which has been taught from toddlerhood to adulthood by every decent, upstanding American parent for more than 200 years. Every conscientious American citizen understands down to his gut that the most essential ingredient to serving the common good is to take care of his own self first and foremost. When a person takes care of himself, only then will he not become an unnecessary burden to his fellow citizens.


Those in the Democratic Party, who have adopted the Alinsky Way and thrown out the American Way, have done so with less than altruistic intentions. Keeping citizens as little children, incapable of doing for themselves, is the way to winning their votes and keeping them dependent upon the power of the state, which Democrats hope to control now and forever.


If one lacks a nation full of pitiful, can't-do-it-ourselves wee ones, there's no need for a Nanny-State, now is there?


And the only reason why Democrat pols are now so confused with all this loosely self-organized democracy in action at their townhall meetings, is that they honestly believe the American Way has already been defeated and we are all their children now.


These people really need to get out more.


There certainly are two Americas. Democrats control a portion of us through their Alinsky Way infantilizing tactics. But the vast majority of us still practice the American Way of do-it-yourself for the common good, which is the only reason this Country is still standing. If we all become children who produce nothing, there will be no pie for the Democrats to divvy up to the screaming kids they control.


Kyle-Anne Shiver is a frequent contributor to American Thinker.

5) First Expose of Iran's Seven Hellhole Prisons



Until the defeated Iranian presidential contender Mehdi Karroubi broke the wall of silence surrounding the Islamic Republic's prisons to demand an investigation into allegations of rape, little attention was paid to the abuses meted out to protestors who dared to claim that the June 12 election was rigged.

These abuses are inflicted routinely and systematically in seven secret prisons where political detainees are held at the behest of the revolutionary Islamic regime. Those prisons are described by Iranian sources as inhuman hellholes:

Kahrizak

This is the jail which supreme leader Ayatallah Ali Khamenei wanted razed to the ground to conceal the outrages committed there against scores of reform-seeking protesters who had the cruel fortune to be dumped there. Kahrizak on the southern outskirts of Tehran was notorious as the penal facility for Iran's most violent thugs and gangsters. Those inmates were let loose on the political prisoners who were incarcerated in cells ten meters square. An unknown number suffered rape and bloody beatings, which not all survived.

The commander of Iran's internal security forces Esmail Ahmadi-Moghaddam said Sunday, Aug. 9, that he would not deny his share in the blame for the "terrible things that took place in Kahrizak" where two protesters were admittedly found dead. He claimed that two of the security officials responsible for "widespread prisoner abuse" had been fired and awaited trial.

The prison remains open and our sources doubt those responsible for the outrages will be brought to trial.

Six more jails and detentions centers operate in the Tehran area.

Ghamar prison

A low, inconspicuous door behind the Ghamar Bani Hashem Hospital on Resaalat Street near the security ministry leads into a top-secret holding facility for interrogating political prisoners. It is closely guarded by Iran's intelligence ministry.

It has two floors and a yard, containing four interrogation rooms, eight isolation cells and eight holding cells in which dozens of detainees are crammed, allowed access to showers once a week and toilets three times a day . Here, the detainees undergo their first inquisition and beatings before they are transferred to other prisons. Their eyes and mouths are bound with leather straps to prevent them from identifying their tormentors. Their agony ends when they sign written confessions.

Most of the victims' families do not know their whereabouts.

Esharat-Abad prison

Several hundred political prisoners are crowded into this facility for drug offenders which is designed for 250 to 350 inmates. It is situated in the Narcotic Unit's headquarters in central Tehran.

The building consists of three large units broken up into cells of 1.5 x 2 meters, into each of which up to five detainees are squeezed for an agonizing three to seven days. Under interrogation, their arms and legs are broken to make them confess and give up information. Accustomed to beating and humiliating dope traffickers, the wardens carry on abusing the political detainees.

Sanitary conditions are appalling and the inmates are fed scraps from the prison staff canteens. The stench of vomit and sweat in the unventilated cells is unbearable. Whenever a detainee dies of torture or disease, prison authorities file a fictitious report. After the questioning finishes, those who survive are transferred to the central prison at Evin. No one has been brought to book for their deaths.

The Revolutionary Guards Prison 59

This penal complex in the cellar of the Revolutionary Guards Corps base Esharat-Abad suburb of Tehran is the most terrible of all seven secret jails. It is so secret that even the head of the justice department for the Tehran district has never been granted permission for a visit.

Run by the field security unit of the IRGC, this is where suspected spies and people accused of grave security offenses are questioned by officials who are not bound by any laws or regulations. They have sole discretion to determine the degree of abuse their victims deserve.

Most of the cells are made for solitary confinement, although around ten large chambers hold a number of detainees. None have light or ventilation; sanitary conditions are appalling and food scanty. Detainees are allowed one telephone call during the period of their detention subject to permission from the security guards, which means depending on how well they cooperate.

Inmates are completely cut off from the outside world so that when it is important for the regime to extract confessions to crimes they never committed, they are susceptible to psychological manipulation, such as fake newspaper front pages or fabricated news bulletins.

These detainees may disappear into this top-secret prison for long stretches of time of up to a year or two without their families knowing where they are.

Nabovvat

This detention center on Schrevardi street in central Tehran is shared by the intelligence ministry and Revolutionary Guards. It is located on the top floors of a shopping center and hidden behind a secret door. It is used for political detainees whose incarceration is too secret for them to be held in other prisons. For many it is also the end of the line for few survive the questioning practices at this place

Abu Ghoraib prison

This jail administered by the internal security services, named for the notorious American prison in Iraq, is located on Seoul Street in the Fatemieh suburb of Tehran, a residential district where few are aware that Abu Ghoraib is used to torture security personnel accused of grave offences or crimes against the regime. Prison No. 66

This jail is also run by the Revolutionary Guards behind the Allameh Tabatabai military base on the Asfarieh highway north of Tehran. Here former Guards members accused of serious offenses or subversion against the state are subjected to extreme torture. At least two inmates have died in recent weeks.


6) Fatah: New leaders declare 'revolution'


Abbas' movement elects new generation of leaders in vote on Central Committee members, including Marwan Barghouti, Jibril Rajoub and Mohammed Dahlan. 'Today the Fatah emerges from this congress united and strengthened,' says Rajoub

Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas' Fatah party elected a new generation of leaders at its first congress in 20 years, including a popular militant jailed in Israel, according to results on Tuesday.


Marwan Barghouti, who is serving five life sentences in Israel, was among those elected to Fatah's governing body at the landmark conference aimed at rejuvenating a party weakened by internal rifts.



Fatah members hope the injection of fresh blood will help revive the main Palestinian secular party, which was founded by Yasser Arafat half a century ago to pursue aspirations of independence but which has lost much of its clout in recent years.



"Today the Fatah emerges from this congress united and strengthened," said former Palestinian internal security chief Jibril Rajoub.



Israelis however have protested at Fatah's adoption of a charter that commits the driving force in the Palestinian Authority to peace but also reserves the right to "resistance."



Addressing relations with Hamas
Rajoub, 56, already head of the Palestinian football federation and the Palestinian Olympic committee, was elected along to the 21-strong Central Committee along with Fatah's former strongman in Gaza, Mohammed Dahlan.




Barghouti, 50, who was found guilty in 2004 for his role in deadly attacks against Israelis during the second intifada or uprising, is Fatah's secretary general for the West Bank but never was a member of the Central Committee.



Top Palestinian negotiator and former Prime Minister Ahmed Qureia was among the party veterans who lost his seat on the committee as the congress returned only three incumbents.



Rajoub said the decision to pick a new generation of leaders amounted to a "revolution" ahead of legislative elections that should be held early next year.


"We have many tasks ahead, the main one is to address relations with Hamas," added Dahlan, who is considered the nemesis of the rival Islamist faction.



About 2,000 delegates at the Fatah congress in the occupied West Bank city of Bethlehem -- the first ever on Palestinian soil -- also elected a raft of new leaders to the 120-strong Revolutionary Council.

7) More Obama PR will not a successful Mideast policy make
By Jonathan Tobin


After running into a dead end in its efforts to jump-start Middle East peace talks, the Obama administration has signaled that it has evaluated the situation and understands that not all is well. But instead of a course correction, senior administration officials have decided that what they need to do is to deploy their most effective weapon - the rhetorical brilliance of President Barack Obama - on a recalcitrant state of Israel.

They say that in the next few weeks the White House will begin a public relations program in Israel and Arab countries to better explain the president's intention to broker a comprehensive peace agreement. The highlight would be interviews with Obama on Israeli television as well as appearances broadcast in Arab countries. In particular, the officials say they hope to convince the majority of Israelis, who have been shown in polls to view Obama and his policies with distrust, to support his stand on freezing building in Jewish settlements in the West Bank as well as in Jerusalem, rather than the policies of Binyamin Netanyahu, their own prime minister.

THE IDEA here seems to be that if the Israeli people are sufficiently exposed to the charms of the American president, they will force Netanyahu to do as he has been told by Washington. However, the administration misunderstands the nature of its problem. Contrary to its belief, the Israeli people already understand Obama very well. His problem is that they don't buy what he's selling. Indeed, this decision to launch a PR campaign reminds one of stereotypically "ugly American" tourists who believe the proper response to foreigners who don't understand English is to merely speak English louder. The administration needs to win the trust of Israelis through more realistic policies, not a bigger megaphone.

The reason many Israelis think they have been singled out for rough treatment by Obama is not because they don't understand that his intentions are good and that his motives are pure; it's because he has unfairly singled them out. The dispute about settlements between the two governments was a calculated decision on the part of Washington to pick a fight with its smaller ally and raise the stakes until Netanyahu gave in. That would have handed Obama an easy triumph and a way to show the Arab world that American friends of Israel no longer have a decisive say in American foreign policy.

But that's not what happened and the administration appears to be baffled by the reaction inside Israel to the ginned-up settlements squabble. Instead of behaving as most liberal American Jews have done and blindly backing Obama's pressure because of partisan loyalties and support for the administration's domestic agenda, ordinary Israelis are supporting their prime minister and viewing Obama with suspicion.

Why? It is true that part of the problem has to do with perceptions. Obama's Cairo speech in June was offensive because of the way he equated the Holocaust with the predicament of Palestinian refugees and the fact that he snubbed the Jewish state by avoiding it during his Middle East tour. But the problem is bigger than either the president's penchant for false moral equivalencies or his itinerary.

OBAMA'S POLICY seems to be based on the notion that Israel's refusal to make new concessions on security and land is the primary obstacle to a peace breakthrough. Though most Israelis would actually be willing to give up most settlements, they know that neither the Fatah-ruled Palestinian Authority in the West Bank nor the Hamas mini-state in Gaza are interested in a peace that would recognize the legitimacy of a Jewish state, no matter where the borders were drawn. The failure of the Oslo Accords, the July 2000 Camp David summit, the withdrawal from Gaza in 2005 and last year's desperate effort by former prime minister Ehud Olmert to hand the PA a state on a silver platter all illustrate the Palestinians' lack of interest in signing such a deal.

In the clear absence of a credible peace partner, what point is there, they are entitled to ask, in bullying Israel to make concessions? Nor has anyone been impressed by the administration's half-hearted attempt to get the Saudis and other Arab states to act as if they mean it when they claim to want peace.

President Obama has not turned out to be a conventional liberal Democrat who is also willing to be a faithful friend of Israel as many, if not most Jewish Democrats expected when they pulled the lever for him last year. Though Republican talking points that asserted that Obama's associations with anti-Israel extremists such as Rev. Jeremiah Wright and Palestinian scholar Rashid Khalidi would color his judgment in office were dismissed by the vast majority of Jewish voters, it turns out there was more to this line of argument than mere partisanship. As his decision last week to honor former Irish president Mary Robinson, best remembered for presiding over the orgy of anti-Semitism that characterized the 2001 UN Durban conference, with the presidential Medal of Freedom again shows, Obama is not a man who understands or respects mainstream Jewish sensibilities.

Obama's eloquence is a formidable diplomatic tool, but the idea that it can be used to convince Israelis to "reflect" on their policies and change their tune is not only astoundingly arrogant, it's frankly wrong. Israelis already want peace, and have shown time and again they are ready to make sacrifices to achieve it. What is lacking is a similar commitment from the Palestinians. No amount of presidential eloquence or American PR ought to convince Israelis that further concessions will bring peace until Palestinian leaders match Obama's words with deeds.

The writer is executive editor of Commentary Magazine.

8) What lies beneath
By Cal Thomas


The debate — OK, the shouting match — we are having over "health-care reform" is about many things, including cost, who gets help and who does not and who, or what, gets to make that determination. Underlying it all is a larger question: Is human life something special? Is it to be valued more highly than, say, plants and pets? When someone is in a "persistent vegetative state" do we mean to say that person is equal in value to a carrot?


Are we now assigning worth to human life, or does it arrive with its own pre-determined value, irrespective of race, class, IQ, or disability?


The bottom line is not the bottom line. It is something far more profound. Our decisions regarding who will get help and who won't are about more than bean-counting bureaucrats deciding if your drugs or operation will cost more than you are contributing to the U.S. Treasury.


The secular left claims we are evolutionary accidents who managed to crawl out of the slime and by "natural selection" stand erect and over millions of years outsmart our ancestors, the apes. If that is your belief, then you probably think health care should be rationed. Why spend lots of money to improve — or save — the life of someone who evolved from slime and has no special significance other than the "accident" of becoming human? Policies flow from such a philosophy, though the average secularist probably wouldn't put it in such stark terms. Stark, or not, isn't this the inevitable progression of seeing humanity as maybe complex, but nothing special?


The opposing view sees human beings as unique creations. Even Thomas Jefferson, identified by historians as a Deist who doubted the existence of a personal G-d, understood that if certain rights (life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness) do not come from a source beyond the reach of the state, then the state could take those rights away. Those who believe that G-d made us and also makes the rules about our existence and our behavior will have a completely different understanding of life's value and our approach to affirming it until natural death.


It is between these two distinctly different worldview goalposts that the battle is taking place. Few from the "endowed rights" side are saying that a 100-year-old with an inoperable brain tumor should be given extraordinary and expensive care to keep the heart pumping, even after brain waves have gone flat. But there is a big difference between "letting go" and "snuffing out." The unnatural progression for many on the secular left is to see such a person as a "burden." In an age when we think we should be free of burdens — a notion that contributes to our superficiality and makes us morally obtuse — getting rid of granny might seem perfectly rational, even defensible. But by doing so, we assume an even greater burden: the role of G-d in deciding who gets to live and who must die. Anyone who has seen the film "Bruce Almighty" senses how difficult it is to play G-d.


We are now witnessing some of the consequences of attempting to ban people with a G-d perspective from the public square. If there are no rules and no one to whom one might appeal when those rules are violated, we are on our own to set whatever rules we wish and to change them in a moment in response to opinion polls. Any appeals to a higher authority stop at the Supreme Court.


The explosive town hall meetings are indications that Americans are trusting government less and less. So where should we go? The answer is in your wallet or purse. It's on the money. Right now it is little more than a slogan, but what if it became true: in G-d We Trust.

8a)Obama’s Tone-Deaf Health Campaign: The president shouldn’t worry about the protestors disrupting town hall meetings. He should worry about the Americans who have been sitting at home listening to him.
By DOROTHY RABINOWITZ


It didn’t take chaotic town-hall meetings, raging demonstrators and consequent brooding in various sectors of the media to bring home the truth that the campaign for a health-care bill is, to put it mildly, not going awfully well. It’s not hard now to envision the state of this crusade with just a month or two more of diligent management by the Obama team—think train wreck. It may one day be otherwise in the more perfect world of universal coverage, but for now disabilities like the tone deafness that afflicts this administration from the top down are uninsurable.

Consider former ABC reporter Linda Douglass—now the president’s communications director for health reform—who set about unmasking all the forces out there “always trying to scare people when you try to bring them health insurance reform.” People, she charged, are taking sentences out of context and otherwise working to present a misleading picture of the president’s proposals. One of her key solutions to this problem—her justly famed message encouraging citizens to contact the office at flag@whitehouse.gov if they got an email or other information about health reform “that seems fishy”—set off a riotous flow of online responses. (The word “fishy,” with its police detective tone, would have done the trick all by itself.)

These commentaries, packed with allusions to the secret police, the East German Stasi and Orwell, were mostly furious. Others quite simply hilarious. Ms. Douglass, who now has, in her public appearances, the air of a person consigned to service in a holy order, was not amused.

Neither has she seemed to entertain any second thoughts about the tenor of a message enlisting the public in a program reeking of a White House effort to set Americans against one another—the good Americans protecting the president’s health-care program from the bad Americans fighting it and undermining truth and goodness.

She intended no such outcome, doubtless. That this former journalist, now a communications director, failed to notice anything amiss in the details of that communiqué is a bit odd but not altogether surprising.

Crusades are busy endeavors, the enlistees in this one, like those in every undertaking of this White House, concerned with just one message. Which is that the Obama administration is in possession of vital answers to ills and inequities that have long afflicted American society (whether Americans know it or not), and that those opposed to those answers and that vision are cynics, or operatives of the powerful vested interests responsible for the plight Americans find themselves in (whether they know it or not), or political enemies bent on destroying the Obama administration.

It shouldn’t have been surprising, either, that the tone of much of the commentary on the town-hall protests was what it was. There was Mark Halperin for one, senior political editor for Time, bouncing off his chair, Sunday, in agitation over all the media coverage of this rowdiness—“a horrible breakdown of our political culture, our media culture” and so “bad for America,” as he told CNN’s Howard Kurtz. “I’m embarrassed about what’s going on, as an American.” The disruptions and coverage thereof distorted serious discussion, he explained. Mark Shields said much the same on Friday’s PBS NewsHour, if with less excitation, pointing out that these events were “not good for the democratic process,” and were a breakdown of civil debate.


There was no such hand-wringing over the decline of civil debate, during, say, election 2004, when cadres of organized demonstrators carrying swastika-adorned pictures of George W. Bush routinely swarmed about, and packed rallies. There was also that other “breakdown of our media culture,” that will dwarf all else as a cause for embarrassment, the town-hall coverage included, for the foreseeable future. That would be, of course, the undisguised worshipful reporting of the candidacy of Barack Obama.

That treatment, or rather its memory—like the adulation of his great mass of voters—has had its effect on this president, and not all to the good. The election over, the warming glow of those armies of supporters gone, his capacity to tolerate criticism and dissent from his policies grows thinner apace. His lectures, explaining his health-care proposals, and why they’ll be good for everybody, are clearly not going down well with his national audience.

This would have to do with the fact that the real Barack Obama—product of the academic left, social reformer with a program, is now before that audience, and what they hear in this lecture about one of the central concerns in their lives—his message freighted with generalities—they are not prepared to buy. They are not prepared to believe that our first most important concern now is health-care reform or all will go under.

The president has a problem. For, despite a great election victory, Mr. Obama, it becomes ever clearer, knows little about Americans. He knows the crowds—he is at home with those. He is a stranger to the country’s heart and character.

He seems unable to grasp what runs counter to its nature. That Americans don’t take well, for instance, to bullying, especially of the moralizing kind, implicit in those speeches on health care for everybody. Neither do they wish to be taken where they don’t know they want to go and being told it’s good for them.

Who would have believed that this politician celebrated, above all, for his eloquence and capacity to connect with voters would end up as president proving so profoundly tone deaf? A great many people is the answer—the same who listened to those speeches of his during the campaign, searching for their meaning.


It took this battle over health care to reveal the bloom coming off this rose, but that was coming. It began with the spectacle of the president, impelled to go abroad to apologize for his nation—repeatedly. It is not, in the end, the demonstrators in those town-hall meetings or the agitations of his political enemies that Mr. Obama should fear. It is the judgment of those Americans who have been sitting quietly in their homes, listening to him.

Ms. Rabinowitz is a member of the Journal’s editorial board.

8b) White House Adapts to New Playbook in Health Care Debate
By JIM RUTENBERG and JACKIE CALMES


The White House on Monday started a new Web site to fight questionable but potentially damaging charges that President Obama’s proposed overhaul of the nation’s health care system would inevitably lead to “socialized medicine,” “rationed care” and even forced euthanasia for the elderly.

But in introducing the Web site, White House officials were tacitly acknowledging a difficult reality: they are suddenly at risk of losing control of the public debate over a signature issue for Mr. Obama and are now playing defense in a way they have not since last year’s campaign.

Speaking at a summit of North American leaders in Mexico on Monday, Mr. Obama sounded an optimistic note, predicting that “the American people are going to be glad that we acted to change an unsustainable system so that more people have coverage.”

But aides to Mr. Obama said the rapidly escalating threat to his health care plans had led him to order them to come up with a crisper message.

And Democratic Party officials enlisted in the fight by the White House acknowledged in interviews that the growing intensity of the opposition to the president’s health care plans — within the last week likened on talk radio to something out of Hitler’s Germany, lampooned by protesters at Congressional town-hall-style meetings and vilified in television commercials — had caught them off guard and forced them to begin an August counteroffensive.

In the process, the administration has had a harder time getting across the themes it wanted to strike in this period: that the current system is unsustainable and that Mr. Obama’s plan holds concrete benefits for people who already have health insurance as well as for those who do not.

“We all had a good sense that some of this was going to take place,” said Brad Woodhouse, the communications director for the Democratic National Committee. “To be fair, I think we were probably a little surprised — just a little — at the use of swastikas and the comparisons to Adolf Hitler and the Third Reich that even Rush Limbaugh has fanned the flames on. And we were a little surprised at the mob mentality.” (Mr. Woodhouse’s use of the phrase “mob mentality” was itself part of the Democratic effort to paint opponents speaking out against the plan as part of an unruly but organized effort.)

For some of Mr. Obama’s supporters, the newly galvanized opposition to his proposed policies provided a troubling flashback to the successful effort to stop President Bill Clinton’s similarly ambitious plans 16 years ago — a fight Mr. Obama’s aides had studied carefully to avoid making the same fatal mistakes.

White House officials say such fears are unwarranted, arguing that the conservative protests are getting outsize coverage on cable news. “Don’t associate loud with effective,” Rahm Emanuel, the White House chief of staff, said in an interview, adding that he detected no anxiety from supportive lawmakers in politically vulnerable districts. “What is coming across is a lot of noise and a lot of heat without a lot of light.”

And White House officials say their August counteroffensive is a break from the Clinton approach, which is now viewed as having failed to adequately address critics.

Mr. Obama will take the lead this week as he continues a series of public meetings to counter the opposition, events White House officials hope will offer a high-profile opportunity to confront and rebut critics.

As part of the effort, Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Representative Steny H. Hoyer, the House majority leader, wrote an opinion article in USA Today on Monday calling conservative protests at Congressional town-hall-style meetings “un-American” for “drowning out opposing views.” (That prompted a swift rebuke from the House minority leader, Representative John A. Boehner, among other Republicans.)

New television commercials disputing the conservative attacks are in the works, Mr. Woodhouse said, and allied members of Congress have been sent home for the August break with a set of poll-tested talking points intended to shift the focus to the administration’s advertised benefits of the plan from the scary situations opponents have laid out.

“There’s a whole set of rumors that the old playbook would tell you not to do anything about because you draw attention,” said Dan Pfeiffer, the White House deputy communications director. “The lesson we’ve learned is you ignore these rumors at your peril, and the right answer is to take them head on in as big a way as possible.”

It was only weeks ago that Mr. Obama was pressing both the House and the Senate to complete work on their versions of health legislation before recessing for the summer, a goal that went unmet as divisions erupted among Democrats as well as between the two parties.

After getting much of what he wanted on high-risk initiatives like the economic stimulus package and bailouts of banks and auto companies, Mr. Obama had yet to face the full force of conservative opposition to his policies. Some supporters now wonder whether his earlier glide path left him unprepared for the sudden surge of opposition from conservative groups, which have found a rallying point on health care.

“The expectation was that things have gotten so bad in the last 16 years that there would be consensus on the need to act this time,” said Howard Paster, who was Mr. Clinton’s chief lobbyist in 1993. “That was a mistake, that assumption.”

Mr. Obama’s team won early, high marks for diverging from the Clinton approach, specifically by emphasizing the need to control costs and improve coverage for those who are already insured instead of making the same moral-duty argument Mr. Clinton had about the need to cover the uninsured.

Yet once Congress started filling in the details this summer and its analysts began pricing the House and Senate packages, the estimates of the government’s cost caused sticker shock again.

And once again that drew taxpayers’ attention to the main reason for those costs: covering the uninsured, through more Medicaid spending and subsidies for people to buy insurance and small businesses to provide it.

That helped conservatives who had been struggling to gain traction on health care to speak to a constituency that has managed to gain significant anti-Obama attention this year, the fiscally hawkish “tea party” activists opposed to the president’s spending. They have dismissed Mr. Obama’s promises that his plan will be fully paid for through offsetting spending cuts or increased taxes, and have cast the plan as a costly takeover of health care by the government.

“I think the combination of spending a trillion dollars that we don’t have and another rushed process really triggered this,” said Matt Kibbe, the president of the conservative group FreedomWorks. “People started paying attention.”

8C) Health Debate Isn't About Health
By GERALD F. SEIB.


The health debate, which now has moved beyond the Beltway and into raucous town halls across the land, is so intense in part because it's not really about health care at all.

On a deeper level, it's about the role of government in America's economy. And that is a raw and unresolved topic, only made more so by months of exceptional government intervention amid a deep recession.

The trigger for this deeper debate has become the question of whether to include a "public option." The idea has become so heated that it's now making both sides lose their bearings a bit -- which is ironic, because the public option wasn't previously the focus of the health debate and is a question on which some obvious compromises already are on the table.

Like all political arguments, this one doesn't occur in a vacuum. In fact, in this case, the prelude is particularly important.

Beginning a year ago, before President Barack Obama took office, the federal government began taking a series of unprecedented actions designed to stabilize whole pieces of the economy -- first the financial sector, then the housing industry, and finally the auto makers. The result, of course, was the federal government owning controlling interest in an insurer (American International Group) and a car company (Chrysler), and big chunks of another car company (General Motors) and a big investment house (Citigroup).

The good news is that the financial sector avoided a meltdown, and the economy appears to stabilizing. But the maneuvering had one other effect: It has left the public a bit stunned to see its government dive so directly into the country's economic mainstream.

From there, Washington moved immediately into debating an overhaul of the nation's giant health-care system. Moving straight from wrenching economic crisis to wrenching health debate was a calculated gamble by the White House. It thought the economic shock might actually ease the way for a broad revamp because Americans would be ready to accept the idea of big changes and also would accept the argument that full recovery couldn't occur until runaway health costs were corralled.

.But the timing has had another effect: It has meant the health debate is unfolding just as Americans are pondering what the shape and size of the government's role in the economy ought to be.

As a result, the flash point in the debate has become the question of whether a health overhaul should include a public option, in which the federal government offers its own health-insurance plan to compete with private insurers. Democrats want one, and Mr. Obama says it would provide choice and keep private insurers "honest." More important, the party's liberal wing has decided that a public option is essential.

In another environment, that might have been the fodder for a wonky policy debate about whether a public option would improve or distort the insurance market and whether it would really save or cost the government a lot of money. Instead, in this environment, the public option has raised the fear that a government already running AIG and GM would soon be gunning for Aetna as well. Everything else that has happened in the past year makes it easier for some people to believe that's what the health debate is all about.

So Republicans, who never liked the public-option idea anyway, have made it the centerpiece of the argument, portraying it as a Trojan horse designed to carry into the marketplace a wholly government-run health system. As the accompanying graphic illustrates, the Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll shows that the two parties have divided so deeply on the question that they are mirror images of each other.

In the heat of the moment, both ends of the spectrum are losing their way a bit. Liberals have forgotten that their initial goal in health reform wasn't a government-insurance program but universal coverage for all Americans. To further the irony, the public option was never a centerpiece of Mr. Obama's campaign platform on health care last year; indeed, it was hardly discussed.

Republicans, meanwhile, have forgotten that they accepted a version of a public option just a few years ago, when they approved the Bush administration's plan to provide a prescription-drug benefit for Medicare recipients. That plan includes a fallback option for the federal government to organize drug plans for seniors if private insurers don't offer enough choices. The option isn't a precise parallel, and it has never been used, but it's there.

The real point is that there are ways out of this box. One would be to make a public-insurance plan merely a fallback, to be exercised only if private insurers aren't offering enough options in all markets. The other would be to take the suggestion of Senate moderates and replace the public option with nonprofit insurance cooperatives as an alternative that doesn't require the government to be directly in the business. In an environment less charged with arguments about government's proper role in the economy, both might be easier for each side to accept.




9) Taliban Leadership: Who's Dead, Who's Alive

There is continuing speculation, in Pakistan and internationally, about the reported death of Pakistani Taliban chief Baitullah Mehsud in an August 5, 2009 U.S. drone attack in Pakistan's tribal district of South Waziristan. [1] In addition, new reports have emerged about the deaths of some of his deputies in a battle for succession.

Following is a roundup of developments over the past few days. [2]



Friday, August 7

Pakistan's Interior Minister Rehman Malik reports about "information and evidences" being received that Baitullah Mehsud was killed in a U.S. drone attack two days previously in the tribal district of South Waziristan, according to the website of Urdu-language newspaper Roznama Jang.

Later the same day, Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi quotes Pakistani intelligence as saying that Baitullah Mehsud "has been taken out" and that the government is collecting evidence "to confirm 100 percent," according to the website of ARY OneWorld television. Qureshi's statement is taken as confirmation of Baitullah's killing and speculation grows as to who will succeed him.


Saturday, August 8

According to the Afghan website Pajhwok.com, Qari Hidayatullah, a close aide of Baitullah Mehsud, rejects media reports that Baitullah Mehsud has been killed.

That same day, a report on the website of Pakistani daily The News quotes Hakimullah Mehsud, a strong contender to succeed Baitullah Mehsud, as saying that the Taliban chief is alive. Hakimullah Mehsud also dismisses media reports stating that a meeting of Taliban's Shura (executive council) is discussing who should succeed Baitullah Mehsud, saying that Shura meetings are routine.


Sunday, August 9

The mystery over Baitullah Mehsud's death deepens, after a report on the website of Pakistani daily Dawn quotes "government and security officials" as saying that a Taliban commander, either Hakimullah Mehsud or Waliur Rahman, has been killed during the Shura meeting to choose a successor to Baitullah Mehsud.

On the same day, Interior Minister Rehman Malik said that either Hakimullah Mehsud or Waliur Rahman has been killed, according to the Urdu-language newspaper Roznama Jang. The same daily quotes Hakimullah Mehsud as saying that "the Emir [Baitullah Mehsud is alive and safe. He is in hiding like Osama bin Laden and Mullah Omar, under a war strategy."

According to a report in Lahore-based Daily Times newspaper, Taliban commander Qari Hussain maintains that Baitullah Mehsud is alive. On the same day, Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi throws a challenge, saying that if Baitullah Mehsud is alive, he should prove it.


Monday, August 10

According to a report in the Lahore-based Daily Times, pro-government rival militant commander Haji Turkistan Bhitani says that Baitullah Mehsud was killed along with 40 fighters in the August 5 U.S. attack, and that Hakimullah Mehsud and Waliur Rahman were killed in a fight over the succession.

According to a report in the Pakistani daily The News, Maulana Noor Said, a close aide of Baitullah Mehsud, insisted that Baitullah Mehsud survived the U.S. drone attack, but is "ill and poor in health." He adds that a video of Baitullah Mehsud will be released soon, either today or tomorrow (August 11, 2009) to prove that he is alive.



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[1] See MEMRI Inquiry & Analysis No. 539, "Baitullah Mehsud: His Killing And His Likely Successors," August 7, 2009, http://www.memri.org/bin/latestnews.cgi?ID=IA53909.

[2] www.jang.com.pk, Pakistan, August 7, 2009; www.thearynews.com, Pakistan, August 7, 2009; www.pajhwok.com, Afghanistan, August 8, 2009; www.thenews.com.pk, Pakistan, August 8, 2009; www.dawn.com, Pakistan, August 8, 2009; The News, Pakistan, August 10, 2009.

10) Falling Out of Love with Barack Obama
By Ed Koch

I continue to be a supporter of President Barack Obama. He has had several outstanding successes. The major one has been a positive change in the economy due primarily, I believe, to his hand-picked team of economic advisers who, from all indications, have fashioned an effective economic recovery plan. The recovery still has a long way to go, but using the language of my doctors at the hospital in which I recently spent six critical weeks recovering from open-heart surgery, "All the numbers are going in the right direction." I also believe his reaching out to our allies and those not allied with us has somewhat calmed the world's roiled waters.

Yet, strangely, the President's support is waning. A recent CNN poll gave him a C-minus after 200 days in office, whereas at the end of his first one hundred days, he got almost universally a B-plus.

I think most people would say that the President's standing with the American public has suffered as a result of his handling of health care policy. During the election, Barack Obama promised to speedily deliver universal health care. However, to date President Obama has presented no health care bill to the Congress and that legislative body has come up with a number of proposals for which he is being held responsible. Furthermore, the President has seemingly caved on important aspects of his health care agenda such as not restricting private insurance coverage and obtaining volume discounts from drug companies.

In order to keep costs from rising, most people acknowledge the need for some kind of limitations on spending. Rationing of public monies makes sense, e.g., should public monies be used to give a kidney or heart transplant to a 90-year-old patient, when it is necessary to reduce the costs of Medicaid and Medicare to keep them solvent? Both programs are totally government funded and operated. I would say no.Then the question becomes what about private funds being used by an individual willing to buy gold-plated insurance to provide unlimited medical expenditures for their health and survival? Should the government be able to limit such expenditures? My answer would be no.

I speak from personal experience. I have been told that the cost of my hospital care, including the services of 20 doctors and 72 nurses and medical technicians over a six-week period may ultimately cost a million dollars. My private insurance policy is paid for by my law firm, Bryan Cave LLP, and because I still work full-time, that insurance policy is my primary one, not Medicare, even though I am 84 years old. Will that continue to be the case under any law signed by President Obama or will I be denied the right to spend my own money and my law firm's for such unlimited coverage?

The President, I believe, has said that there will be no restrictions on private insurance coverage, other than to expand that coverage for all by, for example, denying the insurance companies the right to reject persons with prior existing medical conditions. But he has not spoken loudly enough, nor has there been any discussion on the premiums that companies will be able to charge in such cases.

Most alarming for people like me, who at 84 years of age recently needed a quadruple bypass and aortic valve replacement, are the pronouncements of President Obama's appointee, Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, brother of Obama's Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, who, according to a New York Post op ed article by Betsy McCauley, former Lt. Governor of the State of New York, stated, "Savings, he writes, will require changing how doctors think about their patients: Doctors take the Hippocratic Oath too seriously, 'as an imperative to do everything for the patient regardless of the cost or effects on others' (Journal of the American Medical Association, June 18, 2008)." He also stated, "...communitarianism' should guide decisions on who gets care. He says medical care should be reserved for the non-disabled, not given to those 'who are irreversibly prevented from being or becoming participating citizens...An obvious example is not guaranteeing health services to patients
with dementia.' (Hastings Center Report, Nov.-Dec. '96). "

Opponents of Obama's health care proposals raise the specter of a panel making decisions on who should receive health care. I am not aware of any proposed panel. However, an article in today's New York Times, referring to a Senate bill, stated, "The legislation could have significant implications for individuals who have bought coverage on their own. Their policies might be exempted from the new standards, but the coverage might not be viable for long because insurers could not add benefits or enroll additional people in noncompliant policies."

So, where lies the truth? I don't know. But I do know that I want the continued right to purchase and have available insurance that will permit me, no matter my age and physical condition, to purchase with my own money all the medical care I can afford.

Perhaps the most egregious mistake the President has made regarding health care was the statement by a White House spokesman on the subject of using volume discount pressures on the drug companies in order to save money on Medicare prescription drug purchases which now cost over $800 billion a year. The spokesman for the drug industry, former Congressman Bill Tauzin, recently announced that the drug industry had entered into an agreement with the White House in exchange for its support of universal medical coverage. Under the agreement, the drug companies would contribute $80 billion over a 10-year period to defray the cost of universal medical coverage, while the White House has agreed not to require the drug industry to make any further financial contributions, meaning no change in the law barring the use of Medicare volume discounts and probably continuing the prohibition against importing American-made prescription drugs from Canada which are sold
there at up to 50 percent less.

On August 6th, The New York Times reported, "Pressed by industry lobbyists, White House officials on Wednesday assured drug makers that the administration stood by a behind-the-scenes effort to extract cost savings from them beyond an agreed-upon $80 billion," over a 10-year period which confirms the Tauzin statement.

Following that statement, Speaker Nancy Pelosi and a number of Congressmen, including Henry Waxman of California, said they would not be bound by the White House agreement. According to The Times, Waxman "vowed to fight the White House, asserting that it was conceding too much to the powerful drug industry lobby PhRma."

Incidentally, why wouldn't the drug industry support universal medical care under any and all circumstances? With such legislation will automatically come more people covered by insurance that will provide prescription drug coverage to more people, creating an enormous new market for them. Volume discounts at only ten percent with existing expenditures by the government will bring in more than $80 billion a year, as opposed to the drug companies' offer of $80 billion over 10 years, or $8 billion a year.

President Obama might not be persuaded to rethink some of his positions on health care because of the protests of moderates like me who support him, but he surely has to be alarmed by the comments of his most ardent supporters like New York Times columnist Frank Rich who, discussing the pending health care legislation warns, "It's in this context that Obama can't afford a defeat on health care. A bill will pass in a Democrat-controlled Congress. What matters is what's in it.

The final result will be a CAT scan of those powerful Washington interests he campaigned against, revealing which have been removed from the body politic (or at least reduced) and which continue to metastasize. The Wall Street regulatory reform package Obama pushes through, or doesn't, may render even more of a verdict on his success in changing the system he sought the White House to reform...The larger fear is that Obama might be just another corporatist, punking voters much as the Republicans do when they claim to be all for the common guy."

Love, we know, is never having to say you're sorry. When falling out of love, hopefully, a reversible process, saying one is sorry is not enough; change is required. Why do so many of our heroes ultimately have clay feet?

10a) PRUDEN: Recycling the contempt
Wesley Pruden

OPINION/ANALYSIS:

Recycling is so popular that even our congressmen, unaccustomed as they are to practicing what they preach, do it. They're reaching back into the dark past to recycle contempt. Never waste a crisis, even if you have to manufacture the crisis.

Democrats from the cosseted life in the House and Senate, accustomed to getting the deference at home so often denied in Washington, are suddenly having to deal with inconvenient old folks at home. President Obama insists that the War on Terror is over, ended by his ultimate weapon, the Apology Bomb. But to listen to delicate congressmen whose feelings are hurt, al Qaeda has merely moved terror operations to their congressional districts.

Angry lynch mobs (to hear House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and her sidekick Steny Hoyer tell it) of elderly gents on walking sticks and little blue-haired ladies in their 80s have descended on congressmen at town meetings across the country - in California, Texas, Arkansas, Tennessee, Missouri, Maryland, Ohio, Georgia and other places. They're taking out their anger and frustration at the Obama health care "reform" in the robust American way, but Mrs. Pelosi professes to see "reform" adrift on a turbulent sea of Nazi swastikas. Rep. Brian Baird of Washington sees a blur of Brown Shirts. Sen. Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas calls the dissenters "un-American." She later remembered where she was and said she didn't mean to call them that. Her contempt for Arkansas folks just popped out. In Georgia, Rep. David Scott tried to calm a town meeting with a plea to "calm down and take a deep breath," then took a deep breath and scolded everyone with a hysterical screed
about the "hijacking" of his meeting.

Rep. Steve Cohen treated his Memphis constituents with similar contempt: "Take two aspirin and come back in the morning." Rep. Russ Carnahan told livid St. Louis constituents, naive yokels in his view, that they had been "mobilized [by] special interests in Washington."

The frightened Democratic reaction to robust debate - "the conversation" that "progressives" are so eager to have with those who disagree with them - recycles the insults and epithets last heard in confrontations over civil rights and the war in Vietnam. The protests are "organized," the work of "outside agitators." Martin Luther King, by Democratic reckoning, was an outside agitator. The marches against the Vietnam war were marvels of organization, true, but ... umm, well ... that was different. Mr. Obama should recognize outside agitation when he sees it, given his career in outside agitation in Chicago. He was taught by Saul Alinsky, "the father of American radicalism," that the left-wing strategy for achieving an unpopular goal is to "pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it."

We're almost there. The Democrats are trying to impose rationed government health care (the target) quickly, before the public wakes up from entertaining distractions (the freeze), making villains of all who oppose (personalizing it) and creating a chaotic controversy (polarizing it) that can be effectively exploited. Mr. Obama once taught Saul Alinsky workshops in Chicago, so he was ready when he thought he heard opportunity knocking.

But the president and his congressional accomplices forgot that timing is everything. The public-opinion polls show that bare majorities think there's a health care crisis, but bigger majorities are satisfied with their own coverage. The majority can smell government medicine and the confiscatory taxes on the way. The president further miscalculated when he agreed to the insertion of a scheme, hidden in the thousand pages of the House legislation, to "offer" counseling to the aged about how they want to die. Nothing there about the "how" and "when." That comes later.

When he confronts mortality, a man is suspicious of boodlers with smooth tongues. Roger Fakes, 70, a retired businessman, showed up at the Memphis "town hall" in neither Brown Shirt nor swastika (he's actually a Presbyterian elder). His congressman's insistence that Obamacare would not disturb his private insurance moved him to his feet with polite but pointed questions and observations: "There are some of us old gray-haired folks who don't want the government involved in any of our business." And not just the gray-haired folks. Congressmen are learning the hard way they sometimes have to listen, like it or not.

Wesley Pruden is editor emeritus of The Washington Times.