Political Cortex: Brain Food for the Body Politic

Can anyone honestly claim that the U.S. won the Vietnam War?  North Vietnam took over South Vietnam while the U.S. fled as fast as waiting planes could lift Americans and some Vietnamese out of the Vietnam quagmire.  All of the Asian nations failed to collapse to Communism, as the war propaganda machine claimed would occur.

Currently the U.S.A. is confronted with the divisive Iraq War.  Will the Iraq War bring Bush to his Waterloo, just as Napoleon met his defeat?

When first we deceive, what a tangled web we weave.  Remember, "The Iraqis are coming, the Iraqis are coming"?  Doesn't that sound like that old political refrain "The Commies are coming, the Commies coming," as sung vigorously by Senator Joe McCarthy?

Only this time that propaganda spin-off "the Iraqis are coming" was delivered dramatically by the son of a Bush before Congress in his State of the Union Message.  "Saddam has weapons of mass destruction!  We knew he has yellow cake uranium he has received from Africa to develop nuclear power" or words to that effect.

Britain's Tony Blair sent shivers of fear throughout England by declaring "England is now only 45 minutes from being attacked with Iraqi rockets or words to that effect."

Four years after the much-heralded shock and awe attack, which began the fateful Iraq War spectacle, we must pause to reflect.  Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction.  Who was responsible for the forged fearful documents read by Colin Powell as a prelude to launching the Iraq War?  

This we do know.  Saddam Hussein was overthrown.  He was tried, convicted, and executed in a hasty process that did not permit him to reveal his backers and arms suppliers when he killed Shiite opposition leaders as well as all those Kurds he gassed.  

We know that Rumsfeld had been photographed shaking hands with a smiling Saddam after a deal was struck to supply the wherewithal to kill Iranians.  Could that be the reason for such an abbreviated trial?

Four years of continuing fighting in Iraq had indeed produced results.  The Iraq infrastructure has been demolished.  The Iraqi strong man shown on worldwide TV hammering away at Saddam's stature claims now that things were better under Saddam Hussein than under the American occupation.

One estimate reveals that a million Iraqis are dead.  Some 55,000 U.S. service personnel, counting combatants and non-combatants, are wounded while 3,500 are dead.  The war had resulted in 2 million Iraqis fleeing the country and becoming refugees in overflowing Syria and Jordan.

Meanwhile on the American home front, Halliburton, the company that has made billions with those no bid lucrative contracts.  This company that profited so much on U.S.A. contracts for rebuilding the destruction we inflicted on Iraq came after actions we were told would build democracy and freedom throughout the Middle East.

Halliburton now plans to move to Dubai.  Could it be that this move was motivated by a desire to avoid taxes on the colossal amount of money U.S. taxpayers have paid them?  This was realized during the process of piling up the highest debt of any nation in the history of planet earth.  

This stark fact might sink in only when generations not yet born will be paying for the Iraq War destruction followed by re-construction and the vital cost of caring for all the wounded crowding into VA hospitals.

How are the pharmaceutical companies faring economically during the time the U.S. is engaged in bloody warfare in Afghanistan and Iraq?  They are doing just fine, thank you.  The Medicare deal run through when Republicans hastily rammed it through Congress has a clause not allowing the U.S. government to negotiate drug prices.

Why I thought the U.S.A. was dedicated to competitive pricing in the market place!  That was yesterday.  This is today, sad to say.  Pharmaceutical companies have more lobbyists than there are Members of Congress.

It has paid off handsomely.  Drug prices in 2005 rose twice as fast as inflation.  Wall Street can applaud this price ump.  60 Minutes reported that 8 retiring Members of Congress have gone to work for pharmaceutical companies as lobbyists.  One Congressman admitted that his salary is $2 million a year and he sees no conflict of interest whatsoever.

Gas prices have skyrocketed during wartime.  Their profits are in the billions.  One retiring Exxon-Mobil CEO waltzed away in his retirement package with nearly $400 million, plus a million a year as a consultant, while the company agreed to pay his country club dues and, of course, provide him with continuing use of the company jet.  In fat cat land you're nothing without your own jet.

Lawrence Small, Secretary of the Smithsonian Institute, was asked to resign.  His home expenses, which served to provide an appropriate environment, were very costly.  The fashionable French doors at his residence cost $15,000.  Apparently the cost of doors in Washington, when taxpayers foot the bill, is extremely exorbitant.

The custom-built conference table for Small's lovely Washington home cost $13,000.  To keep the sparkling glass chandeliers gleaming, the chandelier cleaners were paid $2,535.  The two George Smith chairs were $4,000.  When the roof at Mr. Small's residence required some repair, taxpayers funded the cost of $5,700.

Strangely the Smithsonian Museum had a leaky roof and repair was never mentioned.  Rhonda Lokeman in the Kansas City Star revealed the fascinating cost maintenance list of Lawrence Small in a column.  Small's salary was also revealed.  He received a cool $915,000 per year.

Small's travel expenses, which were totally unauthorized, came to $90,000.  Also there was $20,000 in expenses where individual costs totaling this amount were not listed.  

In Washington D.C., not far from Lawrence Small's luxury residence, Walter Reed Hospital is located.  This hospital with its mold and rat infestation was finally exposed.  

This is where the U.S. service personnel flown in from Iraq wounded and traumatized are sent.  Some have now waited almost a year as out patients to receive even a diagnosis of their condition.

U.S. News and World Report of April 16 has placed on its cover a big photo of a veteran.  The caption in bold prints states "Cheating Our Vets" and the article accompanying it discloses how the Pentagon is shortchanging wounded soldiers.

Are American service personnel fighting and dying so pharmaceutical companies, with the help of Congress, will not negotiate prices.  Pharmaceutical companies have displayed their wartime patriotism by raising drug prices twice the inflation rate in 2005.

Could it be that some oil company CEO's are unbeknown to the average U.S. citizen, backing the Iraq War to obtain long term leases.  Antonia Juhasz in her book "The Bush Agenda" claims that the oil giants, backed by the Bush-Cheney Administration, want to lease 63 of Iraq's valuable oil wells to foreign investors, leaving only 17 for Iraq out of a grand total of 80.  How truly generous!

Are U.S. men and women dying so people like Lawrence Small of the Smithsonian Institute can revel in luxury of every description and live the lifestyle of a king at taxpayer's expense?