Is the Bibi Aisha Time Magazine cover story a fake?

A question. Does the injured woman in the top two pictures, look like the one in the bottom picture?

The woman in the top two pictures was recently mutilated at the time the picture was taken, and was suffering additionally from a severe beating (which you can see in the bruising on her feet in). The one below appears to have healed wounds. So why is this important?

The woman in the first two pictures, named Nazia, was mutilated by her husband, a man named Mumtaz, in southern Zabul province of Afghanistan

at the age of 17 in the year 2007. This crime was appropriately perceived as a heinous one, by the local population, and local women held a demonstration calling for the immediate arrest of the mutilating criminal, who had highlighted the vile nature of his act by mutilating his wife on the first day of Eid al-Adha. This is one of the major Islamic holidays, lasting for three days. A reasonable social comparison would be if a man in the US were to chop off his wife's ears and nose on Christmas, a holiday that traditionally lasted 12 days, as you might recall from the holiday carol (the one with a "Partridge in a Pear Tree"). Such a crime being committed on such a special day would seem particularly horrific in the US or Afghanistan.

This holiday crime had a political angle however. The criminal's brother was a policeman working for the US-backed Afghan government.

Switch to the present. The second woman, if she is in fact, a second woman, is supposedly named Bibi Aisha, is purportedly 18 or 19 in 2010, depending on whether you accept the New York Times or CNN account, and according to a rash

of recent news articles, most notably a cover story for Time Magazine, was also mutilated by her husband, but in this version of the story, there is a different political angle. The husband,

all ten of his brothers, and his father are reportedly, members of the Taliban, the scene of the crime has shifted to Oruzgan province,

and the crime took place just last year. Also in THIS version of the story, the mutilation is not the solitary outrageous crime of an abusive husband, who performed the mutilation, and beat his wife severely, according to the report, breaking a number of bones and smashing her teeth. Rather, in this second case, or perhaps, second version of the story, the brutal mutilation was done according to the orders of a Taliban judge.

So what is going on? Are these in fact two different women, or is there just one woman? If you look at the two pictures, they look very much like the same person separated only by the passage of a couple of years, a suntan, and the facial swelling visible in the first pictures induced by a brutal beating and her mutilation. Not only is there an extreme similarity of features (particularly when you account for the swelling around her mouth, where her vile husband smashed her teeth), but you can also see that the mutilations are very, very similar. In the case of the ear mutilations in particular, what are the chances that two brutal husbands will produce so similar results when they decide to hack off their wife's ears, and this just happening to two entirely different women with similar/identical features? Indeed the similarity in ear shape is very suggestive of identity in and of itself, because human ears vary in shape to the point that they are often used to confirm the identity of people in photographs in criminal cases. In very few such cases is part of the ear actually missing.

The chances seem even smaller when you look at the age of Nazia, being 17 in December 2007, with the reported age of "Bibi Aisha" being supposedly 18 or 19 in 2010. This is very close to what you would expect if the first victim was given a new name for propaganda purposes, and made a bit younger to build sympathy (needless to say, the woman or women deserve the utmost sympathy whatever their age(s).

I suspect that another clue as to whether or not the Time story about "Bibi Aisha" is in fact a separate case can be found in the story itself, although this theory hinges on some analysis of Taliban application of Islamic law (if I am wrong in this particular analysis, and this can be shown, I will of course remove this part of the analysis, but my being wrong about this does not obviate the question of the identity of "Bibi Aisha", or her attackers).

According to the story, the poor woman was mutilated on the orders of the Taliban, and then left for dead. Having your nose and part of your ears cut off is not especially likely to kill you however, although it is a horrible crime. The Taliban are experienced in warfare, given the history of Afghanistan, and with so many nasty wounds around, they would be unlikely not to know about this. But why would somebody make up a story about her being left for dead, given the extremity of the crime we KNOW was committed against her?

Well in fact, the Taliban are notorious for their enforcement of extreme and archaic punishments for crimes, (or sins). The Taliban would punish a woman who was an adulterer; they would kill her! The Taliban may be brutal, but they are not particularly capricious about whether or not to apply Islamic law however. To punish a woman for adultery under Islamic law requires proof, and in Islamic law this means witnesses. A jealous and abusive husband might well have problems here, especially since making a false, or simply unproven accusation of this sort can carry a significant penalty under Islamic law; up to 80 lashes with a whip. If "Bibi Aisha" did cheat on her husband, and there were a bunch of witnesses, then the Taliban might well have stoned her to death, but the jealous maniac of a husband who would cut his wife's nose off could not expect his paranoia to be satisfied just because of this. For what it is worth, the Taliban, who by no means deny that they punish adultery, deny that she was ever accused in, or punished by, a Taliban religious court.

The problem, the great big problem, is that on one hand the Taliban are a bunch of violent extremists, who eagerly go about enforcing an extreme and restrictive law. On the other hand, the US backed government is not as extreme, but doesn't much enforce the law. or at least does not enforce the law very reliably or fairly.

If the Taliban just enforced reasonable laws, it is doubtful that even the might of the US government could have stopped them from winning in Afghanistan a long while back. On the other hand, particularly with the might of the US government behind them, but mainly because of how extreme the Taliban are, it is doubtful that the Afghan government could have failed to win, also a long while back if they weren't continually setting new records for corruption and abuse.

The US backed Afghan government has a terrible record of not prosecuting men with government connections for violence against women. Nadia Anjuman, for example, was Afghanistan's most famous and popular female poet, known not only in Afghanistan, but in the neighboring nations besides. She was murdered by her politically connected abusive husband, but the US-backed Afghan government only sentenced him to five years in jail.......... and then let him out after one month. Nadia Anjuman was famous and popular, but even she would not receive justice under the Karzai government. With Nadia Anjuman being murdered with impunity by her husband in 2005, Mumtaz, the husband of Nazia might have thought that in 2007 he also could get away with mutilating his wife because his brother was a policeman.

The Anjuman case is a good example of my point about the "rock and a hard place" choice as it is viewed by the Afghan population. The murdered poet Nadia Anjuman had, under the Taliban, been forced to take literature classes in secret, she and other women resorting to the ruse of a sewing school, in order to evade Taliban prohibitions on women's education. To quote Leila Razeqi, the woman who actually set up the secret women's literature classes, "If the Taliban were here they would have punished her husband, and maybe that would be better.” You and I might not agree with this sentiment, but the Karzai government is apparently bad enough that Afghans are likely to.

The cover story in Time however, is telling a somewhat different story. Instead of domestic abuse being a universal problem that shows up worst where the government is the most corrupt, the story becomes more black and white. Everybody knows that the Taliban are cruel, but the cover article tries to tie them to unusual punishment as well, not just cruel punishment. As the political slant in Time Magazine goes, this is "What happens If We Leave Afghanistan". Well "what happens" may be a phony story, but if it is not, then supporting the Karzai government does not come off any better by comparison. Instead of a woman with her nose and ears cut off, we would have......... a younger woman, seemingly a near twin, with her nose and ears cut off, PLUS with her teeth broken, and bones broken. What an improvement.

If you have any sympathy for "Bibi Aisha", there is another horrible possibility, or perhaps probability to consider. She cannot read or write, and according to the New York Times, had never heard of Time Magazine, until she was given a copy of the issue with her name on it. Now if she is in fact, the same woman as Nazia, who was mutilated in 2007, she was mutilated by a man connected to the Karzai government, not the Taliban. Time Magazine "confirmed that she is in a secret location protected by armed guards", armed guards who are on the side of the Karzai government, so this poor woman may still be in the hands of forces that are, so far as she knows, from the same group as the man who mutilated her. Now, according to the New York Times, she "did not remember how she managed to walk away to find help" from the site of her mutilation. What sort of threats might she be getting from her armed "protectors" now to make her tell the "right" story?

"Bibi Aisha" is being brought to the United States for surgery, so she could be rescued, if in fact she is being held as a propaganda pawn, but this would certainly require that some journalist can get to the truth of the situation. Even if Bibi Aisha and Nazia are in fact different people, we need journalists, bloggers, and everyone who cares to see that women are not mutilated, to work to make sure that the public knows that the problem of violence against women, even the most severe kinds, is certainly not confined to the Taliban.

The REAL reason "Why Obama Can't Move the Health-Care Numbers"

There was an interesting article yesterday in the Wall Street Journal about the reason that Obama is having so much trouble passing a national health care plan. For many people who are left/liberal (term varies depending on where you live in the world) the opinions of so right/conservative a paper are of little value of course, but whatever your political orientation, the similarities in outlook between all the elements of the US political system is so striking. Their conclusion

"The reason President Obama can't move the numbers and build public support is because the fundamentals are stacked against him. Most voters believe the current plan will harm the economy, cost more than projected, raise the cost of care, and lead to higher middle-class taxes."

This is interesting because here we have Rasmussen the commercial pollster, widely acknowledged to be a conservative, and a Clinton pollster both agreeing that the widespread opposition to the Obama health care plan is due mainly to the fact that people are opposed to its budget and public spending implications. The odd thing about this is that it places exactly the same emphasis of what is important in health care that Obama himself did. I think that this is fairly strong evidence that the "spending" over "health care" emphasis nearly defines 'establishment' thinking in the United States.

It is of course, very important to note that, yes, the health care plan is not supported by the public, but I must also say that I think that this analysis is almost entirely wrong. It was scarcely news that many people opposed national health care on cost grounds. What was new with Obama was that the number of such people had declined to a level that was clearly less than half of the public at large.

The assumption seems to be that what has changed to make so much of the public who previously supported national health care change their views, is simply that the financial crisis makes the public regard national health care as being unaffordable.

I am very doubtful of this, because the financial crisis has made ordinary people very worried about their jobs being lost in company cutbacks, and there is plenty of news about employers cutting back on the health insurance that they offer. Either job loss or company economizing would endanger the ordinary person's health care, even if they are satisfied with their health insurance. If the public, a majority of whom were satisfied with their insurance before, wanted national health care before, the financial crisis with associated high unemployment is not going to reduce their desire now.

Rather, I believe that the problem is with the Obama administration's health care plan itself, and particularly the emphasis that both he and his administration put on it. People are concerned that the health care that they receive is not going be reliably thorough and of high quality, mainly due to government rationing.

At this point, the average Democrat finally is distinguished from the establishment at large by rolling their eyes at this concern. The public concern is not just an artifact of Republican propaganda however. Rather, the concern is due to the Obama administration's plans, and even their own comments on them.

Obama himself, when questioned about his plan in the New York Times, used his OWN GRANDMOTHER as an example of potential rationing. His grandmother had broken her hip, and as it happened, also had cancer. While the cancer was clearly a serious threat to her longevity, it was not clear that she was going to die in the next days or weeks, and so the broken bone was repaired. This, according to Obama, was a matter that society, and his panels of experts were going to need to have

"a very difficult democratic conversation" about


this conversation needed to be

"guided by doctors, scientists, ethicists"

and at the end of this process, you, when caring for your Grandmother would need to

"have to have some independent group that can give you guidance".

How does this impact the national health care scheme, why

"that’s part of what I suspect you’ll see emerging out of the various health care conversations that are taking place on the Hill right now."

After Obama said such a thing, anybody who is talking about Republican propaganda is simply not paying attention to the real problem. Many Democrats have made excuses for the worrisome statements of Obama's advising health-car ethicist, but the fact of the matter is that Obama's conversations with this creature led him to question the wisdom of repairing his own grandmother's broken bone because she had a serious, but not immediately lethal illness. Broken bones are very painful, and very few people would be happy with the notion of their beloved Granny being forced to spend her last months or years suffering the agony of an untreated broken bone and trapped in bed because of it. Indeed, being locked into near total inactivity in this way is very likely to trigger one or another health problem in an elderly person, and cause their demise.

This little horror would be quite enough reason to distrust the president's health care scheme, but it also points to something else. Many people like to point to other developed nations around the globe, and say "they have national health care and are okay, so national health care in the US is okay too." Indeed building on this misplaced theme, many people around the globe have taken pleasure in poking fun at Americans who have reservations about the plan.

There is a big difference between the US plan and those throughout the globe however. The US national health care scheme is to my knowledge, the ONLY national health care scheme in the world that was planned at the very beginning to REDUCE the amount of health care services consumed that are the standard of care in that nation.

There is a lot of puffery and bluster about eliminating unnecessary care, but it is by no means clear that this care is in fact unnecessary. It is true that much associated with health care is run for profit in the US, and this might confuse someone, particularly if they do not live in the US, but the for-profit health care insurance industry in the US, which ends up paying most health care providers, can only make its money by rejecting unnecessary treatments. Since the insurers make that much more money by rejecting necessary treatment, many Americans are denied treatment that they in fact need. In a system of this sort, there is no real 'low hanging fruit' of clearly unnecessary treatment. When it in fact becomes clear that a treatment is unnecessary, the system weeds out that treatment. There are many ineffective treatments to be found in past medical history, and there will doubtless be more in the future, but the question is whether or not the medical system knows (or at least may easily find out), that a lot of treatments now in use are ineffective, but is using those treatments anyway. It is not objectively clear that "yes" is the answer to this question, much less clear that treatments which are known to be ineffective, but which are in use for some reason after all, will see those reasons overcome. What is left to cut where treatment is concerned, is treatments that some people need, and others do not, at least for the time being.


All those people around the world who now have national health care thus actually have something to worry about. As most people know, medical treatments that begin only in the US are likely to arrive in other developed nations eventually, because it would be difficult to justify not providing health care that is more or less up to "international standards". If a US national health care scheme based on REDUCING the level of care provided becomes law however, any budget troll lurking in the dark corners of your nation's Health Ministry, will now have a nice big international precedent that says that YOUR life isn't actually worth that much, and spending the money on your treatment is a waste.

Many people around the world complain that the United States does not place enough value on human life, and on quality of life. A health care plan of this type is not altogether aimed at making America like the most generous or compassionate of nations. Rather this health care plan aims to reduce the standard of care in a way that more than half of Americans are afraid of, and anchor that cheapened standard of care in claims of effectiveness.

The beginning of the end in Afghanistan

The US is now shifting its forces to urban areas in Afghanistan. This is not the end of the beginning, this is the beginning of the end.

By this I do not mean to say that redeploying forces must always be a loss, or is leading to defeat. Neither is true. However, the war in Afghanistan, and indeed the foundation of major conflict in Afghanistan for the past 40 or 50 years, is fundamentally based on a split between the rural population, and the urban population.

So long as this clash of cultures is so large, it is questionable whether Afghanistan could be controlled, as a geographic entity, even if the urban population were a majority. Since the rural population is the majority however, a withdrawal from the rural areas means that the Taliban has captured the crucial territory in Afghanistan.

The US and international forces, like the Soviets before them, have regarded girls schools and movie theaters as being bolts of modernity for a modern state. In fact, ANY cultural modernization, however virtuous, that takes place in urban but not rural areas, is a nail in the coffin of the urban government.

If the Taliban constitutes the 'native' faction in the rural and tribal areas, then the war itself will become in addition to a religious crusade, and a war against foreign occupation, also a tribal war.

The Pashtun tribesmen are THE crucial faction, and if they are united against you, you lose Afghanistan.

The political machinations of the Pentagon being what they are, the generals in charge are asking for more troops, in order to "win". In fact, strictly speaking, they are quite correct that they can win with enough troops. The detail being left out, is that Genghis Khan, Alexander the Great, and Julius Caesar have nothing on these bold fellows, provided sufficient numbers of soldiers are provided.

This is not to say that US commanders are incompetent; neither the Mongols or Alexander the Great had much luck in the region, but US political dialog generally requires that American military officers bark patriotically about victory under all circumstances.

At least so far as most of the US military's brass is concerned, the job of the politicians in charge is to look at the size of the bill, and the price in blood to be paid, and call off the game before the losses add up. There are now more Americans fighting in Afghanistan when you include 'contractors' than there were Soviets at the height of their misadventure. Time to hit the road.

The freaky thing is that this Afghanistan adventure is malfunctioning badly enough so that Joe Biden, of all people, can see the problem and is the LEADING advocate of bailing in the Obama administration. I would like to imagine that the sheer brainpower of Obama and Co. has burned through the BS, but when you read the amazingly negative remarks by the Generals in charge of our safari, it seems more likely that the decision makers are getting "foxhole religion". I suspect that the situation is simply bad enough that Biden's characteristic of blurting out anything in his head has made him an advocate of the obvious.

This is probably the last chance for pulling out without having the war be seen as a complete and utter fiasco. The Pakistanis have made sure to maintain their connections with the Taliban for the primary reason that they aren't willing to risk a government in Afghanistan that isn't an ally. There are plenty of secondary reasons as well, not least being many Pakistani's sympathy with the Taliban. What is going to happen this spring, given the clear downward trajectory of the US occupation, is that the Pakistanis are going to either export their highly troublesome religious fanatics, or start packaging them for shipping.

A lot of people in Washington would probably like to drag out a withdrawal, even if they figure that the war is a turkey, but there isn't any way that the US is going to allowed to slowly 'slip off the edge'. If we don't move quick, the Pakistanis are going to push, hoping that the US will kill off as many annoying Pakistani fanatics in Afghanistan as possible. A lot of the old hands at the PSI had made the calculation that the Taliban was coming back at the BEGINNING of the war, and only an idiot would believe anything different now. The thing is, the NON-religious and secular Pakistani officials are going to tend to support the Taliban at this point by sending their armed fanatics, simply because they hope that the US bases will serve as 'roach motels' (they check in, but never check out) for fanatics. The Arab governments played this game with the Soviets, the Pakistanis have done this with India for generations, and there is no earthly way that we are going to be able to convince Pakistan to stop. In fact, there is a fair chance that the Arabs will start up again, if they are not already.

Even if it takes a while for the Pakistanis to arrive, some of our most important anti-Taliban measures are going to explode in our laps, if we are still largely in place by the spring. Many advocates of a continued commitment are advocating that the US pour more effort into training Afghans, to take the place of US troops. This is all very well, but it neglects the questionable loyalty of the new recruits. The Taliban is very happy to have American trained soldiers, as this permits them to understand and counter US combat tactics. Consequently, the Taliban will pay a defecting Afghan soldier a salary larger than he would receive fighting for the government. Afghan warfare is fought by the seasons, and it is very likely that Taliban sympathizers are, as I write this, signing up for Afghan government service, knowing that they will be trained during the winter, and will not have to bear arms against their countrymen. US training should improve the future-Taliban's chances of survival, and collecting a salary during training certainly beats spending the winter in a cave! Come spring however, we can expect many new Afghan soldiers to melt away with the snow.

What the US needs to do now, is to bail out, and do so by cutting some sort of deal that gives us a "chaos" excuse for the eventual collapse. If we do it right, the Pakistanis will want to stop or control a lot of their own Taliban in place, rather than export them as hopeful casualties.

Otherwise, the US will scream about "stopping your crazies" and the Pakistanis will, while shaking us down for equipment, comply somewhat in "taking control" but will leave the door to Afghanistan wide open as THE option of choice for avoiding the thrills of a Pakistani jail. This is such an obvious and well known strategy there that even if the US was somehow able to stop both the central government, and the upper levels of the hard-line intelligence apparatus from using it, thousands of low level officials, soldiers and police would use the scheme for careerist motivations;"well MY district is under control", or to cut down on the chances of being shot or blown up.

Incidentally, I would give fair odds that if the war drags out, we are going to end up seeing some significant tensions with China as a side effect, albeit a very classified side effect (actual reasons for tension hidden). Recall that the Chinese are Pakistan's other major ally, and one that the Chinese cannot afford to lose in any geopolitical sense. Anybody in the Pakistani government that the Americans don't like, is a natural recruit for China. The US has accustomed the political culture of Pakistan to the notion of working with a foreign intelligence service in the CIA. This sort of hidden contact with an ally is regarded more as a political maneuver in Pakistan than as treason and it is likely that the Chinese will take advantage of the situation. With Afghanistan and Pakistan so close, they have every reason to support those Pakistanis who are less affiliated with the US, and frankly even if the US becomes alienated from the Pakistanis altogether, the Chinese win.

Now the Chinese don't actually like Muslim radicals, but Muslim radicals are the largest anti-American faction of note in the world today, and so it makes sense to have them on good terms in a very covert sense. This risk is worth taking for the Chinese for three reasons.

First, KGB type tactics seem like a satisfactory means for the Chinese to deal with foreign terrorists or weirdoes. Using spy tactics is generally going to mean that agents will have to have contact with the targeted group, whether they are terrorists or not. Second, the Uighur separatists, who provide the main risk to China associated with increased terrorist or Muslim extremist activity, are basically under control, so their spies can take more risks. Third, the Americans won't turn over the Uighur's that they have captured, and have Uighur supportive media. This means that the best means for the Chinese to grab dissident Uighurs is to deal with the Muslims that they would run to, rather than to turn to the US, which is nominally in a war with terrorism in general.

I don't think that any of this means that the Chinese will actually take serious Muslim radical supporting steps however. The real reason that there is likely to be tension is that the Americans and signals-intelligence heavy nations tend to believe that people mean what they say. If you think about it, a significant proportion of the words being said at any given point anywhere in the world are likely to be sarcastic, or social lies.

If a Chinese intelligence officer is trying to pick up a Pakistani government official who wants to export the local radicals, one of the most obvious means of sucking up is to say that he is right, flattering him, and encouraging him to do what you can tell he wants to do anyway. The Americans pick this up, and flatter themselves with the notion that one, they are being plotted against, and two, the reason that an unwinnable counterinsurgency is being lost is that someone big is "actually" doing it.

I suspect that most high governmental officials anywhere in the world are used to disbelieving a lot of what is said to them, but signals intelligence allows a person to get 'drunk' on secrets and truths. What you pick up spying isn't magically true.

Incidentally, Chinese intelligence officers are likely to take advantage of the eavesdropping as an additional recruiting tool. If the Chinese say, in communications that they know will be intercepted, that particular figures are either working with them, or simply have particular anti-American attitudes, then the US protective reaction towards those Pakistanis becomes a self-fulfilling prophesy. Tactical gamesmanship of this sort is likely to be seized upon by people looking for a "good" and less humiliating reason for loosing a guerrilla war, and also by the traditionally anti-China faction. Just another potential/likely side-effect when you keep digging your problem deeper. Keep it simple, and bail.

When the government outsources the blame, not the responsibility

Blackwater, the 'mercenary' or security contractor firm is in the news again, with new allegations emerging from a wrongful death lawsuit in Virginia. 'The Nation' magazine, familiar to most politically minded American liberals, has been focusing on the case, and has released the most recent affidavits containing the most shocking allegations.

Unless you are very committed to every action of the late Bush administration, the idea that something foul could emerge from the Iraq war will scarcely come as a surprise, but if you have followed the course of the war closely, then it must also be noted that the simple political party narratives that classify Bush and the Republicans as being for the war, and the Democrats as being against it, are too simple. Bush and Co. wanted the war, and the Republicans backed him up, but most of the Democrats in Congress voted to authorize the war, and they have continued to provide crucial backing for a conflict that otherwise would have been brought to a halt. This sort of complexity is not limited to the start of the war. It is simple enough to say that Blackwater is a brutal organization, but is the simple party-line characterization of The Nation accurate?

Let's take a closer look at the Blackwater allegations. The main thrust of the allegations, unsurprisingly (the company is being sued by Iraqis for wrongful death) is that Blackwater recklessly shot down innocent Iraqis. The new affidavits add a lot more however. According to these assertions, Erik Prince, the founder of Blackwater;

- Views himself as a Christian crusader tasked with eliminating Muslims and the Islamic Faith around the globe (John Doe #2 ).

- Is a gunrunner, smuggling illegal weapons into Iraq to sell.

- Had his men use "illegal" weapons on Iraqis, against the will of the US government who hired him (John Doe #2 ).

- Threatened to kill Americans who told on him(John Doe #1 and #2 ).

- Actually did kill Americans who told on him.

If all these things are true, as depicted, then Erik Price and Blackwater are monsters, right! Let's take a closer look at the evidence as described.

The Christian Crusader accusation.

Prince "intentionally deployed certain men who shared his vision of Christian supremacy knowing and wanting these men to take every available opportunity to murder Iraqis". The specific example, "Many of these men used call-signs based on the Knights of the Templar, the warriors who fought the crusades." Executives would "openly speak of going to Iraq to lay Hajiis out on cardboard". "Mr. Prince's employees consistently used racist and derogatory terms for Iraqis and other Arabs such as 'ragheads' and 'Hajiis'.(John Doe#2 )

It is possible that the accusation against Prince is true as depicted; he is purportedly very religious, and a Christian, but if he is a religious warrior, there is a big problem with the examples as laid out.

This is not necessarily a desirable thing of course, but virtually all combatants in a war quickly resort to nicknames for the enemy. Allied forces in World Wars One and Two would use such terms as,‘Jerry’ and ‘Fritz’ for example, but the use of purportedly common names for the enemy is generally regarded as MORE offensive than other nicknames in Iraq or Afghanistan, because of the fact that Iraqis and Afghans who are on "our" side are equally likely to possess these same names.

The grammatically dubious sobriquet 'Hajii' is fairly comparable to the terms 'Boche' or ‘Heinie' however, and it is difficult to say that calling someone a ‘Kraut or a ‘Hun’ is a vast improvement on "Raghead". The use of any of these terms is extraordinarily common in their respective wars, and means very little; least of all indicating a religious fanatic.

In fact, the "Crusader" terminology reflects uncomplimentary IRAQI and Afghan slang as much as it does American propensities of any sort. Insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan, particularly religiously motivated ones, tend to use the "Crusader" term to describe Americans, and as is common, those called by a term adopt it as a gesture of defiance. The term "Yankee" was not used in a complimenary manner by the British and Tories in the Revolutionary war, by Southerners in the Civil War (and indeed ever afterward), or by South Americans and Mexicans, but many a "Yankee" refuses to flinch at the term.

WW1 poster

Flatteringly ferocious terms like "Devil Dogs"(to describe the US Marines) supposedly had an enemy origin, and it is not much of a surprise that the similarly ferocious 'Crusader' terminology would stick. In fact, the next generation of US artillery was to be termed the "Crusader" (the system has been canceled for technical/expense reasons).XM2001 Crusader

More specific evidence of 'Crusader' terminology's uncomplimentary origins may be found in common embroidered morale patches worn by soldiers and contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The "Pork-eating Crusader" patch for example, bears witness both to the the "Crusader" terminology, and the cultural distaste for pigs found in Iraq. Since pork consumption is religiously unclean throughout the region, many a Westerner's meal seems repulsive to most locals. There is no great surprise in this; few in North America would look at a person sitting down to dog meat (sometimes consumed in Korea) or for that matter horse (consumed in Western nations like Belgium) as if the meal didn't matter, or was only a personal preference without hygienic implications, but the backlash-motivated embrace of the negative terminology is so common that any accusations of actual religious warfare need serious proof of a sort not found in that affidavit.

more common defiant patches

There is another big reason that the Knights Templar are likely to be referenced besides religious fanaticism. To the dismay of the literary world and film buffs alike, Dan Browns horrible "Da Vinci Code" books and films, which reference the Knights Templar extensively, are very popular. "Literary" or film references to any and all ferocious warriors in material of this sort, up to, and including "The Terminator" or factions in the "Star Wars" movies are very common in the military. The comic-inspired film "300" for example, has triggered a rash of Spartan themed patches and slogans.

Next there is the matter of "illegal weapons". The affidavit of John Doe #1 accuses a Blackwater contractor of shooting at a car with an M249, generally known as a SAW, for squad automatic weapon.

This, the affidavit claims, is an "illegal" weapon, because all shots fired on behalf of the State Department are "to be fired with a M4


or a pistol." Similarly affidavit #2 claims that Prince gave his men "unauthorized" grenades and grenade launchers. What is the significance of these accusations? Well Blackwater is not a mercenary group paid to attack Iraqis. Blackwater is paid to guard State Department diplomats and officials of the Coalition Provisional Authority. Now it is easy to make a case that bodyguards should normally use light weapons that are unlikely to harm innocent people. The M249 is a light machine gun, and fully automatic (pull the trigger and the gun keeps firing a string of shots until you let go of the trigger or run out of ammunition), thus being a heavier and more hazardous weapon (to those downrange) than say, a pistol. Grenades are naturally somewhat indiscriminate. The accusation is thus that Blackwater was using excessive force, and so the lawsuit alleges, should pay for it.

Take a closer look, and the matter is less clear however. The "authorized" M4 comes in several versions. Some of these are "semi-automatic" meaning that every time the trigger is pulled, the gun fires one shot. Civilians can own guns like this in some nations, and advocates of gun control often play on the term semi-automatic to suggest that the weapon is particularly dangerous. In fact, this is nothing special, and the old Webley revolver seen in the picture above essentially behaves in the same way, although the term "double action" is used to describe it, instead of "semi-automatic". With either system, when you pull the trigger, one shot is fired. The Webley was in use throughout the British empire from the 1880's, and a modern semi-automatic rifle or pistol still behaves in essentially the same way.

Blackwater was not assigned semi-automatic rifles however, but rather was given "selective fire" or "fully-automatic" M-4s. There is a switch on the side of the rifle that allows you to select how many shots will be fired when the trigger is pulled, either one, three (on some versions) or continuous fire until the ammunition runs out (the type used by Blackwater and many militaries). The M4 in other words, can act like a machine-gun. This is a true "assault-rifle" and contrary to some propagandistic abuse of the terminology in North America, this sort of rifle has never been generally permitted to civilians in the US.

There are a couple of differences between what is usually called an assault rifle and what is usually called a machine gun. The first is that a machine gun usually has a barrel that can be changed quickly, when it overheats. This allows a machine gun that has enough ammunition and some spare parts to fire more or less indefinately. The second is that a machine gun often, but by no means always uses a larger bullet than an assault rifle. If a machine gun and an assault rifle both use the same size (this is usually referred to as caliber) of ammunition, and both are fired on their fully automatic setting (rat-a-tat-tat) the machine gun will usually be much more accurate because the machine gun is bigger, heavier, and less thrown about by recoil. The M249 and the M4 both use the same ammunition, 5.56 mm NATO (second from the right in the picture above). Both weapons would be fired on the full-auto setting in the convoy-protection/ car-chase situations that Blackwater is being criticized for. If Blackwater was using a .50 caliber (12.7 mm) machine gun (firing the largest cartridge on the far left), and using it against orders, it would be easy to say that this was a comparatively excessive use of force. The .50 caliber can fire through most anything that you see on a normal city block, and as .50 caliber bullets are difficult to stop, you are likely to end up firing through the block, whatever your intentions.

The complaint however, is that instead of using a light gun that will bounce about and scatter shots around the neighborhood, Blackwater used a gun with enough weight to put the same bullets where they are pointed. So if not a procedural excess, is the matter a procedural violation? Well supposedly the State Department didn't authorize the machine gun. Is this true?

There are many security companies around the globe who use ex-policemen and the like, as bodyguards. The State Department did not choose one of these comparatively low-profile companies however, but instead decided to go with a company that sells the services of Navy SEALs, and special forces soldiers.

Based on their experiences guarding the State Department employees, Blackwater decided to design and build a vehicle appropriate for their job. Look at this vehicle and decide whether the client that wants it would prefer to rely on concealment, or firepower. There is a ringmount on top of this vehicle for a machine gun (up to .50 caliber). Surely the State Department could not know about such a company using a machine gun!

Blackwater has also been operating "armed helicopters", as hired by the US government in Iraq. Here is a standard file photo of one of the Blackwater helicopters.
Lo and behold, cradled in the arms of the man in the rear seat, a machine gun! These Blackwater helicopters are one of the more common sights in Baghdad, (and they fly low). Some secret eh? But lets say that somehow the State Department failed to recognize a machine gun. How many people would fail to recognize a GRENADE? Who exactly would fail to notice if the guy next to them was USING grenades?

The "illegal" weapons accusations continue.

"Mr. Prince obtained illegal ammunition from an American company named LeMas. This company sold ammunition designed to explode after penetrating within the human body. Mr. Prince's employees repeatedly used this illegal ammunition in Iraq to inflict maximum damage on Iraqis."

So what is illegal ammunition anyway? Well according to the Hague convention of 1899 militaries are forbidden to do things like drop explosives from balloons, use poison gas, and use bullets that flatten easily in the human body, i.e. "dum-dum" bullets. If a bullet expands or breaks up when it hits flesh, this creates a more severe wound. Hunters use bullets of this type to kill the animals that they shoot quickly, and prevent them from suffering, but a hunter is supposed to shoot only if he or she has a 'clean shot' and will be certain to kill the animal, rather than mangle it. For a variety of reasons, including the fact that the target can shoot back, soldiers are less particular about blazing away. Bullets of this sort are thus forbidden in warfare to reduce the number of mutilating wounds.

Such rules are not applied to all situations however. Most police for example, specifically use expanding ammunition of this type. This is partly because police are only supposed to use their guns to protect someone (meaning that it is important to inflict a wound on the targeted person or animal which will incapacitate them as quickly as possible) and also because such a bullet is less likely to "overpenetrate". If a policeman must shoot someone to protect life, then this means that other people are likely to be nearby. If a bullet shoots through a "bad guy" or shoots through walls easily, then innocent people are likely to be injured.

Hostage rescue and anti-terrorist teams are likely to use bullets that not only expand, but which break into small pieces (frangible ammunition) because all of the police concerns with rapid incapacitation and shoot-through are more severe. A bullet can pass through a hostage-taker and hit a hostage, a terrorist could trigger a bomb if not stopped right away, and a bullet that goes through walls can depressurize an airplane.

LeMas bullets are a variation of the frangible bullet type. The LeMas bullet is supposed to penetrate very hard material like armor plate well, but turn to powder when it hits something comparatively soft, like a person, wood or wallboard. Whether the LeMas ammunition actually performs as advertised is quite controversial, and the nature of that performance is equally controversial, albeit with a different crowd, (the LeMas "blended-metal" ammunition supposedly can reduce a significant chunk of the targeted person to mush) . There is no question however but that this is not legal ammunition for the military to use in conventional warfare.

The problem is that Blackwater was not hired to invade Iraq, and kill their soldiers, but was hired to protect American diplomats there from suicide bombers and the like. Though the terminology is widely accepted internationally, it is factually dubious to describe all of the Iraqi insurgents as terrorists not subject to the laws of war. It is fairly difficult to say that police or anti-terrorist ammunition may not be used to stop a suicide bomber from driving a car bomb into a diplomat however, and this is precisely the problem that Blackwater faced. If it performed as promised, the LeMas ammunition should penetrate a truck or car bomber's vehicle and stop him before he would be able to complete his attack. Stray bullets would potentially be less damaging to civilians in their homes however, insofar as the special ammunition does not penetrate wood and wallboard.

Did the government know about this ammunition, or know about Blackwater using it. Well for years Blackwater invited military journalists and special forces troops, and government secret agents of all types to their training ranges for yearly trials of the latest special equipment on the market. Here is one of a number of articles about the LeMas ammunition in the Armed Forces Journal as part of their yearly coverage of the "Shootout at Blackwater". To put it one way, with publicity like this, I have a "bridge investment" for the person who thinks that the LeMas ammunition was "unauthorized".

The illegal weapons allegations continue, but they still sound odd to the knowledgeable.

John Doe #2 "Mr. Prince generated substantial revenues from participating in the illegal arms trade. Using his various companies, he (Prince) procured, and distributed various weapons, including unlawful weapons such as sawed-off semi-automatic machine guns with silencers through unlawful channels of distribution. For example, Mr. Prince and his employees arranged for the weapons to be polywrapped and smuggled into Iraq on Mr. Prince's private planes which operated under the name Presidential airlines. "

Firstly, what the heck is a " sawed-off semi-automatic machine gun with silencer". A machine gun is by definition fully automatic, not semi-automatic. If a machine gun is semi-automatic, it fires one shot for every time that you pull the trigger, just like the old revolver mentioned earlier, and such a gun is legal to own in the US. If it is "sawed-off" then legally it is a short-barreled rifle, and requires a permit, but is not necessarily unlawful. A silencer also requires a permit in the US, although not in many other parts of the world. Clearly there are some questions regarding the factual accuracy of the affidavit, particularly given that Blackwater has the very special sort of government authorization to possess most any gun. To return to the poorly-described mystery weapon however, most likely this accusation actually refers to a short-barreled submachine gun with a silencer like this MP-5.

Submachine guns fire pistol bullets, but are more controllable and accurate than a pistol, plus they have the ability to fire fully automatically, like a machine gun.

The affidavit claims however, that Prince is smuggling SEMI-AUTOMATIC submachine guns into Iraq to SELL. Now there are a couple of big problems with this story. First, semi-auto submachine guns are an inferior weapon in the arms trade. The very same MP-5 above is generally held to be the best submachine gun in the world...... in its fully automatic version.

In any case even if Iraqis were not bothered by the lack of full-auto capabilities, the MP-5 is not some American exclusive. The gun is designed and manufactured in Germany, but the maker has licensed manufacture to, amongst other nations, Iran, Pakistan, Mexico, Sudan, and Turkey. It would be easier to smuggle weapons from the vast majority of these nations than the US, and the product would be superior to the semi-auto only version permitted to US civilians.

Maybe it is the silencer that is key? You can walk into a store in a number of European nations and buy a silencer without a license, very much unlike the US, because the silencer is regarded as a device to cut down on nuisance noise and protect hearing. American silencers are also very expensive for what its worth.

Moreover, if Prince was selling American weapons illicitly on the black market in Iraq, then US soldiers would likely encounter some, capture them, and trace the serial numbers. Would Prince be stupid enough to risk going to a 'very special' sort of jail for "assistance to terrorists"? In a world full of superior and cheaper weapons, would this sort of scheme actually be practical?

There are several more likely explanations.

1. The affidavit is completely inaccurate.

2. The affidavit is falsely suggesting that Prince is involved in the "arms trade" when in fact he was sending his (legally acquired) weapons to his employees for their bodyguard work. The US government is aware of this even if the Iraqi government hasn't formally approved.

3. Prince and Blackwater are transporting weapons for the CIA or another US government agency.

At this point, it is worth taking a look at the quality of John Doe #2's affidavit, and The Nation's reporting on it. John Doe #2 does not confine himself to claims that Erik Prince is a religious warrior, war criminal, and arms smuggler; no there is SEX, not just violence.

"Mr. Prince's North Carolina operations had an ongoing wife-swapping and and sex ring which was participated in by many of Mr. Prince's top executives."

Now wife-swapping would seem to be a poor fit for a maniacally religious crusader. I am not foolish enough to say that such hypocrisy is out of the question, or even less likely however. To continue:

This sex ring ended up causing so many disputes amongst Mr. Prince's executives that Mr. Prince directed his employee Joseph Schmidt to investigate and prepare a report.

Now according to the scenario as laid out by John Doe #2, our villain Mr. Prince is not a participant in a "wife-swapping sex-ring" but asked for a report on one that is disrupting his business.

In other words, this supposed "sex-ring", by definition a bunch of swingers more or less opposed to sexual jealousy, in fact is so quarrelsome, that they attract the hostile attention of their notoriously religious boss.

Ask yourself, which seems more realistic, a real "wife-swapping sex-ring", or a handful of office affairs and related quarrels that trigger both a report for the blue-nose boss, and lurid rumors spread by a certain type of rumormonger.

Now ABC news was happy to mention these salacious accusations. This has the whiff of tabloid journalism about it, but frankly, the full coverage also means that the viewer or reader is likely to take all the accusations with a grain or two of salt.

By contrast, The Nation is happy to report on every accusation of violence, but fails to mention the gossipy (note that the supposed "wife-swapping sex-ring" is quite irrelevant to either shootings in Iraq or blameworthy behavior from Erik Prince) tone of the affidavit. You notice if you read both affidavits, but many people will not. What The Nation does mention is worth calling attention to and takes on new significance however.

The Nation cannot independently verify the identities of the two individuals (the John Does), their roles at Blackwater or what motivated them to provide sworn testimony in these civil cases.

Now none of this is not to say that I dismiss the core of the wrongful death lawsuit in its assertion that Blackwater was trigger-happy and careless with the lives of Iraqis.

The overall public concern, and blame, focussed on Blackwater are not necessarily in proportion to the reality of Iraq however. Affidavit #1 emphasizes, for the needs of the court case, the fact that after blazing away at some supposed threat (likely a dubiously defined threat, but a threat) that the Blackwater personnel did not stop to see if someone was wounded and needed medical attention.

Does anyone really suppose that the State Department officials, or anyone else in the US government for that matter, would want to stop and check in this scenario however, given that the whole goal of the convoy was to escape the (commonly repeated) roadside bombs, suicide car bombs, RPG attacks and machine gun strafing that characterizes the Iraq occupation. The US military does not stop its convoys under these circumstances; why should Blackwater, with a dedicated VIP protection role? For that matter, imagine that you, the reader, in whatever competency you possess, were sent to Iraq as a consultant. If you had bodyguards who fired at a perceived attacker, would you want the vehicle to stop and "check out" the situation, rather than carry you immediately to safety?

This sounds very callous, and uncaring of the safety of Iraqis of course, but any other way of thinking about it denies the reality of occupation. To put it a different way, try and devise a plan whereby a foreign nation may occupy your own, and do so despite the efforts of tens of thousands of your countrymen who are willing to risk their own, and their family's deaths. Now take that plan, and modify it, so that the foreign occupation forces take the sort of risks that you would be willing to take as an occupier, rather than the occupied. Does your new occupation plan sound brutal?

So much of the criticism and finger pointing around Blackwater and similar groups pretends that working officially for the government is indicative of some vast distinction in the quality of the personnel involved. While it is worth noting that the Blackwater employees are virtually all ex-soldiers (usually ELITE ex-soldiers), I am willing to presuppose for the purposes of argument, that private contractors might be more brutal than government officials in a given role.

Look at what the role of the Blackwater contractors really is however. They are bodyguards. The military is trying to suppress people fighting against foreign occupation. Which role is more brutal?

Bank guards in most nations around the globe are, I believe often armed, and normally private employees, and it is probably likely that they will have less restraint than a decent policeman of a given nation. How often do you hear about bank guard brutality however? If the area is lawless enough that you do hear about bank guard brutality, does anyone suppose that the police are better? It is a lot easier to protect a few discrete people, places or objects, than it is to control a hostile nation. A lot of additional brutality follows the need or desire to control and change the behavior of a population.

Certainly the Blackwater guards can be described as trigger happy, but they are not the only ones. Here in an official report two years back, the military acknowledges a full year of civilian shootings; more than one a day. These are the shootings that were acknowledged. Most all of those Blackwater contractors were in the military before. Does anyone think that they only started covering up shootings AFTER they became bodyguards?

PZ Myers posts about the Blackwater 'goon squad' and 'killers for hire'. Andrew Sullivan points darkly to the mindset behind Blackwater. Blackwater may be a goon squad, but I can find you a very large unit that is a hell of a lot worse. They may work for the government, but the mindset of these "patriotic" goevernment workers is a LOT worse than that of Erik Prince, at least when you adjust for the likely hyperbole and rumormongering of John Doe #2. Read these two articles and tell me about how scary mercenaries are.

If the history of the 20'th (and many other) century can tell us anything, it is that people working for the government, and people purportedly working for the good of the public are capable of killing people on a scale that private gain does not justify.

If the history of the past ten or so years tells us anything, it is that a good deal of the public in the English speaking world is quite willing to tolerate trigger happy behavior in government officials with a lot less provocation than the car bombs, RPGs, and IEDs of Baghdad.

Amadou Bailo Diallo, Bronx NYC, USA unarmed, shot 41 times by four policemen, policemen bearing the holy authorization of government title, acquitted.

Sean Bell incident, Queens NYC USA, three men, unarmed, at a wedding party, fired upon 50 times by five policemen, one of the three men, killed, policemen bearing the holy authorization of government title, acquitted.

Jean Charles de Menezes, London UK, unarmed, shot 8 times, 7 times in the head, policemen bearing the holy authorization of government title, never charged.

Etc., etc., etc.................

The "fire shower of nuclear retaliation", and North Korean strategy.

A recent statement in North Korea's main newspaper Rodong Sinmun is potentially interesting for what it reveals about their nuclear strategy.

The north Koreans were responding, in typically bellicose fashion, to the US announcement that it was extending its 'nuclear umbrella' to cover South Korea. Short exempts of the North Korean article can be found all over the web, but when scanning the news on the subject quickly, one relatively short article I found
from a fairly obscure source included enough of the North Korean statement to potentially reveal something interesting about their nuclear strategy. Virtually everyone mentioned the "fire shower of nuclear retaliation", but what most of the articles leave out the following words "all over South Korea."

This statement is a fairly strong indication that nuclear weapon targeting in North Korea definitely includes South Korea of course, but this may well indicate that their nuclear targeting may be focused MOSTLY on South Korea, rather than on South Korean allies like the US or Japan.

Fireball from Minor Scale test immediately after detonation. This was a conventional (non-nuclear) test using only high explosives, and it was above, rather than below ground, but the scale is similar to the latest (2009) North Korean test (yield estemated by the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists). Note the F-4 Phantom aircraft in the foreground for scale.

We have to realize that North Korea targeting the South cannot be regarded as a completely foregone conclusion, because the North regards the South as part of their own nation, and fallout from any such strike would most certainly affect them.

Now the North Korean military and government are composed of very hard men, and it is unsurprising that they would be willing to accept the damage, but they are also a nation with a strong propaganda focus as well, and the possibility of being nuked by the North certainly has the possibility of alienating otherwise sympathetic South Koreans.

The sword of propaganda is double-edged in this case, because the possibility of nuclear war also might encourage South Koreans to make additional concessions to the North, but even so, it is doubtful that the North would risk the negative consequences unless they meant what they said. The North Korean ideology is more patriotic and focused on uniting the nation than it is communist and committed to international socialism, and such a strategy would not fit well with an idle threat to nuke your "own" people and land.

North Koria's Ballistic missiles "RODONG"(=NODONG), "TAEPODONG-1" and "TAEPODONG-2"

The REASON that this strategy would be adopted is most likely, technical. Even though North Korea has nuclear weapons, it most likely lacks the ability to place them on ICBM's (missiles). Considering the level (technical or numerical) of North Korean air-power, they could not rely on bomber delivery to far off locations, as the US Strategic Air Command did in the 1950's. It is fairly likely however, that a bomb could be dropped on the South, right across the border.

While technical limitations are likely to have been the most decisive, it is also likely the strategy is based in no small part on the idea that a limited, rather than total, nuclear war scenario is the most desirable. Communist nuclear thinking around the globe never truly embraced mutually assured destruction, and it would not seem especially wise for North Korea to be an exception, at least so long as North Korea lacks nuclear parity (technically unlikely). In the event of a war breaking out on the Korean peninsula, were the North to be pushed to use a nuke locally, the chances that international intervention (especially by China or Russia) would force a truce, would logically be higher, than if San Diego, Maui, or Tokyo were to be vitrified.

Thus the most likely scenario is that North Korean weapons are first, last-ditch solutions to a lost war, and also coming a close second, a deterrent to nuclear attack, which would be most likely to occur if North Korea was WINNING a war with the South, and looked likely to take over the entire nation.

To some degree, this should be reassuring to Americans, Japanese, or other US allies, but it is also very clear that reducing hostilities with North Korea is desirable. Long-extended hostilities will tend to tilt North Korean nuclear strategy further and further towards retaliation; bringing the war TO hated enemies, rather than resorting to targeting that nearly attacks oneself.

If you never had it in the first place..........

Megan McArdle at the Atlantic has written an interesting post on the developing (or perhaps ossifying) dogma in the Democratic party that holds that good and universal health care will not only be good for the people that have it, but will also be cheaper. This "have your cake and eat it too" notion may be, as she points out, reasonably compared to the notorious "Voodoo economics" of the Laffer curve. There is one way that medical costs might well (unfortunately) end up being controlled however.

A very large percentage of these national health care systems around the globe (and most developed-world health care systems are substantially nationalized) negotiate low costs for medications because drug companies take cost-of-additional-production + profit as a basis for pricing drugs sold to national systems. Cost of research and development is commonly not included in the price or at least is not included fully, and national health systems are able to enforce this preferential pricing, which externalizes the cost of developing medicines, by not making available all of the medicines on the market.

The structural reluctance of a national health care system to add new drugs to the national formulary is countered by observation of the success of a given medicine ELSEWHERE. It is difficult to deny medication and treatments that are well demonstrated to be useful and effective in another nation, but such a system naturally tends towards stasis, and is quite dependent on external benchmarking of medical quality for PARTICULAR treatments. Low-cost but high-quality treatment in unitary health care systems is thus quite dependent on non-unitary health care elsewhere.

The United States has been, for many years the non-unitary market of choice, and indeed is the market of choice for drugs and medical devices altogether. Medical research and development efforts around the globe, including in unitary markets, will generally take for granted that any drug or medical device that is effective and improved is likely to repay its research costs if it is approved in the US. Comparisons between the US and a unitary health care system will naturally cause American health care to seem thoroughly overpriced, because a unitary system that takes the natural and obvious steps to control drug costs becomes a free rider on the research, development, and effectiveness evaluation of other nations. The US, due to lack of comprehensive coverage, is not a great standard bearer for quality medicine when all the people who lack coverage (or who lack good coverage) are included, but the role of the US medical system in determining which TREATMENTS work, is vital.

If something changes in the US to interfere with the new-medicine introduction cycle however, then everything changes everywhere. Where in the world, if not in the US, will new, and likely expensive medications or treatments be offered the chance to demonstrate their effectiveness?

The nightmare scenario would thus be that the US would adopt an 'off the rack' national health care model that would seek out preferential pricing, and which would not allow new drugs into the national formulary until they had a well established record on the market. This scenario would create a sort of 'lockout' with the formulary systems of the world excluding all or most new drug introductions, and preventing new medications from proving themselves.

In fact, a Canadian or British unitary and single-payer system is not required to squelch medical development however. Even if EVERY new drug were allowed, but allowed with a delay, then drugmakers would have less time when they would be able to recoup their costs (which includes costs for drug development that did not pan out) before the opportunity to do so was truncated by patent expiration. A limited trial period when drugs would see a limited introduction would likewise slice into the period when a drugmaker is protected by patent monopoly.

For most national health systems, a delay in introducing a drug to the national formulary causes injury to the extent that such patients as are denied the medication suffer its lack for a few years. This can be lethal to the affected individuals, but their numbers are limited. Due to the crucial role of the US in the global drug market however, the effects of a delay or other market alteration are likely to be more lasting, and could eliminate new treatments altogether.

The Obama administration has put a good deal of emphasis on the creation of an agency that would evaluate the "effectiveness" of particular drugs and treatments, and an agency of this sort could easily provide the justification for excluding new medications, whether it is a government program or private insurance that would actually pull the trigger. If new medical treatments are introduced less and less often, then the costs associated with new medical treatments will drop. It will be hard for people to miss treatments that did not ever exist in the first place.