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Now Available! Other Lands Have Dreams: From Baghdad to Pekin Prison by KATHY KELLY Click Here to Order the Hot New CounterPunch Book by 3-time Nobel Peace Prize Nominee Kathy Kelly! Today's Stories May 14 / 15, 2005 Alexander Cockburn Join the 14 Per Cent Club! May 13, 2005 Tom Stephens A Chronology of US War Crimes and Torture, 1975-2005 Patrick Cockburn "They Destroyed Everything" Mike Whitney Tom Friedman, Imperial Chronicler Chris Floyd Miami Vice: the Sleazy World of Jeb Bush Jenna Orkin Ground Zero's Toxic Dust Dave Lindorff Googling for Fun Joshua Frank Yale Fires an Acclaimed Anarchist Scholar: an Interview with David Graeber Website of the Day Botero: Pinta El Horror de Abu Ghraib May 12, 2005 Paul Craig Roberts America is Losing: More Phony Jobs Hype Uri Avnery Death of a Myth Greg Moses Neo-Con Logic at the Border Carolyn Baker The Politics of Dominionism: the New Religious Right in America Pat Williams Amateurish High Jinks on Roadless Areas William S. Lind Reality Gap: the Myth of US Invincibilty Jack Random The Dubious Wisdom of George W. Bush Gary Leupp Douglas Feith Bares His Soul to Jeffrey Goldberg   May 11, 2005 Patrick Cockburn The Rise, Fall and Rise of Ahmed Chalabi: King of Jordan to Pardon His $300 Million Bank Swindle Kevin Zeese The Occupation Gets More Saddam-like Every Day Christopher Brauchli Coffee, Tea or Torture?: A One Way Ticket to Uzbekistan Zalman Amit The Collapse of Academic Freedom in Israel: Tantura, Teddy Katz and Haifa University Robert Shull Carte Blanche for the Terror Cops: Senate Gives DHS Power to Waive All Laws Mike Whitney God, Gays, and George Bernard Shaw Dr. Teresa Whitehurst Anti-Arabic Week at a Southern High School Norman Solomon Political Bluster and the Filibuster   May 10, 2005 Richard Drayton The Imperial Mythology of WW II: an Ethical Blank Check Dave Zirin Steve Nash's Brilliant Year: Anti-War Hoopster Wins NBA's MVP Jackie Corr The Medicare Catch: Mrs. O'Hara's Windfall Dave Lindorff Silence of the Scams: Economists on China Michael Donnelly From Roadless to Clueless: the Great Stillborn Eco Victory Reza Fiyouzat Nomadic Abstracts Scott Parkin Taking Direct Action Against Halliburton Stephen Babcock The Burden of Knowing Better Alan Farago Florida, Water and Lobbyists Michael Neumann Naomi's Courage Website of the Day One Nation Under Plagiarism   May 9, 2005 Louis Proyect Shilling for Chevron: Jared Diamond, Greenwasher Robert Fisk "Mission Accomplished": the Occupation, Year Two Kevin Zeese Concientious Objection on Trial: the Court Martial of Keith Benderman Joshua Frank Kerry Bashes Gay Marriage Sasha Kramer A Mother's Day Call for Justice in Haiti's Prisons Andrew Wimmer Create and Resist Jeffrey Webber Back to the Streets in Bolivia? Jeffrey St. Clair Straight to Bechtel   May 7 / 8, 2005 Alexander Cockburn Who Beat Hitler? Gary Leupp Biblical Prophecy and Christian Zionism Saul Landau Pope Torquemada: Purges, Pedophiles and Cover-Ups Joe DeRaymond Autumn of the Revolutionary: Another Look at Daniel Ortega Daniela Ponce Seeing Chile in Nepal Heather Williams Hollywood Does Enron Gregory Elich Zimbabwe's Fight for Justice Anis Memon To Cuba and Back John Chuckman The Peculiar State: "Criticism of Israel is a Form of Anti-Semitism" Mike Whitney Hard Right Rage Against the Truth Ron Jacobs Re-Reading "Born on the Fourth of July" as the Iraq War Grinds On Colin Kalmbacher Whither Disorder? Ann Coulter and the Texas Police State, Cont. Lance Selfa Uprising in Mexico City Fred Gardner "Getting High is a Little Like Cuba" Ben Tripp Letters on Wittgenstein Mickey Z. The Mother of All Days Richard Joseph Those Patriotic Magnets Dr. Susan Block Come As You Are: Masturbation 101 Poets' Basement Smith-Ferri, Louise, Nettnin, Engel and Albert   May 6, 2005 Patrick Cockburn Baghdad Diary: a Week of Bombs and Blood Erin Yoshioka Another "3 Strikes" Travesty: Why is Santo Reyes Facing Life in Prison? Sam Husseini Talking with Syrians Dave Lindorff Ernie Pyle Where Are You? When Reporters were Reporters Kevin Zeese Circus Trials of Abu Ghraib: When Even the Fall Girl Can't Plead Guilty Joshua Frank An Overextended US Military? It Won't Stop Another War Dan Bacher Tribes and Salmon Win One: Bush Backs Off Trinity River Water Raid P. Sainath India's Bloody Water Wars   May 5, 2005 Carles Mutaner Is Chavez's Venezuela "Socialist" or "Populist?" Carl G. Estabrook Is There Any Hope for the Pope? Farrah Hassen The US's Syrian Obsession Kevin Zeese "Sent Into Combat Unequipped and Unprepared": an Interview with Patrick Resta Michael Leonardi May Day with an American Soldier in Rome Bennett Ramberg The Future of Nuclear Terror: Coming to a Reactor Near You Ray McGovern The Smoking Gun on White House Deceit Norman Solomon Nuclear Fundamentalism, the New York Times and Iran Nicole Colson The Back Alley Attack on Abortion Rights Brian Concannon, Jr. Clearing the Fences in Haiti     May 4, 2005 Colin Kalmbacher Ann Coulter and the Police State: Heckle a Racist, Get Arrested John Walsh Al Franken is a Big Fat Phony: Lying on Air America to Support the War Greg Moses Vigilante Wedge: Schwarzenegger Reprises "Birth of a Nation" Ali Khan Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty Poised to Fall Apart Chris Floyd Ring Them Bells Linda S. Heard D-Day for Tony Blair: Bogeymen and Scare Tactics Dave Zirin The NFL, Congress and the Male Cheerleader Principle William S. Lind Fool's Paradise Gary Leupp Bolton's Proudest Moment: Breaking the UN's Anti-Zionist Resolution Website of the Day Kent State, May 4, 1970   May 3, 2005 Dave Lindorff Bush has Grasped the Third Rail, Now Turn on the Juice Brian Cloughley Halliburton's War Loot Ira Kurzban Death Squad Diplomacy: How Bolton Armed Haiti's Thugs and Killers Seth Sandronsky Towards Debtors' Prisons? Gilad Atzmon The Labour Party Isn't an Option Any More Michael Donnelly Branding Eco Collapse Alex Sanchez Chile's Man at the OAS: a Blow to Bush? Peter Linebaugh Magna Carta and May Day   May 2, 2005 Ron Jacobs Toward an Anti-Imperialist Movement Stan Goff The Case of Hasan Akbar Karyn Strickler Achieving Gender Balance in US Politics Joshua Frank Leaked UK Memo Indict's Blair's Iraq Folly Kevin Zeese Getting Out of Iraq will Prove Tougher Than Getting Out of Vietnam Vicente Navarro Pope Benedict: a Rightwing Politician       April 30 / May 1, 2005 Alexander Cockburn Marla Ruzicka, Rachel Corrie and "Credibility" Gabriel Kolko Lessons from a Total Defeat: the End of the Vietnam War, 30 Years Later Jennifer Loewenstein The Disengaged: Gaza and the Fragmentation of Palestinian Nationhood Lee Sustar City for Sale: Richard Daley's Chicago Saul Landau The Bush-DeLay Axis of Naked Power T.W. Croft The Undiscovered Country: the High Tide of the Neo-Con Confederacy Nikolas Kozloff Fox News v. Hugo Chavez William Blum Never-Ending Double Standards Dave Lindorff Judicial Jury Tampering in Philly Joshua Frank The Bi-Partisan Assault on Teenage Girls Doug Giebel Saving Jane Fonda Steven Erlanger A Response to Kathy Christison, from the NYT Jerusalem Bureau Chief Fred Gardner Washington State Doctor Harassed Mike Whitney Another Mad Bush Press Conference Kurt Nimmo Putin Pussyfoots in Palestine Joe DeRaymond A Short History of the 15th Congressional District of Pennsylvania Michael Dickinson Flags Mickey Z. May Day at Yankee Stadium Justin Taylor The Crawling Chaos: HP Lovecraft's Polymorphous Legacy Poets Basement Krieger, Engel, Albert, St. Clair Website of the Weekend Save Barbados's Cowpastor                                             Hot Stories Alexander Cockburn Behold, the Head of a Neo-Con! Subcomandante Marcos The Death Train of the WTO Norman Finkelstein Hitchens as Model Apostate Steve Niva Israel's Assassination Policy: the Trigger for Suicide Bombings? Dardagan, Slobodo and Williams CounterPunch Exclusive: 20,000 Wounded Iraqi Civilians Steve J.B. Prison Bitch Sheldon Rampton and John Stauber True Lies: the Use of Propaganda in the Iraq War Wendell Berry Small Destructions Add Up CounterPunch Wire WMD: Who Said What When Cindy Corrie A Mother's Day Talk: the Daughter I Can't Hear From Gore Vidal The Erosion of the American Dream Francis Boyle Impeach Bush: A Draft Resolution Click Here for More Stories.     Subscribe Online

Weekend Edition May 14 / 15, 2005 Depression, Coercion, Insurance Companies and Physician-Assisted Suicide Death with Pitfalls By MARK SCARAMELLA According to a Field Poll in March, 70% of Californians favor physician-assisted suicide and 68% would want the option available to them if they had less than six months to live -- at least in the abstract -- when they're healthy. Support for such proposals fades when people consider the pitfalls, trade-offs and details of specific proposals. California's prior "Death with Dignity" proposition started out with similar popular support but went down to a 54-46 defeat in 1992. You've probably already heard most of the arguments in favor of Physician-Assisted Suicide -- mercy killing, individual rights, "compassion." However, people already have this "right." Suicide is not illegal. The question is how easy and how legal should it be? And under what circumstances? In theory physician-assisted suicide is intended to be compassionate, to alleviate suffering. No matter where you stand, you'll have to concede that death, from whatever cause, is the end of suffering. Now comes California's latest physician-assisted suicide bill, AB654, the "California Compassionate Choices Act," introduced by our assemblywoman, Patty Berg of Eureka. Some of AB654's general pitfalls are: The bill says a person must have been diagnosed as terminal with less than six months to live to receive the lethal phenobarbital. But people can be and are misdiagnosed as terminal. In addition, many doctors admit to difficulty in assigning a specific time to a terminal condition. The bill calls for patients to make an informed decision (twice) witnessed by two others, at least 15 days apart. In reality, many people with terminal conditions suffer suicidal thoughts when they first are diagnosed, but later recover, then go through ups and downs. There's no guarantee that the limited "safeguards" in the bill will be followed, especially in typical and common hospice care situations where the family is the primary caregiver. We'd all like to think that family members of a terminal patient always have the patient's best interest at heart. As ideal as that may sound, there are times when it's just not the case. Families are complicated and can be contentious, especially under the stressful conditions associated with terminally ill family members. Motivations can range from altruistic to nefarious. Which brings us to two uncomfortable issues specifically mentioned in AB654: coercion and insurance. In the original draft of Ms. Berg's bill there was the following provision: "A person who coerces or exerts undue influence on a patient to request medication for the purpose of ending the patient's life, or to destroy a rescission of such a request, shall be guilty of a felony." In the latest version of the bill that provision has been removed. No explanation was given. (Maybe because proving a felony isn't that easy.) All that remains is a requirement that the patient sign a statement saying they are not being coerced. Coercion and "undue influence" are hard enough to define in ordinary discourse, much less as a legal standard. What if the patient is told that they're continued healthcare and medication is going to cost more than the family can afford? Is that "undue influence"? What if the patient's life insurance benefits will help another family member's desperate financial problems? Would reminding the patient of that be "undue influence"? Are these the kinds of factors terminally ill people should consider? What if the patient's HMO tells the patient that their costly pain medication is not covered under their health insurance plan? According to Ms. Berg's bill, "suicide" by legal deadly prescription is not supposed to affect a patient's life insurance. But Oregon's assisted suicide website informs visitors that such coverage questions are up to the insurance carrier. Oregon's physician-assisted suicide website gives the following subjective and qualitative reasons that the 208 people who have used the law since its enactment in 1997 have given: Losing autonomy (87%); less able to engage in activities making life enjoyable (84%); loss of dignity (80%); losing control of bodily functions (59%); burden on family, friends/caregivers (36%); inadequate pain control or concern about it (22%); financial implications of treatment (3%). However, there's no indication of when these "concerns" were expressed. Were they expressed when the person first asked for the phenobarbital, or were they expressed on the day the medication was taken? Most of the terminal Oregonians using the law had cancer (more than 80%). Only five had AIDS. But only 208 have used Oregon's landmark assisted-suicide law in its first seven years. You can't draw many conclusions from such low numbers. In fact, why go to such legal trouble and take so many risks in law if so few people are going to "benefit" from it? Oregon doesn't report on how many people applied for the lethal dosages, but changed their mind -- only on actual suicides. Then there are the doctors who are expected to prescribe the lethal dose. A survey of Oregon physicians who did NOT oppose physician assisted suicide revealed the following concerns: Half feared the attempt might fail and result in harm to the patient. (No information is kept/reported on this in Oregon.) Half were not confident they could predict when a patient had less than six months to live. (And how can you know if the person commits suicide before the six months?) One-third feared someone other than the patient would take the medication. One-third were not confident they could recognize depression. (And what if the psychologist/psychiatrist determines the applicant is depressed and turns down the prescription?) Some did not want to become known as "suicide doctors." Then there's the Hippocratic Oath: "...Neither will I administer a poison to anybody when asked to do so, nor will I suggest such a course." (Modern translation.) Can doctors ethically prescribe deadly doses? Can they be asked to do so? Two American studies have shown that, among the elderly, those most vulnerable to the abuse of physician-assisted suicide -- women, blacks, low-income people and poorly-educated people -- fear the legalization of physician-assisted suicide. More and more Americans who lack access to decent healthcare and support may be pushed into assisted death. In fact, assisted death can become a cost-containment strategy. (Texas's "futile care" law which was signed into law by then-Governor George W. Bush specifically allows hospitals to declare patients hopelessly ill and in effect not worth keeping alive, irrespective of the patient's and the family's wishes.) Burdened family members and healthcare providers may encourage the option of "legal" assisted death -- short of "undue influence," of course. In fact, it has been reported that some California hospitals have already set up committees to decide when care is "futile" and should be terminated regardless of a patient's or a family's wishes. There are disturbing stories of patients whose deaths have been hastened by these practices. Given the current and declining healthcare system, no law legalizing physician-assisted suicide, no matter how carefully crafted, can operate fairly. Do we really want to take all these risks just so that a few terminal people can solve problems like being "less able to engage in activities making life enjoyable"? Mark Scaramella is the managing editor of the Anderson Valley Advertiser and a frequent contributor to CounterPunch. He can be reached at: themaj@pacific.net       .