The Health Care Industry vs. Health Reform
Wendell Potter on June 24, 2009
I’m the former insurance industry insider now speaking out about how big for-profit insurers have hijacked our health care system and turned it into a giant ATM for Wall Street investors, and how the industry is using its massive wealth and influence to determine what is (and is not) included in the health care reform legislation members of Congress are now writing.
Although by most measures I had a great career in the insurance industry (four years at Humana and nearly 15 at CIGNA), in recent years I had grown increasingly uncomfortable serving as one of the industry’s top PR executives. In addition to my responsibilities at CIGNA, which included serving as the company’s chief spokesman to the media on all corporate and financial matters, I also served on a lot of trade association committees and industry-financed coalitions, many of which were essentially front groups for insurers. So I was in a unique position to see not only how Wall Street analysts and investors influence decisions insurance company executives make but also how the industry has carried out behind-the-scenes PR and lobbying campaigns to kill or weaken any health care reform efforts that threatened insurers’ profitability.
I also have seen how the industry’s practices — especially those of the for-profit insurers that are under constant pressure from Wall Street to meet their profit expectations — have contributed to the tragedy of nearly 50 million people being uninsured as well as to the growing number of Americans who, because insurers now require them to pay thousands of dollars out of their own pockets before their coverage kicks in — are underinsured. An estimated 25 million of us now fall into that category.
What I saw happening over the past few years was a steady movement away from the concept of insurance and toward “individual responsibility,” a term used a lot by insurers and their ideological allies. This is playing out as a continuous shifting of the financial burden of health care costs away from insurers and employers and onto the backs of individuals. As a result, more and more sick people are not going to the doctor or picking up their prescriptions because of costs. If they are unfortunate enough to become seriously ill or injured, many people enrolled in these plans find themselves on the hook for such high medical bills that they are losing their homes to foreclosure or being forced into bankruptcy.
As an industry spokesman, I was expected to put a positive spin on this trend that the industry created and euphemistically refers to as “consumerism” and to promote so-called “consumer-driven” health plans. I ultimately reached the point of feeling like a huckster.
I thought I could live with being a well-paid huckster and hang in there a few more years until I could retire. I probably would have if I hadn’t made a completely spur-of-the-moment decision a couple of years ago that changed the direction of my life. While visiting my folks in northeast Tennessee where I grew up, I read in the local paper about a health “expedition” being held that weekend a few miles up U.S. 23 in Wise, Va. Doctors, nurses and other medical professionals were volunteering their time to provide free medical care to people who lived in the area. What intrigued me most was that Remote Area Medical, a non-profit group whose original mission was to provide free care to people in remote villages in South America, was organizing the expedition. I decided to check it out.
That 50-mile stretch of U.S. 23, which twists through the mountains where thousands of men have made their living working in the coalmines, turned out to be my “road to Damascus.”
Nothing could have prepared me for what I saw when I reached the Wise County Fairgrounds, where the expedition was being held. Hundreds of people had camped out all night in the parking lot to be assured of seeing a doctor or dentist when the gates opened. By the time I got there, long lines of people stretched from every animal stall and tent where the volunteers were treating patients.
That scene was so visually and emotionally stunning it was all I could do to hold back tears. How could it be that citizens of the richest nation in the world were being treated this way?
A couple of weeks later I was boarding a corporate jet to fly from Philadelphia to a meeting in Connecticut. When the flight attendant served my lunch on gold-rimmed china and gave me a gold-plated knife and fork to eat it with, I realized for the first time that someone’s insurance premiums were paying for me to travel in such luxury. I also realized that one of the reasons those people in Wise County had to wait in long lines to be treated in animal stalls was because our Wall Street-driven health care system has created one of the most inequitable health care systems on the planet.
Although I quit my job last year, I did not make a final decision to speak out as a former insider until recently when it became clear to me that the insurance industry and its allies (often including drug and medical device makers, business groups and even the American Medical Association) were succeeding in shaping the current debate on health care reform. While the thought of speaking out had crossed my mind during the months leading up to the day I gave notice, I initially decided instead to hang out my shingle as a consultant to small businesses and nonprofit organizations.
I decided to take the shingle down, though, at least for a while, when I heard members of Congress reciting talking points like the ones I used to write to scare people away from real reform. I’ll have more to say about that over the coming weeks and months, but, for now, remember this: whenever you hear a politician or pundit use the term “government-run health care” and warn that the creation of a public health insurance option that would compete with private insurers (or heaven forbid, a single-payer system like the one Canada has) will “lead us down the path to socialism,” know that the original source of the sound bite most likely was some flack like I used to be.
Bottom line: I ultimately decided the stakes are too high for me to just sit on the sidelines and let the special interests win again. So I have joined forces with thousands of other Americans who are trying to persuade our lawmakers to listen to us for a change, not just to the insurance and drug company executives who are spending millions to shape reform to benefit them and the Wall Street hedge fund managers they are beholden to.
Take it from me, a former insider, who knows what really motivates those folks. You need to know where the hard-earned money you pay in health insurance premiums — if you lucky enough to have coverage at all — really goes.
I decided to speak out knowing that some people will not like what I have to say and will do all they can to discredit me. In anticipation of that, here are some facts:
* I am not doing this because my former employer was pushing me out the door or because I had become a disgruntled employee. I had not been passed over for a promotion or anything like that. As I noted earlier, I had a financially rewarding career in the industry, and I’m very grateful for that. I had numerous promotions, raises, bonuses, stock options and stock grants over the years. When I left my last job, I was as close on the corporate ladder to the CEO as any PR person has ever climbed at the company. I reported to the general counsel, the company’s top lawyer, whose boss is the chairman and CEO, a man I like and worked closely with over many years.
* The decision to leave was entirely my own, and I left on good terms with everybody at the company. In fact, I agreed to postpone my last day at work by more than two months at the company’s request. My coworkers gave me a terrific going-away party, and I received dozens of kind notes from people all across the country including friends at other companies and at America’s Health Insurance Plans, the industry trade association.
I still consider all of them my friends. In fact, the thing I have missed most since I left is working as part of a team, even though I eventually came to the conclusion that I was playing for the wrong side. Being a consultant has its advantages, but I have missed the camaraderie. After a few months, I thought that maybe I should consider working for another company again. At one point, a former boss told me that another insurer had posted a PR job and encouraged me to contact a former CIGNA executive who worked there about it. Against my better judgment, I did, but I immediately decided not to pursue it. The last thing I wanted to do was to go from one big insurer to another one. What the hell was I thinking?
I’m writing this because, knowing how things work, I’m fully expecting insurers’ PR firms to quietly feed friends of the industry (which include a roster of editorial writers and pundits, lawmakers and many others who fall under the broad category of “third-party advocates,”) with anything they can think of to discredit me and what I say. This will go on behind the scenes because the insurers will want to preserve the image they are working so hard to cultivate — as a group of kind and caring folks who think only of you and your health and are working hard as real partners to Congress and the White House to find “a uniquely American solution” to what ails our system.
I expect this because I have worked closely with the industry’s PR firms over many years whenever the insurers were being threatened with bad publicity, litigation or legislation that might hinder profits.
One of the reasons I chose to become affiliated with the Center for Media and Democracy is because of the important work the organization does to expose often devious, dishonest and unethical PR practices that further the self interests of big corporations and special interest groups at the expense of the American people and the democratic principles this country was founded on.
After a long career in PR, I am looking forward to providing an insider’s perspective as a senior fellow at CMD, and I am very grateful for the opportunity to speak out for the rights and dignity of ordinary people. The people of Wise County and every county deserve much better than to be left behind to suffer or die ahead of their time due to Wall Street’s efforts to keep our government from ensuring that all Americans have real access to first-class health care.
Wendell Potter is the Senior Fellow on Health Care for the Center for Media and Democracy in Madison, Wisconsin.
Complete article at:
http://www.prwatch.org/node/8422
Mike Lane: medical lobby picnic
(www.cagle.com)
Jack Ohman: pre-existing condition
(images.ucomics.com)
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New Analysis Compares Impacts of Three Approaches to Health Care Reform
Wednesday, June 24, 2009
New Analysis Compares Impacts of Three Approaches to Health Care Reform
A comprehensive approach to health insurance, provider payment, and care delivery system reforms has the potential to slow health care cost increases while achieving near-universal coverage. However, the potential savings for families, businesses, and the federal government vary markedly, depending on whether or not a public insurance plan option is included and how such a plan is structured, a new Commonwealth Fund analysis finds.
The new report, Fork in the Road: Alternative Paths to a High Performance U.S. Health System,
http://www.commonwealthfund.org/Content/Publications/Fund-Reports/2009/Jun/Fork-in-the-Road.aspx
is the first to compare three different scenarios: one that includes a public plan option in which health care providers would be paid at rates that fall midway between current Medicare rates and private plan rates, among other payment reforms; one that includes a public plan option that links payments more closely to Medicare rates; and one that includes no public plan, instead relying exclusively on private plans.
According to the analysis, cumulative health system savings between 2010 and 2020, compared with projected trends for that period, would range from a high of $3.0 trillion under the approach that includes a public plan paying providers at Medicare rates in competition with private plans, to $2.0 trillion for a public plan paying providers at rates midway between current Medicare and private plan rates, to $1.2 trillion in the private plans approach. All three approaches would make affordable coverage available to everyone.
Each reform path would include significant reforms to the way the nation pays for care, in order to reward value and efficiency rather than volume. But the two scenarios that include a public plan choice alongside private plans would spread reforms more quickly, reduce insurance administrative costs, and enable the federal government to expand coverage at less expense.
“The nation will be spending one out of every five dollars on health care by 2020, and millions more people will be uninsured,” said Commonwealth Fund president Karen Davis, a coauthor of the report. “This analysis shows we have a choice of paths that could lead to access for everyone, lower costs, and improved quality of care.”
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[SeniorNews] ANALYSIS – MANUFACTURERS AVOID WORST WITH U.S. DRUGS DEAL – News for Suddenly Seniors
Wednesday, June 24, 2009
ANALYSIS – MANUFACTURERS AVOID WORST WITH U.S. DRUGS DEAL
Jun 23, 2009
By Ben Hirschler
LONDON (Reuters) – The pharmaceutical industry has headed off the threat of more onerous imposed cost savings by stepping up to the plate on healthcare reform in the all-important U.S. market.
A weekend deal, announced by President Barack Obama, offering some $80 billion in prescription discounts over 10 years to help elderly Americans afford drugs will crimp profits, but the figure is a less than initially feared.
“Negotiations began with government asking for $130 billion, so $80 billion would represent a relatively benign outcome,” said Savvas Neophytou, an analyst at Panmure Gordon.
What’s more, the plan agreed with Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, with the backing of the Obama administration, means concessions will be funnelled in an area that could generate additional sales volume.
Drugmakers have agreed to provide a 50 percent discount for those elderly and disabled Americans in the Medicare health insurance program who face a gap in coverage after their drug costs reach a certain level, known as the “doughnut hole”.
“Roughly 20-25 percent of Medicare D patients reach the doughnut hole, and the majority of them either stop or switch their medications,” Deutsche Bank analyst Barbara Ryan said in a research note.
“Therefore, pharma may be providing discounts for branded drugs which will primarily represent incremental demand.”
DEGREE OF CERTAINTY
In contrast to the 1990s, when companies fought President Bill Clinton’s health reform plans tooth and nail, this time around drugmakers have recognised they need to make sacrifices.
The result, for investors, is a deal that now gives a degree of certainty as Obama battles to drive through his ambitious reform package, according to Andy Smith, a healthcare fund manager at AXA Framlington in London.
“Healthcare reform, for the pharmaceutical sector at least, now doesn’t stand there as being open-ended, with a worst-case scenario of virtually everything going to generics. That’s no longer the case; you can move on and manage it from here,” he said.
The globalised nature of the pharmaceuticals industry means U.S. policy is critical for companies like GlaxoSmithKline Plc and Novartis AG, as well as home-grown businesses such as Pfizer Inc and Merck & Co.
The DJ STOXX European healthcare index was the best performing sectoral benchmark by 1122 GMT on Monday, down 0.2 percent, while the broader market fell 1.3 percent.
The goal all along has been to stop the U.S. government getting more directly involved in drug pricing, as happens in Europe and Japan, where profits and sales growth have suffered as a result.
“Our initial take is that this is a win for the industry because it appears to short-circuit the prospect of direct government price negotiation outside of Medicaid,” Leerink Swann analysts said in a note.
2-3 PCT OF U.S. DRUG SPEND
Deutsche Bank calculates that $80 billion translates into roughly 2-3 percent of U.S. drug spend, but the nature of the deal is more palatable than alternative measures that could have increased the government’s direct purchasing power.
Although medicines represent only about 10 percent of the whole healthcare budget, the high-profile nature of the industry makes it an obvious target for cutbacks.
Significantly, by striking a deal now the pharmaceuticals industry may be lending a helping hand to Obama as his reform proposals face a rocky road through Congress.
AstraZeneca Plc Chief Executive David Brennan, who also chairs the trade organisation Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, said in a statement the deal reflected a commitment “to make comprehensive healthcare reform a reality this year”.
From: Rx Newsletter suddenlysenior.com
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General Strike: Possible in Iran? U.S.?
PM Tuesday, June 23, 2009
The British Guardian reports today that Mir Hossein Mousavi “appears to be planning a general strike. A discussion on his Facebook page says: ‘We are working on a general strike plan. Please help us with your ideas if you have expertise on this issue.’”
NELSON LICHTENSTEIN, nelson@history.ucsb.edu, http://www.history.ucsb.edu/faculty/lichtenstein.htm
Lichtenstein is professor of history at the University of California, Santa Barbara, where he directs the Center for the Study of Work, Labor and Democracy. He is the author of “State of the Union: A Century of American Labor” and “The Retail Revolution: How Wal-Mart Created a Brave New World of Business.”
He said today: “By making the secondary boycott illegal in strikes and organizing campaigns, the 1947 Taft-Hartley law made solidarity itself illegal, thus ending the great tradition of general strikes which had broken out each decade since the massive railroad strike of 1877 first shut down American commerce 70 years before.”
From: Institute for Public Accuracy
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This Week in Petroleum (TWIP)
Wednesday, June 24, 2009
This Week in Petroleum (TWIP) has been updated to the EIA website:
http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/oog/info/twip/twip.asp
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Economics Fights for Relevancy
Two economists say their profession has forgotten people. But so have they.
East Bay Express
http://www.eastbayexpress.com/ebx/PrintFriendly?oid=1026864
By Jay Youngdahl
June 24, 2009
Does mainstream economics have any relevance today given its poor performance in the Great Recession? In a new book, CAL PROFESSOR GEORGE AKERLOF and Yale’s Robert J. Schiller claim that it does….
Various non-humorous attempts are now being made by economists to try and resuscitate their profession. One of the most important of these CPR efforts comes from two “liberal” mainstream economists who take the Reagan/Thatcher free-market theories to task and claim to explain the current mess and tell us “what we need to do to get out of it.” In their new book, Animal Spirits: How Human Psychology Drives the Economy, and Why It Matters for Global Capitalism, Cal professor and Nobel laureate George A. Akerlof, and Yale’s Robert J. Schiller, the co-creator of the Case/Schiller index of housing, try to make mainstream macroeconomics relevant in the post-crisis period. The Internet rumors say this is a favorite book at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue….
This book seeks to reassure us that their profession really can predict future economic activity, or at least understand it in time to ward off catastrophes. The authors hope such reassurance can calm the fears that make economic actors reticent to act “normally.” This attempt is laudatory. Their attempt to reassure us that proper understanding of animal spirits will tame the violent economic swings of market capitalism is off the mark, however. Occasional earthquakes are the real scientific reality of capitalism….
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Beck falsely claimed “bean head” Paul Krugman “missed” the housing bubble
Glenn Beck falsely claimed that Paul Krugman “missed the industry’s $8 trillion housing bubble.” In fact, Krugman wrote that he was “getting worried” about a “real estate bubble” as early as 2002.
Read More
http://mediamatters.org/items/200906240004?lid=1046352&rid=30514693
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Algeria: Taking the Pulse of AQIM
June 24, 2009
Global Security and Intelligence Report
By Scott Stewart and Fred Burton
Late in the evening of June 17, 2009, militants affiliated with al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) detonated two improvised explosive devices (IEDs) against a convoy near Bordj Bou Arreridj, Algeria, which is located in a mountainous area east of Algiers that has traditionally been an Islamist militant stronghold. The convoy consisted of Algerian paramilitary police vehicles escorting a group of Chinese workers to a site where they were building a new highway to connect Bordj Bou Arreridj with Algiers. After disabling the convoy using IEDs, the militants then raked the trapped vehicles with small-arms fire. When the ambush was over, 18 policemen and one Chinese worker had been killed. Another six gendarmes and two Chinese workers were wounded in the attack.
It was the deadliest attack of any type in Algeria since an Aug. 19, 2008, suicide vehicle-borne IED (VBIED) attack against a line of job applicants outside a police academy in Les Issers that killed 48 and injured another 45. AQIM regularly launches armed ambushes and roadside IED attacks in Algeria, and ambushes were frequently used by the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC) before it announced in September 2006 that it had become part of al Qaeda’s regional franchise — AQIM. Indeed, we have seen four other ambush and IED attacks since May 20, 2009, but the death tolls in such attacks have usually been smaller than the June 17 attack.
In light of this anomalous attack, we thought it would be an opportune time to take the pulse of AQIM and try to get a sense of where the group stands today and where it might be going over the next few months.
History and Trends
The GSPC began as a splinter of the Armed Islamic Group (GIA) in 1998 as the civil war in Algeria was winding down. At that time, Hassan Hattab led a group of other disaffected GIA members who disagreed with GIA’s targeting of unarmed civilians. Hattab and his followers wanted to distance themselves from the large-scale massacres that had taken place while continuing their struggle against the Algerian government. They formed the GSPC to give themselves a fresh name and a new start.
Hattab eventually ran into disputes within the GSPC as the group was increasingly drawn to the transnational jihadist campaign espoused by al Qaeda. He “resigned” (though he was effectively deposed) as the group’s leader in 2001 and was succeeded by Nabil Sahraoui, who declared the GSPC’s allegiance to al Qaeda. Security forces killed Sahraoui in 2004.
In a message issued on Sept. 11, 2006, al Qaeda second-in-command Ayman al-Zawahiri announced that the GSPC had joined forces with al Qaeda in a union he hoped would be “a thorn in the neck of the American and French Crusaders and their allies, and an arrow in the heart of the traitors and apostates.” On Sept. 13, GSPC acknowledged the merger on its Web site with a message from its emir, Abu Musab Abd al-Wadoud, who wrote, “We have full confidence in the faith, the doctrine, the method and the modes of action of [al Qaeda’s] members, as well as their leaders and religious guides.”
The newly-established al Qaeda franchise in Algeria was not idle for long. On Oct. 19, 2006, it conducted two IED attacks, one against a police station in El Harrach, an eastern suburb of Algiers, the second against a fuel storage site belonging to the French company Razel in Lakhdaria. On Oct. 29, 2006, the group conducted near-simultaneous VBIED attacks against two Algerian police stations in Reghaia and Dergana. While simultaneous VBIED attacks were something seen in al Qaeda operations, these attacks involved vehicles parked near their targets rather than suicide vehicles and, as such, resembled past GSPC attacks, as did the selection of police stations as targets. Because of these features, the attacks were seen as examples of a hybrid, or transitional, kind of attack.
Other transitional attacks continued into early 2007, such as the twin attacks on March 5, 2007, which targeted foreign oil workers and Algerian security forces, indicating AQIM was incorporating the security-force targets of the GSPC with the foreign-influence targets of al Qaeda.
The focus on foreign interests and the energy sector was seen in several other attacks and attempted attacks against foreign oil workers and pipelines in late 2006 and early 2007. In spite of this focus, to date, AQIM has not been able to launch any truly disruptive attacks against the Algerian energy sector.
On April 11, 2007, AQIM passed another threshold when the group employed two suicide VBIEDS in attacks against separate targets in Algiers. One device was directed at the prime minister’s office in the city center and the second targeted a police station near the international airport in the eastern part of the city. At least 33 people reportedly were killed in the blasts and more than 150 wounded. These attacks marked the first suicide attacks in Algeria connected with GSPC or AQIM and signified a change in tactics.
However, the group’s increased operational tempo and less discriminate target selection came with consequences. In mid-2007 the Algerian government launched a massive operation against AQIM that resulted in large losses of men and materiel for the group. AQIM’s shift in targeting strategy also caused disagreements within the insurgency’s leadership. The schism arose between members who favored the tradition GSPC target set and opposed killing civilians, and those members who were more heavily influenced by al Qaeda and wanted to hit foreign and symbolic targets with little regard for civilian casualties.
In spite of the government crackdown, and in the face of growing internal dissent, AQIM accelerated its suicide bombing campaign, and there were several other suicide attacks during the last three months of 2007. These attacks included the Sept. 6 bombing of a crowd waiting to greet Algerian President Abdel Aziz Bouteflika in Batna that killed 22 people and injured more than 100; a Sept. 8 suicide VBIED attack against a naval barracks in Dellys that killed 30; and twin suicide VBIED attacks on Dec. 11 that targeted the constitutional court and the headquarters of the U.N. refugee agency in Algiers that killed 47 people, including 17 U.N. employees.
AQIM conducted six suicide bombing attacks against military and police targets between January 2008 and the Aug. 19, 2008, VBIED attack against the police academy in Les Issers. During this time, military and law enforcement pressure by the Algerian government continued, as did the public criticism of AQIM for killing innocents. The criticism reached a crescendo after the Les Issers attack, which killed largely poor people looking for employment with the police. AQIM has only conducted one suicide attack since August 2008, and the bulk of its operations have been in sparsely populated areas instead of cities. It is unclear at this point whether these observable shifts are in response to the criticism of AQIM’s tactics or if they are a result of the government’s efforts to dismantle the group.
Large VBIEDs are resource intensive. In fact, the explosives required to construct one large VBIED could be used to manufacture many smaller IEDs or suicide vests. Since the Les Issers attack, AQIM has conducted several IED attacks but these have all involved smaller IEDs, and the number of bystander deaths has dropped as the attacks have appeared to have been more carefully aimed at government or foreign targets. Of course, suicide bombers are also a resource that can only be used once, and it takes time and effort to recruit new bombers.
We will be watching carefully to see if the current trend away from the employment of large VBIEDs in urban areas is a temporary lull caused by government pressure and a lack of resources, or if it is an intentional shift designed to assuage public anger. It is very difficult for an insurgent organization to thrive in an environment where the local population turns against it, and perhaps the AQIM leadership has learned a lesson from the high cost the GIA paid after it began killing civilians and lost public support.
In addition to the military and law enforcement pressure, the Algerian government has been very busy in its efforts to apply ideological pressure to AQIM. One way this pressure has been applied is in the form of former militant leaders associated with the group criticizing its change in targeting and tactics. For example, after the Les Issers bombing in August 2008, GSPC founder Hassan Hattab called on the militants to lay down their arms and surrender. There is also talk that the government may soon expand an amnesty offer to include members of the organization who have been excluded from the current amnesty offer because they were deemed to have too much blood on their hands. Like previous amnesty offers, this expansion could serve to further weaken the organization as members choose to turn themselves in.
Regional Franchise?
By design, AQIM incorporated the GSPC with elements of Morocco’s Islamic Combatant Group, Libya’s Islamic Fighting Group, several Tunisian groups, most notably the Tunisian Combatant Group, and jihadists in Mali, Niger and Mauritania. However, in practice, the vast majority of the group’s infrastructure came from the GSPC, and attacks since the founding of AQIM in 2006 have reflected this. Indeed, in spite of the many high-profile Libyan and Moroccan militants who serve as part of the al Qaeda core leadership, Libya and Morocco have been extremely calm since the emergence of AQIM, and the group has remained an Algeria-based phenomenon.
Countries of the Maghreb
In Mauritania, attacks linked to AQIM began as early as December 2007, but AQIM militants there have not displayed the capability to carry out sophisticated attacks. Most attacks in Mauritania involve amateurish small-arms assaults such as the attack on French tourists on Dec. 23, 2007, or the Feb. 1, 2008, shooting at the Israeli embassy in Nouakchott, Mauritania’s capital. As we were writing this, we learned of the June 23 shooting of an American teacher in Nouakchott. The man was reportedly gunned down outside the school where he taught, and Mauritanian officials are blaming the attack on AQIM rather than criminals.
The attacks in Mauritania have shown rudimentary tactics with poor planning, and the militants associated with AQIM in Mauritania simply have not displayed the ability to mount a large-scale, coordinated attack. The group’s activities in Mali and Niger are also mainly constrained to low-level attacks against government or military outposts and foreign mining sites and personnel in the northern stretches of those countries. AQIM also conducts training and engages in smuggling and kidnappings for ransom in this deserted region.
This means that, in the end, in spite of all the hype associated with the AQIM name, the group is essentially a rebranded GSPC and not some sort of revolutionary new organization. It has adapted its target set to include foreign interests, and it did add suicide bombing to its repertoire, but aside from that there has been very little movement toward AQIM’s becoming a truly regional threat.
That said, AQIM has received a lot of attention from the al Qaeda core leadership, which has sought to support it however it can and spur it on beyond Algeria. On June 23, 2009, al Qaeda media wing As Sahab released a 35-minute video statement from Abu Yahya al-Libi entitled “Algeria Between the Sacrifice of Fathers and Faithfulness of Sons.” As his name implies, al-Libi is himself from Libya, and one of the things he does in the video is urge militants in Algeria, Mauritania, Mali, Niger, Libya, Tunisia and Morocco to mobilize and join under the “banner, command and emirate” of AQIM. The video appears to be an attempt by the al Qaeda leadership to counter ideological attacks by the Algerian government as well as AQIM’s regional stagnation.
Coming Home to Roost?
In addition to fighting against the regime in Algeria, Algerian militants have also been very conspicuous on jihadist battlefields such as Bosnia, Chechnya, Afghanistan and Iraq. Some studies have even concluded that Algerians were the single largest group of foreign jihadists who fought in Iraq during the height of the insurgency.
One of the things we have been anticipating for several years now is a boomerang effect as foreign jihadists leave places such as Iraq and Pakistan and return home. While many foreign jihadists have been killed in such places, those who survive after fighting sophisticated foes like the American military are not only hardened but also possess insurgent tradecraft skills that make them far more lethal when they leave those battlefields than when they entered them. Indeed, we have seen a migration of IED technology and tactics from Iraq to other theaters, such as Afghanistan.
With developments in Iraq over the last few years that have made Iraq increasingly inhospitable to foreign jihadists, and with Pakistan now quickly becoming less friendly, many of the Algerian militants in those places may be seeking to return home. And this brings us back to the anomalous vehicular ambush on June 17.
That operation, while a common type of attack in Algeria, was uncharacteristically deadly. It is plainly possible that the high death toll was merely a fluke. Perhaps the AQIM militants got lucky or the Algerian gendarmes targeted in the attack made a fatal mistake. However, the increased death toll could also have been a result of superior IED design, or superior planning by the operational leader of the ambush. Such a shift could indicate that an experienced operational commander or bombmaker has come to AQIM from someplace like Iraq or Pakistan. It will be very important to watch the next few AQIM attacks to see if the June 17 attack was indeed just an anomaly or if it was the beginning of a new and deadly trend.
This report may be forwarded or republished on your website with attribution to www.stratfor.com
Please feel free to distribute this Intelligence Report to friends or repost to your Web site linking to www.stratfor.com .
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Saudi royals funded 9/11: Lawyers …
24 Jun 2009
Lawyers representing the families of the 9/11 victims, expose evidence allegedly proving the Saudi royal family’s financial support for al-Qaeda [al-CIAduh]. The lawyers provided The New York Times with excerpts of the material they had amassed by putting together the pieces from leaking American intelligence documents among other things, the daily reported on Tuesday. The evidence recounts how the Saudi royalty would use middlemen and financial supply routes to bankroll militants based in Afghanistan and Bosnia. The family, which had strong ties with the Bush administration, is also suspected of having reinforced the militancy otherwise and enlisted militant agents using intermediaries including the Saudi High Commission for Aid to Bosnia.
At:
http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=98952§ionid=3510203
From: CLG News
Documents Back Saudi Link to Extremists
24 Jun 2009
Documents gathered by lawyers for the families of Sept. 11 victims provide new evidence of extensive financial support for Al Qaeda and other extremist groups by members of the Saudi royal family, but the material may never find its way into court because of legal and diplomatic obstacles. The Justice Department is siding with the Saudis in court last month in seeking to kill further legal action. Adding to the intrigue, classified American intelligence documents related to Saudi finances were leaked anonymously to lawyers for the families.
At:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/24/world/middleeast/24saudi.html
From: CLG News
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David Letterman …
“You folks following the Iranian elections? Well, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is the winner. And lots of protests. And it got to be so crazy that Iran’s supreme leader actually spoke live on television last night. And it preempted Al Jazeera’s most popular show, their number one show over there, which is ‘How I Met Your Camel.’”
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three thousand words
|
Rob Rogers
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette Jun 25, 2009 |
Tony Auth: congress saves health care reform
(politicalirony.com)
Tom the Dancing Bug: the west wing story
(imgsrv.gocomics.com)