Religious Pornography

I couldn’t stop laughing as I watched this. I kept picturing Will Farrell doing a SNL routine.

And anyway, not commonly known, it’s easier to peel a banana from the bottom rather than the top. Try it sometime.

Do Corporations Pay Tax?

Now and then as I interact with conservatives on the blogs I come across bedrock principles that they hold to be self-evident. One of these is that corporations don’t pay taxes, but rather just collect them. By this logic, any tax on a corporation is just a hidden tax on consumers.

It’s logical, I guess, to think that. But it doesn’t hold up under scrutiny. The underlying presumption is that corporations are free to pass on whatever costs they incur when they sell their products. Taken a step further, it also presumes that corporations are not maximizing profit potential, since when they arbitrarily pass along costs, they seemingly have the power to raise prices as they please, and have not done so.

It doesn’t quite work like that. Corporations are looking for monopoly pricing – that’s the whole game in a nutshell. But true monopolies are the exception rather than the rule. Most corporations selling goods to the public find themselves in a competitive environment, and are forced to do intense marketing to justify the prices they do charge. That’s the whole point of advertising – to create an aura around a product that justifies its price. So when I buy a bottle of shampoo at the drug store, I am paying every last dime that Proctor and Gamble thinks it can squeeze out of me for that product.

At a certain point, Proctor and Gamble will have maximized its revenue and created a profit pool. But they have to deal with one more expense on top of it all – taxes on those profits. Rates vary by jurisdiction – nationally, corporate tax rates are graduated and go up to 35%, or about the same level as individual rates. Here in Montana, corporations are taxed at a flat 6.75%, comparable again to our individual income tax.

Never mind that few corporations actually pay tax at stated rates. Conservatives say that the tax on corporations is really just a consumer tax, since the corporate profits started out as consumer dollars. But that’s true of everyone’s profit – every dollar passes through many hands – we only levy tax on certain (and arbitrary) events, as when employers pay wages, for example, or when corporations figure their annual bottom line. The corporate profit stream is split at that time, part to government, part to investors. If the tax were not imposed, the profit stream would go wholly to investors, and not back to consumers.

Investors pay the corporate tax, and not consumers. In fact, investors are unable to pass that tax along to consumers, and that’s why all the hubbub about reducing corporate tax rates. Investors don’t like paying taxes. Neither do I.

Here’s a fair point that conservatives make: Dividends paid to investors are not deductible to the corporation, and are taxed again when the investor receives them (though at a favored rate). That is indeed double taxation. It was once seen as a fair price to charge for the luxury of corporate status and all of the legal favors thereby bestowed.

But they are right – dividends are double taxed, and the practice ought to cease. I look forward to that day – the day that all double taxation ceases. But before we worry about investors’ double-tax problem, let’s first look at workers whose every dollar is taxed twice, once by income tax, again by payroll tax. Let’s be fair about this. Let’s eliminate double taxation for all of us. Workers go first. After all, they are producing the wealth that eventually ends up being called “dividends”.

The Art of Framing

Senator John McCain says about Iraq “We’re succeeding. I don’t care what anybody says. I’ve seen the facts on the ground.” It’s a good example of the art of framing, the things we are allowed to talk about, and the things that cannot be broached.

Succeeding? At what? That is the critical key – our invasion of Iraq was illegal, its consequences devastating to the population, and its ultimate goals unstated here in the land of the free, but easily understood elsewhere. We’ve sent over two million people packing, killed hundreds of thousands more, and malnutrition and disease are rampant. We’ve failed to rebuild infrastructure destroyed as long ago as 1991.

We’ve failed in many ways, but truthfully, we never really tried. As McCain understands, in the important areas – control of the resources, construction of permanent occupation bases that will house 100,000 troops, marginalization of the local population – in those areas, we’re succeeding. He means just what he says. He’s not stupid. We’re doing what we set out to do.

This is critical to understanding American involvement in this war. The mainstream media, the Republicans and the Democrats are all in agreement. We have a right to “succeed”. The only argument the Democrats are putting up is that the Republicans are incompetent. That’s why talk of withdrawing troops by both Democratic candidates is just campaign rhetoric. There might be a showboat debarking of a unit or two, but we are there for keeps.

Iraq is nothing new save its massive scale and that it was done openly – it was too big to keep secret. As much as we talk about it, it is still largely minimized by the media. (When was the last time a pundit or journalist mentioned our 180,000 mercenaries soldiers, or even gingerly touched on the civilian death toll?)

For so long as I have been alive (not that there is any connection), the U.S. has invaded other countries and stolen resources, placed puppets in power and rigged elections and murdered leaders. They’ve had success. But Iraq has been troublesome. The local population hasn’t buckled under (though, due to some serious bribery, there has been some acquiescence lately). There’s an active resistance, and the government we appointed has thus far failed us. They have refused to officially turn control of oil over to American companies. They have yet to control the indigenous resistance (which we label “Al Qaeda”). In short, they are threatening to be independent.

If it keeps up, we’ll have to install new puppets. It will be regime change, Act II. Cue the band.

Come November, with a new administration, perhaps we’ll have more success. In the meantime, we won’t talk about Iraq in any other framework than “success” or “failure”. It’s not allowed. Mainstream media knows this. (Glenn Greenwald ran a rather interesting piece on how true war critics are shut out of media conversations. See “The Ongoing Exclusion of War Opponents From the Iraq Debate”, currently featured at his web site.) True analysis of means, motives and methods is not allowed.

Most Americans get this. Some of us are just a bit slower.

Top Ten Historically Inaccurate Movies

Mel Gibson lands three of them.

http://movies.yahoo.com/feature/10mosthistoricallyinaccurate.html

Interview with a Canadian

The following is an interview I found interesting, between radio talk-show host Thom Hartmann and Dr. Lewis Mehl-Madrona, the author of Coyote Healing, Miracles in Native Medicine, and a number of other books. He’s a PhD and MD, Professor of Medicine at the University of Saskatchewan College of Medicine, and out on the East Coast practices at Beth Israel Medical Center. He’s also a practicing psychiatrist in Canada.

One thing I’ve noticed over the years is that, when we talk of Canadian medicine here in the United States, we don’t talk to Canadians (unless they are unhappy with that system). So we don’t get personal testimony about what single-payer means to ordinary Canucks. The following interview is limited, but does give some insight.

TH: You have practiced and taught medicine in the United States for the better part of a couple of decades …

LM: It’s been 32 years since I got my MD.

TH: …and you are now teaching and practicing medicine in Canada. Last night 60 Minutes did this amazing piece on a charity called Remote Area Medical that typically goes into third world countries or worse and sets up two and three day emergency medicine clinics for people who have never seen a doctor or are not going to have opportunity to see a doctor, and diagnostic and treatment facilities. And they did this in Knoxville, Tennessee, and people drove from hundreds of miles around and sat freezing in line all night long – they were absolutely overwhelmed. The state of American medical care for anyone who makes less than (fill in the blank) – somewhere between $40 and $70 thousand bucks a year, is not unlike that in a third world country. Or worse. And that’s not the case in Canada. Can you quickly describe for us what it is like in Canada? You teach there, you practice there, you are presumably a consumer of medical services in Canada. What is it like, and what would it take for the United States to make the transition into a Canadian-style system?

LM: Probably the simplest thing is that nobody worries about how we’re going to pay for anything, so as a patient you just go to the doctor and you don’t really worry about how much it costs. You just hand them your card and they bill for it and that’s that. And as a doctor, we’re not really worried about how you’re going to pay for it either. We just do what we think is best and that’s that. What’s amazing going to Canada from the U.S. is that no one ever asks what kind of insurance you have. No one ever questions whether or not you can pay for something. People get what they need. Yes, sometimes they wait for elective surgery, basically because there aren’t enough operating rooms, or sometimes it’s because there are not enough surgeons. But if it’s an emergency, it’s quick. There’s no such thing as what’s called utilization review. When I practiced in the U.S., someone from the U.R. department would come see me every day to try and kick people out of the hospital because they were costing money, or if I wanted to admit somebody to the hospital they would refuse.

TH: You see these shows like House, here in the United States, which is supposed to take place in Princeton Medical Center, and he says “Order an MRI and do a test for this”, and in reality, it would be “Would you please find if the insurance company will pay for an MRI?” It’s such a twisted view of medicine. What we’re seeing in our TV shows is medicine s it’s practiced in Canada or as it’s practiced in Europe, but they’re taking place in the United States. It’s bizarre.

LM: It is. You know, Canada has its problems – we still order too many lab tests, we spend less time with people that we should – it’s less severe than the United States, because in Canada as a family physician you can bill for every fifteen minutes that you spend with a patient, whereas here, as a family physician, you’re “tapped”, and so you can only bill for the first six minutes.

TH: After that the insurance companies won’t pay for it. That’s why the doctors try to get you out of the office as fast as they can, because after six minutes they’re not being paid anymore.

LM: So now, in Canada, if you see people very six minutes you can still make more money than if you see them every fifteen minutes. So, for instance, as a family physician, you would make about forty dollars for a fifteen minute office visit, but if you can do that in six minutes you still make forty dollars. Here you probably make about, I’m guessing, thirty dollars for an office visit, and so if you see them every six minutes you’re still making enough money to pay your overhead. But you can, in Canada, choose to see people every fifteen minutes, or you can see the same person for an hour …

TH And bill for four fifteen minute segments.

LM: That’s right.

TH: So then I can hear conservatives all over America screaming “Oh my God, people who just love to go to the doctor’s office are just going to come in and talk your ear off and I’m going to have to pay for it. It must cost a fortune!”

LM: Let me tell you about that. I’m using an American example, I have a friend in Scottsdale who has what’s called a “concierge’s practice”, and she’s a family physician, and she limits her practice to 250 people, and each of those people pay her $2,000 at the start of each year. They can come see her as much as they want. They can see her as long as they want. They never have to pay another penny. And what she found was that people see her a lot less than she wants them to when they can come as much as they want. And people get tired and they leave before she’s ready to stop the appointment.

TH: So the reality is that this whole myth of the people who want to take advantage of the system because it’s free is nonsense. There may be some small, one-thousandth of one percent of the people – the ones who are compulsive about having surgeries – there is a medical condition there you probably know the name of and I don’t. That’s the exception.

LM: Right. It’s really not a lot of fun to go to the doctor. … And every study that’s been done has shown that if you give people the time they need when they need it, they actually consume less resources over the course of a year. It costs you less to take care of people.

TH: Both because of preventive care and because people generally have better things to do than hang out at the doctor’s office.

LM: Right.

TH: And if the United States was to make this transition to a Canadian-style system, or more European style, a single-payer system, what is it that we would have to change, structurally or psychologically here in the United States in order for that to happen?

LM: People would have to change the idea that they deserve every test immediately, right now. A quick example, I know someone in Anchorage, Alaska, a 54 year old woman who smokes a couple cigarettes a day and doesn’t exercise, has high stress, had chest pain and went to the ER. The logical thing to do would be to make sure she’s not having a heart attack and schedule her for a stress test or a treadmill test where she walks on the treadmill …

TH: To make sure she’s not having a panic attack …

LM: Right. So what happened is she went straight to cardiac cath, a test that costs at least $20,000 …

TH: A cardiac cath is where they put the long tube in the femoral artery and snake it up into the heart and do this all under X rays. And this has a certain rate of death associated with it – nine out of a thousand?

LM: Not death, but some kind of stroke kills nine percent in one study [I think he meant to say that strokes are experienced by 9/10 of one percent of those who are subjected to this procedure.] So here’s a risky procedure that could have caused her many problems that cost $20,000, that really wasn’t necessary, and after she was done she was so grateful to them because they definitively proved that there was nothing wrong with her.

TH: Where instead of a $20,000 very dangerous procedure, they could have done a thirty dollar test – a blood test that would have shown that …

LM: Well, a treadmill test would probably be more like an $800 test, but if you pass your treadmill test, your chances of having a heart attack in the year are minimal.

Hillary Plays the Race Card

A relative of ours is in the advertising business. That doesn’t give me much insight, as he doesn’t talk out of school much. But he has made a couple of revealing comments.

For one, he says that advertising people are in the business of changing our behavior. That may not sound like startling news – perhaps I could put it another way. “We’re subverting you.”

For another, he has spoken of the process by which an ad campaign is put together. First it goes to an inner circle – I assume that this is where they house their polling data and psychological consultants. Behavioral psychology is the mother’s milk of the ad game. People in the inner circle are the big-picture guys, the drivers. They identify critical factors in the ad campaign from which all else follows: The sublime message, and the target audience.

My favorite example is Bud Light Commercials. The ads usually contain some juvenile joke, like a refrigerator that opens on two walls. The message is more sublime than one would think, as the target audience is early teens – 13 and 14-year olds. It’s not that Anheuser Bush wants them to drink – they are doing something called “branding”. When these kids hit drinking age, they want them to be preselected for Bud Light.

Tens of thousands of people do advertising, and some are better at it than others. But successful advertising is not that which is funny or sexy – that helps. But the object is to change our behavior. Any means will do. It’s is an interesting profession – it has to deal with us on our two levels – our public selves, and our real selves. To change our behaviors, it has to talk to the real self.

American politics is nothing more than the ad business applied to a different product.

I added a little snippet to a previous post regarding Geraldine Ferraro’s nasty comments about Barack Obama, where she says that he is merely fortunate to be where he is because he is black. She’s mean and nasty, and after a respectable period of time, she quit the campaign, but is still swinging hard.

The question is, is she just a loose cannon, or is this calculated? The email I received asserted that Ferraro’s behavior was calculated, and that it contained a sublime message: blacks have it easy. The target audience is blue collar voters in Pennsylvania. Hillary is appealing to their base instincts, their real selves.

We’re all less than we present in public – we’re all a little racist, maybe a lot. Advertisers know this about us. Political campaigns are 75% sublime message, and only 25% concrete. Geraldine was on a sublime mission.

Race is a factor in the Democratic campaign. Someone is going to play the race card. But it can’t be done openly – that would backfire. It has to be done on a sublime level. The candidate that does it will be the most base and ruthless and ambitious one.

Hillary hasn’t wasted any time. She’s playing the race card. Why am I not surprised?

Passing the Fifth

The fifth anniversary of the invasion of Iraq has passed without a lot of fanfare, as will the sixth, seventh … it will eventually be a non-event or one in which various fringe elements assemble on street corners to preach to a shrinking choir. The news media is currently in de-emphasize mode, hyping up other stories and virtually ignoring the conflict. It’s a testimony to how much they are in control of the agenda. We talk about whatever they put in our face. If there ain’t pictures, there ain’t news.

Foreign policy is mostly a staid affair attended to by the graduates of our elite schools. It’s neither fun nor pretty. The business of state and the business of corporate America are one. The world is full of crises, but only certain of them make the radar screen. Rwanda passes without notice (no American corporate interests threatened), while Iraq, a relatively calm place threatening no one becomes an emergency. We’re totally tooled up by the media and driven by the corporate agenda. The trick is to make an elite undertaking seem like a popular movement.

Iraq had been on the agenda for a long while, long before the fall of the Soviet Union, but not within our grasp until that event. Prior to 1990 Saddam Hussein had played one superpower against the other with relative skill, and there was deep resentment of him in Washington for that reason. We supported him when he invaded Iran, of course, as we are not the slightest troubled by invasions when they serve our interests. But we also made him strong – we gave him the weapons that we later claimed threatened us. Without us he would have had no chemical weaponry – the only thing that ever really threatened us (and the real reason why George H.W. Bush pulled back in 1991).

When opportunity presented itself in the post-Soviet world, as it did in 1990, we attacked, and rained hell on the country and its electrical grids and sewage systems. It was no accident – we meant to do that. They were a country with a first-world infrastructure, and we destroyed it. We spent the next ten years applying a vice, squeezing them hard, sanctioning food and medicine and killing their children while withholding the the tools necessary to repair their infrastructure. We meant to do that.

In the Clinton years we looked to get rid of those weapons and clear the way for an attack. It is here that Saddam failed his people, why he may in retrospect be seen as one of the biggest fools in history. He cooperated with weapons inspectors, canned his nuclear program, destroyed his chemical-bearing rocketry, and left his country basically defenseless.

It was then that the U.S. attacked, and it is now that we celebrate the fifth anniversary of that attack. I cited an article below that highlights how, seventeen years after the 1991 attack, we have still not managed to fix those sewers and electrical grids. It’s no accident. We mean to rain hell on them, we mean to impoverish them, we mean to make them suffer, scatter their factions, install our superbases that will permanently house 100,000 troops, control their government and watch and terrorize their internal factions as closely as Castro ever did his enemies.

We mean to be in power there. It was the goal in 1989, 1991, throughout the Clinton years and well into Bush’s term. When the weapons were finally gone, when the path to invasion and occupation was finally cleared, we moved. True, things didn’t go according to plan. It’s been costly, for us anyway. But clear heads in Washington realize that it’s a price that must be paid.

Some people marked the passing of the fifth anniversary of the invasion as if it were a significant milestone. It wasn’t. It’s no big deal. Presidents will come and go, but the troops will stay. Orators and pundits will prattle on about democracy and how we toppled an evil government – grist for the mill. It was a resource grab. It’s in its infancy.

There’ll be many more anniversaries.

On Stalking Horses and Niccolò

See Addendum below.

Teachers Don Pogreba and Jason Neiffe have announced that they are running against Governor Brian Schweitzer and Lt. Governor John Bohlinger. This brings up an interesting aspect of politics, one that has intrigued me since I first learned that things aren’t always what they appear to be, back in grade school. (Oh, all right – it was my senior year of college. I was a slow learner.)

I have a Machiavellian view of politics – I think Niccolò was an OK dude, and not the epitome of evil. He was just a guy who said things openly not normally said openly. Yes, he said, the Prince has to lie, cheat, and kill people to stay in power. It’s not so much immoral as necessary. It just is what it is. Machiavelli was purely about means to ends. It is so rare to be so candid, so blunt, that he is justifiably famous.

Politicians lie. They deceive. They are duplicitous. They have to be, otherwise they would not succeed. For example, I have voiced suspicion here that John Edwards ran a stalking horse campaign for Hillary Clinton. It doesn’t look like a terribly effective strategy now, but who knew what a strong candidate Obama would be? Edwards was, in my view, trying to head the liberals off at the pass, preventing them from running a strong candidate of their own and thereby forcing Hillary to play her real cards. He said all the right things, gathered them all up, and at the most opportune moment, dashed their hopes on the rocks.

I suspect this because John Edwards did not become a liberal until he ran. He was a conservative southern senator, a conservative running mate to a perceived liberal, and worked for a Wall Street hedge fund when he wasn’t doing politics. He was at best a late convert.

I don’t know this for sure that his was a fake candidacy, of course. I can only speculate. But I’ll be damned if I’ll set aside suspicions when every fiber of my being says to be suspicious. Read Niccolò.

Speculation is that Pogreba and Neiffe are merely offering up their candidacy as a means of justifying Schweitzer keeping $215,000 in campaign funds he raised for the primary. People generally take politicians of their own party at face value. In journalism, it is almost required. So I was surprised to see Ed Kemmick give credence to the suspicions over at City Lights. Good on him. Anyway, what’s real here?

Politicians have to forge alliances among natural enemies. To do that, they have to lie to each constituency. Successful politicians (Marc Racicot comes to mind) are those who can create an aura of integrity while carrying on the business of the trade. And here is what I find intriguing: in plying their trade, in lying, in deceiving, politicians some times do good and worthy things for the general welfare. There is integrity there.

But not in this case. In answer to the question, “Is the Pogreba candidacy real?” the answer is no, of course not. It’s not even that clever. It’s kind of clumsy. Schweitzer may be a skilled politician, but he’s no Marc Racicot.

Addendum: This falls under the heading “All politics are calculated” – it’s a snippet from an email concerning the recent Geraldine Ferraro affair:

“Her comments were calculated. She knows what she’s doing, as does Clinton. It’s a play for the blue collar white Pennsylvania votes, and it should work well… and Ferraro took the fall for Clinton, so much the better for her.”

The writer is liberal and politically savvy.

Accountability for Thought Crimes

The brouhaha over the speech by Barack Obama’s pastor is troublesome. We here in the United States don’t have double standards. We’re above that – our standards are triple, quadruple. Typical of any great power where citizens are deeply indoctrinated from birth, any sentiment expressed against our country and its activities are automatically held up for ridicule and condemnation. Those who hold themselves up for leadership have to profess deep and abiding love for the motherland, and commissars and brownshirts are on the lookout for transgressions. Even if the perceived sin is minor or disconnected from the candidate, he is held accountable.

So I note with interest that Barack Obama has been called to task for 1) not wearing a lapel pin showing the flag; 2) not holding his hand over his heart during the national anthem; 3) having a wife who implied that in times past she had not “really” been proud of her country; and 4) having a pastor who knows a little history and gave some emotional expression thereto.

Standards were no less severe in the old Soviet Union. Commissars were really proud all the time.

Thoughtful journalists are now analyzing the speech by The Reverend Jeremiah Wright for ideological purity. It’s not that the reverend is not allowed to express his thoughts freely. We pride ourselves in allowing free expression. But we do punish it severely. (We never allow thought criminals to appear on TV or be published in newspapers, except to be ridiculed.) The Reverend Wright obviously committed thought crime. The only question is, should Barack Obama be held accountable for the crime?

Most say yes – he is guilty by association. Some are withholding judgment – yes, there is some sort of crime here, but let’s withhold full imputation of guilt until the exact nature of the crime is detailed. Gotta hear the whole speech.

It’s not a matter of extremism. All manners of extremism are expressed daily in our land, though I must admit that when everyone is extreme, no one is extreme.

Take for example the beliefs of Pastor John Hagee, who has endorsed John McCain. Hagee’s views are probably not extreme here in the home of the brave, hence the free pass. But he has called the Catholic Church a “great whore”, a standard fundamentalist view, and believes that the Unites States should launch a first strike on the sovereign nation of Iran, thereby triggering Armageddon. Billions will die in that event, but fundamentalists, giving way to base sadism, rejoice in that.

John McCain says he is “very honored” by Hagee’s support, though it must be said that he is concerned about losing the Catholic vote. That’s rational.

I’m slow and thick, so bear with me: We only hold politicians accountable for thought crimes that involve criticism of the United States? The expression of hatred for the Catholic Church or a death wish for the mass of humanity is common, not extreme, and therefore not punishable?

I come in contact with this every day. Our atmosphere is oppressive, rigorous orthodoxy is vigorously enforced. But we also have a first amendment. We are different from the Soviets in that we don’t put people in jails or asylums for speaking out against the homeland. We’re more thoughtful than that. We merely marginalize these people and excoriate anyone even remotely associated with them.

You gotta have your mind right. And the lesson here is that if we associate with anyone who expresses thoughts that are not patriotic, there is accountability.

I got it now. Barack Obama, you are guilty of thought crime. Account for yourself.

How the U.S. Manufactures Terrorists

The following article exposes a disgraceful situation. It is unfathomable that a country as rich as ours does not provide basic foodstuffs and medical care to the Iraqi people. We could also repair of sewage and electrical systems that we destroyed in the First Gulf War. It’s been seventeen years!

The Iraqi people, once a proud and wealthy country with subsidized health care and education to the highest levels, has been decimated by two brutal and barbaric attacks, one in 1991, the other in 2003. There are apparently no serious efforts to put the country back on its feet.

After five years it rings hollow to say that the Bush Administration is merely incompetent, or to blame the victims, as Americans are wont to do. At a certain point one has to admit the possibility that the policy might well be destruction of the country, of scattering its factions to the winds, this to allow for for permanent military occupation and thereby control of its oil.

That Iraqi people happen to live atop that oil? That is the problem. They’ve been a damned incovenience from the very start.

I challenge any who have, by display of bumper-stickers and other courageous acts, supported this war. Defend, if you would, the unconscionable human toll that has followed the military occupation and conquest of Iraq, 1990 to present.

Childhood Is Dying

Inter Press Service
By Dahr Jamail and Ahmed Ali*

BAQUBA, Mar 10 (IPS) – Iraq’s children have been more gravely affected by the U.S. occupation than any other segment of the population.

The United Nations estimated that half a million Iraqi children died during more than 12 years of economic sanctions that preceded the U.S. invasion of March 2003, primarily as a result of malnutrition and disease.

But childhood malnutrition in Iraq has increased 9 percent since then, according to an Oxfam International report released last July.

A report from the non-governmental relief organisation Save the Children shows Iraq continues to have the highest mortality for children under five. Since the first Gulf War, this has increased 150 percent. It is estimated that one in eight children in Iraq dies before the fifth birthday: 122,000 children died in 2005 alone. Iraq has a population of about 25 million.

According to a UN Children’s Fund report released this month, “at least two million Iraqi children lack adequate nutrition, according to the World Food Programme assessment of food insecurity in 2006, and face a range of other threats including interrupted education, lack of immunisation services and diarrhoea diseases.”

IPS interviewed three children from different districts of Baquba, the capital city of Iraq’s volatile Diyala province, 40 km northeast of Baghdad.

Firas Muhsin is seven, and lives in Baquba with his mother. His father was killed two years ago by militants who shot him in his shop.

Firas attends school four hours every day near his house. On rare occasions he gets to play with neighbours’ children, but always under the eyes of his mother.

Firas is allowed to move no more than ten metres from the house; his mother is afraid of strangers. Kidnapping of Iraqi children is common now, and many are believed to have been sold as child labourers or as sex workers.

Iraqi officials and aid workers have recently expressed concern over the alarming rate at which children are disappearing countrywide in Iraq’s unstable environment.

Omar Khalif is vice-president of the Iraqi Families Association (IFA), an NGO established in 2004 to register cases of the missing and trafficked. He told reporters in January that on average at least two Iraqi children are sold by their parents every week. In addition, another four are reported missing every week.

“The numbers are alarming,” Khalif said. “There is an increase of 20 percent in the reported cases of missing children over a year.”

Firas spends hours each day sitting at the door looking at people. The door is his only outlet. In the afternoon, his mother calls him inside to do his homework. After dinner, his big hope is to watch cartoons — if there is electricity from their private generator.

The mother faces a shortage of kerosene needed just for heating. “My children feel cold and I cannot afford kerosene,” she told IPS.

Many children Firas’s age do not get to school at all. According to the UN, 17 percent of Iraqi children are permanently out of primary school, and an estimated 220,000 more are missing school because they and their families have been displaced. That adds up to 760,000 children out of primary school in 2006.

These are in-country figures, and do not include the hundreds of thousands of Iraqi children and youth whose education is interrupted or ended because their families have fled to other countries. UNHCR estimates that at least 2.25 million Iraqis have fled their country.

Qusay Ameen is five, and lives with his mother, father, two sisters and a brother. His father was a sergeant in the former military, and is now unemployed. He receives a monthly pension of 110 dollars. He tries to support the family by selling cigarettes on the roadside. Qusay’s mother is a housekeeper. Qusay hopes to begin school next year when he turns six.

After breakfast, always something simple like fried tomato with bread, Qusay wants to play, but he has nothing to play with but a small broken plastic car his brother found near the neighbour’s door. He spends most of the morning playing with this car. He seems happiest when he gets to visit his neighbour’s house, because they have a swing in the garden.

Like most Iraqi children now, Qusay has grown used to being in need. He rarely gets sweets, or new clothes.

The family house is incredibly small — one bedroom and a place used as both kitchen and bathroom. Everyone sleeps in one room, which is extremely cold through the winter months. There are not enough beds or covering, and everyone has to sleep close together for warmth.

The house has few basic necessities, and of course no television or useful household appliances. There is a small kerosene cooker used for both cooking and heating.

According to the UN Children’s Fund, only 40 percent of children nationwide have access to safe drinking water, and only 20 percent of people outside Baghdad have a working sewerage service. About 75,000 children are among families living in temporary shelters.

Ali Mahmood, 6, has lived with his uncle in Baquba after his parents were killed by a mortar explosion two years ago in random shelling by militants. Next year he will join primary school near his uncle’s house.

Ali’s days are alike, and quiet. His only friends are his uncle’s children. When they go to school, he simply spends his time alone. It does seem the uncle’s family is not able to look after him as well as his own might have. His uncle Thamir is doing his best, but life is difficult, and Thamir has responsibility for a big family.

Ali is deprived of just about everything in childhood; he has no place to play, or things to play with. And he has nobody to think of his future.

And already, he has responsibilities waiting; he has been told he must take care of his younger brother when he grows up.

Firas, Qusay and Ali are all children, but none the way children should be.

(*Ahmed, our correspondent in Iraq’s Diyala province, works in close collaboration with Dahr Jamail, our U.S.-based specialist writer on Iraq who has reported extensively from Iraq and the Middle East)