Back of the Envelope

I certainly hope this is true:

Al Qaeda in Iraq has been virtually wiped out by the loss of an address book. The death of al Qaeda leader Abu Musab al Zarqawi was not as important as the capture of his address book and other planning documents in the wake of the June 7th bombing. U.S. troops are trained to quickly search for names and addresses when they stage a raid, pass that data on to a special intelligence cell, which then quickly sorts out which of the addresses should be raided immediately, before the enemy there can be warned that their identity has been compromised. More information is obtained in those raids, and that generates more raids. So far, the June 7th strike has led to over 500 more raids. There have been so many raids, that there are not enough U.S. troops to handle it, and over 30 percent of the raids have been carried by Iraqi troops or police, with no U.S. involvement. Nearly a thousand terrorist suspects have been killed or captured. The amount of information captured has overwhelmed intelligence organizations in Iraq, and more translators and analysts are assisting, via satellite link, from the United States and other locations.
...
Zarqawi considered al Qaeda's situation in Iraq as "bleak." The most worrisome development was the growing number of trained Iraqi soldiers and police. These were able to easily spot the foreigners who made up so much of al Qaeda's strength. Moreover, more police and soldiers in an area meant some local civilians would feel safe enough to report al Qaeda activity. The result of all this is that there are far fewer foreign Arabs in Iraq fighting for al Qaeda. The terrorist organization has basically been taken over anti-government Sunni Arabs. That made the capture of Zarqawi even more valuable, as his address book contained a who's who of the anti-government Sunni Arab forces. This group has been hurt badly by last week's raids.

We won't really know how successful these raids have been for months, and we see whether we've really crippled their abilities to conduct attacks. Even so, it sounds like Zarqawi's death has proved to be more of a victory than I dared hope.

I've already covered this, but I received an e-mail today challenging me to explain why drugs were so expensive... I think. To be honest, I had trouble making sense of the e-mail, as there was something about it being Bush's fault and his company's insurance no longer covering the drugs his wife needs, amid the grammatical and stylistic errors. Maybe he was asking where he could get cheap drugs from Canada, which is at least different from the usual spam. Anyway, I wrote a long e-mail in response, and I thought it'd be worth sharing it here.

As he didn't say what post of mine he was referring to, I'm simply going to have to guess that it's this one. The matter of acquiring drugs from Canada is simple economics, and I thought I explained it clearly. I don't see why Bush has anything to do with it, as he can't change the laws of economics. But let me try explaining it again, this time with numbers.

Let's say that a company develops a new drug, called Curad. It costs $100 million to develop. These costs goes into years of research, failed drugs, testing, clinical trials, FDA bureaucracy, and lawsuits from the last drug they made, Curit, which nobody actually got sick off of, but some scientist somewhere said someone might, so the company had to pay $10 million dollars, of which everyone who ever used the drug, none of whom actually got sick from it, got $50, and the lawyers got $5 million. Anyway, Curad treats a disease called rad, which 100,000 people in the US have. In Canada, which has about a tenth of the US population, 10,000 people have it. In order to make back the money they spent, and have a slight profit, the company needs each person who needs the drug to spend $1,000 on it during the time for which the company has exclusive rights. The Canadian government, which controls the price of drugs for the country, refuses, and only lets them charge $100 per person. Not wanting to mess up their relationship with Canada, the company agrees. Overall, it makes $101 million. The 1% profit is immediately put into developing their next drug, Curall, which gives everyone eternal life.

Now imagine the Americans said, "Wait a minute! Why should the Canadians get their drugs for cheap? I'm going to buy my drugs from Canada." So now those 100,000 Americans are getting their drugs from Canada for $100, and the company only makes $11 million from sales. They lose $89 million, and they go out of business, so they never get a chance to develop Curall. Of course, the company can't allow that. If what they're sending to Canada is being sold back to America, they will either 1) Refuse to sell, or 2) Raise the prices for Canada, no matter what the government says. If it all evens out, everyone ends up paying $920. Of course, this is a slight boon to Americans, but a catastrophe to Canadians, so it's in their best interest not to sell to Americans, which is why there are rumblings from the Canadians about doing this already. Right now, sales to Americans through Canada is a tiny percentage, but if it becomes widespread Canadian prices become untenable.

Ultimately, the drug company's patent runs out (a patent has only a limited duration (17 years, I think), and I'm pretty sure it's usually a while from the time the patent is applied for and the drug is first marketeed), and it's available in generic brands for much less. In fact, generic brands are probably cheaper in the US than Canada.

Now, of course this is unfair if you need a drug and can't afford it. Insurance ameliorates this somewhat, but sometimes they don't cover the drug you need. On the other hand, the drug wouldn't even exist if the company didn't make the money it needs to invest in further drug development. Which is why my proposed solution is always to make the development of the drugs cheaper. Tort reform--limiting the legal risk in developing drugs--would help to reduce the cost of drugs overall. Streamlining the FDA approval process would also help. But if you try to put the pharmaceutical industry on a demand economy, the drugs we now can't afford wouldn't even exist. There's a reason that Canadians get their drugs from US companies.

Update: (6/15/2006) Corrected some math and grammatical errors.

I should also add that it's actually in the best interest of those Americans who cannot afford US prices that the practice not become widespread enough that the channel shuts down entirely. If whole states start buying drugs from Canada in bulk, or the practice becomes legalized and normalized, then no one will be able to get drugs at these prices. So if you need a drug that you can only afford through the Canadian market, it's in your best interest to do everything in your power to prevent others, especially those who can afford US prices, from doing the same.

Of course, you don't need me to tell you that. It's being played all over the Internet: Instapundit, The Corner, Dean Esmay, and Captain Ed are all over this. This is definitely good news for Iraq and the war on terror. Of course, some of al Qaeda considers it good news as well. Information about his location was leaked by his associates. Zarqawi was becoming a liability, instigating problems with Hezbollah and Iran (which is al Qaeda's main state supporter these days), and alienating Iraq's population with his killing of civilians and especially Shi'ites. It would have been better for al Qaeda if his death had looked like a suicide attack, but being killed by US forces is better than nothing. From our perspective, it would have been better to capture him, interrogate him, try him, and then execute him. Even so, killing him has a number of beneficial effects. It doesn't destroy, but it does harm the terrorist network in Iraq, doubly so as we got not just Zarqawi but a number of his top aides. It's also a psychological boost to both Iraq and the US, which has grown weary of this war with a steady (though small) stream of casualties and few clear victories. Zarqawi's death also provided a positive backdrop for the Iraqi Prime minister, al-Maliki, to announce the new appointments which complete his cabinet.

Not everyone is celebrating Zarqawi's death. Michael Berg, the father of beheaded civilian Nick Berg, is not happy at all:

I'm sorry when any human being dies...and I feel bad for that. His death will reignite yet another wave of revenge. It's an endless cycle as long as people use violence to fight violence...When Nick was killed I felt that I had nothing left to lose...I was not a risk-taking person, but I've done things that have endangered me. I have been shot at...Every time we kill an Iraqi...we are creating a large number of people who are going to want vengeance. When are we ever gonna learn that that doesn't work?

I can't say I agree with Michael Berg, as I believe Zarqawi's death does more to end the "cycle of violence" than his life, but his words got me thinking. As a Christian, I'm supposed to be praying for my enemies and blessing those who persecute me. Is it right for me to celebrate anyone's death, even someone as evil as Zarqawi? Much better for him, and for me, if he had come to repentance, to recognize the evil of his own deeds and reform. Consider Paul as an example of what a reformed sinner can accomplish. However, he was a murderer, daily assisting in the killing of men, women, and children, trying to incite a civil war which would have killed thousands, maybe millions, more. It is right and just that I celebrate that such evil has been stopped. That Zarqawi no longer has a chance to repent is a price lighter than the thousands of others whose chances he cut short.