The Ugly Un-American: Week 7
Posted by Ray Church on 09.12.2007
Surge statistics, psychologists in the interrogation room, the good old Australians and a little bit about liberal brains. Plus, I get to give a Shut the Hell Up Award to someone who really deserves it, and to whom I've never given this award to before. All in this week's Ugly Un-American.
I guess I have to say something about yesterday being September 11th, but to be honest I've run out of things to say. It's well trodden ground, and it was the event that shocked me out of complacency.
Bush is keen on saying 9/11 changed everything, and I hope I'm not being too disingenuous by saying it didn't. Over the past 6 years, I've taken to looking back at America's foreign policy and it hasn't really changed. It continues to confuse its own interests with that of the world, continues to think that it can solve problems with force.
It continues to think that the other side is evil, just because its evil, and that because its evil that makes America good.
So I'll take the moment of silence, fade into a cliché and come back with the news.
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Dotting the i's and Crossing the Facts
OK, the surge is working… apparently.
I know this, because the media tells me so.
Luckily, those American-Hating Unpatriotic Yahoos over at Moveon.org have been watching as well, as they released a pretty good response this week on YouTube, analysing the reporting on the surge by Katie Couric.
Patreus reported to Katie Couric that the number of civilian deaths in Iraq has declined dramatically during the surge. August, however, had the highest number of civilian deaths reported this year (1809). American deaths in Iraq have exceeded the same number of deaths for every month of last year.
Now even if this wasn't the case and the number of deaths was going down now, it still wouldn't be a cause to celebrate. Dan Carlin recently pointed out, on his Podcast "Common Sense with Dan Carlin", that anyone who thinks the surge is going to work just needs to do some cursory reading on guerilla warfare. The idea of guerilla warfare is to hit them and hide, so if they disappear for the duration of the surge they can still come back and fight again later. That's not being a coward, that's how America won the War of Independence.
Back to the story. How did Patreus get the ridiculous idea that the surge was working? Put aside for a moment the fact that Patreus has to give a rosy view of the surge because his job and reputation rely on it. Let's have a look at the wonderful process known as statistics.
You've all heard the old adage "lies, damn lies and statistics". Well, that statistics part can be pretty tricky to get a handle on. When tallying deaths, you don't want to include anyone who accidentally shot themselves in the foot and then died of a resulting infection, but at the same time you don't want to exclude anything which is a viable sign of sectarian violence.
Last months bombing of the Yezidi sect, the largest body count from a single attack in the entire history of the Iraq war was an example of sectarian violence, right? Uh… no. Large bombings like this are not a sign of sectarian violence according to the Pentagon.
The Washington Post looked at what was in and what was out of the statistics. One indicator of sectarian violence was the direction of the bullet. If you get shot in the back of the head, it's sectarian. If you get shot in the front, it's criminal, and not part of the statistics. There was no information on what to do if you are shot in the side of the head.
This is nothing new, of course. Back in 2005 the military claimed that they had killed more than 15000 insurgents. The previous year, they claimed that there were only about 15000 insurgents in the country.
You do the math.
Don't Call me a Democrat, I'm a America-Hating Flag-Burning Lilly-Livered Liberal
Here's one from the L.A. Times.
Apparently new studies show that there is a physical difference in brains of liberals and conservatives. And yes, Conservatives are more knee-jerk than liberals.
The test was a simple computer response. A screen would display either an "M" or a "W" on the screen, and the participants needed to press a key whenever they saw an "M". "M" would show up far more frequently than "W", so test subjects would become conditioned to pushing the button whenever they saw a figure appear. They then reversed the procedure, asking the subjects to press the button whenever they saw the "W". All the while they monitored the brain activity of the subject.
Those who identified themselves as liberals were 2.2 times more likely to be in the top 50% of the trial. Brain activity also showed that liberals were 4.9 times more likely to engage the area of the brain responsible for dealing with conflicts.
Now, there are always other answers. Maybe liberals play more computer games, or are better with technology or something. There's also the problem of how do you identify if someone is "liberal", because you're dealing with a wide range of ideas ranging from social conservatives to free market economics, so calling anyone a liberal or a conservative is a bit of a misnomer.
For this one time, however, I don't mind Ray Robinson using "liberal" like it's a cuss word. He's just not engaging part of his brain.
Psych!
This was one that I should have mentioned weeks ago, but at that stage I was swanning on a beach in Thailand, so what are you going to do.
Last week, Dr. Mary Pipher handed back her Presidential Citation to the American Psychological Association in protest over the association's involvement in interrogations at Guantanamo Bay and US black sites. This comes one week after the association drew up new guidelines concerning its involvement with military interrogations. These new guidelines prohibited participation in 19 of the worst interrogation techniques (sexual humiliation, mock executions, simulated drowning or suffocation and so on), but critics point to "loopholes" that allow involvement in some of the most common of these techniques, such as isolation and sleep deprivation.
The ban includes
isolation, sensory deprivation and over-stimulation and/or sleep deprivation used in a manner that represents significant pain or suffering or in a manner that a reasonable person would judge to cause lasting harm.
But notice the phrase in there: that represent significant pain or suffering or in a manner that a reasonable person would judge to cause lasting harm. Meaning if the pain or suffering is not permanent, or if the harm is not lasting, it's okay. It doesn't say how long it has to be to be lasting, or how significant it needs to be to be significant.
The APA is the only medical association that allows participation in these actions. The American Psychiatric Association banned involvement in May 2006, and the American Medical Association banned involvement in June 2006. The new guidelines were also passed instead of a proposed moratorium on any and all involvement in harsh interrogation techniques.
Most newspapers reported this under titles like "US psychologists limit roles in torture of military prisons".
There's more to this.
The original guidelines were made by the PENS (Presidential Ethics and National Security) task force. This group was made up of nine voting members, 6 of whom were members of military and intelligence agencies. In other words, the original guidelines were written by people who had an innate conflict of interest.
This also came one week after the trial of Jose Padilla. Padilla, a US Citizen held for 4 ½ years as an Illegal combatant before finally receiving trial in 2006, was a recipient of these harsh interrogations, so much so that a defense psychiatrist, Angel Hegarty, diagnosed him with Stockholm Syndrome. Padilla claimed that he was "subjected to sleep deprivation, extreme heat and cold, threats of execution, exposure to noxious fumes, and was forced to wear a hood and stand in one position for extended periods of time."
Whether true or not, the implications of these "harsh interrogation" methods bring into question any information obtained through their use. Justice cannot be administered under the conditions of "trust us, we're the government". Justice must be transparent and above reproach.
Fred Thompson Officially Enters the Race for the Whitehouse
Yawn.
International News: God Bless Australia
As a tried and true New Zealander, it breaks my heart to give Australians credit for anything. Crowded House? New Zealand. Pavlova? New Zealand. Russell Crowe?
OK, you can keep that one.
I do have to say, however, that my Aussie cousins have come up with some great strategies to protest George Bush at the OPEC… uhhh… APEC conference.
First, you get the Chasers, an Australian comedy show which decided to dress up one of their members as Osama Bin Laden and drive him up to the gates of the APEC conference, chauffeured in a motorcade disguised to be part of the Canadian contingent at the conference.
He almost got to the door.
At the same conference you get "Bums for Bush", who launched a "mass mooning" of the APEC conference. The mooning involved about 50 people exposing their naked derrieres while chanting "Bombs not Bush" before the Australian police chased them out of Hyde Park.
This is on top of the 10000 people who showed up for the regular protest.
Shut the Hell Up Award
Osama Bin Laden.
How often do I get to give this award to Osama Bin Laden?
His latest screed this week proves that he is still alive and that he can afford hair dye. He also made a celebrity endorsement for one of my favorite thinkers.
This war was entirely unnecessary, as testified to by your own reports. And among the most capable of those from your own side who speak to you on this topic and on the manufacturing of public opinion is Noam Chomsky, who spoke sober words of advice prior to the war, but the leader of Texas doesn't like those who give advice ...
Fuck you.
Yes, I own a copy of Hegemony or Survival. I own several of his books, and unlike Osama Bin Laden I've actually read them. I read and admire Noam Chomsky and I largely agree with his assessment of American foreign police and economic activities. Just because we are against Bush doesn't mean we have anything positive to say about you.
You dare to claim that you're endorsed by such minds as Noam Chomsky, when in the same speech you launch this attack:
there are two solutions for stopping it. The first is from our side, and it is to continue to escalate the killing and fighting against you. This is our duty, and our brothers are carrying it out, and I ask Allah to grant them resolve and victory.
You just don't get it. The reason that someone like Noam Chomsky dares to attack the likes of Bush, Bush Sr. and Ronald Reagan (and Bill Clinton, I may add) is that their foreign policy puts assholes like you in power. If you read Imperial Ambitions for example, you get this line…
They [the Reagan Administration] collected radical Islamists from around the world – the most violent, crazed elements they could find – and tried to forge them into a military force in Afghanistan…The mujahideen carried out terrorist activities right inside Russia. And these same forces later morphed into what became Al Qaeda
That doesn't sound to me like he's endorsing you. That sounds to me like he's criticizing the US for creating you.
Don't try to recruit us for your vision of the Apocalypse by claiming that your terrorist organization has anything to do with those of us who seek freedom and justice. We hate you for the same reason we hate Bush; because you trample freedom and justice; because you think you can create peace through war; because you think that your religion is the only way to truth and that you have the right to impose that view on others.
Because you destroy the peaceful and manipulate the weak.
You are not one of us.
The Section Formerly Known as Pimping
First, check out Ray Robinson and I going mano e mano in this weeks Fact or Fiction.
Jason Easley wraps up the Republican New Hampshire Debate. My favorite bit was when Mitt Romney got called out on his insensitive comments about his sons driving him around being the equivalent to people serving in the military. It couldn't have happened to a nicer guy.
STAY CURRENT