Kurds Voice Suspicion of U.S. Troops

I guess we use schools to place troops also.

Why Can’t Reporters Do a Better Job? – Brad DeLong

The Economist seems to be slipping lately in the quality of its economic reporting. One reads paragraphs like:

Taxing Times: …Economists are divided about the wisdom of slashing taxes in this way, without trying to balance the books. Last month, around 450 economists, including ten Nobel laureates, openly criticised the tax-cut plan: in response, the White House quickly marshalled support from economists who took a different view. Mr Bush has been arguing that his tax cut will itself have a beneficial impact on economic growth, and that as a result the deficits projected under current methods will turn out to be overly pessimistic…

And one wants to scream. What “…economists who took a different view…”? Alan Greenspan–number one Republican economist–who says that now is definitely not the time to cut taxes? Douglas Holtz-Eakin–until two months ago Chief Economist at Bush’s Council of Economic Advisers–who, now that he heads the Congressional Budget Office and is out from under Karl Rove’s message discipline, politely says that it is “not obvious” why anyone would think the tax cut would have a beneficial effect on growth? Bush’s own ex-Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill, who says that shoring up Social Security would be much better than more tax cuts? The fact that the CBO–controlled by Republicans for a decade now–thinks that the dynamic scoring argument is a big fat zero?

The fact that the Bush Administration cannot hold a significant fraction of its own appointees “on message” after they leave the Administration is a powerful and important signal that its “analytical judgments” are simply lies. Yet the Economist prefers to turn it into a “he said, she said” story–leading the average reader without copious spare time to conclude that this is just another random political dispute that outsiders cannot untangle.

When I get annoyed enough to get in the face of reporters (not, I hasten to say, from the Economist) who I think fail to carry their weight, and ask them why they do this–why they turn everything into a Point-Counterpoint bald recital of positions, rather than helping guide their readers to understand what is the better argument, or the near-consensus position, I tend to get one or both of two responses:

• I can’t do my job without White House cooperation: if I call them liars, they’ll shut me out–then I won’t be able to write any stories, and my editors will fire me. I have to keep my sources tamed.


• Besides, there are clues scattered in the article that a careful reader can use to understand what is really going on.

Just like everyone esle, 90% of the reporters are incompetant (Sturgeon’s Law). I do like the reasons given, especially the clues one. Yeah that helps. And what if the editor removes the important clues? What a way to run a newspaper! But it is true that Ari will make them sit in the back if he doesn’t like the way they ask their questions. As any press secretary is wont to do. Status is very important for the press at the White House.

Shock, But Not Awe – Brad Delong

So I’ve spent a bunch of time on the phone today, asking people who ought to know why it is that the 1st Cavalry’s soldiers are at Ft. Hood and its heavy equipment somewhere, why the 4th Infantry’s soldiers are at Ft. Hood and its heavy equipment somewhere in the Red Sea, and why the 1st Armored’s soldiers and heavy equipment are in Germany–rather than being, say, in Kuwait as a reserve in case we need them in the Iraqi Theater of Operations. Why didn’t the Pentagon move them over, as insurance for the worst case?

I’m getting two answers. The first is “money–the Bush Administration wants to fight this war on the cheap so it can get on with its real long-run business of tax cuts.” The second (given by another non-overlapping group of people) is that the current force structure–3 Infantry, 101 Airborne, the Marines, and a British division-equivalent striking from Kuwait, with the 4 Infantry supposed to be striking south from Turkey but instead coming around Arabia–is the worst-case scenario force. Rumsfeld and company wanted to attack Iraq with airpower, with the 101 Airborne, with a brigade or so of the 3 Infantry, and some Marines and Britons. That was what they thought would be needed. And it was only with difficulty that they were argued up into the current force which Rumsfeld and company thought was vast overkill.

I mean, I knew that people like Richard Perle and Ken Adelman believed that Iraq could be conquered and Saddam Hussein overthrown by a blow with the equivalent of a feather. But I had no idea that the Secretary of Defense’s office thought that airpower, three U.S. divisions, and one British division was the kind of “overwhelming force” you have ready in order to be prepared for the worst. I’m in shock. But I’m not awed.

More rumblings about poor decisions.

First Stop Iraq

Well researched article that provides some depth and background on the four people most responsible for where we are now: Buch, Cheney, Powell, and Wolfowitz. Good read.

OFFENSE AND DEFENSE

Here is the New Yorker article. Read it. You can chose to believe it or not but it will affect the way many people view this war. Here is a relevant quote:

Rumsfeld further stunned the Joint Staff by insisting that he would control the timing and flow of Army and Marine troops to the combat zone. Such decisions are known in the military as R.F.F.s?requests for forces. He, and not the generals, would decide which unit would go when and where.

The article also describes several incidents where Rumsfeld then tried to deny ANY responsibility for the war plans or their execution. Some of this article, even most of it, may just be the whinings of some malcontents, except that these malcontents seem to also be in military intelligence, the CIA and the State Department, as well as the Pentagon. The rest of the world will have a very easy time believing what this article says. I think I can start to see why we screwed up the diplomatic side of things the last few months so much that even our friends have problems with us.

Who Lied to Whom?

New Yorker article about the use of several very unlikely bits of information given to Congress by the Adminsitration. Bits of information that have since been shown to be false. What is interesting is thta this seems to be something that we (the US and Britain) have been doing since the Clinton administration. What if some of Clinton’s misinformation somehow became fact in Bush’s? What if Bill forgot to tell George what was really true? Perhaps we got bitten by the same lying bug we were trying to set for Europe. Oh, what a tangled web we weave…

Mon, 31 Mar 2003 05:34:47 GMT

Reasons not to become a scientist.

On the heels of my previous post Are doctorates worthwhile? comes Don’t Become a Scientist!, another rather dispiriting view of why science today might not be the best spot for bright young people to settle into.

I became a scientist in order to have the freedom to work on problems which interest me. But you probably won’t get that freedom. As a postdoc you will work on someone else’s ideas, and may be treated as a technician rather than as an independent collaborator. Eventually, you will probably be squeezed out of science entirely. You can get a fine job as a computer programmer, but why not do this at 22, rather than putting up with a decade of misery in the scientific job market first? [...]

Suppose you do eventually obtain a permanent job, perhaps a tenured professorship. The struggle for a job is now replaced by a struggle for grant support, and again there is a glut of scientists. Now you spend your time writing proposals rather than doing research. Worse, because your proposals are judged by your competitors you cannot follow your curiosity, but must spend your effort and talents on anticipating and deflecting criticism rather than on solving the important scientific problems. They’re not the same thing: you cannot put your past successes in a proposal, because they are finished work, and your new ideas, however original and clever, are still unproven. It is proverbial that original ideas are the kiss of death for a proposal; because they have not yet been proved to work (after all, that is what you are proposing to do) they can be, and will be, rated poorly. Having achieved the promised land, you find that it is not what you wanted after all.

What can be done? The first thing for any young person (which means anyone who does not have a permanent job in science) to do is to pursue another career.

Think this sounds bleak and gloomy? Then you can cheer yourself up with Philip Greenspun’s illustrated Career Guide for Engineers and Computer Scientists.

Now I wouldn’t want to appear one-sided on this issue; I think there might be good reasons to become a scientist as well. I’ll try to find counterpoints out there and report on what I find.

[Seb's Open Research]

Any job I know of requires compromises. You take a chance in any of them. What this little story says is absolutely true. Yet many scientists DO pursue their own questions. They find a way to make grant requests work. They find a way to turn the system to THEIR advantage. I did not want to spent my time writing grants, trying to wring the last penny out of every grant. So I went to work for a biotech compnay where I spent 16 years doing what I wanted. I figured out ways to make what I wanted overlap with what the company wanted. I found a path that let me explore the questions in Nature that I found interesting. It is possible but it is not something you can follow a checklist for. It requires creativity, adaptability and driven curiousity. If you have those, you have a good chance to do what you find interesting.

The Emperor Has No Clothes, by William Stone, III

This man is seeking the Libertarian Party’s nomination for the 2004 Senate race in South Dakota. Sounds like a fun guy to be around right now.

‘TIME-TRAVELER’ BUSTED FOR INSIDER TRADIN

Hey, it has to be true. It was on the Internet. Remember it was published in Weekly World News. Always check The Urban Legends Pages when in doubt.

From Robert Paterson’s Radio Weblog

Rumsfeld ‘wanted cheap war’. A US magazine claims US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld forced military chiefs to send too small a force to fight Iraq. [BBC News | Front Page | UK Edition]

My friends in the US Army have been telling me this story for months. As I have mentioned previously, having the Secretary in charge is a shift in policy. Before Rumsfeld, the Theatre Commander would have reported to the Chief who would have reported to the President. You don’t have to be a psychologist to notice that Rumsfeld is an exceptionally controlling person. You can imagine the kind of arguments that have taken place. My sources tell me that Rumsfeld wanted half the forces in Theatre now and that Franks wanted double. We have therefore the worst of all worlds here – a compromise.

What appears to have happened is that there is a split in ideology. Rumsfeld had a view of the fragility of the regime which has turned out to be wrong. He  also believes in the technical aspects of war and in the use of special forces. Had the regime been more fragile he might have been right but they aren’t and he has placed all the bet on his idea. So now he and the US are caught.

It is a clear lesson that it is not a good idea to bet a number as in roulette in war. You have to have many more options open to you. Real wars have always ended up as slugfests and Rumsfeld does not have the experience to know. Because he is not a soldier he has not had the personal connection to the men in the field. I suspect to him they are statistics. This would not be true if the traditional chain of command had been followed. The military is a family. If you were the Chief, many of the Colonels and up would be your friends and many of the Colonels and down would be the sons and daughters of your friends. You would see them with a different set of eyes – less expendable.

Notice how he now talks of “Franks’ plan” This is a disgraceful. Yes Franks signed off – he could have resigned but that is not the Army way. The Army way is to follow in the end the civilian lead. Everyone “knows” that this is the Rumsfeld plan and after the story breaks on Monday the steam will build for Rumsfeld’s head.

I believe that he must go to open up the thinking – if he stays he will meddle to protect himself rather than to do the right thing. The US needs a man at the top who  knows what  he is doing, who knows the people well and who has the trust of the military. We can now see the value of General Marshall in WWII

[Robert Paterson's Radio Weblog]

The New Yorker article is what has been creating a firestorm today. The end of the BBC article states this:

Our correspondent says Mr Rumsfeld and his team desperately need some decisive victories in battle if the American people are to continue to believe what the White House is telling them – that this war is going roughly according to plan.

Since they are saying that they will wait until the get more materiel and troops, it could be a little while until they get a decisive victory.

Waiting and Worrying Outside Baghdad

This reporter describes his own little slice of the war and it is not a gee=whiz examination of the wonderful technology we all have. It is about traveling in trucks with no armor or radios, with canvas sides that offer no protection to anything. The logistics unit is absolutely vital to continuing resupply of the forward troops. While you can be cynical and think this reporter may be in above his head (He has not had months of training for this job.) I was taken with his very real regard and affection for ‘his’ unit. While he would like more armored vehicles around him, he really wants them around the men he is with. For their protection.

Columbia Suffered Abnormal Heating

A break from war stuff. It lookslike the tape in the recorder miraculously survived the catastrophic destruction of Columbia. They are getting very good information indicating that region on the left wing started heating up as soon as the shuttle hit the atmosphere. I wish at much effort had been spent on simulations of the foam hitting the wing before they hit reentry. We will never know what we might have been able to accomplish. We might not have succeeded in saving them but we would have made heroic efforts to do so.

Mon, 31 Mar 2003 04:28:00 GMT

Means to Ends.

Jamie Lewis has posted Ends and Means: Identity in Two Worlds.

It’s a landmark document.

Jamie is President of The Burton Group (which he founded with Craig Burton) and one of the world’s leading authorities on enterprises, networks and related matters.

As a conceptual foundation for his arguments, Jamie posits a complement to World of Ends: World of Means. It’s a brilliant concept. Also a necessary one.

If you care about the Identity Thing, and want to see something actually implemented in the Real World, this is a must-read.

[Later...] Eric Norlin concurs.

[The Doc Searls Weblog]

Very nice discussion going on via blogs about how identity should be established in a digital age. Should it be done by the customer or by the business/govermnent?

Fun with an iPod and Xserve

This is so cool. Using an iPod and a firewire cable, the Bioteam could configure as set of Apple Xserver. The Xserve is simple enough. Now an IT specialist can use an iPod to set them up without needing anything else. Plus, they could listen to some neat songs while waiting.

Sun, 30 Mar 2003 22:00:32 GMT

Wow, the ‘bot for Blogshares works very fast or I timed it well but I already have my 1000 shares. Yes, I get a set of shares from the ‘IPO’ just as any other CEO does. I simply had to add the Blogshares link in my template. You can click the link over at the right (down at the bottom) to see how my blog is doing. Or click here: