Month: August 2007

In his NRO splutter this morning, military expert Victor Davis Hanson hyperbolized the following:

No one necessarily believes anything in once respected magazines, whether the Periscope section of Newsweek or anything published in The New Republic.

Let me suggest two articles in The New Republic that no one should have believed at the time, two articles that have been debunked by subsequent events, two articles that reveal spectacular misjudgment about the war in Iraq, two articles that should consign the author to irrelevance, unless he has explicitly explained why he was wrong and apologized. The two articles, of course, are by Victor Davis Hanson. Let’s roll the tape, shall we? The first is an argument that counter-insurgency works best when American troops stay in their tanks and kill people. It’s a June 2004 defense of a strategy not exactly identical with the Petraeus strategy Hanson is now touting. Money quote:

For their part, American troops have discovered that they are safer on the assault when they can fire first and kill killers, rather than simply patrol and react, hoping their newly armored Humvees and fortified flak vests will deflect projectiles. This is the context for the current insistence on more troops. America’s failure to promptly retake Falluja or rid Najaf of militiamen demands more soldiers to garrison the ever more Fallujas and Najafs that will now surely arise. In contrast, audacity is a force multiplier. A Sadr in chains or in paradise is worth more, in terms of deterrence, than an entire infantry division.

There are other advantages to a force of some 138,000 rapidly responding soldiers, rather than 200,000 or so garrison troops. The more American troops, the less likely it is Iraqis will feel any obligation to step up to the responsibilities of their own defense. The more troops, the more psychological reliance on numbers than on performance of individual units. And, the more troops, the higher the profile of culturally bothersome Americans who disturb by their mere omnipresence, rather than win respect for their proven skill in arms.

So Hanson was a key voice arguing against the counter-insurgency strategy now being pursued belatedly and with too few troops in Iraq. But now Bush has signed on, Hanson is on board and busy excoriating the media. Let’s not hold our breath for intellectual accountability, shall we? Let’s instead go back to February 2005 as well, where Hanson saw the then-strategy, which even Bush has now disowned, as the right one:

The third and best alternative is to continue on the present path of countrywide reconstruction in hopes that the democratic process will begin to create a momentum of its own – as we have seen in the scenes of genuine post-election rejoicing. Soon there will be a psychological shift as Iraqis begin to blame other Iraqis – rather than Americans – for shortfalls of power or gasoline and start to appreciate the difficulties that the United States has faced.

And, contrarily, the praise for establishing the Arab world’s first democratically elected nation will empower the reformers, as nationalists will gradually become less vulnerable to charges of collusion with the infidel…

As the United States has refined its tactics and learned more about the terrorists, its losses in recent weeks have fluctuated, but they are not steadily increasing from month to month. Meanwhile, American soldiers are killing or capturing more insurgents than before–15,000 in 2004, according to an estimate by General George Casey–who are now primarily confined to four of 18 provinces. At the same time, the Arab world is beginning to see elections take hold in the Islamic world–in Afghanistan, the West Bank, and now Iraq. And that fact will eventually be fatal for Al Qaeda and Baathists alike. We cannot appreciate these positive symptoms in our despair over the post-invasion period.

Yes, Victor Davis Hanson is right in some respects. Some things that have been published in The New Republic are things that no one should believe. The more ambitious fabulist is not Scott Beauchamp, however. It’s Victor Davis Hanson.

A Finnish version of YMCA.

A story that still manages to appall.

Feel the global love.

"Our troops are seeing this progress on the ground. And as they take the initiative from the enemy, they have a question: Will their elected leaders in Washington pull the rug out from under them just as they are gaining momentum and changing the dynamic on the ground in Iraq?" – president George W. Bush, depicting those who do not believe the surge has worked or can work as hostile to the troops. Meanwhile, the ambassador to Iraq, Ryan Crocker, assessed the state of the polity in Baghdad – whose transformation was the entire point of the surge – as "extremely disappointing."

The stab-in-the-back right is, alas, only entrenching itself as the need to deny reality in Iraq grows. Glenn Reynolds links approvingly to this strange Victor Davis Hanson splutter at NRO. Let’s fisk it, shall we?

After reviewing the latest critique of the CIA’s failures to foresee the pre-9/11 dangers of radical Islam …

This, it appears, is something that Hanson believes we should not have done. No scrutiny for an intelligence agency that failed to prevent the worst terror attack in American history? No accountability? Or such accountability should be kept under wraps? I’m baffled. Read the story this morning on the report. And remember: Hanson apparently wishes you didn’t know any of this. Off-message, you see. Tenet, it appears, should be given a Medal of Freedom for failing on 9/11, and instituting torture. But internal criticism? Nah.

and while reading the final sordid details surrounding the Pvt. Beauchamp fables published at The New Republic …

Again, it is fascinating that this tiny incident, in which a soldier’s account of his time in the Iraq war has been disputed by his superiors, and in which we have not yet heard the final word, is of such immense importance to the pro-Bush right. It cannot be about the reported soldier offenses, which have been documented elsewhere (like cruelty to dogs or gallows humor with body parts) or are utterly within the bounds of military life (like misogynist humor directed at an injured woman). Surely Hanson is not shocked – shocked! – to hear that soldiers in a war-zone are not exactly renowned for drawing room manners or political correctness. So Hanson is really complaining here about some kind of anti-military or anti-war bias that may have led TNR’s editors (I wrote may) to place too much trust in an anti-war soldier. Now recall that TNR has a long history of proud liberal interventionism and supported the current war. Even they are slimed. And the Bush right wonders why they have lost the argument.

and viewing the latest phony wire-photos from Iraq (the poor victimized Iraqi woman holding unfired cartridges as ‘proof’ of coalition bullets that hit her home), I was wondering who will monitor our self-righteous monitors?

I saw those pictures; I cannot verify their entire context. If they were staged, and packaged deceptively, Hanson is right to expose and complain (although if I were VDH, I wouldn’t mock an Iraqi civilian in the mayhem his own arguments helped create). But again, some of this is inevitable in wartime. Propaganda has a way of infiltrating news. Hanson is right to expose this when he sees it; but the media surely isn’t the only one with blemishes. The military gave us the first tales of Jessica Lynch and Pat Tillman. I’m not sure why their lies are not as reprehensible as a few in the media.

The answer, like it or not, in the  post-Plame, post-Scheuer, post-Tenet era is that no one believes much what the CIA says any more about the Middle East …

I’m not so sure about that. Skepticism toward the CIA is surely merited, but I don’t get the impression that no one trusts the organization any more. Its reports on the situation in Iraq have recently had an air of realism.

no one believes that a wire-photo from there is genuine or its caption accurate;

Hyperbole much? Plenty of photos there are legit as are the vast majority of captions.

and no one necessarily believes anything in once respected magazines, whether the Periscope section of Newsweek or anything published in The New Republic.

This is unhinged. Note also the swipe at Newsweek, whose sole mistake was to report the flushing of a Koran down the toilet (while getting the broader story of Koran abuse at Gitmo totally right). In fact, what has occurred at Gitmo – the torture regime Hanson has done nothing to stop and much to foment – is far, far graver than any minor error in a magazine. But this is how partisanship warps the mind. For Hanson, it seems to be a genuinely bigger scandal that Newsweek bungled one small aspect of a more broadly accurate story about Koran abuse at Gitmo (confirmed in another instance by the Pentagon, no less), than that the U.S. has effectively and secretly reneged on the Geneva Conventions, and instituted war-crimes as the core of its anti-terror strategy.

The common gripe is that the administration lied to the public about WMD in Iraq …

This is a common gripe? The fundamental casus belli wrong? This massive, unmistakable, fatal flaw in the entire enterprise, the thing that has done more than anything else to make this war indefensible and unwinnable, this is a "common gripe"? Well excuuuse us. It is and was one of the biggest blunders in the history of American intelligence and warfare. A slightly bigger deal than one misleading photo caption or one disputed Baghdad Diarist.

but what is lost is that once revered institutions proved disingenuous in their accusations and unreliable in their performance…

He’s not referring to the Rumsfeld Pentagon, it seems. Just the press. For the record, I do not believe that pointing out failures of intelligence, politically-incorrect soldiering, and the systematic imposition of abuse and torture in detainee policy are disingenuous activities. Is the media imperfect? You bet. Newsweek apologized for the tiny bit it got wrong in a wider story it got right; TNR’s alleged fabulist has yet to be debunked in any transparent way – but if he is, I have no doubt, TNR will be held accountable (as if they haven’t already); if photos are staged, the editors and photographers should be investigated and disciplined. All such criticism is a good thing. But when it is used to distract from much more profound mismanagement and indecency in the government, it is itself a form of propaganda.

After all, in the context of one of the biggest blunders in American warfare, these are minor matters, right? In the context of a war fought on false pretenses with too few troops and a surge that cannot create a national government and has not prevented a sectarian civil war, these minor points of accountability among third parties are trivial, right? A military historian like Hanson is going to be more concerned to see how such errors were made, how we can avoid them in future, what realistic options we have for triage in the country, and how best to remove our forces in a manner that best serves our national interest, right?

Nah. He’s going to fixate on the press and the part of the CIA that seeks to account for its own mistakes. There’s only one plausible expanation of this and it’s simply a function of lashing out. Hanson’s entire argument for this war has crumbled under him. His failure – intellectual as well as political – is profound. But sadly, one thing we have learned about many on the pro-war right and in the Bush administration is their refusal and inability to face the fact of their own failures and errors. It is always someone else’s fault. If Hanson wants to excoriate writers and pundits for their mistakes in this war, fine. But he’d do well to start by examining his own record as well. Accountability really begins at home. We’re waiting.

A coffee table book and a website with some very beautiful pics by Jeffrey Milstein. There’s an interview with Milstein here.

Not so great for health; but great for research.

A reader writes:

The US being on top in Cancer survival rates is a good thing.  My wife is a US based breast cancer survivor and believe me I sincerely appreciate the good work done here.  However, three things jumped right out at me when I looked at the list: 1) Cancer research and treatment are the "sexiest" things in American medicine.  They get big grants from both charity and government, and oncologists and cancer surgeons are among the highest paid specialists in the country.  However, a medical system shouldn’t be judged by the quality of only one of the things it does, just as you shouldn’t judge a bridge by the strength of only one of its trusses. 2) We have more than forty million people uninsured here.  I think it is reasonable to assume at least some number of cancers in that population remain undiagnosed at death.  This would have at least a small downward impact on our numbers.  Which brings us to:

3) There are five countries that are very, very close to our numbers. If you take into account number 2 above, they may actually beat us.  Yet, they have roughly half the per capita spending we do on health care, and manage to insure 100% of their population versus our 85%.

Another writes:

The statistics you linked are interesting, but do not tell the entire story.  Cancer survival rates are not always a very good measure of the the quality of health care that a person recieves, and here’s why.

Cancer survival rates are based on the time from diagnosis to future point in time – say, 1 year, 5 years or 10 years, etc.  Because of this, they are subject to what researchers call "lead time bias."  Wikipedia has a much better explanation here than I can ever give, but in short it means that advances in cancer screening can artificially inflate the "cancer survival time."

Here’s an example, involving prostate cancer.  U.S. male patients usually get screened for prostate cancer starting at around age 50.  Many European countries don’t bother screening for prostate cancer at all, since many studies don’t show any survival benefit (meaning people’s lives aren’t extended) to screening.  A hypothetical American male may find out at age 52 that he has prostate cancer – which is often a slow growing cancer.  Say he lives for another 20 years – which is not uncommon – before dying of something else, such as a heart attack.  His "cancer survival time" is now 20 years.  A hypothetical European man isn’t screened for prostate cancer, but it is discovered when he is 65 during routine lab work.  He lives another 7 years before dying of a heart attack.  His "cancer survival time" is now only 7 years.  And so on, and so on.

As you can see, cancer survival rates can be inaccurate for measuring the quality of health care.