Dann Todd's 'Dain Bramage'^**

Media Bias Over The War In Iraq

A couple of interesting events occurred this week that illustrated the 'narrative'....as it is being called by some.... that many mainstream media outlets use when presenting news from Iraq.. The word 'narrative' is used to describe what some believe is the preconceived larger story that the mainstream media seeks to convey in covering the war in Iraq.

Special Note: I don't buy into any sort of media conspiracy theory. There isn't some vast network of editors that consult with one another on a daily basis regarding what news will be given prominent coverage and what will be quietly ignored. I do believe that decades of philosophical in-breeding have produced a variety of media outlets that all possess the same basic assumptions about the world in general and as a result have the same general opinions regarding what is and what is not newsworthy.

Onward.

The first event was an editorial published in the NY Times that was written by seven Army soldiers, six of whom were either non-commissioned officers or staff non-commissioned officers. In this editorial, the seven members of the Army's 82nd Airborne Division proclaimed that our current mission in Iraq is a lost cause.

At one point in their editorial they make the following statement with which I firmly agree:

Political reconciliation in Iraq will occur, but not at our insistence or in ways that meet our benchmarks. It will happen on Iraqi terms when the reality on the battlefield is congruent with that in the political sphere. There will be no magnanimous solutions that please every party the way we expect, and there will be winners and losers. The choice we have left is to decide which side we will take. Trying to please every party in the conflict - as we do now - will only ensure we are hated by all in the long run.

I disagree with their assumption that we are going to have to choose between the Sunni and the Shi'ites in Iraq. Recent history has demonstrated that there is another group of Iraqis of various religious persuasions that are bound by a common desire for a moderate, representative government. We must take sides, and theirs is the side we must take with the intent of providing them with enough breathing room to create a stable and functioning government. Something that will happen on an Iraqi timetable; not an American one. Let the Sunni and Shi-ite extremists be the ones that are forced to choose moderation or continued hatred.

Another group of veterans of our Iraqi campaign wrote a rebuttal to their seven comrades of the 82 Airborne. A small sample of their rebuttal:

It's true that political reconciliation has not suited so-called "benchmarks," but political progress will only happen when the battlefield and political realities are congruent. We know that street level security is a necessary precondition for real political progress, and as such, the preconditions are finally being fulfilled. And as we've seen, Iraqi leaders--whether Sunni or Shia--will stand up for moderation and stability only when provided with a secure environment in which to do so.

We understand the frustration our fellow soldiers feel. All of us were in Iraq before the "surge" and lament never seeing a coherent, security-based counterinsurgency strategy. In truth, we were only clearing--not holding.

But we also know what's possible when even small portions of counterinsurgency strategy are applied. Insurgents are exposed, leaders stand up, and stability occurs. General David Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker understand the principles of counterinsurgency and are applying them up and down the chain of command. It's unfortunate that soldiers in the 82nd Airborne have not yet benefited from the new strategy, but it will ensure that their actions, and those of their fallen brethren, will not have been in vain.

To summarize their rebuttal, the 82nd Airborne has been deployed to parts of Iraq that have not benefited from the recent surge operations. The surge is working in other parts of Iraq and hopefully those successes will be repeated when those tactics are more fully deployed in the 82nd Airborne's area of operation.

Frequent readers of this blog already know where I stand on this issue so I will not belabor that point any further.

I will point out that the rebuttal editorial was first offered to the NY Times. The Times declined to publish it. Isn't one editorial written by a group of experienced Iraqi veterans as newsworthy as another?

The second event was the recent pronouncement by GOP Senator John Warner regarding troop levels in Iraq. Sen. Warner believes that we need to downsize the number of deployed forces; the sooner the better. This represents a change of heart by Sen. Warner as well as a 'defection' by one of Mr. Bush's fellow party members.

Sen. Warner's comments received prominent media coverage. My local paper, the Jackson Citizen Patriot, had the story on the front page. A quick check over at Google News suggests that Sen. Warner's comments have been covered by many major media outlets in both the broadcast and print news industries.

There was a lesser covered pronouncement from Democratic Rep. Brian Baird of Washington State. Rep. Baird wrote an opinion piece indicating that in spite of is earlier opposition to the war in Iraq, he now believes that we are making progress and that a premature withdrawal would not be in anyone's best interests.

[h/t to the Blogfather]

Another quick check of Google News indicates that Rep. Baird's recent conversion has not be as widely covered by the same top tier news organizations that breathlessly brought us the news regarding Sen. Warner.

Why the emphasis on news that does not support our Iraqi campaign? Why the subtle lack of coverage for opinions that support our continued operations to create a stable, moderate, representative government in Iraq?

by Dann 

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Do Drug Regulations Really Serve The Best Interests Of Patients?

The most recent edition of the Glenn & Helen Show podcast features an interview with Richard Epstein, a law professor from the University of Chicago, regarding the pharmaceutical industry and how government regulation stifles innovation. Mr. Epstein has written a book about those issues and much of the discussion was centered around his findings that the pharmaceutical industry is over-regulated to the point that our progress in developing new drugs is measurably slowed. I found it interesting for a variety of reasons....not just because of his comments regarding nationalized health care.

It should be pointed out that the United States generates a disproportionately greater number of new medical technologies, techniques, and pharmaceuticals than compared with the rest of the world. One significant reason for this disproportionate American productivity in the medical arena has to do with the amount of regulation to which European drug companies are subjected. As a result, many drug companies have moved to the United States to continue their research.

And this guy thinks American companies are over regulated.

Glenn, Helen, and Mr. Epstein discuss the differences between how new medical procedures are regulated and how new drugs are brought to the market. With medical procedures, doctors have a fair amount of leeway to try something new. If it works, then that information is shared with others who also try it and the general knowledge base of medicine grows.

This is a bit of an over-simplification. There are some regulations that do have to be followed. But they are not nearly as restrictive as those that apply to new drugs.

With drugs, there are extensive research programs that have to be conducted. Then there are lengthy and costly clinical trials that have to be conducted in order to persuade FDA regulators that a given new drug is "safe" and "effective".

There is an extensive discussion about how patients and their families perceive risk and benefit as opposed to how FDA regulators perceive risk and benefit. This discussion naturally leads to the rise in patient advocacy groups that have been demanding immediate access to all sorts of drugs. In particular, AIDS patient advocacy groups have been very effective at getting such access and then immediately sharing the experimental drug results with one another.

Effectively, a patient that will die in three years cannot wait for a five to ten year drug development and approval process. That is the basis for a terminally ill patient's risk/benefit analysis.

On the other hand, FDA regulators face all sorts of media criticism if they choose to let a drug on the market that isn't 100% safe and 100% effective. Regulators evaluate risk/benefit from a much different position.

Mr. Epstein makes the case that people can sue drug companies for selling flawed products, but that they can't sue market advisors, the media, and regulators when it turns out that their opinions about safety and effectiveness delay or prevent bringing a new drug to market. As a result, in Mr. Epstein's opinion, such third party opinions ought to be discounted in favor of the opinions of people that are directly affected by the decision to sell a given product; patients, their families, doctors, and investors.

Mr. Epstein is of the opinion that "profit" is not a dirty word. Wisely so, in my opinion.

And finally, Mr. Epstein makes the point that he isn't opposed to the FDA and reasonable regulation. He says that there clearly is a role for the FDA to ensure that all sorts of bad things do not end up in the medical supply chain and that drug producers are being honest and forthright about what they are selling.

I can't say that I agreed with everything that he said during the interview. There was some brief discussion about collusion between manufacturers being acceptable based on market conditions that I'm not sure I agree with. I would need to know more to say more.

Listening to this podcast made me think of the vastly different approaches to regulation that are applied to vastly different markets. For example, telecommunications regulators are currently considering changing regulations so that cell phone companies would no longer have a monopoly on supplying telephones. This would essentially allow third party suppliers of new technology to sell cell phones to customers who would in turn be able to purchase connection to a cell phone network from a cellular company.

The proposed change effectively forces telecommunications companies to accept/adopt new technologies at a faster pace. The end result being faster deployment of new technologies and reduced prices for consumers.

On the other hand, we have FDA regulators that tend to slow the pace at which new medical advances are brought to the market. As a result, patients have a longer wait for new technologies and pay very high prices when they finally hit the market.

Mr. Epstein had some other very interesting observations. The podcast is worth a half hour of your time.

by Dann 

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More News From Inside Iraq

Michael Totten may have returned from his time as an embed in Iraq, but he isn't done telling us about all he saw there. His latest is the story of how American troops spy on the Iraqis.

Check out this interesting passage about how this particular group of Iraqis feels about our American servicemen and women:

“Listen,” said another Iraqi, who wore a long black beard as well as a dishdasha. “I have something to tell you, but it has to be away from the children.”

He said this in English so the children would not understand. A young man led them outside and suggested they play with their new toys on the lawn.

“When you came and liberated this country,” he continued, “Iraq had 25 million Saddams. America is turning us back into human beings. That soccer field is not for a specific person. It is for everybody. We appreciate that. We believe that if Americans have something that is ours, they will return it to us. If the Iraqi government has something that is ours, we forget it.”

Our host for the evening nodded in agreement.

“We support you,” the man continued. “You support our back, we support your back. But you must understand: If you pull back, we will pull back. I will have no choice but to pull back if I can’t depend on you. It will be much harder for us to stand together. But as long as you stand firmly behind us we will support you against Moqtada al Sadr and the other bastards in the area.”

“Are they Sunnis?” I said to Lieutenant Pitts. Moqtada al Sadr leads the radical Shia Mahdi Army militia.

“No,” he said. “They are Shias. But they don’t like any of the idiot groups, regardless of sect. They want peace.”

It is a pity that Michigan Senator Carl Levin won't get a chance to meet these Iraqis on his "fact finding" trip. Fortunately, Mr. Levin has recently re-converted to the "support the troops"* side of the fence as a result of the success of the recent surge operations. Unfortunately, he is still of the opinion that foreign governments respond well to direction from our government. He recently lambasted the lack of progress on various US established 'benchmarks' by the Iraqi government.

I've rarely seen any situation where threats and bluster have trumped persistence and patience.

At any rate, please read Michael's report from Iraq. It is well worth your time regardless of one's opinions or political persuasion.

*Yes, I believe that supporting the troops includes supporting their mission. Just as supporting fishermen includes hoping that they catch fish or supporting farmers means hoping that their crops come in with a good yield. What use is it to support....say....engineers if you don't care whether or not the buildings and bridges they design collapse at the first sign of a stiff breeze?

by Dann 

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Surreality Or Why Marketing Dweebs Shouldn't Have Access To Photoshop

If you ever find yourself in the company of an astronomer [amateur or professional] you will presently discover that we have a problem with "light pollution". Light pollution is caused earth bound lights illuminating the night sky. Parking lot lights, exterior lights on office buildings, and even ordinary street lights contribute to the problem.

All of this earth bound illumination eventually ends up being reflected up into the heavens. This light then bounces off of the atmosphere thus making it much harder for starlight from billions and billions of miles away to be seen by earthbound telescopes. Thus we create light pollution.

A lot of it.

An analogous example would be driving at night. Normally the inside of your vehicle is dark and the rest of the world is illuminated by various light sources. The reflected light isn't all that bright, but when compared with the surrounding darkness it is more than enough to keep you from running into things.

When you turn on your interior lights, it becomes instantly more difficult to see what is going on outside of your vehicle. Very bright lights, such as oncoming traffic, make it through. But it is harder to perceive dimmer light sources such as when your head lights are reflected back off of the road.

Now that you understand the problem, perhaps you can explain this:

Click the image for a larger view.

I mean really. Who the heck is going to buy a gazillion dollar, professional, observatory grade telescope that makes it impossible to see the stars?

And then there is this little concept:

Click the image for a larger view.

Someone showed the marketing department how to use Photoshop and the marketing guys thought it would be cool...or is that kewl...for their new Gizmotron8000 Telescope to project a beam of light so powerful that you can point out the star that you are interested in studying to all of the other observatories on the dark side of the earth. Sort of like a gigantic, cosmic laser pointer.

some reassurance that the marketing department really did override the engineering department's objections would be really, really helpful right now.

MAJOR UPDATE:

A quick check of the comments will reveal that one of my plethora of readers, Mr. Sherwood Harrington, has explained the above photos. He also provided links to further information as well as some huge image files of various telescopes with similar devices attached.

The short version is that the beam you see in the above photos is a laser beam that is attached to a telescope. From reading Sherwood's links, it seems that the Department of Defense is using similar systems to develop weapons systems for destroying satellites in space. The same technology is also used by civilian astronomers to create a reference point in the sky. Tracking dim stars is a technologically difficult task. To make the task easier, astronomers will use a nearby star that is much brighter as a reference point so they can observe the less bright star. When their there isn't a brighter star close enough to the dim star, they use the laser to create an artificial reference point.

Pretty neat.

I'd like to say that I planned for this to happen. I planned something, but not this.

So instead I will simply observe that when one is caught with one's pants hanging this far down, the best advice is to enjoy the breeze while it lasts.

by Dann 

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