Dr. Forbush Thinks

Like all Americans I have heard that things weren’t going that great in Iraq. But, how bad could they be? Does anyone really know how to determine when a War is won or lost? Especially a War like the one in Iraq. We certainly could sign a peace treaty with the Iraqi government, but we aren’t fighting the Iraqi government, so that doesn’t really apply in this case. So, when we are fighting a guerilla war against insurgents, what determines victory?

Well, if you listened to George W Bush’s repetitive speech this morning we all know that we are making progress in Iraq. And we know that our goal in Iraq is to eliminate the threat to the Iraqis people from the insurgents. What is the current level of threat? What will the level need to be for us to declare Iraq safe enough for us to leave? The President will not tell us these numbers, because it would give comfort or something to the enemy.

Well, one way for me to estimate when we are going to leave is to look at the number of American’s killed in Iraq. If we are getting a handle on the insurgents, this number is certainly going down. And, if we look at the slope of this line we should be able to estimate when that number will intersect zero. This will at least give us a handle on when our troops are going home, right?

So, I went over to a web site that has the monthly number of US, or coalition troops killed per month. The information also tells us how many soldiers were killed per month or the US occupation. You can see my data here.

Since there was an initial Battle to take over the country we would expect a much higher number of casualties over the first two months, so I dropped this data out of my study. May 1st, the first day of my data actually corresponds to the day George W Bush landed on the USS Abraham Lincoln and declared mission accomplished. I calculated the number of soldiers killed per day for each given month and fit a trend-line to the data. There isn’t anything magic about this simple statistical study. But, the results are much different than I expected.

Based on this data it turns out that the number of soldiers being killed in Iraq is actually increasing, not decreasing. In May 2003 the rate of US casualties was about 1.6 soldiers per day. Currently the rate is about 2.9 casualties per day. This isn’t a one month fluctuation, but a trend that continues to go up. Actually there are quite a few points that tend to follow this line. So, based on this analysis it looks like the number of casualties will only go up until the Bush administration changes its plan. However, if we stay the course the rate of US casualties will only go higher.

"Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results." -- Albert Einstein








Politics, Iraq War, Iraq, Impeach Bush

I loved Pat Buchanan's piece in the paper this morning. Now, Pat has been called everything from a right wing nut to a fascist, and he is willing to pull the communist moniker out of his hat at the drop of a hat. Now he is calling his own Republican Party communists. Well, actually he is only calling the Neocons who have taken over the Republican Party communists. But, he is doing it in his own special way. He has coined a new word “Neo-Comintern” referring to the Comintern, or Communist International because they have pulled a page out of Stalin's play-book and decided to take over the world. He tells us that Democracy by force isn’t much better than Stalin’s idea of Communism by force. You just have to love it when even the far right begins to question the Bush administration.

The funny thing is that I don’t agree with much of what Pat has said in this piece. He actually seems to be afraid of the NeoCons. He is writing in a way that he wrote when he was afraid of the Communists. I think that he is reaching inside himself and trying to put his fear into words, and the only thing that he knows about fear is Communism. This is obviously a product of his upbringing and the times he was brought up in. But the point is that he recognizes that he should be afraid of the NeoCons, because that mean to change the United States in ways that would will not be proud of if they succeed.

I think Pat’s piece and some of the speeches that have begun to come out from other Republicans is beginning to show that the Republican monolith is beginning to break. This is good for America and American Politics, because it means that politicians will be forced to actually think about an issue before they vote on it. Spending a little bit of time pondering a new law will be beneficial for America. Instead of pondering how much campaign money can be raised based on an allegiance to Tom Delay and the NeoCons the politicians may be forced to think about the repercussions of the law in their districts or states. Maybe not all Republicans will see the results in the same light and we will be able to laws that consider the consequences of the legislation.

It may be to late to save America from Judge Alito, but surely the Republican agenda will begin to shift toward laws that have a chance to pass. These laws are usually no-brainers that everyone can agree on, like outlawing torture by all US military personal including the CIA. After all, isn’t that how American Democracy is supposed to work. When one group begins to take advantage of their power Democracy regulates the process. First people use their right to free speech to let people know about the abuse of power. As people learn about this abuse the American people change their opinions of the people they elected. As we are seeing now we don’t even need to wait for the elections, because the opinion polls are enough to moderate the behavior of politicians who want to be re-elected. So, when Pat wants to publish his nonsense I champion free speech, even if I don’t agree with the content of his column. After all, he doesn’t need to convince me that the NeoCons are not about Democracy, I already knew that. He needs to convince the vast hordes of people who the NeoCons have lied to. And, I think that makes Pat a Patriot.







Politics, NeoCons, NeoConservatives,George W Bush, World Domination

These polls have been around for quite some time, but the supporters of the War in Iraqi either ignore this information or they don’t know about it. So, I thought that I should publicize this to the few War supporters who are supporting the war and they don’t really know how the Iraqi people actually feel.

The latest Poll was published in USA Today Yesterday. So, I’m sure that at least the people who flew on Continental Airlines yesterday morning and received their complementary copy know this. (If they do that any more.)

The real point of this post is that the Iraqis don’t want us in their country. Asked whether they view the Americans as occupiers of liberators, 71% of Iraqis said we are occupiers. That number rises to 81% if the Kurds are removed from the survey. Of course this is because life is swell in Northern Iraq where the Kurds live. In the rest of the country the presence of the American troops are making things worse.

If this isn’t bad enough, the poll tells us, “If the Kurds, who make up about 13% of the poll, are taken out of the equation, more than half of Iraqis say killing U.S. troops can be justified in at least some cases.” Since we aren’t really fighting in Northern Iraq, doesn’t that mean that the majority of those we have come to liberate feel justified in killing American soldiers. That does not seem like some small radical insurgency, it is half of the country.

How long will it take for George W Bush to learn this? The answer my friend is blowing in the wind, right past George W Bush, because he doesn’t actually read his daily briefings, the newspapers or even watch the nightly news.







Politics, Iraq, Iraq War, Impeach Bush

This morning I listened to Rush Limbaugh, so you didn’t have to. I’ve mentioned this before, but for the newcomers, my car radio only picks up FM. In addition to this Rush Limbaugh and Bill O’Reilly demand that you be members before you can pick up their broadcast over the web. (Or, at least that was the way it was last time I bothered to try to listen to them over the web.) However, from time to time I get to use my wife’s car that does pick up AM radio. So, I can listen to Rush, Bill and maybe even Michael Savage and find out what the Right Wing Nuts are up too.

So, today I hopped into my wife’s car and promptly tuned into Rush Limbaugh. I was considering what topics he might be considering this morning. Perhaps he’d tell us his take on the President’s new Immigration initiative. This would certainly be interesting because the Republican Party is divided on this issue. The typical red-necked Limbaugh listener doesn’t like anyone who doesn’t want to conform to “The American Culture,” so they are certainly against immigrants who don’t speak redneck English and understand their place in society. However, the financial wizards of the Republican Party who make the cash available for campaigns actually like illegal immigration. This constant flow of human resources enables the typical corporation to keep the price of labor below minimum wage for many jobs including domestic help, cleaning, construction and agriculture. But, these cheap resources also ripple up through the labor market flooding additional resources by making labor available at almost every level of the job market. And, as the supply and demand curve demonstrates repeatedly more supply creates less demand and lower prices - or wages go down.

So, what was Rush going to say about this important and controversial issue? Well, I will never know, because Rush decided that there were certainly more important issues to discuss. For example, when I turned the radio on Rush announced that George W Bush was going to make a very important speech tomorrow. Then he said that the media were going to spin the President’s words, so we needed to stay tuned to him and he would explain everything that we needed to know about the President’s important Iraq speech. I listened to him for over an hour and he actually never came back to this subject. The news at the top of the hour actually said more about this looming speech than Rush offered while I listened.

Obviously Rush had some much more important issue that he needed to cover before he could get on with this lesser issue. So, he went on about vagina shaped chocolates. Obviously I wasn’t aware of this important topic. Boise State apparently gives away vagina shaped chocolates to promote the “Vagina Monologues” every year for the last six years. Personally I don’t know which is worse, showing the same play for six years or Rush Limbaugh spending twenty minutes replaying his old audio from this issue and using his Ditto Cam to show the complimentary chocolate vaginas over the web.

After Rush had finished with that important issue he went on to cover Arlen Spector’s defense of Terrell Owens. And, of course that lead to a discussion, or monologue on Monday Night Football. I was certainly getting the feeling that Rush was just trying to burn up time instead of choosing to discuss more crucial issues. I really did want to hear Rush’s take or spin on the President’s speech, because it would give me a heads up on how the deception would proceed from here.

It’s just too bad that Rush didn’t want to talk about the Immigration issue. I think its interesting because the President has decided to use word play on his Republican base. He says that he doesn’t want “amnesty” for illegal immigrants. But the twist on this is that he doesn’t want to arrest them and send them back either. He has created a new way to say amnesty without saying the word. He is not going to arrest them, and he is going to let them stay in the country. Most people would call this action amnesty, but in Bush World it is a guest worker program for people already in the country.

And, the deception continues…





politics, Rush Limbaugh, Iraq, Iraq War, Impeach Bush

Seymour Hersh wrote one of the scariest paragraphs in American History in the New Yorker this week:

“The President is more determined than ever to stay the course,” the former defense official said. “He doesn’t feel any pain. Bush is a believer in the adage ‘People may suffer and die, but the Church advances.’ ” He said that the President had become more detached, leaving more issues to Karl Rove and Vice-President Cheney. “They keep him in the gray world of religious idealism, where he wants to be anyway,” the former defense official said. Bush’s public appearances, for example, are generally scheduled in front of friendly audiences, most often at military bases. Four decades ago, President Lyndon Johnson, who was also confronted with an increasingly unpopular war, was limited to similar public forums. “Johnson knew he was a prisoner in the White House,” the former official said, “but Bush has no idea.”

If this is even 10% true America is doomed.


politics

First of I need to make it clear that Bush is the only person alive that knows when the time is right to bring our troops home. George W Bush refuses to listen to the experts who have worked for years in the State Department and all agree that we should be bringing our troops home in order to improve our relationship with the civilized world. He refuses to listen to the Military experts who have been petitioning him to withdraw troops gradually over time to give the Iraqis responsibility for their own country. He has refused to listen to the terrorist experts who tell us that the number one recruiting tool for world wide Islamic terrorism is the presence of US troops in Iraq. He refuses to listen to the fiscal conservatives that tell him that the financial cost of the War in Iraq is much too high. And, George W Bush refuses to listen to the American people who currently say that George W Bush is doing a worse job than any US president in modern American History has.

If we imagine for a moment that George W Bush realizes at some point what every other expert in the country has been saying for over a year now, “Iraq was a mistake,” then how is he going to get us out? Now George W Bush can decide at any time he wants that he has done his job in Iraq and its time to bring the troops home. He could decide tomorrow that the time has come and he succeeded in keeping his plan for withdrawal secret from the terrorists, but now the Iraqis are ready to go. He would have succeeded in not having a timeline and not having a plan just like he proclaimed when he went into Iraq.

The only thing that makes this plan difficult for George W Bush is that the Democrats have already suggested it. Following the lies and deception strategy that has been made so popular by this administration George W Bush is bound to claim that he has actually been planning to withdraw the troops all along, but he couldn’t say so because it would give information to the terrorists. The truth is, the terrorists already know that the US will not stay in Iraq forever. Whether they decide to train by using the US troops as targets or if they decide to remain quiet and live in a collection of sleeper cells through out the Middle East the terrorists are not going away because of US military force. The experts tell us that the terrorists will only loose favor with the general population only if there is a deep cultural shift in the perception of what terrorists are trying to accomplish. The US presence in Iraq is encouraging the terrorists, not discouraging them.

For those of you from the South try to imagine your love of the revenuer hunting down stills in the back woods. Do you think that the presence of these men wandering around the Southern United States encouraged or discouraged the production of moonshine? Think about the hatred you feel for the IRS and how they take that money out of your paycheck every month. Does the presence of that deduction make you happy to be an American taxpayer with pride in his country? Now imagine being an Iraqi citizen living in Iraq with soldiers tramping around on their property looking for your neighbors. Add to this, the US intention to tax the Iraqi oil to pay for the invasion and chaos. Surely the Iraqis don’t care about this…

By the way, how is Bush going to get us out of this mess? I really don’t have a clue, but his plan is sure to sound like we made Iraq a better place - no matter what the reality is.







politics, Iraq, Iraq War, Impeach Bush

Since Thanksgiving in the United States is mainly about eating, I thought that I would ponder the eating and report back on it. Eating is done by every living thing on Earth that we know of and most likely every living thing in the Universe. This is because eating in the broadest terms is the means in which energy is acquired by the living organisms. For example, plants eat by converting sunlight into sugar and that sugar is both stored in the plant, and also fed to each cell in its structure. Some animals eat these plants and use the sugar stored in the plant while they convert the sugar to fat and store it for later use. Other animals eat these animals and make use of the fat stored in their bodies.

Humans have taken food to an entirely different level. They have created foods with fats and sugars in them. They have learned how to extract fats and sugars out of many different animals and plants and combine them in new and interesting ways. Humans have learned to use heat to transform these foods into a variety of tastes and smells that make people want to eat even more. It is as if humans are on the never-ending search for the perfect food.

Of course, the idea behind eating isn’t really supposed to be about the eating, but rather it is supposed to be about the nourishment. After all we eat to get our bodies to function, this is the primary reason for eating. But, nature has given our bodies a natural desire to crave food, because without it we would most likely starve to death. Unfortunately the way the drive to eat works is not the best feedback system in the world. A feedback system is an engineering system that monitors a parameter in a process and responds to the value of that parameter. Natures feedback system was along the lines of “get hungry then go catch food.” If you ate too much you would get lazy and decide not to go hunt. If you began to starve you would become more and more motivated to catch something in order to abate the hunger in your stomach.

Now days the feedback system is broken. The threshold for being too lazy to go catch food has been changed to the threshold to walk to the refrigerator and grab a Coke and cold pizza. Or maybe the threshold to drive to the 24-hour grocery store to buy Oreos and Chocolate Milk is a bit to low. Either way, nature’s feedback system is broken and only human intelligence can intervene. Humans can do this in several different ways. They can pray, “Oh God please don’t let me get fat,” as they drive to the 7-11 for a Slurpy and beef jerky. Or, they can decide to fight the urge to eat. But, we also need to remember that catching the food is nature’s way to get man to exercise. So, the third way to fix nature’s feedback system is to do artificial exercise. Instead of going out and hunting food with your bare hands you can run on the treadmill or street. Instead of trekking through the woods picking nuts and berries you can trek through the woods admiring natures wonders. And instead of fishing in a stream you can swim in the pool, like I do.

Getting back to my point about the perfect food. (You thought I forgot, right?) Since I started working out I have noticed that the types of foods that my body craves has changed. For example, every morning I would wake up, get ready for work and make a bagel and cream cheese for breakfast. When we had lunchmeat in the ‘fridge I would put that on the bagel as well. As time went by the thickness of the cream cheese seemed to get thicker and the layer of lunchmeat turned into ham, salami and turkey. After I began working out my taste for food changed little by little. I was only interested in eating what I liked; I wasn’t trying to be a “health nut.” So, I began putting avocado on my bagel. Then I started buying whole wheat and nut bagels. Soon the cream cheese seemed a bit heavy, so I switched to butter. Then I discovered Kashi. I thought that maybe I had a bit of time to eat a bowl of Kashi before driving off. I began reading the paper and eating Kashi and milk. One day while walking down the dairy aisle my wife suggested that we should try yogurt. We have always bought yogurt for a snack, and I had put it into Mussili while we lived in Germany, so I thought that yogurt and Kashi might be a good mix. Soon I was eating Plain yogurt and Kashi for breakfast. It was just the right food to eat after a good morning workout. Or, so I thought until I discovered the perfect food.

On Thanksgiving day we normally cook the traditional meal. We have turkey, stuffing, potatoes, yams, gravy and CRANBERRY sauce. And this year after Thanksgiving on Friday morning we went out to the club to work out. When we got back I was ready for breakfast. I open the refrigerator door and found my yogurt when I saw the leftover CRANBERRY sauce. What a great idea I had at that moment that it is impossible to describe, but eating the yogurt and cranberry sauce surpassed the actual idea by many orders of magnitude. As I ate the cranberry sauce and yogurt I thought “this must be the perfect food.” With every bite I thought, “surely this is the perfect food.”

Of course, these perfect food things never last very long. If you eat them to often you become weary of them and begin to look for new and better foods. So, it may be wise to not eat this food every day for the rest of your life. But, if you ever get the chance because you have cranberry sauce and yogurt in the refrigerator at the same time after a good workout, then you certainly need to try a bite of the “perfect food.”





health, health food, excercise, workout

Last night I listened to a remarkable speech by Richard Clarke. The Audio is archived at the World Affairs Council Website where you can download the mp3 file or just listen to it on audio streaming. His speech was booked to promote his book, but he didn’t talk about his book much. In fact, he mainly spoke about the situation in Iraq. It doesn’t really make much sense for me to write down exactly what he spoke about, even though he makes some very good points. Instead I’d like to write about one aspect of what he said instead. You can listen to his talk to get the rest.

Richard Clarke has been demonized by the Bush administration for opposing the way the Bush administration promoted its case for the War in Iraq and its manipulation of the evidence of its efforts in the War on Terrorism. Richard Clarke was hired while Ronald Reagan was president and he served under Reagan, George H W Bush, Bill Clinton and George W Bush. If he were attacking the Bush administration on political grounds one would think that it would have been noticed during the Reagan or first Bush administrations. One question to ask is what changed? Did Richard Clarke change, or did US foreign policy change?

Richard Clarke makes an excellent point when he talks about the cost of the War in Iraq. He points out the seven major costs of the War in Iraq.

1) There have been over 2000 American solders killed. But also contractors, journalists and aid workers have also been killed.
2) But even more than this is the large number of American wounded. If the number of soldiers killed seems lower than the Vietnam War we should notice that the number of American wounded is much higher. Many soldiers have survived in Iraq who would have died in previous wars.
3) Looking at the war through American eyes we don’t see the tramendous number of Iraqis that have been killed. The Pentagon estimates that greater than 20,000 Iraqis have been killed. Johns Hopkins on the other hand used a sophisticated model and estimated more than 100,000 Iraqis have been killed in this conflict.
4) In addition to lives, there is also a financial cost of over $300 billion so far. This is equal to the entire defense budget a few years ago. It is about the same a the yearly discretionary spending of the US government. Many people can imagine all of the good that could have been done if this money were spent in the United States instead. We could have made the US much safer by spending a fraction of this amount within the US borders on anti-terrorism efforts alone.
5) In addition to the cost of blood and treasure we need to realize that we have alienated the Muslim World. Attitudes in the Muslim World have changed since the invasion of Iraq. There is much data from the last thirty years that shows a very positive attitude toward the US. The US presence in Iraq as seen through Arab media has changed the Muslim attitude and Muslim image of the US.
6) Worse than just this increased negative attitude toward the US there has been a strengthening of Terrorism. Terrorism experts agree unanimously that terrorism has been helped by the presence of US in Iraq. People come to Iraq to learn terrorism methods and techniques and take that back to their home country here they lie in wait in sleeper cells.
7) Perhaps worse of all, the credibility of the US government in the eyes of the people around the world, governments around the world and the people of the US. Imagine the US trying to convince anyone of a looming threat. Who would believe the US government now?

So, is the cost worth the benefit? We have some benefits, so let’s look at then to put the costs in line with the benefit of the Iraq War.

Gains from Iraq War
1) We got rid of Saddam Hussein, an evil tyrant. Iraq is better with out him.
2) We are now assured us that Iraq does not have WMD. There were other ways to find this out. Condi and Powell actually made a statement in 2001 that said that Iraq was not a threat. There are 24 other nations with WMD, should we plan a new war?
3) And, Democracy has been created. Although the Constitution is already a threat to Democracy. The constitution separates the different religious and cultural differences in the country. Enshrining these differences in the Constitution will assure conflict in the future.


The most ironic effect of the war must be the unintended result. This is the fact that Iran benefited more than anyone else has. In fact Iran has achieved all of the aims of the Iran/Iraq War. They wanted to throw Saddam Hussein out of power because they wanted to be neighbors with a religious state. They wanted to eliminate Iraq as a war threat. This has been done. And, they wanted to take Shiite religious leaders under their arm and allow Iran to have influence over them. This has also been done with the election of a Shiite majority. In addition, Iran has many covert troops and intelligence officers within the borders of Iraq. They are on friendly terms with the Iraq defense ministers. When the defense ministers of Iran and Iraq spoke to each other in Farsi during a meeting and proclaimed that America will eventually leave, but Iran will still be there. Truth is stranger than fiction could ever be. After all the money that the Reagan administration fed to Saddam Hussein to defeat Iran in the 1980s we have turned around and handed the Iranians everything that they wanted.

So, in the end, why are we still in Iraq? Well the pro-war group tells us that there will be chaos in Iraq if we leave. But, they should realize that there is already chaos in Iraq. So, how much will the chaos change if we pull out our troops? Many experts actually believe that the chaos will subside if we pull out our troops. They say that 90% of the insurgent activity is related to the anti-American feeling. The remaining 10% should be able to be contained by the Iraqi army and police force.

Is the cost of the Iraq War worth the benefits?




politics, Iraq, Iraq War

I was wondering what the Radical Right has been saying during this time of collapse of Conservative thought. I found one interesting comment made by a frustrated right wing nut. This guy says: “…I think it's a primo idea to pull out of Iraq now and waste all the effort we've put into getting them to the brink of full democracy so that the insurgents can run wild after we leave…” in a sarcastic tone. The idea is that we would have nothing to show for our efforts in Iraq. But this is wrong, we have accomplished something.

Wasn't the whole reason for the invasion to get rid of Saddam, or WMD? Both of those tasks are complete. OK, Democracy for Iraq wasn't even on the initial list of goals. Isn't proper management style to make a list of goals and accomplish them? Our list is accomplished. Doing more than that is known as feature creep, and is considered very poor management.

Yes, God Bless Our Troops and bring them home in an organized orderly way! It is irresponsible to leave our troops there as targets for the terrorists. Follow John Murtha's plan to withdraw troops slowly over six months and gives the Iraqis more responsibility.

At Least the Democrats have a plan, too bad the Republicans don't. Rumsfeld even said yesterday on ABC that he was never for the invasion. The Republican war machine is beginning to Rust....



Politics, Iraq, Iraq War, Impeach Bush

This should be a no-brainer, but perception tends to be more powerful than the truth. This is why the Bush administration continues to practice lying in the hopes that their loyal supporters will cling to the lies in order to justify their shameful act of justifying the unnecessary and unjust Iraq War.

Dick Cheney has backed off on his anti-Democracy rhetoric. He was shot down for calling critics of the Iraq War unpatriotic. Just because this strategy worked for the 2004 Presidential election and John Kerry was smeared, the American people are beginning to wake up and smell the slime. So, now Dick Cheney is narrowing his attack to the dissent in the US Senate. He claims that the Senators had the same intelligence as the White House. You can read about it right here.

But, Cheney is wrong about this simple fact, they know it and they continue to lie about it. Many people have pointed this out over and over again, but Cheney continues to ignore the facts and create an alternative reality where he hopes to find the ignorant Bush sheep to follow him. Of course these lies and deception don’t die away easily. So, Senator Bob Graham goes into the details of what he knew, what the White House knew and what the general members of the Senate knew. You can read for yourself the details that Senator Bob Graham gives on how the Senate was deceived by the Bush administration into support the debacle in Iraq.

Suddenly Donald Rumsfeld came out yesterday on the Sunday talk shows and told the world that he wasn’t in favor of the Iraq invasion. So, even some people in the White House who knew the intelligence knew that this was a bad idea. This was broadcast on ABC Television yesterday, but the liberal mainstream media has not jumped on this. Obviously the media might not be as far left as the radical right wants you to believe. But, those who care, the Iraqis have jumped on this important information.

Here’s the quote:

"I didn't advocate invasion," Rumsfeld told ABC television, when asked if he would have advocated an invasion of Iraq if he had known that no weapons of mass destruction would be found there.

The US Defense chief added: "I wasn't asked," when asked whether he supported the March 2003 invasion.

So, whom do we believe? Is Rumsfeld lying here? Or, was Richard Clarke lying when told us about Rumsfeld’s support for the invasion? The lies continue and the only way to fix this mess is “regime change.” Impeach Bush and Cheney!






Politics, Iraq, Iraq War, Impeach Bush