The neverending war over the war

Over at salon.com Glenn Greenwald decided to lay it on Jeffrey Goldberg of the Atlantic over his reporting on pre-invasion Iraq. According to Greenwald, Goldberg's "falsehood-filled 2002 New Yorker article" was thoroughly debunked and riddled with journalistic errors. And for Greenwald, Goldberg's real crime is that "Jeff Goldberg stands foursquare behind his made-up reporting."

I'm a big fan of actually, you know, examining the facts pertinent to the dispute. So lets look at Goldberg's actual falsehood filled article. Here is Goldberg on the possible link between Saddam and Al Qaeda

When I got to Sulaimaniya, I visited a prison run by the intelligence service of the Patriotic Union. The prison is attached to the intelligence-service headquarters. It appears to be well kept and humane; the communal cells hold twenty or so men each, and they have kerosene heat, and even satellite television. For two days, the intelligence agency permitted me to speak with any prisoner who agreed to be interviewed. I was wary; the Kurds have an obvious interest in lining up on the American side in the war against terror. But the officials did not, as far as I know, compel anyone to speak to me, and I did not get the sense that allegations made by prisoners were shaped by their captors. The stories, which I later checked with experts on the region, seemed at least worth the attention of America and other countries in the West.

The allegations include charges that Ansar al-Islam has received funds directly from Al Qaeda; that the intelligence service of Saddam Hussein has joint control, with Al Qaeda operatives, over Ansar al-Islam; that Saddam Hussein hosted a senior leader of Al Qaeda in Baghdad in 1992; that a number of Al Qaeda members fleeing Afghanistan have been secretly brought into territory controlled by Ansar al-Islam; and that Iraqi intelligence agents smuggled conventional weapons, and possibly even chemical and biological weapons, into Afghanistan. If these charges are true, it would mean that the relationship between Saddam’s regime and Al Qaeda is far closer than previously thought.

The report seemed responsible enough to me. Goldberg explained how he got the information, that the Kurds might have ulterior motives in their testimony and that the charges are ultimately difficult to verify. He did not say that anything was definitive, but gave the reader information needed to judge the case.

And here is the article that Greenwald cites to show that Goldberg's article is propoganda. (note that Shebab was the person Goldberg interviewed)

Shahab is a liar. He may well be a smuggler, and probably a murderer too, but substantial chunks of his story simply are not true.

Firstly there are inconsistencies between what Shahab told the New Yorker and what he told me. He told Goldberg he had met bin Laden in a tent, not a cave, and said he himself delivered the liquid-filled fridge motors to the Taliban and then killed the smugglers who had helped him.

Then there are practical problems with what he had told me. A Soviet-made 82 mm mortar weights 60kg with its bipod and baseplate. Even a lightweight Iraqi 60mm weights nearly half of that. An RPG, unloaded, weighs 7kgs. Four hundred of the former and 300 of the latter would be a load of more than 20tonnes. Could six men load and unload that weight (twice) in five hours? Not according to a friend of mine who is a logistics specialist with an elite British infantry regiment. It also takes longer than six hours to drive from the Iranian border to Kandahar. Shahab's mistake is understandable though. He has never been to Kandahar. When I asked him to describe the city he said it was 'dirty' which is certainly true and entirely composed of mud houses, which certainly isn't true. I spent several weeks in Kandahar during 1998 and 1999 (i.e when Shahab said he was there) and unless there was a lot of very quick demolition and reconstruction work going on Shahab is either blind or lying.

Kandahar may not be Canary Wharf but it isn't just a pile of mud huts. Uthman's house in the city, Shahab told me, was made of mud too. Which indicates a remarkably ascetic lifestyle for a successful major league smuggler. Not least because much of rest of the local population live in relatively substantial concrete houses. There are (or were following the US bomnbing) several government buildings of three or more stories and a large mosque.

So why was he lying? Possibly because, as the deputy chief of investigations admitted, his sudden loquacity might well get him a few years off his sentence. And where did he get the material for the lies from? Well, televisions were introduced into the cells in August last year.

At the end of our interview I told Shahab that I didn't think he had ever been to Kandahar or met bin Laden. He didn't deny it. Instead he just asked a series of questions about who I was. Why was I in Afghanistan? Was I a spy? An American? Who? I showed him my British passport and press card.

He laughed. 'You are a difficult man,' he said.

Which I think is convining evidence that Shebab's allegations are probably not true. But the lesson here ought not to be that Goldberg was trying to deliberately deceive the reader, but that hearsay and testimony in the Middle East ought to be taken with a grain of salt.

Unfortunately, that is not the moral that Greenwald seems to have learned. Instead, he has a shifting burden of proof, where inconvenient facts are put under a microscope while others are accepted uncritically. Indeed, Greenwald repeatedly trots out the untestable claim that US lead sanctions "resulted in the death of hundreds and thousands of Iraqi children."

Teeth brushing

The human body does not come with an owner's manual. We don't need one for our basic needs. We forage when hungry, fuck when horny, and relieve ourselves when we feel the urge. When was the last time you woke up in the middle of the night, viscerally needing to brush your teeth? Teeth brushing is not a basic need. For our ancestors, the hunters and gatherers, it was not even a need: their remains show strong, healthy teeth, despite predating dentists, bristled implements, and Proctor & Gamble. So why do we need to brush? One word: agriculture. Or the slightly expanded version: excessive consumption of refined carbohydrates, leading to dental caries and periodontal disease. But this excessive consumption affects more than just our smile. It is the major reason why we have rampant diabetes, heart and kidney disease, and perhaps even cancer. Yet we ritually brush after each meal, see our dentists every six months for "deep cleaning," and flash those pearly whites while our insides slowly deteriorate. That is the modern way.

Obama's verbal quirks

The rhetoric of President Obama is decidedly different than that of Candidate Obama. Gone are the optimistic days of "change we can believe in." Instead, Obama's speeches are often downright gloomy, with an excessive focus on the negative. In his remarks on withdrawing from Iraq less time was spent praising the nascent democracies triumphs than in warning about the dangers ahead. The president droned on about how "violence will continue to be a part of life in Iraq. Too many fundamental political questions about Iraq’s future remain unresolved. Too many Iraqis are still displaced or destitute. Declining oil revenues will put an added strain on a government that has had difficulty delivering basic services," gloom, doom, gloom, doom.

Yet, one idiom has survived Obama's transition from Candidate to President. A phrase that I always thought jumped out in his speeches, but the press made no mention of: "make no mistake." He likes it so much he used it twice in his speech on Afghanistan and Pakistan. In that speech Obama noted that

"the terrorists within Pakistan’s borders are not simply enemies of America or Afghanistan – they are a grave and urgent danger to the people of Pakistan. Al Qaeda and other violent extremists have killed several thousand Pakistanis since 9/11. They have killed many Pakistani soldiers and police. They assassinated Benazir Bhutto. They have blown up buildings, derailed foreign investment, and threatened the stability of the state." And then, just in case the audience missed the point, Obama warned them to "make no mistake: al Qaeda and its extremist allies are a cancer that risks killing Pakistan from within."

Here is an incomplete list of the mistakes an ardent Obama affascinato should not make

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Make no mistake about what we're up against. We're up against the belief that it's all right for lobbyists to dominate our government, that they are just part of the system in Washington. (Jan 27, 2008)

Ending the war in Iraq I believe will be an important first step in achieving that goal because it will increase our flexibility and credibility when we deal with Iran. Make no mistake I believe that Iran has been the biggest strategic beneficiary of this war and I intend to change that. (Feb 25, 2008)

Make no mistake: our destiny as Americans is tied up with one another. If we are less respected in the world, then you will be less safe. (July 2, 2008)

This is a corporation that just recorded the largest profit in the history of the United States. This is the company that, last quarter, made $1,500 every second. That’s more than $300,000 in the time it takes you to fill up a tank with gas that’s costing you more than $4-a-gallon. And Senator McCain not only wants them to keep every dime of that money, he wants to give them more. So make no mistake - the oil companies have placed their bet on Senator McCain (August 4, 2008)

It’s time to end the fight in Iraq and take up the fight for good jobs and universal health care. It’s time to end the fight in Iraq and take up the fight for a world-class education and Social Security. It’s time to end the fight in Iraq and take up the fight for opportunity and prosperity here at home. So make no mistake - the American people have a choice in this election. We can keep playing the same Washington game with the same Washington players, and somehow expect a different result. Or we can choose a different future. Just imagine it. (April 2, 2008)

Millions of our fellow citizens lay awake each night wondering how they are going to pay their bills, stay in their homes, and save for retirement. Make no mistake, this is the greatest economic crisis of our times. (Nov 15, 2008)

In supporting the America Recovery and Reinvestment Plan Obama notes that "the slowdown has cost us tens of thousands of jobs in January alone. And the picture is likely to get worse before it gets better. Make no mistake, these are not just numbers. Behind every statistic there's a story." (Jan 31, 2009)

In his speech on Executive Compensation Obama notes that the "crisis was years in the making, and it will take more than weeks or months to turn things around. But make no mistake: A failure to act, and act now, will turn crisis into a catastrophe and guarantee a longer recession, a less robust recovery, and a more uncertain future." (Feb 4, 2009)

Now, make no mistake: This nation will maintain our military dominance. (March 12, 2009)

At a time of economic crisis, it's tempting to believe that we can shortchange this civilian effort. But make no mistake: Our efforts will fail in Afghanistan and Pakistan if we don't invest in their future. (March 27, 2009)

Obama on nuclear disarmament (April 5, 2009): And there are those who hear talk of a world without nuclear weapons and doubt whether it is worth setting a goal that seems impossible to achieve. But make no mistake: we know where that road leads. When nations and peoples allow themselves to be defined by their differences, the gulf between them widens.

Obama on torture (May 21, 2009): I can stand here today, as President of the United States, and say without exception or equivocation that we do not torture, and that we will vigorously protect our people while forging a strong and durable framework that allows us to fight terrorism while abiding by the rule of law. Make no mistake: If we fail to turn the page on the approach that was taken over the past several years, then I will not be able to say that as President.

In his Cairo Speech, Obama urged the Arab world to "make no mistake: we do not want to keep our troops in Afghanistan

On his speech on the Energy Bill (June 25, 2009) he tells us not to be confused into thinking the bill is about energy, but to "make no mistake, this is a jobs bill."

Ghana (July 11, 2009): This progress may lack the drama of the 20th century's liberation struggles, but make no mistake: it will ultimately be more significant. For just as it is important to emerge from the control of another nation, it is even more important to build one's own.

On health care (July 15, 2009): And every single day we wait to act, thousands of Americans lose their insurance, some turning to nurses in emergency rooms as their only recourse. So make no mistake, the status quo on health care is not an option for the United States of America.

In his speech to NAACP (July 16, 2009), the President declared "there's probably never been less discrimination in America than there is today." Still, he said, "make no mistake: the pain of discrimination is still felt in America."

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Make no mistake, I have nothing against the phrase "make no mistake." I actually like it. It's a strong phrase that grabs the audience's attention. It also serves as a roadmark in oratory, dividing a speech between the evidence and the action item. All in all, a good phrase. A whole lot more presidential than "don't get me wrong" or "it is obvious that." I'm just surprised nobody else noticed Obama's reliance on it.

But people did remark when a different president used the phrase. The seemingly innocuous phrase is actually not merely bad, but monstrous, the "worse Bushism of them all." Or at least it is according to the Slate's Timothy Noah: "It is a bully-boy phrase, meant to warn that the speaker really means what he is saying."

At first I thought that Noah was just being unimaginative. I mean come on, of all the great Bushisms how can "make no mistake" be the worse of them all? "misunderestimate" wins hands down. But it turns out that no less a personage than Colbert shares Noah's misgivings. "Make no Mistake, that's my favorite bush-ism. He thinks people are making fun of him all the time," Colbert declared on Comedy Central.

So Obama's reliance on "make no mistake" is not some strange verbal quirk, but a great betrayal of the American people, the continuation of Bush's tradition of bully-boy oratory. What has happened to change we can believe in? Obama closed Gitmo, but plans to transfer detainees to the even worse Bagram airbase. He committed us to withdraw from Iraq, but will leave armed "advisers" behind. He forbid torture by the army, but will give the CIA more "leeway" in interrogations.

But all that would have been okay, if the new administration had only delivered on its major campaign promise: a breathtaking change in rhetoric. No more talk of "terrorism," only "man made disasters." No more talk of human rights and freedom, only "positive, cooperative relationships" between "great civilizations." Best of all there would be no more stuttering.

But now it is clear that Obama's beautiful rhetoric was really a lie, built upon the worse Bushism of them all. Nothing has really changed. The American people did not have a choice in this election.

Photo of the day

"A computer operator unloading California's i.o.u.'s Thursday from a printer at the state controller's office in Sacramento."
Credit: NYTimes.

The American Dream

In the NYTimes today: Robert Bowman, 47, aspiring lawyer, has $435,000 in student loan debt and was denied admission to the bar because of failure to make loan payments.

The story here isn't that Mr. Bowman was denied admission to the bar. It's that he was allowed to accrue so much debt in the first place, when he had no hope of landing a job that could repay it. The average lawyer in this country doesn't make much money, contrary to popular belief. A graduate of some no-name law school (UC Hastings), Mr. Bowman would be lucky to find a job paying 50-60k in this economic climate. Even with a frugal lifestyle, that amount is not compatible with paying over $200k in debt, much less over $400k, in a reasonable time frame, especially if other goals (like having a family) are present. Mr. Bowman perhaps is not to blame. After all, he grew up in foster care -- his parents weren't there to tell him how dumb of an idea this path was. But the system has failed him. His counselors, in college, and most of all, Sallie Mae, from whom he obtained his 36 loans (!), have failed him.

The case of Gary Kao

Dear Public Editor,

The Times has dragged the name of oncologist Gary D. Kao through the mud, whether deservedly or not, through its reporting on the "rogue" VA prostate cancer unit.

I do not know Dr. Kao. I do not know if he is a bad man responsible for incompetence and cover-up, as portrayed by the Times, or a good man with good intentions who simply made honest mistakes. I do know that he wrote a detailed statement for the Congressional hearing, addressing and contradicting many of the allegations the Times has made.

In your latest article, Walt Bogdanich does not provide any evidence that he even read the bulk of this statement. The title of the article is "Oncologist Defends His Work at a V.A. Hospital," but the article quotes hardly anything substantive that is written in his defense.

In the words of Dr. Kao:

"I have come to the hearing today to answer questions and to submit this written statement in order to correct the record and salvage my reputation. I hope that, through the hearing process, the investigations and through media reports, the truth will emerge. I am not the physician who has been portrayed in the media."

It is clear to me why Dr. Kao feels like he has been misrepresented. I hope the NYTimes has the honesty and courage to critically examine his claims, and retract any part of its expose on the VA cancer unit that it finds to be factually incorrect.

Michael Jin
2nd year medical student, UCSD

The problem with biomedical research

An article in the NYTimes complains that although it's been 40 years since Nixon declared war on cancer, the biomedical research establishment, despite curing cancer in mice multiple times, has not even come close in humans. It proceeds to blame the slow progress on an NIH funding process that ignores "transformative" ideas and favors conservative and incremental ones:

Take one transformative drug, for breast cancer. It was based on a discovery by Dr. Dennis Slamon of the University of California, Los Angeles, that very aggressive breast cancers often have multiple copies of a particular protein, HER-2. That led to the development of herceptin, which blocks HER-2.

Now women with excess HER-2 proteins, who once had the worst breast cancer prognoses, have prognoses that are among the best. But when Dr. Slamon wanted to start this research, his grant was turned down. He succeeded only after the grateful wife of a patient helped him get money from Revlon, the cosmetics company.

Yet studies like the one on tasty food are financed. That study, which received a grant of $100,000 over two years, is based on the idea that since obesity is associated with an increased risk of cancer, understanding why people have trouble losing weight could lead to better weight control methods, which could lead to less obesity, which could lead to less cancer.

“It was the first grant I ever submitted, and it was funded on the first try,” said the principal investigator, Bradley M. Appelhans, an assistant professor of basic medical sciences and psychology at the University of Arizona. Dr. Appelhans said he realized it would hardly cure cancer, but hoped that “it will provide knowledge that will incrementally contribute to more effective cancer prevention strategies.”

Herceptin is a terrible example for transformative treatment. It applies only to a minority of breast cancer cases, and its effect on overall mortality isn't exactly mindblowing: you would need to treat dozens of eligible patients just to prevent one death in the next 2-4 years. The only thing at all transformative about Herceptin is that it is one of the few targeted cancer treatments. Most chemotherapy just aims at blasting away at rapidly dividing cells, causing all those nasty side effects. Unfortunately Herceptin has side effects of its own, but I digress.

I feel bad for Dr. Appelhans. This new assistant professor probably thought he had made it to the big leagues when he got a call from the NYTimes. They asked me if this would cure cancer? Haha, those naive reporters. Let me give them a dose of scientific reality. Little did he know that he would be Exhibit A for mediocre, "incrementally contributory" science. He didn't deserve this. It's not like he wasted tax money for decades to obtain results of marginal importance, a career entirely possible, perhaps even average, in biomedical research. He just wanted to get funded, get published, get tenured. Maybe when he had his own building, he could set his sights on curing cancer.

Clearly the funding process is flawed, broken. Every investigator know this. The good ones, however, do not allow themselves to be crippled by it. They apply for funding with safe, fundable projects, then siphon off money to finance riskier, more exploratory research. If they find something promising, they then have preliminary data to back up their visionary, but more dubious, claims. This de facto system is similar to the Google system, whereby their employees receive some paid time to do whatever pet project on the side. There are thousands of engineers at Google: does Google have thousands of revolutionary new ideas each year? No. Therein lies the problem.

There is a fundamental maxim that needs to be stated: most people are mediocre. There are relatively few producers upon whose backs the art and science of Western civilization have been carried upward, ever so arduously these past few millenia. Being mediocre is not necessarily a bad thing in law, or finance, or medicine, but it is bad in science, or novel writing. As was said of Virginia Woolf -- that she pushed the boundaries of the English language a little more against the dark -- so too does the scientist push the limits of knowledge. There needs to be genius, yes, but also a creative spark, a fire in the belly, and an unyielding desire to let all that can be destroyed by the truth, to be thus destroyed.

It's the people, stupid! Good projects are born from good ideas, which come from the best investigators. Instead of spreading the $30 billion dollar NIH budget thinly so that every member of the professorial class can each have their own fiefdoms, we should be allocating only to those members who can put the resources of this country to their best use. In other words, the National Institutes of Health should adopt the model of the private Howard Hughes Medical Institute: fund investigators, not projects. The limitation of the HHMI model is that the hierarchy of science is too shallow -- there isn't enough management inbetween the head of the lab, and the sea of underlings: the lab technicians, the doctoral students, the postdoctoral fellows. As such these labs tend to top out around a couple dozen members. So in essence, fund the best, give them a building, let them generate the ideas, put the rest in middle management or below according to their ability, and get out of the way.

Wars are won with generals, who have a defined strategy for their campaign, not a bunch of sargeants leading their platoons every which way. If we are serious about the war on cancer, or Alzheimer's, or aging, we need to start fighting it like one.