Wednesday, 23 July 2003

Lott lie?

Wyeth alerted me to this post in which he says:

John Lott—whose survey evidence for More Guns, Less Crime disappeared in a mysterious computer hard drive crash*—is trying to make the case that an armed Iraq is a safe Iraq:
“Yet, despite Iraqis owning machine guns and the country still not under control, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld pointed out that Baghdad is experiencing fewer murders than Washington, D.C., where handguns are banned.”

Let’s forget for a moment whether it is good politics to tell the American people that you want Iraqis to have as many guns as possible at a time when our soldiers are being killed every day by those guns.

Let’s focus on a smaller point—are John Lott’s statistics even accurate? Is the murder rate in Washington DC higher than the murder rate in Baghdad?

Now, it’s possible to know anecdotally what the approximate murder rate is without having detailed statistics available from a central agency. Presumably someone in Baghdad is still making out death certificates, and deaths are being investigated. So, if there are fewer than 262/365 (0.72) murders per day on average (i.e., a murder is only reported every other day, or less often), the murder rate is lower in Baghdad than in Washington.

You can reasonably argue about the causal mechanism; I suspect murder rates could be lower for more complex reasons than “everyone’s armed” (for example, many of the sociopaths who would otherwise be inclined to commit murder were likely Saddam Fedayeen recruits and have been wiped out by the 3ID and others, or maybe it’s just part of the post-war adjustment to a new government by the population). But I’m not sure quoting a statement by a senior administration official is, in and of itself, a lie; at worst, it’s disingenuous support for one’s own position, particularly in the absence of compelling evidence to the contrary.

For example, if I say “Bill Clinton says he did not have sex with that woman, Miss Lewinsky,” that doesn’t make me the liar; it does make Bill a liar, unless you want to quibble over the definition of “sex.” In February 1998, it would have been reasonable for me to take Clinton’s statement at face value. Today, even in the light of compelling evidence to the contrary, unless I say “this proves Bill didn’t have sex with Monica” I’m still not a liar.

So, unless someone has statistics showing that the current murder rate in Baghdad is greater than 0.72 people per day (which translates to just over five murders per week), John Lott isn’t necessarily a liar. It is, however, distinctly possible that Lott is wrong. Now, if Lott is subsequently informed that Rumsfeld is factually incorrect, yet continues to repeat the claim, then it would be reasonable to claim he is lying.

Again, a review for those of you just joining us here at SN: lying requires foreknowledge that you are making a factually incorrect statement. Being wrong just requires that the statement being made (or quoted) is factually incorrect. In other words, lying requires intentional deception on behalf of the speaker in addition to factual incorrectness.

James Joyner (in trackback below) makes an important point:

Of course, univariate analysis is silly. Baghdad and Washington are hardly comparable cities. Indeed, one would expect a lower homicide rate in a police state than in a free society.

Indeed. And, that would be a worthwhile critique of Lott’s analysis, which gets to the whole “causal mechanism” thing I discussed above. The best I can say for Lott (if you accept his claims about the dispensation of the survey data, which I find dubious but not entirely improbable) is that he’s a sloppy social scientist—albeit perhaps not an not extraordinarily sloppy one, given the pure sludge that often is passed off as strong evidence in many peer-reviewed journals.

Tuesday, 22 July 2003

Ex-Parrots

James at OTB reports that Uday and Qusay Hussein are history. Good riddance to the both of them.

Monday, 21 July 2003

Not-so-sweet sixteen

Daniel Drezner has a challenge to those have criticized his take on the whole “sixteen words” theme that the left has been trying to make fly for the last week:

The power of the critique against Bush would be strengthened if it could be shown that a significant fraction of the American public—as well as the legislative branch—supported action against Iraq only because of the claim that Hussein’s regime had an active nuclear weapons program.

Ok, since I’m likely to be terribly bored at some point in the next day or two, and considering I’m sitting not-very-far from the computers the data is housed on, I’ll look at the February 2003 CBS/New York Times Poll, along with several others from the period after the State of the Union, and see what I can find. I can’t give any evidence on the behavior of legislators, but I can at least examine whether the public’s opinion was conditional on WMD, and nukes in particular—assuming the right questions were asked.

Warning for the faint of heart: I may present regression results in addition to the marginals.

Sunday, 20 July 2003

Why the American press shouldn't behave like Britain's

One common refrain, particularly from the left of late*, is that our press isn’t adversarial enough when dealing with politicians; they look to the British press, and in particular the BBC (as that is the only example sizeable numbers of Americans have been exposed to), as an exemplar of the adversarial style they want to see emulated.

Those who advocate this style, however, may want to consider Jeff Jarvis’s damning collection of links that suggest that the Beeb’s quest for sensationalism and ratings—if not an ideological bias—led it to claim that the Blair government had “sexed up” reports on Iraq’s weapons capabilities before the war. At the center of the controversy is a dead weapons inspector, David Kelly, and one of the BBC’s wartime correspondents in Baghdad, Andrew Gilligan, whose performance in a pathetic cloak-and-dagger display I belittled during the war. Now, some portions of the American media are hardly better—the reliance on barely-sourced, anonymous information from deep background has become a staple of reporting in “flagship” newspapers like the Washington Post and New York Times, perhaps due to every reporter thinking he’s going to become a star like Bob Woodward—but outside the most partisan papers (the occasional crusades of the Raines-era NYT, the Washington Times and the New York Post spring to mind), no American outlets have matched the Beeb’s propensity for grinding its ideological axe.

Moreover, as Peter Mandelson (no stranger to the harsh spotlight of Fleet Street and the Beeb) points out, the British media have contributed to a decline in public discourse in that country:

The viciousness that characterises the relationship between the media and politicians is turning people off politics and corroding our democracy. Everything in Britain is conducted in an overly adversarial way, from our courts to our Parliament, our industrial relations and our select committees. It is good theatre, but does it produce good outcomes? In this case, patently not.

The pervasive cynicism of the BBC and its fellow British media almost certainly have an effect on public perceptions of democracy. As a professional cynic myself, I can’t help but believe part of that attitude was formed as a result of my political socialization at the hands of the Beeb and ITN (the only other television news provider in pre-satellite-TV Britain). A healthy skepticism about the veracity of a government’s claims is good for democracy, but the consistent and corrosive cynicism embodied in the reporting on the motives of everyone and anyone in government or the public eye by the British media seems detrimental to that country’s long-term future.

Matthew at A Fearful Symmetry has more on the blame game surrounding Kelly’s death.

Death of a thousand cuts

James Joyner helpfully points out that the U.S. case for war in Iraq, as made in the State of the Union address—including the famous “sixteen words,” which until recently I thought was a mid-eighties Molly Ringwald vehicle—had very little to do with whether Saddam Hussein had obtained fissible materials from Africa.

In other news, the case for American secession from the British Empire really wasn’t about the fact that King George III had imposed a French-style civil code on the people of Upper Canada (the place now known as Québec). Nevertheless, that shocking claim made it into the Declaration of Independence:

FOR abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an arbitrary Government, and enlarging its Boundaries, so as to render it at once an Example and fit Instrument for introducing the same absolute Rules into these Colonies:

I guess that means we should start heaping dirt on Thomas Jefferson’s reputation. Oh, wait… never mind.

Saturday, 12 July 2003

"Decisive proof" of WMD and Al-Qaeda links?

Kate links to news that “decisive proof of Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction programs” has been located, according to The Australian. And it appears that Iraq had an ambassador to Al-Qaeda working out of its embassy in Pakistan (the latter story via Kate as well).

Wednesday, 2 July 2003

WMD, lies, and videotape

Pejman Yousefzadeh isn’t very impressed with Josh Marshall’s logic in arguing that the administration lied about Iraq’s possession of biological and chemical agents. Now, one could plausibly make the argument that the administration lacked sufficient evidence to reach the conclusion that Iraq had WMD, but that’s not the same thing as lying, which—as Pej points out—requires someone to (a) know A is false and then (b) claim A is true (or vice versa).

So, Josh’s argument basically boils down to: the administration didn’t really think there was WMD in Iraq, but expected to find some WMD when they got there to cover their story that there was WMD in Iraq. This is like saying you don’t honestly expect Wendy’s to be selling hamburgers, but you expect Wendy’s to just happen to have some hamburgers lying around the store when you visit to back up your false claim that Wendy’s does, in fact, sell hamburgers.

Josh may be on firmer ground in questioning the credibility of Judith Miller, the New York Times’ ambassador for all things WMD (and whose very existence has been called into question in this weblog). To her credit, though, at least her stories haven’t described the grand vistas of pyramids and pagodas that we’d expect to be present in a Jayson Blair account. (Although, I must say that I find Josh’s belief that Miller’s reporting has helped the case of the hawks laughable.)

Saturday, 21 June 2003

Saddam = worm food?

Tim Blair links to an Observer article that claims Saddam and either Uday or Qusay was killed in an airstrike on a convoy in western Iraq. Here’s to hoping, but I’d like to see confirmation from a U.S. newspaper not based on 43rd Street in Manhattan.

Saturday, 7 June 2003

Count the number of on-the-record quotes in this story

This New York Times op-ed news story alleges that some analysts think the mobile bio-weapons labs aren’t mobile bio-weapons labs; instead, they think Saddam Hussein used them to produce hydrogen gas for use weather balloons. This apparently because you need clandestine mobile facilities to make hydrogen for weather balloons, stationary factories being unsuitable for the task.

Only two people are quoted by name, neither of whom have anything to do with the investigation. So, until proven otherwise, any rational observer should consider the rest of the quotes to have been made up by Jayson Blair—er, “Judith Miller and William J. Broad.” By the way, “Miller” allegedly was in two places at the same time (“Iraq” and “Kuwait”) while writing the story, while “Broad” was supposedly reporting from “New York.” To top it all off, the article also reads the minds of unnamed “critics” instead of bothering to find any to quote (on background or otherwise). It’s all typical, Pulitzer-quality (or at least Sulzburger-quality) Times journalism. Sign me up for a subscription!

Saturday, 17 May 2003

ORHA screwing the pooch?

Jonathan Foreman writes on the New York Post op-ed page about some serious problems in the Office for Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance (ORHA). If it’s accurate—and the legion of “state-versus-defense” pissing match stories we’ve heard over the past two months that amounted to nothing and Foreman’s inability to correctly name the agency suggests it may not be—it’s a very troubling situation, one that Andrew Sullivan and others are right to be concerned about.

And if the eight-pointed star that Foreman is complaining about turns out to be the logo in the upper-left corner of this page, which is part of the Great Seal of the United States, I’ll be even less impressed with his account.

Tuesday, 22 April 2003

Galloway on Saddam's payroll?

The Daily Telegraph reports in Tuesday’s paper that British anti-war MP George Galloway received over £375,000 ($586,000) per year in diverted oil revenues from the Iraqi government under the former Saddam Hussein regime, according to papers recovered from the Iraqi intelligence service in Baghdad. Galloway, responding to questions from the paper, suggests that the papers were forged.

Editorial comment: whoa.

News via The Command Post.

Friday, 18 April 2003

Yale anti-war student redux

Bitter Bitch is very skeptical about Yale student Katherine Lo’s efforts to extrapolate a widespread stifling of dissent from a single incident; Ms. Lo’s account sounds more like the writings of Michael Moore than those of Mahatma Ghandi.

Lily Malcolm of The Kitchen Cabinet (and Yale Law) has more:

Obviously, if students are really breaking into other students' rooms weilding two-by-fours, they should be dealt with severely. On the other hand, it seems to me that anti-war folks would need to be awfully skittish to sense a general environment of intimidation at Yale.​​​​​ Anti-war people are not what you'd call a tiny minority here.

Sunday, 13 April 2003

The Battle of Larry, Curly and Moe

Trent Telenko of Winds of Change.NET has an interesting post on the battles on the 3rd Infantry Division’s “Thunder Run” through southern Baghdad last Monday. Not only was it a more ferocious battle than reported last week, it turns out to have been as lopsided as the armored Battle of 73 Easting in Gulf War I. Trent writes:

Let’s put this in perspective. An American service company was ambushed not once, but several times in on a road in close urban combat. It was pinned down in penny packets that were not mutually supported. They were operating under rules of engagement that required warning shots before engagement and the smoke from burning vehicles cut line of sight to 300–400 meters. When the smoke cleared, there were 300 dead Iraqi paramilitaries in front of the support company made up of mechanics, clerk-typists, staff officers & NCOs for two dead Americans.

Compare that to the performance of conscript Russian armored forces in the first battle for Grozney in Chechnya where a Russian Motorized Rifle Regiment was wiped out with 95% of its 150 armored vehicles destroyed.

Or to the results of “Blackhawk Down” in Mogadishu where 18 American Special Forces died at the hands of the Somali Aideed clan.

Wow. Simply wow. RTWT™.

Friday, 11 April 2003

More subhuman garbage

It turns out that my opinion of former U.N. weapons inspector and alleged part-time pedophile Scott Ritter operates according to Zeno’s dichotomy paradox: every time I think I’ve reached the absolute lowest possible opinion of him, it turns out that really there’s still a few more microns to go. From The Command Post today (emphasis mine):

The [youth] prison in question was inspected by my team in Jan. 1998. It appeared to be a prison for children—toddlers up to pre-adolescents—whose only crime was to be the offspring of those who have spoken out politically against the regime of Saddam Hussein. It was a horrific scene. Actually I’m not going to describe what I saw there because what I saw was so horrible that it can be used by those who would want to promote war with Iraq, and right now I’m waging peace.

That’s right: according to Scott Ritter, it’s OK to leave kids in squalor and misery, for the greater moral cause of preventing war. If this doesn’t fundamentally discredit the thinking of the radical anti-war movement, I’m not sure what could.

Thursday, 10 April 2003

PETA's going to be pissed

The lighter side of liberation? From today's USA Today: apparently, a patrol came upon a private zoo in Baghdad on Thursday, and found some starving animals. But beasts cannot live by MREs alone:

Apparently, the MREs didn’t satisfy the animals. The soldiers ended up pulling live sheep from a nearby pen and pushing the animals into the lion compound. While the soldiers looked on, the young lions pounced on and killed two of the sheep, fending off the cheetahs and the bear for the spoils.

There are some more anecdotes, including a report on a raid on a schoolhouse and a patrol through the “Saddam City” shanty town, named for its ex-slumlord.

How dare they zoom in!

Kevin Drum is apparently upset because the media had the audacity to actually show the action in TV footage of the Saddam statue toppling, and attributes this to “the duplicitous role of the media” in a U.S. government propoganda effort (apparently influenced by the non-existent U.S. minders brought in by the Marines to replace the Iraqi ones that fled that morning).

Then again, maybe they zoomed in because you can’t see anything worth photographing in a wider shot. But that wouldn’t fit a conspiracy theory, so I’ll just have to be skeptical about that.

Josh Chafetz at OxBlog finds that things may not be as they first appear in Atriosland. Imagine that!

“Not a really good day to be French”

MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann (via Jim Treacher):

You would think there would be very few people anywhere who would be upset by today’s news from Baghdad. But, as has become obvious, beyond those who merely and honestly sought peace or greater consensus, there remain groups who were invested in the idea that the Coalition couldn’t, or shouldn’t, succeed.

In other words, not a really good day to be French.

(Unless, of course, you’re The Dissident Frogman or Merde in France.)

Saddam statue emasculated

CNN just ran videophone footage, narrated by Martin Savidge, of Marines attempting to blow up a statue of Saddam Hussein (apparently identical to the one pulled down near the Palestine Hotel; they must have mass-produced them somewhere). After an attempt to pull it down with a tank failed, they tried plan B: C4.

When the smoke cleared, there was a gaping hole in the crotch area of the statue. Savidge couldn’t stop laughing. Somehow, I think the Iraqis will be content to leave it be.

Unsurprisingly, the Command Post is on this too.

Wednesday, 9 April 2003

War tourists? Try “wankers”

Dan Drezner and Donald Sensing note that the Iraqis have a message for the “human shields.” Salam Pax would be proud.

My sole comment on today’s events: I watched the Berlin Wall come down. This is better.

Tuesday, 8 April 2003

After the War

Oliver Willis calls on both anti-war and pro-war Americans to hold the administration to its commitment to create a free and democratic Iraq. I wholeheartedly agree.

Later, Stephen Green lays out what the Iraq War means for the region. No blockquotes; Read The Whole Thing™.

(Think of these two posts as two sides of the same coin—for what Stephen suggests to suceed, we must make the commitment that Oliver correctly implores us to.)

Yale anti-war student assaulted

Josh Chafetz of OxBlog reports on a violent incident where apparently several thugs armed with a 2×4 broke into the dorm suite of an anti-war female student at Yale University, apparently in an unsuccessful effort to attack her and remove an upside-down American flag she had placed in her window. Simply despicable.

Speaking of despicable, the examples of subhuman garbage that are making bogus “your kid is dead” phone calls deserve to be dropped from B2s onto one of Saddam’s presidential palaces. Or, since they apparently don't approve of cultural imperialism, we should just send them to Basra with “human shield” tattooed on their foreheads in English and Arabic and watch how long they last. And throw in the aforementioned thuggish sleazebags from Yale too. (Via Ken Layne.)

Monday, 31 March 2003

Your Jacques Chirac thought of the day

Steven Den Beste today notes the rather curious relationship between Jacques Chirac and Franco-Belgian oil giant TotalFinaElf.

A brief history lesson for those who don’t follow French politics: in 2002, when M. Chirac faced reelection at the end of his seven-year term (since reduced to a five-year term), he was believed to be at the center of a giant campaign finance scandal dating back to the 1980s, and was only immune from further investigation—and prosecution—because of his position as French president. If the far-right National Front’s Jean-Marie Le Pen hadn’t unexpectedly edged ahead of the socialist Lionel Jospin, leading to a rally around Chirac’s campaign in the run-off round (thus illustrating a fundamental problem with majority run-off elections, including instant run-off voting), Chirac would now likely be facing charges stemming from his alleged involvement in the illegal financial shenanigans.

In other words, nobody should be surprised at Chirac’s behavior regarding Iraq: he’s been bought and paid for. Perhaps the only surprise is how many pockets he’s been paid from.

There’s more at Glenn’s place.

Friday, 28 March 2003

Did the Beeb sign Salam Pax's death warrant?

Alan E. Brain at the Command Post reports that the BBC World Service presented a “comprehensive dossier” on Baghdad blogger Salam Pax this morning. (Also see this post by Joe Katzman at Winds of Change.) If the information was in as much detail as Alan suggests, our favorite citizen of Baghdad could be in serious trouble.

I guess Andrew Sullivan doesn’t call them the Baghdad Broadcasting Corporation for nothing…

Thursday, 27 March 2003

Nope, no al-Qaeda links here…

Gethain Chamberlain of The Scotsman reports that Iraqi POWs captured in Basra indicate an al-Qaeda cell is operating in the city:

Near Basra, Iraq: British military interrogators claim captured Iraqi soldiers have told them that al-Qaeda terrorists are fighting on the side of Saddam Hussein’s forces against allied troops near Basra.

At least a dozen members of Osama bin Laden’s network are in the town of Az Zubayr where they are coordinating grenade and gun attacks on coalition positions, according to the Iraqi prisoners of war. ...

A senior British military source inside Iraq said: “The information we have received from PoWs today is that an al-Qaeda cell may be operating in Az Zubayr. There are possibly around a dozen of them and that is obviously a matter of concern to us.”

Nothing to see here; move along…

Via the Command Post and the Sydney Morning Herald.

Wednesday, 26 March 2003

We're Fucked

Well, I know I was completely gung ho for the war, but Scott Ritter has convinced me that this is going to be the worst military defeat since the Little Big Horn. All hail Saddam, our new leader!

For new visitors, this is extreme sarcasm.