The Binary Circumstance

Andrew Sullivan puts the insurgency in Iraq into perspective. He quotes from a New York Times [reg. req.] article about the U.S. government’s quiet release of estimates of the civilian casualties:

Iraqi civilians and security forces were killed and wounded by insurgents at a rate of about 26 a day early in 2004, and at a rate of about 40 a day later that year. The rate increased in 2005 to about 51 a day, and by the end of August had jumped to about 63 a day.

Now, think about Sullivan’s comment:

It’s easy to dismiss these numbers from a distance, or to say they are a function of the insurgents’ failure to kill U.S. troops. You could even argue that this kind of widespread slaughter will help undermine the insurgency - as it murders more and more Muslims, and reveals the nihilism of the enemy. You could argue that the critical indicator is whether the political process is continuing and if the infrastructure can be better protected and rebuilt. At least, those are the more plausible arguments I’m hearing these days, as evidence of progress in Iraq. They’re not insane arguments. But imagine if the United States endured such a terrorist casualty rate. If you callibrate for population, imagine an America where 700 civilians or cops are murdered each day by insurgents able to operate at will. One 9/11 a week. And each week, the number grows. How likely is it that a successful transition to constitutional government can be maintained in such a climate?

Meanwhile, Nieman Watchdog asks questions that the mainstream press should be asking like “What’s Wrong With Cutting and Running?”

Lieutenant General William E. Odom, U.S. Army (Ret.) (resume) provides quite an answer.

He begins:

If I were a journalist, I would list all the arguments that you hear against pulling U.S. troops out of Iraq, the horrible things that people say would happen, and then ask: Aren’t they happening already? Would a pullout really make things worse? Maybe it would make things better.

Then he lists many of the arguments for staying and tears each one apart.

I’m not sure I buy it but he makes it clear that Iraq is a big mess and it’s not going to get better anytime soon without some major change in strategy.

President Bush nominated Samuel Alito, a judge with solid credentials and a long history of conservative decisions for the Supreme Court.

The “A” issue was immediately raised.

What I find interesting is how two different news organzations differed in their reports about Alito’s best-known abortion decision.

The AP article had one sentence at the very end of their article:

In the early 1990s, Alito was the lone dissenter in Planned Parenthood v. Casey, a case in which the 3rd Circuit struck down a Pennsylvania law that included a provision requiring women seeking abortions to notify their spouses.

NPR devoted a lot more words to this decision and placed it in the middle of their article:

Alito’s most well-known opinion is his dissent in Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey in October 1991. Alito and his colleagues on the 3rd Circuit sided with the state, agreeing that teenagers must have parental consent before obtaining an abortion. They also upheld legislation stating that women must wait 24 hours after receiving information on alternatives to abortion before undergoing the procedure. But in an opinion that dissented in part, Alito went a step further and said it was within the law to require women to notify their spouses before they get an abortion.

When the U.S. Supreme Court took up an appeal of the ruling in 1992, much of the 3rd Circuit’s ruling was upheld. The court agreed some limits such as parental notification were valid. But it agreed with the majority of the lower court that requiring women to notify their husbands was unconstitutional. The high court disagreed with Alito’s lone dissent, saying requiring spousal notification would present an “undue burden” to women seeking an abortion.

Tomorrow, President Bush is set to unveil his stragegy for dealing with a super-flu epidemic.

WASHINGTON - The Bush administration’s long-awaited plan on how to fight the next super-flu will likely include beefed-up attempts to spot human infections early, both here and abroad.

Expect recommendations on how to isolate the sick. Governors and mayors are on notice to figure out who will actually inject stockpiled vaccines into the arms of panicked people.

Bush on Tuesday is visiting the National Institutes of Health to announce his administration’s strategy on how to prepare for the next flu pandemic, whether it’s caused by the bird flu in Asia or some other super strain of influenza. Federal health officials have spent the last year updating a national plan on how to do that.

The president will ask Congress for unspecified new money, not just for a vaccine against bird flu but to fund a buildup of infrastructure ready to deal with any pandemic, said a senior administration official, who spoke Saturday on condition of anonymity.

Stockpiling drugs and vaccines is just one component.

Once again, Bush will use terror to chip away at civil liberties and shovel huge amounts of taxpayer money into the pockets of his friends.

And according to CNN, there are some politically well-connected people, including Donald Rumsfeld, who are already making a lot of money from sales of Tamiflu.

NEW YORK (Fortune) - The prospect of a bird flu outbreak may be panicking people around the globe, but it’s proving to be very good news for Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and other politically connected investors in Gilead Sciences, the California biotech company that owns the rights to Tamiflu, the influenza remedy that’s now the most-sought after drug in the world.
[…]
Rumsfeld isn’t the only political heavyweight benefiting from demand for Tamiflu, which is manufactured and marketed by Swiss pharma giant Roche. (Gilead receives a royalty from Roche equaling about 10% of sales.) Former Secretary of State George Shultz, who is on Gilead’s board, has sold more than $7 million worth of Gilead since the beginning of 2005.

Another board member is the wife of former California Gov. Pete Wilson.

“I don’t know of any biotech company that’s so politically well-connected,” says analyst Andrew McDonald of Think Equity Partners in San Francisco.
[…]
What’s more, the federal government is emerging as one of the world’s biggest customers for Tamiflu. In July, the Pentagon ordered $58 million worth of the treatment for U.S. troops around the world, and Congress is considering a multi-billion dollar purchase. Roche expects 2005 sales for Tamiflu to be about $1 billion, compared with $258 million in 2004.

Rumsfeld recused himself from any decisions involving Gilead when he left Gilead and became Secretary of Defense in early 2001. And late last month, notes a senior Pentagon official, Rumsfeld went even further and had the Pentagon’s general counsel issue additional instructions outlining what he could and could not be involved in if there were an avian flu pandemic and the Pentagon had to respond.

If the Pentagon, which Rumsfeld heads, has already purchased $58 million worth of the vaccine, hasn’t he already been involved?

After all, he does run the Pentagon doesn’t he?

I have no doubt there will be more examples of global epidemics, but I’m beginning to wonder if all the attention being given to a potential bird flu outbreak isn’t leaving us completely unprepared for another type of epidemic.

Furthermore, it’s very possible that a deadly flu could become a WMD.

Scientists could alter the genetic makeup of a virus like the bird flu so that it is easily passed from human to human. Then they could create a vaccine against it. After vaccinating themselves and those allied with their political goals, they could unleash the deadly virus upon the world.

Not only would they survive after killing off any unwanted portions of the human population, they could get very rich in the process.

Fortunately, some individuals among the unwanted will possess a natural immunity to the deadly virus. They will pass their immunity on to their offspring.

In such a scenario, what doesn’t kill them will make their offspring stronger.

If you can believe in God, you can believe in ghosts.

And with Christmas around the corner, as we participate in an orgy of fantasy, let’s not forget Santa Clause.