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3DHS / The New South

« on: October 23, 2007, 09:43:03 AM »

Top Gear in Alabama

For those who don't know, Top Gear is a BBC car show somewhat known for their controversey. In this particular piece of this episode they were given the challenge to paint one another's cars in a manner that would likely get the other person "hurt or arrested" in Alabama.

The whole episode was unbelievably funny. They began by purchasing their vehicles in Miami for under $1000 and had different challenges along the way, including one night of eating only roadkill.

3DHS / Raging Against Regulations, then Begging for Help

« on: October 23, 2007, 09:29:41 AM »

Governments aren't perfect, but it's the libertarians who bleed us dry

Northern Rock's former chairman liked to rage against regulation, until his bank had to beg 16bn pounds from the detested state

Note: For those who don't know about Northern Rock, check here

George Monbiot
Tuesday October 23, 2007
The Guardian

'The little-known ninth law of thermodynamics states that the more money a group receives from the taxpayer, the more it demands and the more it complains." Thus wrote Matt Ridley in 1994. He was discussing farm subsidies, but the same law applies to his chairmanship of Northern Rock. Before he resigned on Friday, the bank had borrowed ?16bn from the government and had refused to rule out asking for more. Ridley and the other bosses blamed everyone but themselves for this disaster.

I used to read Ridley's columns religiously. Published by the Telegraph in the 1990s, they were well-written, closely argued and almost always wrong. He railed against all government intervention and mocked less enlightened beings for their failure to understand economics and finance. The rightwing press loved him because he appeared to provide a scientific justification for the deregulation of business.

Ridley's core argument, which he explains at greater length in his books, is that humans, being the products of natural selection, act only in their own interests. But our selfish instincts encourage us to behave in ways that appear altruistic. By cooperating and by being perceived as generous, we earn other people's trust. This allows us to advance our own interests more effectively than we could by cheating, stealing and fighting. To permit these beneficial genetic tendencies to flower, governments should withdraw from our lives and stop interfering in business and other human relations. Ridley produced a geneticist's version of the invisible hand of the market, recruiting humanity's selfish interests to dole out benefits to everyone.

Ridley, who has a DPhil in zoology, is no stranger to good science, and his explorations of our evolutionary history, which are often fascinating and provoking, are based on papers published in peer-reviewed journals. But whenever a conflict arose between his scientific training and the interests of business, he would discard the science. Ignoring hundreds of scientific papers that came to the opposite conclusion, and drawing instead on material presented by a business lobby group called the Institute of Economic Affairs, he argued that global temperatures have scarcely increased, so we should stop worrying about climate change. He suggested that elephants should be hunted for their ivory, planning laws should be scrapped, recycling should be stopped, bosses should be free to choose whether or not their workers get repetitive strain injury and companies, rather than governments, should be allowed to decide whether or not the food they sell is safe. He raged against taxes, subsidies, bailouts and government regulation. Bureaucracy, he argued, is "a self-seeking flea on the backs of the more productive people of this world ... governments do not run countries, they parasitise them".

I studied zoology in the same department, though a few years later. Like Ridley, I am a biological determinist: I believe that much of our behaviour is governed by our evolutionary history. I accept the evidence he puts forward, but draw completely different conclusions. He believes that modern humans are destined to behave well if left to their own devices; I believe that they are likely to behave badly. If you belong to a small group of intelligent hominids, all of whom are well known to each other, you will be rewarded for cooperation and generosity within the group. (Though this does not stop your group from attacking or exploiting another.) If, on the other hand, you can switch communities at will, travel freely, buy in one country and sell in another, hire strangers then fire them, you will gain more from acting only in your own interest. You'll have an even stronger incentive to act against the common good if you run a bank whose lending and borrowing are so complex that hardly anyone can understand what is happening.

Ridley and I have the same view of human nature: that we are inherently selfish. But the question is whether this nature is subject to the conditions that prevailed during our evolutionary history. I believe they have changed: we can no longer be scrutinised and held to account by a small community. We need governments to fill the regulatory role vacated when our tiny clans dissolved.

I can offer nothing more than speculation, but Ridley has had the opportunity to test his beliefs. He took up his post - which was previously held by his father, Viscount Ridley - in 2004. Under his chairmanship, the Economist notes, Northern Rock "pushed an aggressive business model to the limit, crossing its fingers and hoping that liquidity would always be there". It was allowed to do so because it was insufficiently regulated by the Bank of England and the Financial Services Authority. When his libertarian business model failed, Ridley had to go begging to the detested state. If the government and its parasitic bureaucrats had not been able to use taxpayers' money to clear up his mess, thousands of people would have lost their savings. Northern Rock would have collapsed, and the resulting panic might have brought down the rest of the banking system.

The ?16bn bailout is not the end of the matter. Last week the Treasury granted Northern Rock's customers a new tax break. Now one of the north-east's leading businessmen, Sir Michael Darrington, is calling for the bank's full-scale nationalisation in order to prevent further crises. So much for the virtues of unregulated free enterprise.

Wherever modern humans, living outside the narrow social mores of the clan, are allowed to pursue their genetic interests without constraint, they will hurt other people. They will grab other people's resources, they will dump their waste in other people's habitats, they will cheat, lie, steal and kill. And if they have power and weapons, no one will be able to stop them except those with more power and better weapons. Our genetic inheritance makes us smart enough to see that when the old society breaks down, we should appease those who are more powerful than ourselves and exploit those who are less powerful. The survival strategies that once ensured cooperation among equals now ensure subservience to those who have broken the social contract.

The democratic challenge, which becomes ever more complex as the scale of human interactions increases, is to mimic the governance system of the small hominid troop. We need a state that rewards us for cooperating and punishes us for cheating and stealing. At the same time, we must ensure that the state is also treated like a member of the hominid clan and punished when it acts against the common good. Human welfare, just as it was a million years ago, is guaranteed only by mutual scrutiny and regulation.

I doubt that Ridley would be able to sustain his beliefs in a place where the state has broken down. Unless taxpayers' money and public services are available to repair the destruction it causes, libertarianism destroys people's savings, wrecks their lives and trashes their environment. It is the belief system of the free-rider, who is perpetually subsidised by responsible citizens. As biologists we both know what this means. Self-serving as governments might be, the true social parasites are those who demand their dissolution.

3DHS / For a bit of Fun

« on: October 19, 2007, 11:43:47 AM »

http://www.bized.co.uk/virtual/home.htm

Economics simulations, if you like that kind of thing. Even a UK budget simulator (though a bit out of date at 2002).

Just in case anyone gets bored and is a true geek.

3DHS / DNA Pioneer Provokes Outrage

« on: October 18, 2007, 04:04:47 PM »

Black people 'less intelligent' scientist claims

Times Online

One of the world's most respected scientists is embroiled in an extraordinary row after claiming that black people are less intelligent than white people.

James Watson, a Nobel Prize winner for his part in discovering the structure of DNA, has provoked outrage with his comments, made ahead of his arrival in Britain today.

More fierce criticism of the eminent scientist is expected as he embarks on a number of engagements to promote a new book Avoid Boring People: Lessons from a Life in Science. Among his first commitments is a speech to a London audience at the Science Museum on Friday. The event is sold out.

Dr Watson, who runs one of America's leading scientific research institutions, made the controversial remarks in an interview in The Sunday Times.

The 79-year-old geneticist said he was inherently gloomy about the prospect of Africa because all our social policies are based on the fact that their intelligence is the same as ours - whereas all the testing says not really.". He said he hoped that everyone was equal, but countered that people who have to deal with black employees find this not true.

He says that you should not discriminate on the basis of colour, because there are many people of colour who are very talented, but don't promote them when they haven't succeeded at the lower level. He writes that there is no firm reason to anticipate that the intellectual capacities of peoples geographically separated in their evolution should prove to have evolved identically. Our wanting to reserve equal powers of reason as some universal heritage of humanity will not be enough to make it so.

He claimed genes responsible for creating differences in human intelligence could be found within a decade.

The newly formed Equality and Human Rights Commission is studying Dr Watson's remarks in full.

Keith Vaz, the Labour chairman of the Home Affairs Select Committee, said today: It is sad to see a scientist of such achievement making such baseless, unscientific and extremely offensive comments.

I am sure the scientific community will roundly reject what appear to be Dr Watson's personal prejudices. These comments serve as a reminder of the attitudes which can still exist at the highest professional levels.

Dr Watson was hailed as achieving one of the greatest single scientific breakthroughs of the 20th century when he worked at the University of Cambridge in the 1950s and 1960s, forming part of the team which discovered the structure of DNA.

He shared the 1962 Nobel Prize for medicine with his British colleague Francis Crick and New Zealand-born Maurice Wilkins.

He has served for 50 years as a director of the Cold Spring Harbour Laboratory on Long Island, considered a world leader in research into cancer and genetics.

Dr Watson is no stranger to controversy. He has been reported in the past saying that a woman should have the right to abort her unborn child if tests could determine it would be homosexual.

In addition, he has suggested a link between skin colour and sex drive, proposing a theory that black people have higher libidos.

He also claimed that beauty could be genetically manufactured, saying: ?People say it would be terrible if we made all girls pretty. I think it would be great.?

Commenting on Dr Watson?s current views about race, Steven Rose, a professor of biological sciences at the Open University, said: ?This is Watson at his most scandalous. He has said similar things about women before but I have never heard him get into this racist terrain.

He added: ?If he knew the literature in the subject he would know he was out of his depth scientifically, quite apart from socially and politically.?

A spokeswoman for the Science Museum said it was looking into ?things? concerning the security of the event on Friday.

She said: ?This kind of thing always generates debate.?

3DHS / Putin Says the US must set a Date to Withdraw from Iraq

« on: October 18, 2007, 12:02:04 PM »

Putin wants US date to quit Iraq
Russian President Vladimir Putin has said the US should set a date for a withdrawal from Iraq.

_{It is President Putin's sixth phone-in since coming to office}

He was speaking during a live televised question-and-answer session with the public covering both domestic and foreign policy issues.

Mr Putin said that as long as the US avoided setting a pull-out date, the Iraqi leadership "won't rush to build up its own security forces".

He also said Russia planned "grandiose" improvements to its armed forces.

New missile technology and an overhaul of the nuclear arsenal were also planned, he said.

Missile shield

Mr Putin told viewers that the US presence in Iraq was motivated in part by a desire to "establish control of the country's oil reserves".

But he said the US was now engaged in a "pointless" battle against a popular uprising.

"One can wipe off a political map some tyrannical regime... but it's absolutely pointless to fight with a people," he said.

He assured his audience that Russia, unlike Iraq, was militarily strong enough to defend its territory and its natural resources.

Mr Putin also warned that Russia would boost its deployment of weapons if Washington went ahead with plans to build a missile shield.

Moscow and Washington have already argued over US plans to build missile bases in countries that were once part of the Soviet Union's sphere of influence.

Other topics discussed by the Russian leader included the economy and the threat of terrorism.

He said he was committed to cutting inflation and pointed to a drop in recorded terror attacks as proof his security policy was bearing fruit.

'Prime Minister'

Russians submitted more than one million questions by telephone, text messages or via the internet, the Kremlin said.

Thursday's phone-in comes amid growing speculation about Mr Putin's plans after his second presidential term ends in March.

But Mr Putin, who is considering becoming prime minister when he steps down, said he was against changing the balance of power between president and government.

"It is not expedient to take any powers away from the government or to load more powers" on the government, Interfax news agency quoted him as saying.

Under the Russian constitution, Mr Putin is not allowed to run for a third consecutive term as president, and there has been speculation that he will use the premiership to retain power.

He said he had accepted a proposal by the pro-Kremlin United Russia to head the party's list in December's parliamentary election - a move that would guarantee him a seat in the next parliament.

This is the sixth time Mr Putin has done the phone-in since coming to office.

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/world/europe/7050237.stm

Published: 2007/10/18 12:59:09 GMT

? BBC MMVII

3DHS / Study Finds that U.S. Healthcare Consistently Underperforms

« on: October 15, 2007, 01:13:16 PM »

Mirror, Mirror on the Wall: An International Update on the Comparative Performance of American Health Care

May 15, 2007 (updated May 16, 2007) | Volume 59

Authors:Karen Davis, Ph.D., Cathy Schoen, M.S., Stephen C. Schoenbaum, M.D., M.P.H., Michelle M. Doty, Ph.D., M.P.H., Alyssa L. Holmgren, M.P.A., Jennifer L. Kriss, and Katherine K. Shea

Editor(s):Deborah Lorber view citation

Link

Overview

Despite having the most costly health system in the world, the United States consistently underperforms on most dimensions of performance, relative to other countries. This report?an update to two earlier editions?includes data from surveys of patients, as well as information from primary care physicians about their medical practices and views of their countries' health systems. Compared with five other nations?Australia, Canada, Germany, New Zealand, the United Kingdom?the U.S. health care system ranks last or next-to-last on five dimensions of a high performance health system: quality, access, efficiency, equity, and healthy lives. The U.S. is the only country in the study without universal health insurance coverage, partly accounting for its poor performance on access, equity, and health outcomes. The inclusion of physician survey data also shows the U.S. lagging in adoption of information technology and use of nurses to improve care coordination for the chronically ill.

Executive Summary

The U.S. health system is the most expensive in the world, but comparative analyses consistently show the United States underperforms relative to other countries on most dimensions of performance. This report, which includes information from primary care physicians about their medical practices and views of their countries' health systems, confirms the patient survey findings discussed in previous editions of Mirror, Mirror. It also includes information on health care outcomes that were featured in the U.S. health system scorecard issued by the Commonwealth Fund Commission on a High Performance Health System.

Among the six nations studied?Australia, Canada, Germany, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the United States?the U.S. ranks last, as it did in the 2006 and 2004 editions of Mirror, Mirror. Most troubling, the U.S. fails to achieve better health outcomes than the other countries, and as shown in the earlier editions, the U.S. is last on dimensions of access, patient safety, efficiency, and equity. The 2007 edition includes data from the six countries and incorporates patients' and physicians' survey results on care experiences and ratings on various dimensions of care.

The most notable way the U.S. differs from other countries is the absence of universal health insurance coverage. Other nations ensure the accessibility of care through universal health insurance systems and through better ties between patients and the physician practices that serve as their long-term "medical home." It is not surprising, therefore, that the U.S. substantially underperforms other countries on measures of access to care and equity in health care between populations with above-average and below average incomes.

With the inclusion of physician survey data in the analysis, it is also apparent that the U.S. is lagging in adoption of information technology and national policies that promote quality improvement. The U.S. can learn from what physicians and patients have to say about practices that can lead to better management of chronic conditions and better coordination of care. Information systems in countries like Germany, New Zealand, and the U.K. enhance the ability of physicians to monitor chronic conditions and medication use. These countries also routinely employ non-physician clinicians such as nurses to assist with managing patients with chronic diseases.

The area where the U.S. health care system performs best is preventive care, an area that has been monitored closely for over a decade by managed care plans. Nonetheless, the U.S. scores particularly poorly on its ability to promote healthy lives, and on the provision of care that is safe and coordinated, as well as accessible, efficient, and equitable.

For all countries, responses indicate room for improvement. Yet, the other five countries spend considerably less on health care per person and as a percent of gross domestic product than does the United States. These findings indicate that, from the perspectives of both physicians and patients, the U.S. health care system could do much better in achieving better value for the nation's substantial investment in health.

Key Findings

Quality: The indicators of quality were grouped into four categories: right (or effective) care, safe care, coordinated care, and patient-centered care. Compared with the other five countries, the U.S. fares best on provision and receipt of preventive care, a dimension of "right care." However, its low scores on chronic care management and safe, coordinated, and patient-centered care pull its overall quality score down. Other countries are further along than the U.S. in using information technology and a team approach to manage chronic conditions and coordinate care. Information systems in countries like Germany, New Zealand, and the U.K. enhance the ability of physicians to identify and monitor patients with chronic conditions. Such systems also make it easy for physicians to print out medication lists, including those prescribed by other physicians. Nurses help patients manage their chronic diseases, with those services financed by governmental programs.

Access: Not surprising?given the absence of universal coverage?people in the U.S. go without needed health care because of cost more often than people do in the other countries. Americans were the most likely to say they had access problems related to cost, but if insured, patients in the U.S. have rapid access to specialized health care services. In other countries, like the U.K and Canada, patients have little to no financial burden, but experience long wait times for such specialized services. The U.S. and Canada rank lowest on the prompt accessibility of appointments with physicians, with patients more likely to report waiting six or more days for an appointment when needing care. Germany scores well on patients' perceptions of access to care on nights and weekends and on the ability of primary care practices to make arrangements for patients to receive care when the office is closed. Overall, Germany ranks first on access.

Efficiency: On indicators of efficiency, the U.S. ranks last among the six countries, with the U.K. and New Zealand ranking first and second, respectively. The U.S. has poor performance on measures of national health expenditures and administrative costs as well as on measures of the use of information technology and multidisciplinary teams. Also, of sicker respondents who visited the emergency room, those in Germany and New Zealand are less likely to have done so for a condition that could have been treated by a regular doctor, had one been available.

Equity: The U.S. ranks a clear last on all measures of equity. Americans with below-average incomes were much more likely than their counterparts in other countries to report not visiting a physician when sick, not getting a recommended test, treatment or follow-up care, not filling a prescription, or not seeing a dentist when needed because of costs. On each of these indicators, more than two-fifths of lower-income adults in the U.S. said they went without needed care because of costs in the past year.

Healthy lives: The U.S. ranks last overall with poor scores on all three indicators of healthy lives. The U.S. and U.K. had much higher death rates in 1998 from conditions amenable to medical care?with rates 25 to 50 percent higher than Canada and Australia. Overall, Australia ranks highest on healthy lives, scoring first or second on all of the indicators.

Summary and Implications

Findings in this report confirm many of the findings from the earlier two editions of Mirror, Mirror. The U.S. ranks last of six nations overall. As in the earlier editions, the U.S. ranks last on indicators of patient safety, efficiency, and equity. New Zealand, Australia, and the U.K. continue to demonstrate superior performance, with Germany joining their ranks of top performers. The U.S. is first on preventive care, and second only to Germany on waiting times for specialist care and non-emergency surgical care, but weak on access to needed services and ability to obtain prompt attention from physicians.

Any attempt to assess the relative performance of countries has inherent limitations. These rankings summarize evidence on measures of high performance based on national mortality data and the perceptions and experiences of patients and physicians. They do not capture important dimensions of effectiveness or efficiency that might be obtained from medical records or administrative data. Patients' and physicians' assessments might be affected by their experiences and expectations, which could differ by country and culture.

The findings indicate room for improvement across all of the countries, especially in the U.S. If the health care system is to perform according to patients' expectations, the nation will need to remove financial barriers to care and improve the delivery of care. Disparities in terms of access to services signal the need to expand insurance to cover the uninsured and to ensure that all Americans have an accessible medical home. The U.S. must also accelerate its efforts to adopt health information technology and ensure an integrated medical record and information system that is accessible to providers and patients.

While many U.S. hospitals and health systems are dedicated to improving the process of care to achieve better safety and quality, the U.S. can also learn from innovations in other countries?including public reporting of quality data, payment systems that reward high-quality care, and a team approach to management of chronic conditions. Based on these patient and physician reports, the U.S. could improve the delivery, coordination, and equity of the health care system by drawing from best practices both within the U.S. and around the world.

Citation
K. Davis, C. Schoen, S. C. Schoenbaum, M. M. Doty, A. L. Holmgren, J. L. Kriss, and K. K. Shea, Mirror, Mirror on the Wall: An International Update on the Comparative Performance of American Health Care, The Commonwealth Fund, May 2007

3DHS / Russia Threatens Withdrawal from Cold War Nuclear Treaty

« on: October 12, 2007, 10:25:07 AM »

Putin threatens withdrawal from cold war nuclear treaty

Luke Harding in Moscow
Friday October 12, 2007

Guardian Unlimited

_{The Russian president, Vladimir Putin, attends a meeting with the US secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, and the US defence secretary, Robert Gates, at his presidential dacha outside Moscow. Photograph: Alexander Zemlianichenko/AP}

President Vladimir Putin warned today that Russia was considering withdrawal from a major cold war arms treaty restricting intermediate range nuclear missiles unless it is expanded to include other states.

Mr Putin said that Moscow is planning to dump the intermediate range nuclear forces treaty (INF) - signed in a landmark deal between the US and Soviet Union in 1987 - unless countries like China are included in its provisions.

His comments came just before talks in Moscow today between the US secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, and the US defence secretary, Robert Gates, with Russia's foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, and the defence minister, Anatoly Serdyukov.

Mr Putin also repeated his opposition to the Bush administrations plans to site elements of its missile defence shield in central Europe. The project threatened the US and Russia's strategic relationship, he suggested.

'We need other international participants to assume the same obligations which have been assumed by the Russian Federation and the US,' said Mr Putin, who met Ms Rice and Mr Gates at his leafy presidential dacha just outside Moscow.

'If we are unable to attain such a goal ... it will be difficult for us to keep within the framework of the treaty in a situation where other countries do develop such weapons systems, and among those are countries in our near vicinity,' he said.

Mr Putin appeared to be referring to the INF treaty - a major cold war agreement signed by Mikhail Gorbachev and Ronald Reagan. Under it, both sides agreed to scrap their arsenals of intermediate range nuclear and conventional ground-launched ballistic and cruise missiles.

Russian defence experts said today that the Kremlin had been unhappy for some time about the treaty because of concerns over the growing mid-range nuclear arsenals of its immediate neighbours such as China, Pakistan and India. Iran is also developing a medium-range missile programme.

The treaty currently only applies to the US and Russia - as well as to the former Soviet republics of Ukraine and Belarus. It was widely regarded as being highly disadvantageous to the Soviet Union as it did not include the US's naval nuclear cruise missiles or the nuclear arsenals of Britain or France.

"Russia's nuclear arsenal is still mainly a legacy of the Soviet Union. Its platforms are ageing. Russia feels more and more vulnerable not only from the nuclear forces of the US but from other threats as well," Yevgeny Miasnikov, a senior research scientist at the Centre for Arms Control, Energy and Environment Studies in Moscow told the Guardian. "This move fits into Russia's policy towards arms treaties these days."

Since denouncing the US during a memorable speech in Munich earlier this year, Mr Putin has withdrawn from the conventional arms forces in Europe treaty and resumed long-range patrols by Russia's strategic nuclear bombers - prompting Nato aircraft to scramble in response. Russia has also claimed a giant if symbolic chunk of the Arctic.

Today Mr Putin urged Washington not to rush ahead with its plans to locate elements of a planned missile defence shield in Poland and the Czech Republic. Russia says the shield is a threat to its security and wrecks Europe's strategic balance.

"We hope that in the process of such complex and multifaceted talks, you will not be forcing forward your relations with the eastern European countries," he said.

Ms Rice and Mr Gates spoke to Mr Putin before starting "two-plus-two" talks with their Russian counterparts aimed at airing differences over the missile shield, but which are also expected to touch on disagreements over Iran.

Mr Putin, who does not support western calls for a new round of UN sanctions on Iran, heads to Tehran next week, where he will meet the Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Washington says the shield - which includes placing a radar and interceptor missiles in Poland and the Czech Republic - is needed to protect against attack by "rogue" states, such as Iran and North Korea.

Mr Putin has proposed using a Russian-operated early warning radar in Azerbaijan, in exchange for Washington dropping the Polish and Czech sites. There was little sign today of any agreement over missile defence.

In opening remarks at the meeting with Mr Putin, however, Ms Rice said she was hopeful that the two-day talks could narrow differences.

"That which unites us in trying to deal with the threats of terrorism, of proliferation are much greater than the issues that divide us," she said.

"The president promised, and we are here to act upon the promise, that we would try and find ways to cooperate for the common good," she said, referring to a US commitment given earlier this year by George Bush.

Shortly before the talks with Mr Putin began, the Russian foreign minister, Sergey Lavrov, strolled into the dacha's billiards room, where US reporters had gathered for a cigarette break. He was asked whether he expected any breakthroughs in the talks. "Breaks, definitely. Through or down, I don't know," he said.

_{Guardian Unlimited ? Guardian News and Media Limited 2007}

3DHS / American Fears Misplaced Post 9/11

« on: October 04, 2007, 12:47:42 PM »

In Judging Risk, Our Fears Are Often Misplaced

By Shankar Vedantam
Monday, September 24, 2007

_{A woman eyes a D.C. transit officer patrolling with a submachine gun after the 2005 terrorist attacks in London. (Chip Somodevilla - Getty Images)}

Shortly after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, psychologist Jennifer Lerner conducted a national field experiment: She asked a random sampling of Americans how likely it was that they would be the victim of a terrorist attack in the next 12 months.

Respondents said there was a 1-in-5 chance they would personally be hurt within the next year, and a nearly 1-in-2 chance that the average American would be hurt. That kind of carnage, Lerner estimated, would not have occurred even if there had been a Sept.11-scale attack every day of the year.

The purpose of Lerner's experiment was not to mock people's fears -- in the aftermath of the attacks, no one knew what to expect. If 19 hijackers armed with nothing more than box cutters could demolish the World Trade Center, damage the Pentagon, crash four airliners and kill nearly 3,000 people, who knew what else was coming?

What the experiment did highlight, however, was the role of psychological processes in biasing people's judgment when it comes to assessing risk. The study by Lerner, who is now at the Center for Public Leadership at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, and other research shows that when people are asked to make judgments about risk in uncertain situations, they fall back on mental rules of thumb that regularly turn out to be preposterously wrong.

Lerner found that anger and fear systematically bias people's risk estimates in opposite directions. Anger causes people to underestimate risks, which may be why drivers in the grip of road rage confidently attempt perilous maneuvers that place themselves and others in danger. By contrast, people who are afraid overestimate risks.

Research going back three decades shows that people are more likely to worry about unusual risks and less likely to worry about everyday dangers. Carnegie Mellon psychologist Baruch Fischhoff once found that people overestimate the number of deaths caused by accidents, tornadoes, floods, cancer, fires, and homicides and underestimate the risks of diabetes, stroke, asthma and emphysema.

To put it another way, people worry a lot more than they should about the kind of scenarios depicted in Hollywood thrillers and the nightly news, and worry a lot less than they should about "mundane" risks that do not make for gripping entertainment but kill a lot more Americans every year.

Malevolence or negligence on the part of others also seems to trigger our warning systems much more easily than the risks we pose to ourselves by smoking or leading sedentary lives. The number of Americans who have committed suicide in the last six years is more than 50 times the number of Americans killed by al-Qaeda operatives on Sept 11, 2001.

"The risk for any given person for suicide, particularly for middle-aged older white males, is dramatically higher than the risk of being mugged or being in a terrorist attack," said Lerner.

While psychology is not much use in predicting the future when it comes to terrorism, what it can do is highlight errors in thinking. Psychologist David Mandel asked people after the Sept. 11 attacks what they thought the risk of a major terrorist attack would be in the next two months. He then asked his volunteers to estimate the risk of an attack specifically by al-Qaeda and the risk of an attack by a completely separate group. Mandel found that when he totaled a person's responses about the likelihood of each of the subdivided possibilities, their sum was greater than the person's guess about the overall likelihood of a terrorist attack.

"By splitting the event into a terrorist attack by al-Qaeda or non-al-Qaeda operatives, that inflates the estimate the event will happen," said Mandel, who works for Defense Research and Development Canada, a government agency.

Subdividing a risk -- worrying not just about terrorism, in other words, but about nuclear terrorism and biological terrorism and hijacked planes and so on -- inflates the overall risk of terrorism in our minds. Mandel's point is not that subdividing risks leads to bad judgments, but rather that asking ourselves the same question in different ways often produces different answers. Mandel's insight is that it is not easy to know whether people's estimates of risk are accurate, since judgments about terrorism involve uncertainty, but that it is possible to discover whether their predictions of risk are coherent. A lack of coherence is one sign that accuracy might be in doubt as well.

Mandel has also found that when he asks people what the odds are of a terrorist attack happening and the odds of an attack not happening, their answers regularly fail to add up to 100 percent. And Lerner's field experiment confirmed another puzzling thing: People invariably see themselves as being at lower risk than the average person -- they guessed they had a 1-in-5 chance of being hurt but that others had a 1-in-2 chance of being hurt. Obviously, these statistics cannot be true for everyone.

"Not only is human judgment biased, but the problem is we are often unaware of the biases that affect our judgment," Mandel said. "When we are told people are biased in a particular manner we think, 'Perhaps they are, but not me.' "

Washington Post

3DHS / Bhutto to Return to Power in Pakistan?

« on: October 04, 2007, 10:43:36 AM »

Pakistan on brink of power-sharing deal, says minister

James Orr and agencies
Thursday October 4, 2007

Guardian Unlimited

_{The former Pakistan prime minister Benazir Bhutto (l), and the country's president, General Pervez Musharraf. Photographs: AFP/Getty Images}

Pakistan is on the brink of a power-sharing agreement with former prime minister Benazir Bhutto, a cabinet minister said today.

The statement by Sheikh Rashid Ahmad, the minister for railways, came as Ms Bhutto revealed that the country's president, General Pervez Musharraf, was about to issue an amnesty which would quash corruption charges against her and others.

"Things are going in the right direction, as I have been saying for the past several days," Mr Ahmed said. "Wait for five or six hours, and everything will be clear by that time."

The expected amnesty has been a key demand of Ms Bhutto, who went into exile to avoid arrest in corruption cases registered by former prime minister Nawaz Sharif.

"I am hopeful that the national reconciliation ordinance will be promulgated today," Ms Bhutto told reporters in London, referring to the immunity edict.

The former leader has also been seeking a constitutional amendment that would allow her to seek the prime minister's job for the third time.

She aims to introduce a raft of measures that would help create a level playing field for parliamentary elections to be held in the country by January.

An agreement would head off a threatened mass resignation from parliament by Ms Bhutto's Pakistan People's party, just two days before Gen Musharraf seeks another five-year term in a vote by national and provincial MPs.

_{Guardian Unlimited ? Guardian News and Media Limited 2007}

Matters of Faith / Lazarus and the Rich Man

« on: October 01, 2007, 12:19:02 PM »

Lazarus and the Rich Man, Luke 16: 19-31

Quote

19 "There was a rich man who dressed in purple garments and fine linen and dined sumptuously each day.
20 And lying at his door was a poor man named Lazarus, covered with sores,
21 who would gladly have eaten his fill of the scraps that fell from the rich man's table. Dogs even used to come and lick his sores.
22 When the poor man died, he was carried away by angels to the bosom of Abraham. The rich man also died and was buried,
23 and from the netherworld, where he was in torment, he raised his eyes and saw Abraham far off and Lazarus at his side.
24 And he cried out, 'Father Abraham, have pity on me. Send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, for I am suffering torment in these flames.'
25 Abraham replied, 'My child, remember that you received what was good during your lifetime while Lazarus likewise received what was bad; but now he is comforted here, whereas you are tormented.
26 Moreover, between us and you a great chasm is established to prevent anyone from crossing who might wish to go from our side to yours or from your side to ours.'
27 He said, 'Then I beg you, father, send him to my father's house,
28 for I have five brothers, so that he may warn them, lest they too come to this place of torment.'
29 But Abraham replied, 'They have Moses and the prophets. Let them listen to them.'
30 He said, 'Oh no, father Abraham, but if someone from the dead goes to them, they will repent.'
31 Then Abraham said, 'If they will not listen to Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded if someone should rise from the dead.'"

Without a doubt this is one of Christ's most intriguing parables. It is not the first time he warns the wealthy, nor makes a statement on behalf of the poor. Indeed, it is fitting that this parable is found only in Luke, who is the most adamant of the Gospel authors to plead on behalf of the poor in both the Gospel and the Acts of the Apostles.

Yet, there is more to this parable than the special case of the poor. For the first and only time in any parable a character is given a name, Lazarus. Also, this is the most illustrated example of the afterlife ever spoken by Christ. Then there is the allusion to the Resurrection in the very last verse (31) when Abraham speaks, "neither will they be persuaded if someone should rise from the dead."

Unusually, for a parable, the story of Lazarus and the rich man is complex. It has raised many questions amongst theologians. What is the "chasm?" Was Jesus being literal in his descriptions, or figurative as in most parables? Given the warning earlier in the chapter (Luke 16:13) is it even possible for the rich man to have heavenly reward? How does the rich man communicate to Abraham? Why can't he be persuaded by a resurrected Christ?

3DHS / That Other Place

« on: September 28, 2007, 10:15:34 AM »

UK's Afghan gains 'could be lost'

British troops in Afghanistan may have to take ground gained this summer again next year, the Nato chief has warned.

Gen Dan McNeill said the alliance had made important military gains over the past six months in Helmand.

But he warned Afghan security forces might not be able to retain security as the Taleban regroup over winter.

The Ministry of Defence said it had been increasing British forces in Helmand, which would help consolidate gains made during operations.

About 25 British troops have been killed in the southern region in the past six months.

The tactics over the past six months have been to push the Taleban out of the lush river valleys where the insurgents have had a stronghold.

It has resulted in close-quarters fighting for British troops.

Exit strategy

Gen McNeill, in an interview with BBC correspondent Alastair Leithead, said this had been a successful military strategy but that he was concerned the job of holding the ground would not be done effectively by Afghan national security forces.

He said some of the ground taken may have to be taken all over again next year if the Taleban regrouped over the winter.

"I think there is some chance of that because the Afghan national security forces have not been as successful in holding as we would like them to be," he said.

"We are likely to have to do some of this work again.

Quote

The problem remains that we do not have enough resources to occupy an area that is not too far off the size of England with forces which number around 8,000 now on the British forces side

- Chris Parker

Former Desert Rats Chief of Staff

"It would nice if the Afghan national security force could hold it, then there's less of a chance we'll have to do it again."

Overall, Gen McNeill said the mission was on track and he was pleased with the military progress and ongoing reconstruction projects.

But he added that improving governance was not going well and more work would have to be done.

Our correspondent explained that after British troops have pushed forward, leaving Afghan national security forces behind to hold the ground, it can be difficult to maintain security.

He said Taleban fighters launch insurgent-style attacks, such as roadside bombings, which eat away at the confidence the presence of international forces is trying to achieve.

Training the Afghan army and police to a level where they can maintain Afghanistan security is the exit strategy for foreign forces.

The Ministry of Defence said: "[To consolidate gains] is precisely why we are increasing the size of our force in Helmand, which by the end of the year will be twice the size of the force that first went in."

He also stressed that a large amount of effort was being put into training the Afghan security forces.

Resources issue

But Chris Parker, former chief of staff of the Desert Rats, said: "The problem remains that we do not have enough resources to occupy an area that is not too far off the size of England with forces which number around 8,000 now on the British side."

He said there had been 12,000 troops stationed in Northern Ireland "when it was relatively peaceful".

Mr Parker, who has left the Army, said another key difficulty was the time it took to train the Afghan army and police force.

"I think that there are 10 British policemen helping in Helmand province at the moment and it comes back to resources," he told BBC News 24.

"Until they are ready to take over in full, we must have enough forces ready to help them on the ground. We are not there yet."

Story from BBC NEWS

Published: 2007/09/28 12:41:19 GMT

? BBC MMVII

3DHS / Kidnappers Won't Be Turned Over

« on: September 26, 2007, 03:38:09 PM »

SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 22, 2007
Link

US 'refuses to hand over agents'

US authorities have told Germany they will not hand over 13 suspected CIA agents sought over the alleged kidnapping of a German citizen in 2003, an official said.

In response, the German government has dropped its extradition demand, according to an issue of German magazine Der Spiegel due to appear on Monday.

"To avoid an open conflict with the American authorities, the German government will not follow up the demand by the prosecutors in Munich to proceed with the arrest of 13 CIA agents," the weekly magazine said.

The decision was taken after US authorities ruled out "provisionary detention of extradition" of the suspects, Der Spiegel reported.

A German justice ministry spokeswoman, speaking on condition of anonymity, confirmed to the Associated Press that the US administration told Berlin it would not hand over the group.

The German request came after Khaled el-Masri, a Lebanese-born German, was taken from the Macedonian capital, Skopje, on New Year's Eve, 2003.

Abduction

The 44-year-old unemployed former car salesman and father of six, says he was abducted by US agents and flown to a prison in Afghanistan for interrogation.

El-Masri says he was drugged and tortured, before being released five months later in Albania.

He said his captors told him he was seized in a case of mistaken identity.

El-Masri has filed a suit in the US against his detention, but it was rejected by an appeals court on the grounds of national security.

Human rights campaigners have focused on el-Masri's story in pressing the US to stop flying terrorism suspects to countries other than the US where they could face abuse - a practice known as 'extraordinary rendition'.

Mistaken identity

US officials have declined to address the case in public. However, Angela Merkel, the German Chancellor, has said that the US has acknowledged making a mistake with el-Masri.

On Saturday, George Little, CIA spokesman, said that the agency would not comment on the case.

Andrew Ames, US justice department spokesman, said that as a matter of longstanding policy, "the department does not discuss whether it has or has not received an extradition request from a given country or our communication with any country with respect to such requests."

"Mr el-Masri has pursued litigation for civil damages here in the US, and this litigation is ongoing," Ames said.

"To date, US courts have barred his suit based on the US government's assertion of state secrecy concerns."

3DHS / Freedom Fighters

« on: September 26, 2007, 02:55:15 PM »

Burma protesters defy crackdown

BBC News

Up to 10,000 Burmese Buddhist monks and civilians have defied police tear gas and live bullets on the ninth day of protests against the military rulers.

At least one monk was killed, hospital sources in the main city of Rangoon said. The government has confirmed one death, without giving details.

Witnesses described monks with blood on their shaved heads as police charged at the Shwedagon pagoda in Rangoon.

Meanwhile, the UN said it was sending a special adviser on Burma to the region.

The BBC's James Robbins says Ibrahim Gambari's mission - if he is allowed into Burma - will be to urge the regime to stop using force and to start moving towards full democracy.

Mr Gambari will first brief the UN Security Council at an emergency meeting on Wednesday evening.

Permanent members Russia and China have argued that the situation in Burma is a purely internal matter.

The confrontation in Burma has become a battle of wills between the country's two most powerful institutions, the military and the monkhood, and the outcome is still unclear, the BBC's South East Asia correspondent, Jonathan Head, says.

Analysts fear a repeat of the violence in 1988, when troops opened fire on unarmed protesters, killing thousands.

'Entirely peaceful'

The scenes of turmoil witnessed during the day ended as a night-time curfew took hold.

A statement by Burma's military government on state radio said one person had been killed and three others injured - the first official confirmation that the violence had caused casualties.

Earlier, a hospital source in Rangoon told the BBC that the monks were beaten with rifle butts, and that taxi drivers had transported the injured to nearby medical facilities.

Unconfirmed reports spoke of several dead.

The British ambassador to Burma, Mark Canning, told the BBC that people had shown their determination to demonstrate, despite a number of them being severely beaten.

He said at one point there were almost 10,000 people outside the embassy.

"There was a nucleus of perhaps 1,000 monks with probably 8,000 or 9,000 civilians - many women, many students.

"They have marched in big columns throughout various areas of the city. They were entirely peaceful," he said.

Our correspondent says that for all their brutality, the security forces were clumsy. They failed to prevent demonstrators from making their way through the city and their attacks on the monks only enflamed public anger - none of which was reflected on state television.

A statement read out on air said the authorities were handling the situation "most softly to avoid incidents desired by destructive elements while protecting the people".

Large demonstrations also took place in the cities of Mandalay and Sitwei, but the security forces there reportedly did little to prevent them.

'Human shield'

A clampdown on the media by Burma's military government, which has banned gatherings of five people or more and imposed a night-time curfew, has made following the exact course of the protests difficult.

It is known that on Wednesday thousands of monks and opposition activists moved away from Shwedagon pagoda, heading for Sule pagoda in the city centre.

Others headed for the home of detained opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi.

Reports suggested they were prevented from reaching it but other demonstrators did gather at Sule to jeer soldiers.

Troops responded by firing tear gas and live rounds over the protesters' heads, sending people running for cover.

Monks marching to the home of Aung San Suu Kyi reportedly urged civilians not to join them and not to resort to violence.

But elsewhere witnesses said civilians were shielding the marching monks by forming a human chain around them.

One BBC News website reader said: "The junta are using dirty tactics - they don't fire guns but beat people with rifle butts. The monks defiantly did not fight back."

The protests were triggered by the government's decision to double the price of fuel last month, hitting people hard in the impoverished nation.

US President George W Bush has announced a tightening of US economic sanctions against Burma.

3DHS / New Iraq Poll Makes for Grim Reading

« on: September 18, 2007, 02:34:48 PM »

Also note the high percentage of Sunni Muslims who say attacks on coalition forces are acceptable. Interesting, no?

Iraq poll makes for grim reading
Nick Childs
BBC World Affairs Correspondent

Coming at a crucial moment, a new BBC/ABC News opinion poll suggests ordinary Iraqis have a damning verdict on the US surge.

The poll, conducted in August, also indicates that Iraqi opinion is at its gloomiest since the BBC/ABC News polls began in February 2004.

According to this latest poll, in key areas - security and the conditions for political dialogue, reconstruction and economic development - between 67 and 70% of Iraqis, or more than two-thirds, say the surge has made things worse.

All this as the political battle is about to erupt again in Washington over the future of the US mission.

The Bush administration is insisting progress is being made and that the surge needs more time.

That is likely to be the thrust of the much-anticipated Congressional testimony by the US commander in Iraq, Gen David Petraeus, and the US Ambassador to the country, Ryan Crocker.

But that, it seems, is not how most Iraqis see it.

The Bush administration is making its case against a background of widespread scepticism in the United States and internationally.

Since the last BBC/ABC News poll in February, the number of Iraqis who think that US-led coalition forces should leave immediately has risen sharply, from 35 to 47%, although that does mean that a small majority - 53% - still says the forces should stay until security has improved.

But 85% of Iraqis say they have little or no confidence in US and UK forces.

These results will make grim reading for a country that is aspiring to be a normal, functioning state.

In terms of quality of life, 80% of Iraqis say the availability of jobs is bad or very bad, 93% say the same about electricity supplies, 75% for clean water, 92% for fuel.

And 77% of Iraqis say the ability to live where they want, without persecution, is bad or very bad.

If these figures are likely to be sobering for the Bush administration, they are not very encouraging for the Iraqi government either.

Sixty-one per cent of Iraqis say they have little or no confidence in the national government, and 66% disapprove of Nouri Maliki's handling of the job of prime minister.

There are some more encouraging results.

Sixty-two per cent of Iraqis still say Iraq should have a unified central government, and 98% say it would be a bad thing for the country to separate along sectarian lines.

And, given the images of violence and chaos emerging from Iraq, the fact that 40% of the people still say things are going well or quite well in their lives could be viewed quite positively. The figure has not changed since February.

This is the fourth BBC/ABC News poll since the US-led invasion. And the polling reveals two great divides.

The first is between the relative optimism recorded in November 2005, and the gloom reflected in the two polls conducted this year.

In between, there was the deadly bombing of the Shia mosque in Samarra, which unleashed a bitter and deadly sectarianism.

In 2005, 64% of people thought their lives would get better in the coming year, and 69% thought conditions in Iraq as a whole would improve.

In February, those figures had slumped to 35% and 40%, and they have dipped further in the latest poll, to 29% and 22%.

The other great divide is that revealed between the Sunni and Shia communities.

Eighty-eight per cent of Sunnis say things are going badly in their lives.

Fifty-four per cent of Shias think they are going well.

Also, strikingly, 93% of Sunnis say attacks on coalition forces are acceptable, compared with 50% of Shia (the overall total is 57%).

Overall, the Sunni community comes over as deeply depressed about its condition, not surprisingly given that it is the one whose degree of influence has been dramatically reduced by the changes since the US-led invasion, despite the efforts of the Americans and others to engage the Sunnis.

There is a sharp difference in each community's confidence in the national government - 4% of Sunnis have a degree of positive confidence in the national government, compared with 58% of Shias.

Only 34% of Sunnis have confidence in the Iraqi army, compared with 83% of Shias. The figures for the police are 37% and 83% respectively.

Only 2% of Sunnis approve of Nouri al-Maliki's performance, compared with 54% of Shias approve. But both communities think equally overwhelmingly (by 98%) that sectarian separation is a bad thing. Iraqis are also somewhat suspicious of their neighbours.

Seventy-nine per cent of them think that Iran is actively encouraging sectarian violence in their country, 66% think the same of Syria and 65% think likewise about Saudi Arabia.

The Bush administration will no doubt be deploying many statistics and examples to argue that there have been security improvements in the last six months, as well as some glimmers of political progress, that mean the surge should be given more time.

And administration supporters may argue that there is bound to be a lag between actual events on the ground and public perceptions of them.

But in the war of nerves that continues in Iraq, perceptions and public opinion are critical elements.

The surge was meant to provide a breathing space in which political progress could make headway.

This survey suggests that the public atmosphere in which any political reconciliation must take place remains hugely challenging.

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/world/middle_east/6986993.stm

Published: 2007/09/10 11:12:01 GMT

? BBC MMVII

3DHS / Iraq From a Different View

« on: September 18, 2007, 11:42:16 AM »

Resistance in the ranks
September 14, 2007

Link

U.S. SOLDIERS have seen and experienced the brutality of the U.S. occupation in Iraq firsthand--and a growing number are becoming open and vocal opponents of the American war machine, setting an example for the antiwar movement as a whole.

After a recent meeting at the Different Drummer Caf?, a GI coffeehouse in Watertown, N.Y., near Fort Drum, three antiwar soldiers--two veterans and one active-duty--sat down for a roundtable discussion about the occupation of Iraq and the antiwar movement inside the U.S. military.

PHIL ALIFF is an active-duty member of Iraq Veterans Against the War (IVAW) who deployed to Iraq in 2005 and is now stationed at Fort Drum in upstate New York.

ELI ISRAEL told his commanders while stationed in Iraq that he would no longer participate in an illegal war and was released from the military last month after a court-martial.

CAMILO MEJ?A is the first U.S. soldier to go public with his refusal to continue fighting the U.S. war for oil and empire in Iraq. He served seven months? confinement for his act. He is the author of Road from Ar Ramadi: The Private Rebellion of Staff Sergeant Mej?a.

Phil, Eli and Camilo talked to Socialist Worker?s BRIAN LENZO and KYLE BROWN.

THE BUSH administration keeps telling us that things are getting better. While you were in Iraq, did you see progress?

Phil:We ended up in Abu Ghraib City, which is a suburb of western Baghdad, under the shadow of Abu Ghraib prison. We were told we would be there for three months, and then hand over control to the Iraqi army.

We went into the city and took it over using Gestapo methods. Attacks dropped for a period, but as we were leaving, attacks rose to such a level that even the main camp outside of our area of operations was being mortared and rocketed heavily every single day.

When we moved west toward Falluja, we saw that we were essentially chasing down the people we had driven out of Abu Ghraib, and now we were just driving them out again.

Camilo:Even as I deployed to Iraq with a political opposition to the war, I guess part of me still believed that we could still do good things through military action.

One of the most striking things that I remember about my time in Iraq was the time that we protected the al-Haditha dam. We came into contact with a lot of people who were professionals--electrical, industrial and chemical engineers.

I remember telling them that you?re going to be set now that we?re here and American corporations are going to take over, and because you guys speak English and are engineers with a lot of experience, you?re going to be making a lot of money.

And I actually believed that, but now I?m ashamed of my ignorance. When the contractors finally came in, I remember that we had geologists, engineers and physicists doing construction work for $5 a day. The jobs that really required a certain level of trust weren?t given to Iraqis but to third-country nationals.

The way that we conducted our missions, with disregard for the lives of Iraqis, going out of our way to do missions near mosques and hospitals, infuriated people. Because we weren?t protecting civilians, this was creating a bigger resistance.

When I came home and surrendered to the military and went public with my criticism, the attitude in the military was not to investigate my claims about torture or killings of civilians, but to quiet me and make me look like I was the criminal--that I had done something wrong.

The military doesn?t pay attention to the people on the ground who actually know what?s going on. And the attitude in the military makes the situation unwinnable, not only because we went there under false premises, but also because of the attitude we have--it?s not about spreading democracy but ravaging the country and taking their natural resources.

The strategy isn?t working because it?s flawed from the beginning--Iraqis know damn well why we?re there, and the delusion of sending more troops only makes the situation worse.

Eli:The Iraqis don?t want us in their country or in their neighborhoods, and we?re not respecting them as people. We?re going into neighborhoods where no one wants to kill us, and six months later, everybody does. And there are reasons for that.

It has to do with our fundamental perspective on the war, the way we maintain a stranglehold on the country, and the way we impose our ?assistance? on Iraqis against their will.

A lot of what we are doing is counterproductive and destructive to them as a society. It?s not just disrespectful. It?s destroying lives because our interests--not their interests--are our primary concern.

I don?t say that because I think it may be true, I say it because I know it to be true. I?ve seen it with my own eyes. And I have evidence, which I?m forbidden from being able to tell you, to back this up.

If we try to define ?terrorists? in the way that they want us to define terrorists, we?ll never really have any clearly defined enemy. ?Insurgents,? ?al Qaeda?--these are terms that they use freely to define anyone that they want to.

Most of the insurgents and militants are the equivalent of an armed neighborhood watch. They?re doing no different than you and I would probably be doing if tanks were rolling through our city, if people were kicking in our doors without probable cause, if our little sisters were getting killed ?by accident.?

This isn?t the war we?re being told it is. Once we realize that, it changes everything.

A lot of people say that the war in Iraq is about oil. I think that?s a side issue. I personally, through my experience, have come to the conclusion that it?s about control.

You rob somebody?s home, and you can say that you?re mainly interested in jewelry, but someone robbing a home will probably take anything of value. What we?re doing in the Middle East is about control--militarily, politically, environmentally and in every other way possible forcing our will on another people.

WHAT EFFECT do you think the surge is having?

Eli:Militarily, you can?t fight ?terrorism? by browbeating ?terrorists.? You can?t terrify terrorists into not attacking you.

And let?s throw out the word ?terrorists.? You can?t browbeat people into not attacking you. Believe it or not, most people want to live in peace. Believe it or not, most Palestinians and Israelis want to live in peace.

I?ve changed my perspective on the world in so many ways because of what?s going on in Iraq. To think that they would continue this situation forever without us doing the things we?re doing is ridiculous.

We?re creating people to attack us tomorrow. The doors that are getting kicked in, the people who are being harassed, the children who are crying, the women who are seeing their houses torn apart in front of them, the men who are being shot while defending their own families, the neighbors who are being interrogated with Tasers to turn in their neighbors--all of those people are going to hate us for what we?re doing.

When are we going to accept responsibility?

Phil:This idea that we can kill all evil until evil is dispelled--it?s not created with an understanding of the subjugation that the Iraqi people are going through right now.

They?ve put all these extra troops in Baghdad, but look at the violence that?s happened outside of Baghdad. Look at a car bomb in northern Iraq in August that killed 500 people--it?s the worst car bomb in the history of the war. And this happened during the surge.

Diyala province has lots of fighting. Ramadi is as bad as it?s ever been if not worse. You can put extra troops in Baghdad, but the problem is that Iraq as a whole has been torn open to violence.

And we?re not addressing the real reasons Baghdad is so violent--which are the sectarian divisions that the U.S. has whipped up to keep domination over the country, bringing radical Shia groups into the political process, empowering Sunnis to fight against al-Qaeda, empowering the Kurds to fight against Arabs.

Look at the city of Kirkuk in northern Iraq, where you have a very strong Kurdish movement that?s looking to take over Kurdistan. The Americans are being wedged between the Arabs and the Kurds because this is a very oil-rich part of Iraq.

The Bush administration can talk about how well the surge is working, but they really aren?t answering the real questions about why the violence is happening--why there are still sectarian killings every day, and why Americans are still dying every day at the same or worse rate as before.

Camilo:I like Eli?s analogy about going into someone?s home to impose your will on them, and they want you out. It?s not a matter of how do we get out or when do we get out, or let?s talk about a timetable.

Look at the surge within the context of that analogy. How will you solve the problem by bringing more people into a home that?s not yours, and where they want you out?

PEOPLE SAY there will be chaos if the U.S. just leaves. How do you respond to that?

Phil:I think it?s inherently racist to think that the Iraqis can?t rule their country. The fact of the matter is that before the war, Iraq had some of the best scientists and doctors in the region. In terms of people that had technical skills and knowledge, Iraq was a leading country in the Middle East.

Now, more than 2 million people have left the country, and another 2 million have been internally displaced.

Camilo:The Pentagon says that 80 percent of the attacks are targeting coalition troops or entities that work for coalition troops, such as militias under radical clerics. By withdrawing from Iraq, a lot of this violence would end.

It?s also racist to think that Iraqis are happy to be invaded and occupied, and what?s happening is all these other countries are fighting, but Iraqis are sitting on their butts and waiting for others to fight for their sovereignty.

By and large, what?s happening is a popular uprising in response to an occupation, so the first step that we need to take is to remove all troops from Iraq.

Eli:The Johns Hopkins report says we?ve killed somewhere between 600,000 and 800,000 Iraqi civilians since we?ve been there. That?s more than wee lost in our own Civil War.

Proportionally, that?s equivalent to wiping out the entire Eastern seaboard of the United States. How in the world can we look at this and say we know what?s best for you, you don?t, and we?re going to help you figure it out? It?s obnoxious and absurd.

WHY DID you choose to resist?

Camilo:I got tired of being afraid. I realized that with everything that happened in Iraq--and a lot of messed-up shit happened, from the torture of prisoners to the killing of civilians to the unnecessary exposure of our own troops--and the inability to stand for what I believed was the right thing to do, and being there with the political conviction that the war was wrong, freedom really has nothing to do with not being in shackles or chains but with your own ability to do what you believe in your heart to be the right thing to do.

I had to overcome my fear. I knew all along what the right thing was but I hadn?t had the freedom to act upon that belief.

It got to the point where I could no longer conciliate my conscience with my military duty, and I decided that whenever being a good soldier and being a good human being came into conflict, the right thing to do was be a good human being.

Eli:Primarily, I learned to have a respect for the Iraqi people. I went over there completely convinced of that we were being told about who the Iraqis are, where they?ve come from, what they believe and what they believe about me.

I?m Jewish, and from a Jewish perspective, to go into a Muslim country was a hurdle I had to overcome. I thought that they all hated me because I was Jewish, and a lot of them thought I hated all of them because I was Jewish. But that?s simply not the way it is.

I learned that many Iraqis were very intelligent, kind people, who didn?t need to be ruled and told how to live their lives because they were perfectly capable of living their own lives in a way that made them happy.

HOW HAVE other soldiers in the military reacted to you resisting?

Eli:Most people agree. I?m still looking for the droves of supporters for this conflict--they?re just not out there. The closest thing I?ve run into as far as actual support for the occupation has been sincere, good-hearted people who really think that we just need to trust our leadership to be telling us the truth.

That?s sincere-hearted naivet?. And I know enough and I?ve seen enough to know it?s not just na?ve--it?s stupid, and it?s dangerous, and people are dying because of it. But our losses are nothing compared to the losses of the people whose country we?re occupying.

Camilo:It?s worth remembering that I resisted in 2003 and went public in 2004, and the war and the president still had a lot of approval. But even then, I still received a lot of support from members of the military. I did get called a ?coward? and ?traitor? a couple of times, but mostly by people who had not been to Iraq.

I talked about the politics, the illegality and the immorality of the war, but I also touched on the issues that dealt with the hypocrisy of ?support the troops? while active-duty soldiers here still have equipment from the 1980s.

So I spoke against the war on many different levels, and I think people coming from different perspectives were able to see eye-to-eye with me on a lot of those issues.

Eli:The closest thing I?ve encountered to any significant level of disagreement from military personnel would be what I considered to be resentment, because most people agree--if you get them off the topic that I signed a contract and all this other stuff they?ve been brainwashed into thinking.

If you get them to the point where they actually discuss with you what they think is right, they agree. The vast majority of those who have taken part in this occupation agree that we don?t need to be there. And it?s not just that we don?t need to be there, it?s that we need to not be there.

How do they deal with us? That?s where a lot of the anger and hostility directed toward me came from among those in my chain of command. It was a recognition that both sides of this issue are not going to be able to come out of it looking good.

So what side do you fall on? Do you fall on the side of those who are taking a stand against it or those who are continuing to justify it to themselves because it?s the only way they sleep at night?

That?s what I was stuck doing for a period of months in Iraq. I got to the point of questioning what was going on and having serious doubts that what I was doing was moral, and then having to justify to myself every day that maybe it?s for the greater good or because I signed a contract. Those justifications last for a while, but they eat you up inside.

The lashing out is toward those who have the conviction and the guts to say I think it?s wrong, and I?m not going to have anything to do with it. This isn?t about a contract. This is about life and death, this is about truth, and it?s not based on a piece of paper or other symbolisms we?re supposed to honor--honor, courage, commitment, duty, loyalty. Those are human, moral qualities.

The oath to military service that we took was an oath of moral conviction. It was not an oath to freedom from it.

PHIL, YOU have a unique situation working with the IVAW chapter in Watertown and the Different Drummer Caf?. How do soldiers respond when they come here?

Phil:It?s interesting. When we have events here, you can see a transformation. I hate to generalize, but it?s true that a lot of soldiers come in, and they?re hesitant. They don?t agree with the war, but they wonder if we?re on the fringe. They don?t know what to expect.

But when they hear what we have to say, when they hear us talk about our experiences, it?s such a universal idea that anyone in the military can wrap their head around it--if they can get past that wall that?s been built up, which Eli was talking about.

You see the transformation once they?re leaving. They?re ready to take that step forward--to speak and say the things they have to say against the war and against the injustices of the occupation, against veterans coming home and not being taken care of.

Eli:I don?t know how many people in the military know that the information that gets to them is being filtered.

If you go on a computer at the Moral Welfare Recreation center in Iraq or Kuwait, and I assume anywhere in the Middle East, and you type in a Google search or try to access directly sites such as ivaw.org or couragetoresist.org--organizations of veterans who oppose the conflict in Iraq--it?s blocked. And it says that the reason it?s blocked is that it?s an advocacy organization.

The government itself is filtering out these organizations intentionally. They don?t trust you to make your own decision--they don?t want you to know. If you do have questions, they want to think that you?re alone.

This isn?t accidental. It?s an intentional information war on the American soldier and on the American people.

WHAT STRATEGIES do you think are important in getting people in the military who are asking questions to take the next step towards resisting?

Phil:Going into the fall, the IVAW is trying to reach out to soldiers and potential military recruits in many ways. Some of it is through direct action and demonstrations, and some of it is through chapter building and building on military bases. As we did at Fort Drum, we?re trying to create dedicated and politically educated organizers who are able to take those tools and reach out and find other soldiers.

And next spring, we?re trying to recreate the Winter Soldier testimony organized during the Vietnam War. We?re going to have soldiers come together--both active-duty and veterans--and testify about the war crimes that they?ve seen.

We want to give active-duty soldiers a voice and let them tell their stories about what?s happening in Iraq, and show the world what?s going on. And we want to work with other organizations on counter-recruiting, fall demonstrations and other efforts to build the antiwar movement and bring the IVAW more credibility in organizing GI resistance.

THE MAJORITY of this country opposes this war. What can civilians do to support soldiers who choose to resist?

Eli:We need to remind them that it?s okay to use their conscience. It?s okay to still weigh in their own mind and heart what?s right and wrong. Because we?re at a time in our country where we?re being told that we don?t have the right to do that. Our military specifically is being told that it?s your duty not to do those things, and that?s a lie.

We need to remember that we founded this country based on individuals using moral conviction and moral courage to stand up for what they thought what was right, and that?s what we need to get back to.

This is going to tear our country apart if we let it, and it?s going to tear apart our military--it is tearing apart our military. I don?t even think those doing it think they can last forever. I don?t know what they?re thinking, but they?re cashing in on it as long as they can.

But this PTSD stuff is not a result of simple trauma that happens in war. It?s a result of not being able to reconcile what?s going on in their hearts with what?s going on in their minds.

Camilo:I think that education and information are key. Knowledge has to be shared.

For instance, people don?t just go to ivaw.org and learn that the IVAW is going to launch a counter-recruiting campaign or that we?re doing this Winter Soldier thing. We have to go out there and share the information with people. We have to let people know ways that they can help.

We need to send people to attend court-martials of resisters, and we need to raise defense funds for veterans like Adam Kokesh, whose right to free speech is under attack from the military.

The corporate media isn?t going to spread this information, so we have to spread it ourselves.

When Eli resisted in Iraq, I got an e-mail about it from Kelly Dougherty at IVAW. After Kelly sent that e-mail, I got that exact same e-mail from about 20 organizations. Eli Israel was everywhere. That same day, I went to a conference in Portland, Ore., where I spoke about Eli, and one of the keynote speakers that night was Sen. Mike Gravel.

We had dinner with him, and I told him about the IVAW, and he said that if there?s any way that I can help, I?d love to do that. I said there?s this guy named Eli Israel, and he said we?ve already got attorneys ready to defend him.

This happened because Eli wrote a message on MySpace to a friend, and that technology was used to spread what was happening in Iraq within hours to people everywhere.

Phil:People should support the IVAW and other organizations supporting GI resistance, either monetarily or however you can.

One of the best ways to support GI resistance is to create a mass movement outside of the military--having workers strike, having students shut down their campuses. If you look at the bombing of Cambodia in the early 1970s, 4 million students shut down their campuses. That?s incredibly signficiant.

People in the military see that. When they go home for leave and when they leave their bases, they see people out on the street, and they see the mass sentiment.

That?s going to affect them. That?s going to give them the courage to resist, and the knowledge and the tools to know exactly what they are getting themselves into when they deploy to Iraq.

So we need to make sure that outside of supporting GI resistance, we?re building a grassroots movement--a broad movement of antiwar activists that?s able to tie all these things together into one cohesive message: Bring the troops home now, end the occupation.