Deans nails this one:
The Homeland Security alert level has been raised to ‘High’. I wasn’t going to mention it here, because I assumed most people had heard it. But I’ve gone to many different web sites today from people who are making snarky comments about it, and it’s starting to get on my nerves. They’re saying things to imply that the information is worthless, is stupid, doesn’t do them any good or even, in a few cases, implying that it’s just an attempt to frighten us.
I’m sorry, some of you are my friends, but a lot of you folks need to grow up.
Our government is not all-knowing, and it is not all powerful. It is made up of men and women who are doing their best with limited information. They have more information than us, by necessity. But if you know anything about how these people do their jobs, you’ll know they have to go through far more information than is humanly possible. Many of them give their whole lives over to studying information like this, and still cannot look through even 1% of all the information that is available.
These “threat levels” are guidelines, meant primarily for government agencies. But they let the public know too, in order to keep us in the loop.
If you don’t like that, then I ask you to imagine the alternative: that the government keeps an alert system in place to let state, local, and federal agencies know how generally worried they are about security at the moment, but they don’t tell the public about it. How would you like that? Would that make you feel better?
Andrew J. Lazarus
I thought you mean **HOWARD DEAN**. I mean, remember all the crap he took for saying that while the Saddam capture was great for the US military, the people of Iraq, and the Administration IT DIDN’T MAKE AMERICANS ANY SAFER. Wow! Kerry and Lieberman slammed him, even Michael Kinsley in Slate.
And now we see Tom Ridge AGREES: we seem to be LESS safe than even last week!
Dean Esmay
Wow. I gotta admit, that’s pretty ballzy. We get word of a new threat, and this proves Howard Dean was right all along.
That’s an astonishing bit of logic, there. The mind simply boggles.
Dean
That’s because:
If it’s wrong to NOT act on intel (which is often inaccurate)—as it was on 9-11
And if it’s wrong to ACT on intel (which is often inaccurate)—as it was in Iraq
And if it’s wrong to scare people w/ security levels because nothing seems to happen—as it is now and was last year (was that for the election?)
One might conclude either that we should have should have an intel system that only gets it right.
[Which would be lovely, but impossible. The very nature of intel and what it is and what it does suggests that you’ll be wrong, by commission or omission, much of the time, that many of your greatest victories will never be known, and that, like deterrence, it will be the bomb that doesn’t go off or the war that doesn’t happen that will be the best sign of you doing your job, but even then, you’ll still get caught by surprise]
OR
Ay, there’s the rub. Perhaps no intel at all, since whatever you do w/ it, you’ll be wrong much of the time?
Since the latter is impossible, one is
Emperor Misha I
Well, Dean, I can only speak for myself, but my mention of the change in terror alert level was filed under “humor”.
I fully realize the conundrum that our intel community is facing. Do they keep quiet and then, if something DOES happen, try to explain why they didn’t mention anything or do they keep up issuing those uselessly vague warnings until nobody listens anymore? Either way sucks.
Slartibartfast
Still waiting for the inevitable post making fun of the threat-color scheme. Maybe they’re out of ammo on that one.
Moe Lane
“Maybe they’re out of ammo on that one.”
And that’s stopped people… when?
:)
Jay
And Dean’s comment is STILL dumb, because while it may not make us safer a week later from other terrorists, nobody can deny that with Saddam out of power and captured that we *ARE* going to be safer in the future.
To say that we’re no safer is just idiotic, and it shows how unfit Howard Dean is for the Presidency. Christ, even Dean said Saddam was a threat just last year. So how is it he can reconcile Saddam being a threat in September of 2002, and us not being any safer this year even though Saddam is out of power and we captured him?
If he was a threat to the United States, then his capture makes us safer. It’s as simple as that and I hope they keep hammering Dean on that one.
Andrew J. Lazarus
That’s a logical blunder that overlooks the possibility (which I think you will concede in THEORY if not in FACT) that the means of eliminating the Saddam threat created even greater compensating threats.
john young
Confusion of the Deans. Me too; I thought it was Howard saying lay off the criticism of threat level announcements, and I was so pleased to hear him say such a thing.
But now that I find it’s not my Howard, I want to disagree. ;}
The color coded alert scheme seems specifically designed for the public, which can hardly do anything useful with the information. The selection of color codes rather than bureaucratese suggests to me that the prime motivation is to keep regular folks stunned in the headlights. Thus, the evidence suggests you’re incorrect about the info being primarily for gov’t agencies. It sure looks like an appeal for media and public attention. And Dean, if you abuse discredited intel (Iraq) either to get yourself re-elected or for some weird macho family psychology thing, you don’t get a pass on using inaccurate intel.
It looks like catching SHussein may disrupt part of the insurgency, so short-term, for U.S. troops already in Iraq, Howard Dean may be wrong. If I could try to channel Howard and expand on him a little, Iraq wasn’t threatening the U.S. Therefore, whether we non-troops are safer depends on which set of secondary effects is stronger: are unfriendlies that self-identify with Arab nationalism, or Islamicists in general, more cowed or more frustrated by the U.S. invasion? Do bigger players like Russia, China, Iran think they’ve got more to gain by talk or confrontation? Have international structures been bent and is that a bad thing? Seems pretty speculative to me, frankly. But, aside from Kerry, I suppose a candidate’s gotta have an opinion. Eh? As far as medium-term safety of the troops, do people like the Shiites push harder to oust the U.S., now that SHussein’s detained, or are they mollified. Beats me.
Dean (not Esmay)
Andrew,
I’ll concede that alongside the THEORY, not the FACT, that the world might end in the next minute from an unseen asteroid.
Yes, there is always the prospect that any action taken may make things worse.
There is always the prospect that there are WORSE members of al-Qaeda, frex, than Osama bin Laden; that there are North Korean leaders WORSE than Kim Jong-il. Removing them doesn’t make me feel LESS safe, even if the possibility exists that there may be worse consequences.
Because until the “may” is borne out, we’ve definitely removed one threat.
Similarly, removing ol’ Adolf may have merely opened the door to the Soviets into Central Europe. Doesn’t mean that we weren’t better off for eliminating the immediate threat of ol’ Adolf, whatever Uncle Joe’s proclivities and tendencies.
Kimmitt
“Yes, there is always the prospect that any action taken may make things worse.”
Well, yes. That’s why you try to sit down and figure out some of the likely ramifications beforehand so as to try to do a cost-benefit analysis.
Andrew Lazarus
I think I know how to short-circuit this thread.
How many of the pro-war commenters will give me their word of honor that if the Department of Homeland Security had LOWERED the threat level this week, they would have said it had nothing to do with the capture of Saddam?
Dean
I would.
charles austin
No, actually the Deany babies want the government to be so all-knowing and all-controlling that they would be aware of all threats, complaints about John Ashcroft notwithstanding.
Andrew Lazarus
Dean: Thanks.
Rosemary Esmay
Andrew:
I would.
HH
New meme from the Dem Underground kiddies, et al.: the earthquake was to punish Arnold…
Brian Grayson
This has nothing to do with what Dean said. This warning is the product of 2+ years of Democrat whining. They have been trying the “Bush Knew” lie, and if DHS did not issue this, and something happened, the Dems would cry “they knew and never told us.” It is a damned if you do and damned if you don’t situation that caused this from “our friends” the Democrats. This is the same hypocrisy by the same people that say Bush did nothing to stop 9-11-01 and cry for Bush holding Jose Padilla.
Dean was right? Please
Dean (not Esmay)
But, Andrew, here’s the rub:
To argue that nailing Saddam doesn’t affect our safety, much less to argue that, somehow, his arrest and the level of threat posted by DHS are somehow related, is to my mind a crock.
It ranks down there w/ whether the economy is up or down is the fault of the President.
Dubya was neither responsible for the recession earlier in his term, nor for it’s coming out now. Clinton was not responsible, for that matter, for the economy tanking towards the end of his term (which cont’d into the transition period).
I’ve said this before and I’ll say again—Presidents’ main influence on the economy is who they appoint to be head of the Fed.
And, along those lines, whether the DHS goes up or not is NOT a matter of whether Saddam was captured, but what ELSE is going on with “the Armies of the Night.”
Shoot, Andrew, if Osama were captured, and the alert level went up (or down), does that mean that it’s proof that capturing Osama hasn’t REALLY made us any more secure? I can think of a goodly number of reasons why it might go up (or down) if that were the case—but capturing him would still be a good thing and would STILL, in the long-run, make us more secure.
Lawrence Haws
More on the Dean confusion…
If I hadn’t clicked on the link, as I don’t always do — too many blogs, too little time — I would have gone away with the (wrong) impression that Howard Dean actually said something sensible.
JKC
Part of the problem, I think, is that the government “went Orange” on us a few too many times earlier this year. Now DHS is in the unfortunate position of being seen as the boy who cried Wolf! (or Terrorists) one too many times…
Geoffrey
JKC,
Honestly, that’s just a dumb statement. Either that or I completely misunderstood it. The government analyzes the data, and issues a threat level. Because a disaster doesn’t occur in no way implies the danger wasn’t real. Just because they issue a traffic advisory and I don’t get in an accident doesn’t mean the danger of one wasn’t greater. It means either I did a great job avoiding a wreck, or I got extremely lucky.
Emperor Misha I
Geoffrey: While you certainly have a point, it doesn’t make JKC’s statement “dumb” in any way.
Whether the threat is credible or not, the fact remains: The more we’re exposed to these non-specific, utterly useless (to the general public) threat level elevations, the more likely we are to eventually become “numb”.
That’s not “a dumb statement”, that’s just a simple fact.
JKC
I don’t doubt that the previous Orange alert were based on the best intel available. But, as Misha points out, human nature is such that people will tune them out if nothing further happens.
There has to be a better way to keep the public (and, more importantly, police and emergency response officials) informed of possible threats without inducing panic. Or, worse yet, boredom.
Mito
There are lot of alerts and nothing has happened so far. This doesn’t necessarily reflect very well on the Bush administration. The complaint seems to be that these alerts are sometimes politically inspired to scare people, and keep them grateful somehow Bush is there looking after them.
However if there is an alert and nothing happens questions must be asked. if they heard chatter about an attack and they didn’t catch anyone, in what way are they saying their policies are effective?
No one has been caught in relation to an attack, which implies the system was incompetent to catch the would be terrorists we appear to know were getting ready to strike. This is hardly something to be proud of.
So either they were deterred by precautions taken, the chatter was to rattle people, or the alerts are partly a scam to make the government look good.
In all cases Bushes hardly looks good in this. Either he in ineffective to discerning true threats or making them up. Only if they were ready to strike and somehow got scared by something in the attempt and aborted is there any sign of real protection here.
If they want people to think they are doing a good job then they should release details of who was caught in each alert.
Steve Malynn
Mito, there are two audiences for the Alerts: first the police/emergency response, second the public.
When the Admin issues alerts, it does not stop hunting down the terrorists. A third scenario you ignore is that there may be operational reasons not to divulge certain captures of terrorists, their materials, or other interventions, in order not to harm ongoing ops or operatives.
A fourth issue you gloss over is the fact that the public has the right to protect itself, and can not rely on police to be present at all times. The DC snipers were caught because a truck driver was finally given correct information. In Ohio we have an ongoing sniper situation along the freeways around Columbus. Ohio set up a hotline for drivers to immediately send tips/suspicious activities, while most do not pan out, or the calls or information referred are generating a lot of leads. Give the public some credit, maybe we won’t panic all the time.
The general nature of national alerts is a weakness inherent in the size of the country. The system needs to be made better, but it is not mere show politics.
Dean
Mito:
You might want to read about the “War of Attrition” between Israel and Egypt in the period 1970-1973.
The Egyptians regularly sent their forces to the Suez Canal, and forced the Israelis to respond (at great cost and expense).
But the Egyptians never attacked across the Canal, until 1973.
Now, is this b/c the Israelis deterred attacks, or was it the Egyptians never planned to attack, or was it an effort to keep Golda Meir in power, these alerts?
I’m sure her opponents believed the last, but since the Egyptians eventually DID attack, it would seem more likely that either they were deterred, or trying to rattle/lull the Israelis.
As Steve Malynn notes, it is not exactly a cut-and-dry, either-or set of answers. Indeed, it’s interesting to note that, 30 years later, we still DON’T know a great deal about the Egyptian thinking in the War of Attrition and what was driving them.
Andrew J. Lazarus
I’m not. I’ve never heard anything of the sort. The drop in Golda’s reputation has to do with (1) failing to seize opportunities to treat with Sadat after he came to power in 1970, with LBJ as intermediary; (2) responsibility for the armed forces’ lack of preparation for the 1973 war; (3) underwhelming internal economic policy.
I think it would be fair to say her star has dimmed across most of the Israeli political spectrum.
Steve
We have too many Deans. We have Dean the Commenter, Dean Esmay and Gov. Dr. Dean.
Dean Esmay is right on this one.
Dean the Commenter is right on this one.
Gov. Dr. Dean is a boob.
Adam Khan
“We Are Winning The War on Terror”
http://www.khanreport.com/content/122203.html
Dean
Andrew:
First, how do you get those shade boxes around quotes?
Second, the greater point which I was trying to address is that the promulgation of alerts need not be driven by either incompetence nor ulterior motives. Both of those elements assume that whether alerts are called (and whether anything happens) is entirely a function of what WE do.
But there is the other player, be they Egyptians or terrorists. The point was that while it’s easy to argue that “you should have known” or “what did you achieve”, the reality is that intelligence just doesn’t work that way. The very act of responding affects the other side—it’s an interactive situation.
By calling an alert, perhaps the other side stands down, perhaps they defer an action. You may never know.
A Alexander Stella
After pulling up the Google search engine, I used “anti-Bush” as a search word. After clicking on the very first reference, I then clicked on the “Weblogs” hyperlink. Incidentally, nearly 400 are listed. But let’s not stop there. Underneath that list is a hyperlink to a site that does list those most important 100 weblogs, yours among them. After visiting your weblog, I got the impression you’d like reading the text between the starred blocks.
* * * *
So, the right wing has succeeded in strong-arming the CBS television network into dumping the proposed REAGANS mini-series onto some subscriber channel. What an impressive display of sheer political might. Here’s the kicker.
It was also a startling display of sheer political jealousy. A Sunday or so ago, the History Channel did a retrospective on President John Fitzgerald Kennedy, some forty (40) years after his assassination. Because I won’t be around to collect the bet, I must forgo offering this wager.
Oh, how I would love to bet five doughnuts to anybody’s three! Some sixty (60) years from now, a hundred years after JFK’s assassination, some mass media outlet will do a retrospective on the man and “Camelot”. And the institutions dedicated to his memory will be flourishing. By then, former President Ronald (a/k/a “The Great Communicator”) Reagan will have been relegated to history’s curio shoppe. Chances are, the curators of the Reagan Library will have to made ends meet by adding on a bed-and-breakfast section … maybe, a massage parlour, even.
Aaay, let’s face it. Compared against the swan that was Jackie-O, Nancy comes across like a guano-spattered shrike. That alone is enough to drive the right-wing up the wall. * * * *
Well, if you’ve come this far, you must’ve enjoyed the text between the starred blocks. Just so happens, it’s an excerpt from an article that was recently published on the Internet. Just in case, you’d be interested in reading the whole article, I’ve enclosed a hyperlink in this courriel.
Before clicking on it, though, you might like to know the hyperlink connects to an index of sorts that lists recently published articles. Furthermore, the excerpt is found in the “Yoko” piece.
Maybe, more to your interests, you might like to peruse the “Palestine” piece, for which I’ve gotten a few compliments. I’ve been told it explains, in large part, the peculiar behavior of the United States with regard to the Middle East, since the end of World War II.
And now, here’s the promised HYPERLINK.
The administrators of some websites I had visited have asked me for credentials. A reasonable enough request, I suppose. To honor such requests, I’ve replied with the following directions.
One need only pull up the Google search engine, and then insert with quotes and all this phrase “A. Alexander Stella” in the search field. After clicking on the Google Search button, your monitor screen will be filled references attached to my name.
warm regards
\
Bogey
p.s – I almost forgot to include this bit of information. The administrator for the http://www.theworriedshrimp.com website took me up on my offer to display my copyrighted and historically corrected version of the Confederate Battle Banner. So, here’s another link for your edification: http://www.theworriedshrimp.com/ToonReviews.html
When I was in the service, my ship’s captain was obsessed with “belt and suspenders”. Maybe, he had a point. And so, here’s the U.R.L undergirding the above hyperlink:
http://www.bcvoice.com/modules.php?name=News&new_topic=2
Andrew Lazarus
Dean: just use the <blockquote> tag. (Wish italics worked, and bold is invisible with most of my fonts.)
The large number of alerts is not one of the fairly large number of complaints I have against the Administration, although as of now, they’re of use mostly to law enforcement personnel. Isn’t it literally true that the Administration encourages people to keep shopping (need that economy) until Red Alert, and then to do it online?
In this case, to return to my first comment, I am almost grateful as the alert proved my point: homeland security and the capture of Saddam are uncorrelated.
Steve
Not necessarily true. The problem here is that there are multiple processes at work here. The fact that there is an increase in the security alert level does not mean that there are no security benefits to the downfall/capture of Saddam.
Think of it this way, suppose you have a process
X = Y + Z
and that Y and Z are random variables. X is a random variable and what is the covariance for X and Y?
Cov(X,Y) = Var(Y) + Cov(Y,Z)
For there to be no correlation (i.e., a correlation coefficient of zero) then Var(Y) = -Cov(Y,Z). This is possible, but generally unlikely.
Think of X as the security of the U.S., Y as Iraq with Saddam in charge, and Z as al Qa’ida. Granted it is a little simplistic, but to conclude there is no correlation based on a single event is sloppy reasoning for a variety of reason.
Rob the Right Wing Exteremist
Or more simply put: Just because there are speedtraps on freeway, it doesn’t mean more people are speeding.