Muse – Randomness for 01-10-2004

Department of Homeland Security and War on Terror

Reading one of Zomby’s latest has given a sharper focus to varied worries I’ve had for a few years. The gist is that there really is not means by which we have to measure the effectiveness of the DHS. None at all.

Anytime someone tries to point at the effectiveness of the department, they invariably point at something like the lack of terror attack, the purported number of killed terrorists or some other ‘achievement’. The problem is.. those aren’t clear effects due to the DHS.

One that irks me is every time an official claims “we’ve captured or killed 2/3 of alQueda’s known leaders” I get the irrational urge to jump kick him in the head. Why? Because that number, so many years later, means nothing. Lets assume for a moment that this number is entirely true. By now those leaders have been replaced. Therefore the damage is not a static thing. As well, now that known leaders are dealt with, they’ll be replaces with relative unknowns who may not be so easy to take down. Thus the effectiveness of this is invalidated by time.

That is, assuming that the figure is right. Considering how little we know about alQueda’s inner workings, I doubt we know that much about their leadership.

Then comes an example brought up in Zomby’s entry, which involves trying to measure the ‘chatter’, loosely defined as what communications between terrorists are heard. Measuring a decrease in that and calling it evidence of progress is as much bullshit as trying to measure a static body count as serious progress.

There are a number of reasons why chatter might decline. Often, before an operation, team members will enact radio silence. So the most pessimistic prediction might be that an attack is relatively imminent. Or perhaps the terrorists are finding new ways to communicate that we don’t have much access to. In which case it would be a serious failure that our feed into their communications is weakening.

Lastly is the assertion that there hasn’t been another terror attack. Mind you, this isn’t saying there have been any serious attempts. As far as I’ve heard, real attempts at serious terror actions haven’t been happening either. Considering it can take alQueda years to work up a big action, we’re still not out of the woods as far as a test of our current security. We’ve still got a few years, assuming alQueda is currently training and positioning for an attempt.

But I would opine that they aren’t as hurried to attack the US directly. Why should they be when our soldiers are in Iraq, a much easier target in a battle that has immediate political significance. Not to mention the varied attacks that have gone on in Europe and other countries. I would put forth that alQueda can afford to leave the US mainland alone and focus it’s resources on trying to ruin the effort in Iraq.

This makes sense as Iraq is a more immediate concern. And while the struggle is focused elsewhere, the US people can become complacent again, feeling that the hurried actions to breed better security at home have worked with the non-evidence of a lack of terror attacks. So after the Iraq conflict is done, for good or ill, it will be a better climate in which to enact a direct attack on American soil.

Things worth thinking about when you hear a government official claiming success where there is no real means by which success can be measured.

Of course, if someone has some clear, quantifiable evidence that the DHS is working to a measurable effect, then do send it my way. Until then, I won’t be lauding them for seemingly nonsensical accomplishments that bear no clear indication of what they’re passed off as.

Pharmacists Choice

A story we hear often is of Pharmacists who decide they don’t’ want to fill birth control prescriptions. A choice quote from the entry is from Pharmacists for Life International President Karen Brauer, RPh, ” Our job is to enhance life .. We shouldn’t have to dispense a medication that we think takes lives.”

I say wrong, chica. Your job is to dispense the medicine that doctors proscribe to patients. Not everyone uses The Pill for birth control. Pharmacists aren’t doctors, therefore they shouldn’t be deciding what they will and won’t dispense. If they want to decide that, they can go to school and become doctors. Claiming a right to deny medication is pure bullshit, to be perfectly blunt.

I disagree with the article quoted, that this argument has anything to do with the abortion debate at all. It’s a matter of pharmacists making decisions that aren’t theirs to make. If they want to exercise their beliefs, they need to do it in a field where their uninformed decisions based upon personal conviction don’t involve the health of people who come to them for nothing more than the filling of their prescriptions.