Associated Press Smearing the Military

Willful Sloppiness: Is That Anything Like Reckless Disregard?

AP Story Lead: “Military veterans in prison are more than twice as likely to have been convicted for sex offenses as nonveteran inmates, federal researchers say. They cannot say why.”

I found this AP article via James Taranto at “Best of the Web Today”. He is all over the study’s so-called ‘findings’ already (eighth item) and it is worth the trip just to read his debunking.

I think he was actually being kind, because he probably could have gone further in his critique. I base this observation on what the reader will find buried towards the end of the original article:

The study found that veterans in prison were older, more educated, more likely to have been married and more likely than nonveterans to be incarcerated for violent crimes or offenses against women or children.

Many of those findings can be explained simply by age demographics, Colby College sociologist Alec Campbell said.

Crime tends to decrease with age so older inmates are more likely serving lengthy sentences. Veterans as a group are older than the general population, so Campbell said it is not surprising to see a higher percentage of veterans imprisoned for violent crimes, which carry longer prison sentences.

Ahem…..
How many of these incarcerated ‘older’ veterans became veterans courtesy of their local draft board?

It seems to me that if one tries to establish differences between the character of veteran and non-veteran populations, one should also establish whether or not there are differences between those who are in one population by choice and those who are compelled to be in the same population only through the force of law.

A quote from Taranto helps to perform a further analysis:

What's more, it's very easy to make the sex-crime disparity vanish.

The sex-crime incarceration rate for veterans is 23% of 630 per 100,000, or 145 per 100,000. The sex-crime incarceration rate for nonveterans is 9% of 1,390 per 100,000, or 125 per 100,000. The veteran rate is only 16% higher than the nonveteran rate.

Thus, if just 20 of those 145 per 100,000 veterans (under 14% of the incarcerated Vets) were draftees, ALL differences between the two groups would disappear.

From what we see in the article, and without further detailed analysis of the prison population, the Vet/NonVet categorization and ‘disparity’ is no more relevant than categorization by eye color.

However, I suspect a more detailed analysis would reveal a story that might never get reported in today’s environment – that those who have served in today’s modern all-volunteer force trend towards much lower percentages for all types of offenders in the prison population – ESPECIALLY if you filter for fraudulent enlistments by bad actors who get past the system (hopefully not as bad a problem today as in my day).

Sloppy by Design

Taranto closes his piece with:

Probably the AP was just being sloppy, but the result was to smear Americans who have served their country in uniform.

As it appears to me, that much sloppiness in one place can only occur as part of a willful act.
The AP didn’t even care to think about the meaningfulness (or meaninglessness) of the data – It was:

1. a headline they wanted,
2. on a subject they wanted to publish, and
3. wanted to publish from a certain angle.

The proof is in how the title: "Study: Imprisoned Military Vets More Likely to Have Sex Crime Convictions Than Others" contrasts with the complete and total of quotes from an author of the study in the article:

"We couldn't come to any definite conclusion as to why,"

"I don't want people to come away from this thinking veterans are crazed sex offenders.

"I want them to understand that veterans are less likely to be in prison in the first place."

IMHO the AP owes veterans yet another apology

Q: Why Stealth? A: IADS & SAM Traps

Exhibit A

Defense Tech has a great new post up with a video clip showing a SAM Trap back during the Desert Storm days.

Life is far more pleasant when it is hard for your enemy to find you and see you.

JASSM: Son of TSSAM

Dang it! TSSAM is still getting me in hot water.

I'm going to catch heck from my fellow TSSAM Alums for mistyping TSSAM as TASSM over at Defense Tech . My bad, but I claim extenuating circumstances of fatigue and phonetics: We used to pronounce the acronym as either "T-Sam" or "TAZ'em".

By way of amends, and as a partial explanation, here's some rarely seen (but not rarest) TSSAM patches, and I throw myself at the mercy of the TSSAMers.

(Note to the general public: Trust me, that is all one can do. Flight/Weapons Testers eat their young.)

Kettering & Logic vs. Goldberg & Kitsch

"Breath of the Beast" has a great post up - a little bit of history with a lot of common sense.

We Win They Lose

What a great concept!

Now, where else did I see this strategy recently? Hmmmm....Oh Yeah - Here

Godspeed, Robert Rosenthal

"Robert Rosenthal, a World War II bomber pilot who twice survived being shot down in raids over Europe and later served on the U.S. legal team that prosecuted Nazi war criminals at Nuremberg, has died at age 89."

Deep in the Obituary:

"A human being has to look out for other human beings or there's no civilization..."

Rest in Peace Sir. A lot of people still feel that way.

"Turks Protest Islamic-Rooted Government"

Things are looking up in Turkey, and the press seems to be starting to get the story straight for a change:

"We don't want a covered woman in Ataturk's presidential palace," said Ayse Bari, a 67-year-old housewife. "We want civilized, modern people there."

A few good pics at the link, and the reason I wrote 'seems' above, is that in the handful of pictures at the link, someone saw fit to include a couple of pics protesting the US in Iraq from an earlier protest. This reflects either some sort of attempt at 'balance' or more likely very poor keyword discipline combined with an automated gallery building routine. I lean toward believing it is the latter, since that would imply incompetence vs. evil.

Air Force Readiness? (AF Reshaping BS Point of Interest)

I REALLY AM still trying to close out the AF Reshaping BS series -- Honest!

The hard part is getting the answer nobody wants to hear into a form that somebody will at least attempt to read. IN the meantime, I just found a piece about how AF readiness is down at www.noangst.blogspot.com (could not get link to work for some reason, but the link is still the title of this post if you want to try it).
I intend to start visiting there regularly myself.

Enjoy.

BTW: Here's a hint on where I'm going with this series. I had a discussion with an awfully darned smart O-6 yesterday, and we agreed:

The problem is rooted in trying to do a Superpower's job on less than a Superpower Sidekick budget.

3.9% (or less) of GDP (Source: slide 25) for defense and that's WITH a war on? Gimme a break!

Very Large Secularist Protests in Turkey

200,000 people. The numbers are way up from last month’s event and it was a very cold day.

Encouraging! Maybe there ARE more Ataturks out there.

Of course, the BBC reported last month’s 80,000 strong protest as being one ‘against government reform’ and buried the lede in the closing paragraphs:

“The current government is led by a party with its roots in Islamic politics while the civil service is one of the guardians of Turkey's secular status.

Critics of the decentralisation plan believe that allowing local government greater flexibility over the hiring and firing of civil servants could open the civil service to religious influence.”

(I think there may be a special section in Hell for BBC apparatchiks.)

SMSgt Mac to Turkish General: Take a Deep Breath

Seal Your Borders as Best you Can...Stay Where You Are...And Shut Up!
Globalsecurity.org relays a Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty article reporting that Turkey’s “top General’ is calling for a cross-border operation against the Kurds. The article notes:

“Turkey has repeatedly urged the Iraqi government and U.S. forces in Iraq to crack down on thousands of rebels from the outlawed separatist Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), who use northern Iraq to launch attacks inside Turkey”

As ye sow, so shall ye reap...
If Turkey couldn’t find its way to let the 4th ID open up a Northern Front in the last march on Baghdad, thus causing us innumerable (and thank goodness not insurmountable) difficulties, What makes the good general think anyone should care about how the outcome of this war is now causing them problems?

I should note I have a generally favorable opinion of the Turks, and hold their military’s historical warrior ethos in high regard. I am a great admirer of Mustafa Kemal’s efforts (not all his methods and objectives obviously) to bring Turkey out of the dark ages, and of his military and political acumen that allowed Turkey to survive and thrive post WW1. But ever since Iraqi Freedom, I’ve concluded that there just aren’t any "Ataturks" in Turkey anymore.

Go to Michael Totten’s archives (March and April) for series of posts that are an outstanding introduction to the Kurds and Kurdistan. (Maybe the Turkish General really just wants to stop that new shopping mall!)

Mmmmmmmmm....I Smell a Reality Show

Someday Soon.....
7:30 PM CST on Channel 11: “Crawford Peace House”
"Special guest host William Jefferson is tasked to find a pile of missing cash after those zany peaceniks start turning on each other. Hilarity ensues. "

Heh.

Heh heh.

Heh heh haha.......hahahahahahaha....Ahahahahahahaha!

Brit Sailors Held Hostage - OK lets Recap

Since the Hostages were taken from Iraqi waters under the pretext they were in Iranian waters:

1. British servicemen and woman had their uniforms taken away and made to read ridiculous statements about their alleged “guilt” of straying into Iranian waters.

2. Furthermore, the female sailor was forced to wear a head cover in keeping with Iranian law and the local mullah’s interpretation of the faith.

3. The female hostage reads on camera a ‘heart-wrenching’ statement to her young offspring.

4. Britain started working furiously to get the EU off their collective fat a** and make Iran feel the pain for their piracy. (also making polite statements about the unhelpful situation)

5. Iran said it would release the female hostage.

6. Iran ‘changed their mind’ and decided to keep the woman as hostage, saying to Britain: “We’re unhelpful? Well, we don’t like your attitude”

7. Britain keeps working furiously to get the EU off their collective fat a** and make Iran feel the pain for their piracy.

8. The Mad Mullahs and the twerp (Ahmadinejad) tried to whip up a frenzy in the populace, that didn’t seem to work all that well.

9. Somewhere in this process it comes out the Persians want some of their boys back and this is all revealed as a tit-for-tat play. (Wonder how much they REALLY asked for?) Problem all around for the good guys: the US can’t care about this MORE than the Brits, but the Brits can’t do the tit-for-tat without US help (the US has the ‘tat’ in hand while Iraq has the UK’s…)

10. The US stands by our friend’s decision, but it looks like it will be on the basis that the UK demands a better deal. I write ‘looks like’ because there is nothing to indicate the UK wasn’t also quietly telling the Mullah’s about Newt’s idea:

Look Chaps, if it were just up to us, we would be more cooperative, but my stout Friend here thinks we should just cut off your oil and gas flows and watch you squirm a while, so you shall be reasonable fellows won’t you?

11. The EU informs the UK that under no condition will they get off their fat a**, but they will send a very nice letter of regret.

12. President George Bush is roundly tut-tut’ed about using the word (gasp!) ‘Hostages’.

13. Iran sees this scheme isn’t playing well on the home front either and says “deal, but we get to parade the hostages around one more time”.

14. The Hostage’s loved-ones back home are ecstatic about the announced upcoming release. Apparently not knowing the President was tut-tut’ed, one is quoted as saying:

"They should never have been taken hostage in the first place. They shouldn't have been using them for propaganda".

15. In what is probably proof-positive Iran didn’t like how this was playing out at home and abroad, they actually send the Hostages home and declare victory.

16. Everyone wants credit. Syria is claiming a role in the release.

17. Oh no! Syria was fitting that fabulous ‘Dhimmi Dahling’ Nancy Pelosi for a burqa at the time. How long before she claims credit as well?

Anyway, enough of the politics! I'm sure there will br much more hand-wringing and recriminations to go around for a while.

Welcome home to my Brothers-and-Sister-in-Arms!

I can hardly wait to hear things from your various perspectives in the future.....

Update 04/06/07
Well I wish now I had seen the Brit's press conference after they got back in the UK before I posted last night. If I had, I would have looked for the full videos of them in captivity instead of relying on quick clips, still pics and written reports on what they looked like and how they conducted themselves. Since the press conference's reading of a prepared written statement looked a lot like CYA to me I got a real uneasy feeling, so I thought 'let's go to the videotape' . Ugh - it made me physically ill.

Of course, no one can say exactly what they would or wouldn't have done unless they were there, but I can't imagine any of the Brits I worked with in the 80's or now EVER smiling for a captor's camera UNLESS it was supported by an obscene gesture.

My personal lesson-learned in all this is: Don't rely on excised video clips and stills with transcripts when there are full recordings out there.

The feeling I have now for these guys (including their command structure), is basically the same feeling I had once on jury duty. I want to scream -- "c'mon guys, give me something positive in your defense!"

Kidnapped Brits Update (Triple Dog Dare Continued)

I decided to watch this situation closely for a while, and so far it hasn’t disappointed.

I could boastfully claim clairvoyance with my ‘Triple Dog Dare’ scenario in the earlier post, but that would be just 'wrong', and well...way over the top.

I mean, it is far more useful to point out that the best alternatives to follow are SO obvious an old ‘ammo troop’ can see what needs to happen just as easy as a former Speaker of the House (Hugh Hewitt podcast).

Later in the week on HH, Guest-Host Congressman John Campbell had Victor Davis Hanson on and asked him (podcast) what he thinks should be done to get the kidnapped British servicemen and woman back, and he suggested what was in all reality a much better answer involving world and more specifically EU economic sanctions. I guess it never occurred to me to try that path because I considered it infeasible – and for obvious reasons, I still do.

Note: read the comments below the article in the last link. Britain has as many ‘Blame the UK First’ idiots as we have of the ‘Blame America First’ variety.

Woah! – ‘Instapundit’ found the same Guardian article worthy of mention.....and the EU gets 'Insta-smacked'!

Global Warming and Argumentum ad numerum

OK, please try to follow the spoor trail here because it’s a little long but trust me - It's worth it.

James Taranto at Best of the Web Today (first item) calls attention to Scientific American blogger Christopher Mim’s cherrypicking of data from a poll mentioned on yet another blog site, in a vain attempt punch up the Global Warming scare with a kind of pop-consensus angle.

Taranto promptly skewers the poll and its silly findings with his ‘sarcasm tag’ discretely hidden:

“Well, if 63% of the American public says it, it must be true, right? That's how science works!”

Which is a great deal more entertaining than flatly pointing out that some people are engaging in Argumentum ad numerum .

Taranto then takes up Mim’s invitation to check the rest of the results and then uses what he finds to further beat down the Global Warmers. But what really caught my eye in the BOTW piece was the closing paragraph, where he refers to two poll questions on page 3 of 8 in the questionnaire (link to .pdf ):

And if you think the people in the survey are unqualified to weigh in on such matters, they beg to differ: 71% of them agreed with the statement "I consider myself an intellectual," and 59% agreed that "I have more ability than most people." We'll bet a high proportion of them read Scientific American.

And based upon those responses I’ll bet an even higher proportion of them are unskilled and unaware of it (.pdf).

The (few) regular visitors to this blog have seen this linked reference before, but for anyone who visits rarely or never before, it takes your browser to a wonderful APA paper that explains a lot of things you may have been wondering about. It has the winning little title of “Unskilled and Unaware of It: How Difficulties in Recognizing One's Own Incompetence Lead to Inflated Self-Assessments”. Get your own copy and read the fascinating AND entertaining findings. If the title didn’t grab you here’s the overview (emphasis mine):

People tend to hold overly favorable views of their abilities in many social and intellectual domains. The authors suggest that this overestimation occurs, in part, because people who are unskilled in these domains suffer a dual burden: Not only do these people reach erroneous conclusions and make unfortunate choices, but their incompetence robs them of the metacognitive ability to realize it. Across 4 studies, the authors found that participants scoring in the bottom quartile on tests of humor, grammar, and logic grossly overestimated their test performance and ability. Although their test scores put them in the 12th percentile, they estimated themselves to be in the 62nd. Several analyses inked this miscalibration to deficits in metacognitive skill, or the capacity to distinguish accuracy from error. Paradoxically, improving the skills of participants, and thus increasing their metacognitive competence, helped them recognize the limitations of their abilities.

I view this ‘poll’ for what it is: an indicator of the how well the global-warming scaremonger propaganda machine has performed to date. Too bad for the ‘Warmer’s side that Langmuir plays the long game.

Addendum: Wow! What are the Odds? Scrolling further down in BOTW to the fifth item, we find a ‘Kos Kid’ who from the skills demonstrated, also might have been a majority respondent in the Yale poll.

To close, in case anyone is interested in seriously exploring the Global Warming issue, I gave some good starting links a while back here.

Update: I decided to read the comments at the Mim's SciAm site and 'The Sietch'. At The Sietch, I found the post's author declaring he wasn't taking a position, just passing along information. I take him at his word and wanted to tell him so. Therefore I tried to leave the followup comment on his site -- but I don't leave real e-mail addresses where they are published. If I had been able to leave a comment I would have told him:

If you were just passing along the info, you should have mentioned that fact in your post where I could have seen it BEFORE I lumped you in with SciAm's Mim at my place. Advocacy such as: "It’s clear that the public is not waiting for the government to take the lead. Americans no longer think it’s entirely the domain of government to solve environmental problems. They expect companies to step up and address climate change and other concerns” when passed along without comment,looks an awful lot like "agreement".

Iranians Like Taking Those Hostages Don't They?

Taking Hostages is the First Instinct of a Second-Class Tyrant
I started to post this bit as a comment to this piece at In From The Cold, then I decided my verbosity could end up stealing a lot of blog space that wasn't mine, so let me me now just give Spook 86 his 'hat tip' from this locale and using my own bandwidth.

To an outsider this misadventure would appear to be a pretty clever move by the Iranians (or some subset thereof from this point forward referred to at 'they' and derivitaves thereof) whereby Iranians hope they can pull off another fast one if they:

1. Don't provoke the 'Great Satan 'directly
2. Can get the desired results by scooping up Coalition partner troops.

Spook 86 makes a good summary of the likely game they are playing, i.e. 'swapping' the Brits kidnapped from Iraqi waters for the pile of Iranian 'operators' we seem to have been collecting lately.

This act speaks volumes as to how the Iranians think and what they believe. If they thought for one minute that we (U.S and/or Great Britain) would take immediate and forceful punitive steps against them, they never would have done it in the first place. That they opted to take Britons instead of Americans, tells us they were betting on a more tepid response than if they had tried to do the same against the U.S. That they got the intial response they were looking for has to give them a sense of confidence in their operation to date (let us hope that it is as misplaced as I think it is).

So What is Iran's Plan B?
I don't think the Iranians really thought this through very well at all. The likelihood of a quick ending to the situation through a swap of kidnap victims for prisoners is, I believe, small...unless the Iranians who were captured in Iraq also happen to be in UK custody.

Spook 86 points out that this kind of move is a desperate one, and I don't think we will have to escalate this very much before the Iranians decide maybe it wasn't such a good idea after all. Iran, as poorly connected to the world as it is, is very much dependent upon Globalization and the rule sets that connected nations have to abide by. They are feeling the crunch economically already, and even the nit-noi sanctions imposed in the shadow of the kidnappings provide a little more torque to the 'limited' clamps now placed on Iran.

They also know they are vulnerable to energy sanctions from both ends of the issue, as while they are a major producer of crude oil, they are a major importer of gasoline as well. And all oil out or gasoline going in has to get by the Coalition.

I think the Iranians are expecting a little tit-for-tat for now. I'd like to think we would decide to break protocol and 'Triple-Dog Dare' Iran with a blockade until the Brits are returned unharmed. If that doesn't work, it would be trivial effort to anonymously (or not, if one prefers) 'shack' only a very small number of aimpoints some moonless night that would temporarily stop their existing refinery output as well. Re-apply as necessary.

We'll have to listen to the cries of inhumanity ala the Iraq Sanctions for only a little while. The Iranians will either come to their senses or not. But, I think we'll know fairly quickly if the Iranians have any desire to kick off Praying Mantis II .

Updated 03/23/07 in the AM: Added Link to 'rule sets'