canyonwalker: Sullivan, a male golden eagle at UC Davis Raptor Center (Golden Eagle)
One week ago Israel was viciously attacked by the terrorist group Hamas, which is also de facto government of the Gaza Strip. Hamas fighters purposefully massacred hundreds of civilians in addition to waging attacks on military targets. Soon thereafter I started seeing the analogy in the news, "10/7 is Israel's 9/11." I was already thinking it myself.

I've also seen some articles where writers highhandedly admonish readers how 10/7 and 9/11 are not alike, because of how al Qaeda was a non-state actor and Hamas is a state actor, or some equally beside-the-point thing like that. There are two big problems with this. First, fuck the finger-wagging man-splaining. Anyone attempting to use asshole style arguments and rub my nose in how smart they are by explaining to me how I've been mistaken the whole time is rarely going to win points with me. Rarely, because it's rarely the case such people are actually right! I will agree with an asshole's point if they are right. But almost invariably assholes are not right, because they are too caught up in their own egos to recognize facts contrary to their prejudices. In this case these finger-waggers are wrong because of problem #2: All analogies fail when you take them too far.

The point of making an analogy is to illustrate how something unfamiliar or simply new, in this case the 10/7 attacks on Israel, is similar in a few keys respects to something much more familiar, like the 9/11 attacks on the US. The key is in a few key respects. An analogy will always— always— break down if you take it too far. The "take it too far" in the case of these contrarian writers is them comparing the different geopolitical positions of Hamas vs. Al Qaeda and arguing that because those two are not the identical the whole comparison is null and void. That's horseshit. Their argument is a logical fallacy (overextending an analogy proves nothing) and an indication of arguing in bad faith.

The point of the analogy between the attacks is not that Hamas and Al Qaeda are the same (except also in some limited regards) but that the impact and consequences of the attacks have, or are likely to have, key similarities. Here are three big similarities I can think of right off the top of my head:

1) The attack killed a huge number of people, proportionately. The 9/11 attacks in the US killed just under 3,000 people, virtually all civilians. The initial death toll in the attacks on Israel was estimated at just over 100 in the hours after the attack. Just that death toll is a comparable loss as the US population in 2001 of 285 million is 30x Israel's population of 9.3 million today. And as the breathtaking scope of the 10/7 attacks became clearer after the first few hours, the death toll increased to over 900. Edit: after several days it was increased to 1,400. That makes 10/7 actually fourteen times as bad as 9/11 in terms of proportionate loss of life.

2) Policy reaction to the attacks will change government and society. The US government implemented sweeping, permanent changes after 9/11. The changes are still all around us in our daily lives. In Israel, this attack is seen as a massive failure of the country's sophisticated and far-reaching intelligence apparatus. What changes in surveillance and security policies will be made? And will this attack ultimately topple the precarious government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu? Israelis are understandably pulling together in this time of war, but at the same time many are openly criticizing the leadership of Netanyahu— who for years has defined his political brand as his ability to keep Israelis safe from attack better than absolutely anyone else.

3) Israel has a rare moment of global support— and may overplay it. Following 9/11 the US had broad international support, including from geopolitical rivals who'd ordinarily condemn US foreign actions, to find and bring to justice the parties responsible. This support backed the invasion of Afghanistan and tolerated, to a certain extent, broad suspicion of Muslim people and Muslim majority countries. The US overplayed its hand, though, in invading Iraq under flimsy pretenses that later proved false— arguably knowingly false— and in violating its own commitments to the international rules of law through actions such as detaining prisoners without charges or trial and using torture. Nevermind that the US's enemies did such things as a matter of course; the US was held by its peers and its own people to a higher standard. Israel faces the same challenge today. This attack was brutal. It violated the rules of war, via its deliberate attack on civilians and taking of hostages. But Israel will lose its moment of international support if it does the same in return. It may seem unfair that it's held to a higher standard, but it's simply a fact that it is. And already its war on Hamas is causing a widespread humanitarian crisis. The 2 million residents of the Gaza Strip have been without power or piped water for several days. Israel is telling 1 million of them to leave ahead of a ground invasion, but where will they go? The borders, including Egypt's border, are all closed.
canyonwalker: Sullivan, a male golden eagle at UC Davis Raptor Center (Golden Eagle)
Yesterday was 9/11. It was the 22nd anniversary of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.

As the tragedy of that day recedes farther into the rear view mirror of history it seems like a gradually less important anniversary. And that's a good thing.

Part of the reason it's becoming less significant is that there are fewer things today to associate it with. Slightly fewer things, anyway. There's no more War in Iraq or War in Afghanistan. The latter the US wound down two years ago... and Afghanistan's weak government promptly conceded to the Taliban, the murderous, misogynistic regime we spent 20 years and trillions of dollars fighting to defeat. Oops. Well, at least we're not putting US soldiers in harm's way anymore.

Speaking of US soldiers, the lead in a lot of news stories the past few days has been that young men and women enrolling in the military these days weren't even alive when 9/11 happened. We're 22 years on from it now; most recruits are 18-19.

A common narrative in these stories is that the recruits are no longer motivated by revenge. The recruits of several years ago remembered 9/11 as it happened. They saw it on TV, live. They joined the military with the expectation that they'd go to war and get to punish the perpetrators. Or at least punish the people who grew up in the country where a small insurgent power temporarily sheltered the wealthy guy who paid the perpetrators, most of whom were from a country the US political right cozies up to while blaming other countries.

The fact that military recruits today are part of the post-9/11 generation reminds me of how schoolkids for the past several years have all been part of the post-Columbine generation. For several years kids growing up have only known both a world that was always turned upside by 9/11 and the reactions to it, as well as the way the experience of attending school in the US has been irrevocably altered by frequent school shootings. In the latter case, young people today have something to say about it. ...And that something is, increasingly, "Enough!" Meanwhile, what's being said about 9/11? I don't think there's a reaction coalescing around it, except maybe for worn-out resignation.
canyonwalker: Planes, Trains, and Automobiles. Travel! (planes trains and automobiles)
The REAL ID program, which requires enhanced drivers licenses to do all sorts of not-driving things such as enter an airport, federal courthouse, or your Congressional representative's office, has been postponed another 2 years. Today the DHS pushed back the deadline for full enforcement from May 3, 2023 to May 7, 2025. Source: DHS press release, 5 Dec 2022.

The reason that I note it has been pushed back again is that the REAL ID program was enacted into law back in... 2005. With the latest extension it will have taken twenty years to implement— or more if it gets delayed again! As the idea of creating more secure identity documents was one of the recommendations coming out of the 9/11 commission, one has to wonder the fact it will have taken 24 years since 9/11 to get them implemented demonstrates they're just security theater and actually not consequential for public safety.

There are many reasons why this program has been delayed for so many years. Initially it was because a lot of states opposed the program that created federal security requirements on state-issued driving permits. States opposed it partly because Congress passed without hearings or debate. In the House, it was dropped from a must-pass appropriations bill because of member objections but then reinserted in conference committee. The full House then approved the appropriations bill with the unrelated Real ID rider, as did the Senate. Et voilà: How A Bill (Really) Becomes A Law.

While many states fought the law for several years, it did remain the law. The federal government extended deadlines a few times to give them more time to comply. When it looked like the final extension would end in 2019, the roughly half the states that were holding out aligned with the program so as not to create hardships for their citizens when traveling or attempting to interact with the federal government. But then another extension came, giving states until 2020... at which point the Coronavirus Pandemic arrived, so the federal government extended it a few more times, ultimately to May 2023. And now it's May 2025.
canyonwalker: wiseguy (Default)
Al Qaeda terrorist leader and 9-11 attack planner Ayman al-Zawahiri was killed in a US drone strike at his home in Kabul, Afghanistan, on Sunday. The strike, which was months in planning, was notable for its lack of collateral damage. Zawahiri was killed as he stood on a balcony of the building. No other residents of the building were harmed, the building itself was not collapsed, and nobody in the neighborhood was harmed.

Intelligence experts studied al-Zawahiri's movements, and those of people around him, and pinpointed his habit of spending time on a balcony of his building. He apparently hasn't left that building since moving to it earlier this year. His wife and children do run errands, though, and intelligence operatives found them using sophisticated counter-espionage techniques as they moved about the city. Anyway, the US targeted him with a drone strike as he stood on the balcony and killed him without harming family in the house or anyone in the neighborhood.

Zawahiri had been the leader of al Qaeda since the killing of Osama bin Laden in 2011. Prior to that he was the terrorist organization's second-in-command, having joined it when he merged the group Islamic Jihad into it in the 1980s. Islamic Jihad, BTW, was the group that claimed responsibility for the assassination of Egyptian president Anwar Sadat in 1981.
canyonwalker: coronavirus (coronavirus)
It's Tier Tuesday, etc., etc. The headline news in Coronavirus statistics this week Tuesday is that we're on the eve of 1,000,000 deaths in the US from Covid-19. Per figures at The New York Times Coronavirus in the U.S. (retrieved 10 May 2022) the U.S. death toll stands at 999,916. With an average of 365 deaths/day recently the one million mark will certainly be crossed tomorrow... if it isn't actually crossed tonight as late figures roll in.

One million deaths.

One million deaths in barely over two years.

One million deaths and barely anyone wants to take it seriously. Approximately 40% of the country believes political conspiracy theories that it's a hoax. Another 40% or so is just tired of dealing with it. And most of the rest figure it's too much of an uphill battle to do anything about it from via public health policy anymore.

One million deaths. Over the 26 months since the death toll really started accumulating (March, 2020) that's an average of 38,461 dead per month or about 1,266 a day. And there were numerous times when more than 3,000 died on any given day.

Even on those days when 3,000+ were dying the news might as well have been background noise. A non-factor in most people's daily lives.

Think about other times when fewer than 3,000 people were killed.

December 7, 1941. Pearl Harbor. 2,403 US persons were killed. The US declared war on Japan the next day, entering WWII, and changed the course of history in ways that affect virtually every person in the world through the current day.

September 11, 2001. The terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and a flight that crashed in rural Pennsylvania when civilians fought back against the attackers. 2,977 US persons died that day. US laws, practices, and understanding of civil rights have been turned upside since that day. Go to any airport today, nearly 20 years later, and you're subject to numerous policies borne out of 9-11-01. But already the policies of the Coronavirus pandemic, with its now 1,000,000 dead, were ended less than 2 years after being started.

1 million dead in the US. And at least a hundred of million in the US who don't care.

canyonwalker: coronavirus (coronavirus)
It's "Tier Tuesday" as California reporters used to say when California had a Covid risk tier system and updated it every Tuesday. I like the weekly cadence for checking the latest Coronavirus statistics. It keeps me updated at a regular interval without the risk of "doomscrolling" by reading about Coronavirus infections, deaths, etc. too frequently.

The good news today is that new cases are down by 2/3 from their peak a few weeks ago. According to The New York Times' Coronavirus in the US page the 7-day average as of last night, 7 Feb 2022, is 253,782. The peak of 806,795 occurred Jan 14. We're at less than 1/3 of that peak now.

The not-so-good news is that even though we're well below the peak infections of the Omicron/winter holidays surge, we're still well above the infection rates of a few months ago. The new case rate on Nov. 27, when news of the Omicron strain first hit major national media, was 85,432. While the peak of the surge was 9x that, even today we are still 3x that level.

The low point of the past year occurred last summer, Jun. 21, when the 7-day average reached as low 11,179. Today's rate, while dropping, is still more than 22x that low.

Death Marches On

More bad news— yes, the bad news outnumbers the good 3:1— is that the Covid death rate remains very high. Yesterday 2,598 deaths were recorded in the US. We're at the highest death rates seen in more than 12 months. We passed a total of 900,000 deaths from Covid a few days ago. The grim 1 million death mark is likely to fall by the end of March.

For comparison, the 9-11 attacks killed 2,977 people (excluding the terrorist perpetrators). The US turned life upside down for 20 years and counting because of that one day death toll. The same US now shrugs its shoulders when nearly as many people die each day from an almost totally preventable cause.

canyonwalker: coronavirus (coronavirus)
"When will the pandemic end?" I'm sure billions of people have asked over the past 22 months. Medical science has a technical answer for this, relating to the Basic Reproduction Number, abbreviated R0 (R-naught), a measure of a virus's contagiousness. By that standard we're not to the "after" phase yet— particularly because Omicron seems to have a higher R0 than previous strains. 

Recently I read an alternate definition of pandemic/post-pandemic based on a sociopolitical gauge. By that standard, the pandemic is over when we stop focusing on interdiction and instead shift to adaptation. I.e., we stop trying to stop the spread of the virus and instead focus on how to learn to live with it picking us off. But that is not a "Back to Normal" scenario; it's a New Normal. It is a scenario where the pandemic becomes an endemic. 😨

By that social definition we're already post-pandemic. We're into the endemic. 😱

What's the evidence for this? First, half the country, political, has been post-pandemic for at least a year already. That half is done with closures and limitations on indoors restaurants, clubs, gyms, concerts, etc.; done with masking requirements (indeed several states have made it illegal to require masks anywhere); done even with social distancing. And approximately 30% of the country say they will never, ever get the Coronavirus vaccination.

Sadly it's not just the reality-denying wing of the US that's basically given up on trying to stop the pandemic and focused instead of learning to live— or tolerated acceptable losses— with it. It's our Democratic leadership, too. President Biden's speech on the pandemic 10 days ago was all weaksauce stuff. He promised to get us more tests— which haven't arrived! Everyone I've spoken to about Coronavirus is scrambling to find one! And he sent the military in to bolster hospitals that are becoming short-staffed due to insufficient resources and burnout.

Days later the CDC announced a new, shorter recommending quarantine period for people infected. The reduction was not because medical science says less time is needed but because the government recognized virtually nobody was quarantining anyway and hopes a shorter time will get more people to comply.

Crucially, these are not measures to stop the virus; they are only measures for us to figure out how to live with it— and to accept 1,000+ US deaths per day (note: that's 9/11 THREE TIMES A WEEK!!!) from it.


canyonwalker: Sullivan, a male golden eagle at UC Davis Raptor Center (Golden Eagle)
Yesterday Colin Powell, retired general and former Secretary of State, died from complications of Covid-19 combined with underlying conditions such as cancer and Parkinson's disease. He was 84.

Colin Powell became a household name during the 1991 Gulf War when he served as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the highest military position in the Department of Defense. There was talk later in the '90s that he might run for president. There is, after all, considerable history of successful military leaders going on to hold high office. And as a commander his philosophy toward war was appealing. He did not relish war, preferring instead to work via diplomatic means. But when war was necessary he preferred to fight it only from a position of strength, with clear goals, and with clear popular support. These three elements— which, BTW, are a repudiation of what's popularly considered to have been wrong about the Vietnam War— became known as the Powell Doctrine.

Powell never did run for president but he was tapped by President George Bush in 2001 to serve as his Secretary of State. Sadly for him he never fit well in the role. ...Not because he was oriented against statesmanship, but because others in the administration, notably Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and Vice President Dick Cheney, saw opportunities to remake the world through military means after 9/11. The president was swayed by these warmongers. Powell, the career officer, toed the line of his boss's decision. He even made his boss's case to the United Nations for invading Iraq: his infamous speech of 5 February 2003 when claimed— falsely, and with flimsy evidence that was soon discredited— that Iraq was developing nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons.

Powell's reputation never recovered from the stain of false pretenses for invading Iraq. He knew it, too, and remarked on it years later. I think he genuinely regretted it. Still, he is partly responsible for the thousands of lives lost, hundreds of thousands displaced, and trillions of dollars wasted.

May he now rest in peace.
canyonwalker: Sullivan, a male golden eagle at UC Davis Raptor Center (Golden Eagle)
Yesterday was the 20th anniversary of 9/11. On 11 September 2001 nineteen terrorists commandeered 4 passenger aircraft and flew them into New York's Twin Towers and the Pentagon outside of Washington, DC. One of the aircraft crashed in an empty field outside the small town of Shanksville, Pennsylvania, after passengers aboard heard news of the mass murder-suicide attacks and tried to overpower the hijackers. In all nearly 3,000 innocent people were killed in the attacks.

Never Forget - September 11, 2001"NEVER FORGET," demands the popular slogan. Indeed, we Americans who were alive on that day, even those of us who live 2,500 miles away from where the attacks occurred, will never forget what happened on 9/11. But while we, collectively, remember, it's like we have selective memory. While we remember this, what else are we forgetting? Or choosing not to acknowledge?

One thing that many people overlook, or minimize, in talking about 9/11 is the cost of the War on Terror we spawned in reaction to it. In efforts to punish the perpetrators and prevent subsequent attacks like it, we have spent nearly $6 trillion already— with another $2 trillion more needed in health care and disability coverage for veterans in decades to come. This war effort has resulted in nearly 900,000 deaths worldwide and at least 38 million people displaced. I read these figures in a fascinating article at Vox.com yesterday (11 Sep 2021).

Another thing many of us forget— or find easy to overlook— is how life has changed since 9/11. In the aftermath of the attacks safety became an all-consuming goal. Americans accepted, or were forced to accept, unprecedented government intrusion into their private lives. Surveillance became such a norm most of us forgot about it. And where people didn't forget it, their reminders were often met with eye rolls as if to call it churlish to mention. Plus, merely being surveilled is a majority privilege. People who are Muslim, or look or sound like they might be Muslim or from a Muslim country, are frequently stopped by authorities in the normal course of their lives because someone thinks they "look suspicious".

Yet another thing often forgotten, or failed to be acknowledged, is how 9/11 compares to other things. On 9/11 we lost nearly 3,000 people to a terrorist attack. 20 years later we've spent trillions of dollars, invaded multiple countries, killed almost a million people, and trampled on Constitutional liberties, all for those 3,000 deaths. Meanwhile, at various times in the past year, more people in the US died from Coronavirus in one day than were killed on 9/11. The n-cov2 CoronavirusOverall 660,000 people in the US have died from Coronavirus in the past year and a half. Though the death toll is no longer surpassing 9/11 every single day it's still terrifyingly high at a recent average of 1,666 daily— more than half 9/11's death toll. Source: New York Times, "Coronavirus in the U.S.: Latest Map and Case Count", retrieved 12 Sep 2021.

All the more terrifying about Coronavirus's high death toll is that these deaths are now largely preventable— and have been for months. We know how greatly reduce transmissions, infections, and hospitalizations. It starts with the vaccine, which has been free and freely available in the US for months now. Next common simple, common sense measures such as masking and social distancing. If we could get high compliance with these three things we could have Coronavirus nearly eradicated in the US by now.

Instead we've got half the country's political leaders minimizing the dangers of Coronavirus and arguing that all these mitigation measures are pointless and/or unconstitutional trampling of civil liberties. Ironically this is the same political party that carried most of the water for the post-9/11 surveillance state. They argued as an article of faith, "The president's main job is to keep us safe." ...Actually, no, it's literally to uphold the laws and the Constitution— but don't let things like what's literally in the Constitution get in the way of your arguments. Oh, and BTW, this is also the party that argues for strict, literal interpretation of the Constitution— though obviously only when it suits their ideological goals.

So yeah, never forget 9/11. But don't let it blind you to terrible things going on today that we can stop.


canyonwalker: coronavirus (coronavirus)
On Thursday the U.S. tallied 4,085 deaths due to Coronavirus, according to experts at the Johns Hopkins University, as reported by ABC News (8 Jan 2021), by CBS News (8 Jan 2021), and other media. It's a new record for Coronavirus deaths in a single day. This 4,000+ figure hits just 30 days after the US first recorded 3,000+ deaths in one day. In the blog I wrote about that sad milestone I noted it was already more deaths than those which occurred at the hands of terrorists on 9-11 in 2001.

This one-day tally of 4,000 is not an isolated figure or an anomalous spike in the data. It caps a week in which the seven-day average was over 3,000 deaths— 3,062 as of Friday per New York Times "Coronavirus in the US" (retrieved 9 Jan 2021). That's like 9-11 happening every day for a whole week. Yet a sizable minority of people in the US are still calling it overblown, a hoax, a conspiracy, etc. It's both sad and an outrage.

canyonwalker: coronavirus (coronavirus)
So. Less than 24 hours after I last warned about it in this blog, it's finally happened. The deaths in the US due to Coronavirus on one day surpassed the 9/11 death toll. As this NY Times article reports (9 Dec 2020), officials across the US reported at least 3,011 new Coronavirus fatalities today. The terrorist attacks of 11 Sep 2001 killed 2,977 people, excluding the terrorist perpetrators, per Wikipedia (Casualties of the September 11 attacks, retrieved 9 Dec 2020).

UPDATE: The Coronavirus death toll for 9 Dec increased to 3,157 as additional data came in.

canyonwalker: coronavirus (coronavirus)
Today the US passed yet-another milestone in the Coronavirus pandemic. There are now over 15 million confirmed cases in the US. A few weeks ago I predicted that our caseload would reach a growth rate of a million in just five days. It took a week longer than I predicted... partly, it seems, because testing was reduced around Thanksgiving as many clinics were closed. This 15th million comes 5 days after 14 million. Over the past week there have been 5 days with more than 200,000 new cases reported per day. See, e.g., New York Times Coronavirus in the U.S. (retrieved 8 Dec 2020).

Deaths per day also touched a new record recently. On Dec 2 there were 2,885. Several days this past week have seen counts over 2,500. The daily average over the past week is 2,260 (source: NYT, ibid).

A few weeks ago I noted that US Coronavirus deaths are like a 9-11 tragedy every two days. With this week's numbers we're getting close to 9-11 every day. Experts like Dr. Fauci warn the worst of the disease surge from Thanksgiving travel and gatherings is yet to come.

UPDATELess than 24 hours later it happened (more Coronavirus death in one day than the 9/11 terrorist attacks). 😞

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