| |
|
Sunday, June 08, 2003
|
|
Great article in today's Daily News on Dr. William Mills. Dr. Mills is a legend around here - pioneering work in frostbite prevention and rehabilitation and if memory serves me correctly, he set up one of the first high altitude medical camps on Mt. McKinley.
But that's not why most folks my age who grew up here in Anchorage remember him. He made a medical instructional movie on frostbite. Because it was intended for nurses and doctors, it was very graphic. However, The Anchorage School District got a hold of that movie and showed it to every 8th grade health student for years. It was quite the movie - graphic presentations of frostbite, blackened skin, gigantic blisters and horrific burns caused by people trying to thaw out their frostbite. The worst was a woman who had a horribly frostbitten rear end and then tried to thaw it out by sitting on a heater. Omigod - I almost passed out with that one.
But the Coup de Grace was the leg amputation scene. During that scene, the entire class either threw up or passed out. And all the while, Dr. Mills was on film, blandly describing the proper amputation technique.
4:33:16 PM 
|
|
A month ago, I read a very interesting New Yorker article, Selective Intelligence by Seymour Hersch. Evidently, Donald Rumsfield was extremely dissatisfied with CIA and DIA intelligence. So Paul Wolfowitz, with Rumey's blessing, organized a new small intelligence group and effectively bypassed the CIA and DIA.
No biggie - so far. This happens all the time in any organization - a dissatisfaction with one department often leads to a bypassing of that department. But, as is often problematic in these sorts of beaurocratic manuevers, the new group is a very nasty combination of arrogance and inexperience which results in massive group think. Actually, the whole dot com bubble is an example of this thinking: the new kids sneered at the old bores - "It's a new economy now. You're a dinosaur." Well guess what? Those dinosaurs understood a few basic fundamentals like cost control and profit.
However, Rumey's new intelligence "Cabal" did not lack experience. All were old hands. But they were arrogant and were absolutely set on proving a link between Al Queda and Sadam and the existence of WMDs because that's what Rumsfield, Cheney, and Bush II fervently believed. So, instead of analyzing the evidence objectively, they analyzed the evidence with a predetermined outcome in mind. And that's where they got into trouble. The evidence was not strong, so they had to make leaps and assumptions. Which now appear to be questionable. I don't doubt that Iraq had some small amount of chemical and maybe even biological weapons. But at this point, I now doubt that the weapons stockpile/capability was anywhere close to what was presented.
This whole thing holds a certain fascination for me - and not because I strongly dislike the Bushies. No, it's an organizational thing. This sort of behavior is so common. Yet organizational leaders continue to make the same mistake time and time again. Instead of looking objectively at information provided by underlings, they often throw the baby out with the bath water because they don't like the information.
4:12:41 PM
|
|
|
© Copyright 2005 Stephanie A. Kesler.
Last update: 3/5/2005; 8:33:53 PM.
|
|
|
The Slat Rat's Favorite Blogs
The Slat Rat's Favorite Techie Blogs
The Slat Rat's Bookpile
|
|
