ShrinkWrapped

Sleeping Soundly...or Not...

Light blogging again, but a few points to think about:

This is not really news but it is disquieting, Eyeing Potential Terror Threats, FDNY Prepares For The Worst:

It's no secret the city's Police and Fire Departments are preparing for possible terrorist attacks, but now there's word that one of the main threats the FDNY is planning for is a nuclear attack.

The FDNY says it's been training to combat threats like dirty bomb attacks or the detonation of a crude nuclear device.

You might wonder what kind of ideology is required to make the unthinkable thinkable.   Chris Short, at The Jawa Report links to this article, Messianic madness of nuclear Osama, which points to how many Muslims are viewing all sorts of natural phenomena as evidence of Allah's desire to destroy America (there is no explanation of why the Tsunami and the Kashmir earthquake are not seen as evidence that Allah wants to destroy Islamic separatist movements, but alas, signs and portents are difficult to read in the best of times.)

Waiting for the Other Shoe

Blogging will most likely be very light this weekend, but there are lots of interesting developments to watch for.  If you have learned over the last few years to read in between the lines of the LSM, the next week should have some fascinating developments.

The UN report on the Hariri assassination is out; the electronic version left available all the editing changes, and strangely enough, then names of various members of Bashar Assad's inner circle somehow were edited out in between the time the author sat down to meet with Kofi Annan and the time the meeting ended:

Mr Annan had pledged repeatedly through his chief spokesman, Stephane Dujarric, that he would not change a word of the report by Detlev Mehlis, a German prosecutor. But computer tracking showed that the final edit began at about 11.38am on Thursday — a minute after Herr Mehlis began a meeting with Mr Annan to present his report. The names of Maher al-Assad, General Shawkat and the others were apparently removed at 11.55am, after the meeting ended.

Patrick Fitzgerald's grand jury looking in to the Valerie Plame game is ending this week and we will soon learn if any indictments are forthcoming.  If you think this is just about the purposeful and malicious leak of an undercover CIA agent's name, you haven't been paying attention.  Macsmind has been on this case for a long time and has had some impressive posts about it.  I tend to think he is onto something when he says:

Race and the Unconscious

In the late 1970's, I spent some time working in the VA Hospital system.  At that time, the primary Psychiatric population we treated were those whose psychiatric problems fell under the category of "service-connected disability."  Patients with SC disabilities received a significantly higher monthly disability payment, as long as their psychiatric problem persisted.  A subset of patients, mostly young, Vietnam era vets, was created who were hospitalized for short stays every 6 months.  According to VA rules, if you were hospitalized every 6 months, that was considered a priori evidence that you were still disabled.  The mix of conscious motivation (malingering) and unconscious motivation (what Freud referred to as secondary gain, an unconscious process) differed for each patient but there were quite clearly patients who were not psychotic yet would suffer, on a biannual basis, bouts of acute psychotic decompensation, complete with command auditory hallucinations (patients reporting that voices are telling them to kill themselves are almost always admitted when they show up at the Psychiatric ER); some oft these patients were miraculously cured once they entered the elevator up to the in-patient ward.  After a while, we would catch on to who was essentially scamming the system and they would end up moving out of town and months later we would hear they had been hospitalized in another state's VA Hospital. 

One difficult question raised by this experience was what should you expect of a patient who might not be disabled by a psychiatric illness, yet by dint of his lack of skills and abilities, or his perception of himself as lacking such skills and abilities,  could never hope to honestly earn an equivalent wage to his SC Disability? 

Whatever Became of Katie & Lauren?

In the New York Sun today, Alicia Colon, who should be on your "must-read" list, asks an important question:

Science Friday: Differentiating the Self

The November Scientific American (not yet available on  line) has an article on "The Neurobiology of the Self", which describes some of the work being done using functional brain scans (PET scans, fMRI's) to elucidate the neuroanatomy and neurophysiology of consciousness and the determinants of the self-concept.  Interestingly, and not surprisingly, there is much in the early evidence that supports a Psychoanalytic theory of the development of the self.  I discussed the Psychoanalytic point of view in an earlier post, Narcissism, Malignant Narcissism, and Paranoia: Part I:

Early in life we take the various images we have developed of ourselves (our self representations, in Psychoanalytic terms) and merge them to form a relatively stable, and usually only moderately distorted, sense of who we are and how we fit into the world around us.  If we had the good fortune to be raised by a "good enough" mother (D.W. Winnicott, again) part of our core self representation will be of the adored child, the "apple of the mother's eye" as Kohut once so elegantly put it.  Many other self representations are added through the years, some positive, some negative, until we form a  relatively stable, relatively realistic, core sense of who we are and what kind of person we want to be.  One of Kohut's contributions was to show how the child's nascent sense of himself developed primarily in relation to the mother's sense of the child and how failures of attunement by the mother left the child at high risk for narcissistic disorders.  In other words, how a mother looks at her child, especially her unconscious wishes and fears, are the most important influences on the child's developing self concept.  A mother who experiences her two year old as demanding or defiant or a brat, rather than appreciating (not without some difficulty; 2 year olds have their reputation for a reason) her child's need for and push for independence, will one day discover they have a poorly behaved, impulse ridden, needy child on her hands.

Typically development is a rather complicated journey, and I do go into this in more detail in the rest of the post and several following posts, but the essential idea that multiple self-representations (ie, different images one has and develops about oneself) must be integrated to form a coherent and consistent sense of oneself has been bolstered by the finding of areas of the brain that appear to do just such integration.

Debra A. Gusnard of Washington University describes one such area, the medial prefrontal cortex, an area located in the cleft between the hemispheres of the brain , directly behind the eyes (where most people imagine their "self" to reside.)  The medial prefrontal cortex may act as an integrating and synthesizing structure.   Of note, this area of the brain has a high concentration of neurons called spindle cells, which are thought to be very involved in information processing.  [Recent work suggesting the computational ability of single neurons may be more robust than we have recognized will need to be factored into the mix as time goes by.]

It is worth noting that there is a significant area of overlap between such a hypothesized brain structure and the psychoanalytic concepts of "object constancy", "ego structures" and "ego boundaries"; these concepts are relevant to determining the boundaries between self and not-self (or self and object.)

Some of the News not "Fit to Print" in the NY Times

With all the noise emanating from the Plame game, Able Danger making its way back into the news (more on that below), and the Miers nomination looking to be in trouble, there is also news out there that is of exceptional import yet appears to have been overlooked.  A search of the New York Times, which used to be the paper of record, fails to show any signs of this story, and yet, this is a story which is likely to herald some of the most profound changes in international relations that we have seen since the end of the cold war.   (HT: Indus Valley Rising)

Walker's World: U.S. to make India a world power

Washington, DC, Mar. 29 (UPI) -- The global war on terrorism, the invasion of Iraq and the sonorous espousal of democracy for all have just been relegated to their subordinate place in the strategic priorities of the Bush administration. Its real legacy was announced last Friday, in a low-key briefing at the State Department that explained in some detail the historic decision that has been made.

It is now the policy, or perhaps that should be rephrased as the Grand Strategy of the United States, "to help India become a major world power in the 21st century. We understand fully the implications, including military implications, of that statement."

The implications of this are profound.  India is the world's largest democracy, part of the Anglosphere, and the United States, the world's oldest democracy, is likewise a member in good standing of the Anglosphere.  Indus Valley Rising offers this take on the story and what it suggests:

Unintentional Humor

A Spanish judge has issued arrest warrants for three American servicemen:

A judge has issued an international arrest warrant for three U.S. soldiers whose tank fired on a Baghdad hotel during the Iraq war, killing a Spanish journalist and a Ukrainian cameraman, a court official said Wednesday.

Judge Santiago Pedraz issued the warrant for Sgt. Shawn Gibson, Capt. Philip Wolford and Lt. Col. Philip de Camp, all from the U.S. 3rd Infantry, which is based in Fort Stewart, Ga.

Jose Couso, who worked for the Spanish television network Telecinco, died April 8, 2003, after a U.S. army tank crew fired a shell on Hotel Palestine in Baghdad where many journalists were staying to cover the war.

Reuters cameraman Taras Portsyuk, a Ukrainian, also was killed.

Coming from the Spanish, this is unintentionally funny.  The American soldiers were in a war zone and were being shot at; in response they fired some rounds from their tank and silenced the opposition firing.  It is certainly possible that there were no enemy fighters in the area of the hotel where the reporters were located.  If so, this would be a sad, but ultimately unexceptional, accident that happens in war zones from time to time.  We all would wish that no innocent civilians die from collateral damage, just as every "friendly fire" death is terribly painful for all involved.  However, for newspeople to complain that they have been shot at in a  war zone is a bit presumptuous.  And here is the best part: since it is the Spanish issuing the arrest warrants, the message is obvious.  OK, wait for it...

Exorcising Demons

The Iraqi people have the unique opportunity to face down their demons in an open courtroom.  Very few nations have ever had such an opportunity, and Hammarabi appreciates it:

The Trial of the Century

The reason we chose this title for the trial of Saddam Hussein is not because of he is important person but because of the magnitude of his crimes. He and his regime committed the worst crimes in the recent history of mankind. He used countless and unprecedented means to perpetrate his crimes. On the extent these crimes were not limited against the Iraqis but it extended to involve other peoples in different countries, the environment, and more over it is continued until now.

He ends on a note of optimism:

In all circumstances the trial showed two major things. First the new Iraq is moving forward towards the state of law and the second is that the trial of Saddam is an example for all those who govern their people with fear and dictatorship to learn the lesson.

If Iraq is to join the civilized family of nations, this is an important first step.  Just as an individual can be traumatized by a horrific event, an entire nation can be traumatized by horrific events.

When a person has been traumatically victimized, for instance by rape or child abuse, their helplessness adds to the assault on their capacity to deal with the event(s).  A person who is able to face their abuser and testify against them gains a measure of control and justice which allows them to, if not resolve the incident, at least to wall it off in a mental space where it can do no more harm.  The person who is unable to do this has a much more difficult time coming to a resolution of the trauma.  A nation can recapture its agency by confronting its past, its abusers, and exacting justice. 

Somalia is the failed counter-part of Iraq.  It is a failed state.  Its people are still being used as pawns between powerful war lords who care nothing for the suffering of those who live under their sway.  Perhaps the international community of civilized states can help them redress some of the horrors they face and have faced.

This Seems Important

The BBC has an article on its web site, also reported on the radio (BBC via NPR), that highlights a rather remarkable turn of events in the last 10 years:

Wars 'less frequent, less deadly'

The report credits the UN with helping reduce conflict
Wars around the world are both less frequent and less deadly since the end of the Cold War, a new report claims.

The Human Security Report found a decline in every form of political violence except terrorism since 1992.

"A lot of the data we have in this report is extraordinary," its director, former UN official Andrew Mack, said.

It found the number of armed conflicts had fallen by more than 40% in the past 13 years, while the number of very deadly wars had fallen by 80%.

The study says many common beliefs about contemporary conflict are "myths" - such as that 90% of those killed in current wars are civilians, or that women are disproportionately victimised.

The report credits intervention by the United Nations, plus the end of colonialism and the Cold War, as the main reasons for the decline in conflict.

Interestingly enough, the article takes a slightly more balanced, and more accurate, look at the UN's role in this phenomenon:

Human rights groups concerned over Saddam trial II

The New York Times today has coverage of the Saddam Hussein's impending trial and the concerns about fairness and justice that have been raised by Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, among others.   There seem to be several major concerns.  Apparently, the Iraqis have been pressing for quick adjudication (followed by a quick execution):

The pressure has come from Iraq's new rulers, many of whom were victims of Mr. Hussein and his associates, having lost relatives in his gulag and fled into exile themselves. Senior tribunal officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, gave as their reason for acceding to government pressure the threat of being dismissed, as nine administrative officers were in July, under a mostly unenforced tribunal provision barring anybody who was a Baath Party member from work as an investigator, prosecutor or judge. Under Mr. Hussein, party membership was a requirement for any Iraqi entering a judicial college.

Notice who has been resisting such pressures:

The political interference has been vigorously resisted by Americans who work in the Regime Crimes Liaison Office, established to help prepare for the trial, and, on several occasions, with direct appeals to the Iraqi leaders by officials in the White House and the State Department, tribunal officials say. The pressures began almost as soon as formal sovereignty was restored to Iraq last year, under Prime Minister Ayad Allawi, and have continued under the successor government of Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari.

The HRW & AI complaints have focused on the shortcomings of the Iraqi criminal justice system.  Perhaps this is the key meme:

Critics here and abroad have said that the proper forum for the trials would have been an international tribunal of the kind that has spent four years hearing the case against the former Yugoslav president, Slobodan Milosevic, in The Hague.