Dan Froomkin at the Huffington Post has put together an excellent report called The Two Most Essential, Abhorrent, Intolerable Lies Of George W. Bush’s Memoir

In the period during which Bush claims he was wringing his hands about whether or not to attack, he and his aides were instead intensely focused on building the public case for what was, in their minds, an inevitability.

Although they call out two lies “among the many”, it seems to me they may be two parts of the same lie. There is a hint in the above quote. Here are the two:

History is likely to judge Bush most harshly for two things in particular: Launching a war against a country that had not attacked us, and approving the use of cruel and inhumane interrogation techniques.

I call it one lie because it seems to be two phases of the same general issue. Approving war crimes is a second phase, directly related to Iraq invasion. In other words, the cruel and inhumane interrogation of prisoners in the US was intended to prove, through confession, that Iraq had in fact attacked the US.

In “Decision Points,” Bush describes the invasion of Iraq as something he came to support only reluctantly and after a long period of reflection. This is a flat-out lie. Anyone who paid any attention to the news at the time knew Bush was dead-set on war long before he sent in the troops in March 2003. And there is now an abundant amount of documentation, in the form of leaks, unclassified memos, witness interviews and other people’s memoirs to prove it.

While the US President pulled “questionable intelligence” and forgeries from others to justify the initial invasion, in the first phase, he later followed-up by generating questionable intelligence later through his illegal interrogation methods to complete the lie.

Whether you call it all the same lie or two “most essential, abhorrent, intolerable lies”, the memoir is a study in how this President seriously, and carelessly damaged National Security.

Cheney’s life since leaving office has given additional clues. It has been pointed out to me that his presence is always known because the civilian airports in some areas are shutdown and a giant SAM (surface to air missile) unit is stationed at the runway from touchdown until he flies out again.

Similarly, you can tell when Cheney goes fishing because two black military helicopters buzz an otherwise quiet countryside. I assume one helicopter is to deliver him to the exact spot in the river he prefers and the other is to stock the river upstream with fish that he likes to catch.

These men continue to exhibit a habit or removing themselves so far from reality — creating a coddled life with heavily-subsidized (by taxpayer) security blankets and cherry-picked yes men — that they probably will never understand or appreciate the damage that their lies do to their country.

The Institute for Soldier Nanotechnologies at MIT together with the Defense and Veterans Brain Injury Center has released a study of blasts, helmets and brain injury. They set out to test a theory that military traumatic brain injury is made worse by the current helmet design.

Compared to the unhelmeted head, the head with helmet experienced slight mitigation of intracranial stresses. This suggests that the existing [Advanced Combat Helmet] ACH does not significantly contribute to mitigating blast effects, but does not worsen them either. By contrast, the helmet and face shield combination impeded direct transmission of stress waves to the face, resulting in a delay in the transmission of stresses to the intracranial cavity and lower intracranial stresses. This suggests a possible strategy for mitigating blast waves often associated with military concussion.

They designed and ran computer simulations, which concluded the opposite; a helmet does not make the blast effect worse but could be improved to reduce damage. The simulation found that the brain is exposed to blasts through the front of the skull due to the soft skin and holes (e.g. nose and eye sockets) — areas that offer the least protection. A face shield is therefore proposed.

The study is interesting because of evolving threats. Helmets have been studied for impact on a hard surface or for penetration by a sharp object. The rise in brain injuries led to a question about the suitability of existing helmets for the latest attack conditions.

Blast-induced traumatic brain injury is the most prevalent military injury in Iraq and Afghanistan, yet little is known about the mechanical effects of blasts on the human head, and still less is known about how personal protective equipment affects the brain’s response to blasts.

This study brought to mind Florence Nightingale’s “coxcomb” graph (now called a polar-area diagram). She illustrated her Notes on Matters Affecting the Health, Efficiency and Hospital Administration of the British Army in 1858 with this graphic showing cause of death in the Crimean War. Wounds (small red slices) caused only a small fraction of the overall body count. Diseases (big blue slices) were the biggest threat to life. The black slices denote an “other” category:

Her chart has been criticized for accuracy as well as style. A bar chart would be more contemporary but, in terms of this blast study on helmets and casualties, I have seen neither.