Assad is using chemical weapons... really? A sensible piece on general politics.

The US needs Assad to use chemical weapons in violation of the UN weapons resolution for a repeat of Iraq. Assad does not want to use chemical weapons because it signals the end of his power. When the US says that Assad is using chemical weapons why would he and why wouldn't they lie?

Not sure who is more stupid: the people who read the news, the people who write it, the people who create the press releases or the politicians who're in arm locks from their backers.

So Assad knows the US/UK want regime change. They're certainly capable of it and been doing it a lot in the past 60 years; originally covertly through CIA/MI6 involvement but now not so covertly with the backing of massive military invasion. Invasion is something the public have grown used to and it no longer raises revulsion. After the annihilation of Germany and Italy in WW1 and WW2 we have been desensitised to the crazy logic, "the regime is so bad that the people must suffer."

Assad like Hussein and other leaders is smart enough to play the political game in his country: get support, keep support and ruin his competitors: the standard global political game. I'm sure in Syria the government has made the civil war look how it is: a civil war with the government being threatened by terrorists and minority factions.

On the outside our politicians who no longer benefit from Assad (for whatever reason) see it as a dictator oppressing his people. Quick reality check: I'd like to see the US/UK governments roll on their backs faced with a civil uprising. We faced a small one with the IRA in UK, the union disputes against Thatcher's regime, possibly have another with Islamists who disagree with liberalism and have peaceful uprisings against the UK involvement in wars and biased support of the City of London in 2009 onwards: all of which have been outright rejected by the government. Poll tax was the one uprising that did get listened to, but one wonders whether that bill was sacrificially headed by something so controversial to distract attention from other reforms that came bundled. Which ever it's all just normal daily politics.

Given the competing interests are we really to assume that Assad (and his advisors) are so unaware of the way the cards are stacked that they will play the one card that gives the USUK the green light to destroy them? If they did it would have to be a mistake, or at the very least highly serendipitous for the USUK.

The US alone amongst nations once wanted us to believe that Hussein apparently made the same lucky mistake. Weapons inspectors and all other countries thought that Hussein hadn't. The US were in fact, surprisingly: wrong. I have no access to secret intelligence, I have simply intelligence. Colin Powell, decidedly uncomfortable at the UN, presenting random snaps of vehicles from satellites and spy planes doesn't actually tell us anything about weapons. There was no terrorist involvement in 9/11: no one even in US really suggested there was. A 45 minute claim for Scud weapons with a range of 150 miles hardly represents a clear and present danger to anyone but Israel. The press releases were nonsense the first time, there was simply nothing substantial about any of it, the UK government even had a show reconvening to discuss this snow storm. No one believed it but the decision for war had already been made in the US and no-one could stop it. Basically the US openly and unashamedly lied in the full gaze of the world's media. Basically they couldn't be trusted.

So why do we give credence to press releases from a nation which neither tries to speak the truth, nor apologises when it has been proven to be deliberately lying. Lies it must be added which cost the lives of an estimated 1.5 million innocent victims of the US sanctions and invasion. In terms of pure death of innocent civilians at 11 million the US is rising in the ranks and I believe now only has Japan and Germany to beat. Can it really be advisable to invite them into your country?

For the history the original turning point for Hussein's relationship with the West was the invasion of Kuwait. As I understand it Kuwait was violating the OPEC quotas, adding extra oil on the world market which obviously suited the US. It was also side drilling into Iraqi oil reserves. A friend working in the city saw many astonishingly large cheques pass to Kuwait: there was apparently some kind of oil racket going on. Something Western observes also over look when they view world affairs is the arbitrary borders left the League of Nation and Western colonialisation. Kuwait is disputed territory of Iraq. US invasions are more Roman and colonial in style being into completely foreign territory; all the other invasions (including Nazis) are for disputed land. Germany for example in part felt entitled to its pre-WW1 territory (that it had a bizarre racially driven ideology is a side issue.) So we see that the invasion of Kuwait was not so megalomaniac as our press made out.

The telling of truth is not something any country does when it doesn't suit their interests: but few nations apart from the US present themselves, in the same breath as their lies, as the torch bearers of global truth and justice. If the media expects Assad, Russians, Hussein, Iraq etc to lie, then we expect the US to tell the truth. For this reason they deserve to be especially singled out for criticism when they lie openly and intentionally.

So I can say with no shadow of doubt that Assad is not using chemical weapons. He has no chemical weapons facilities, all his once weapons were sold to him by the West (before they changed sides) and Russia and he has been dutifully removing them just as Hussein did after the UN resolutions. If we wish to point fingers here we might move out attention to those Western businesses (US/UK/France) who make a living taking money from countries in return for weapons (chemical and other) so the ruling elites can kill. France is even implicated in supporting the genocide in Rwanda. The network of insidious involvement of the West in the same atrocities it openly abhors is as deep and dark as you wish to explore. Independent groups like Global Witness work hard to bring light to these networks and enable a cleaner world. But governments, and the US, despite the rhetoric, they don't!

The stories of chlorine could just as easily be sparked by an incident at a swimming pool or industrial chemical plant, or by chemical weapons brought into the country by those creating unrest, or it is entirely fabricated and those pictures are not of people injured in chemical attack at all. We simply don't know, our own people are demostrably liars. But we do know for sure that Assad is fight to keep power and so he won't do that which will make him lose power.

NHS versus Private

Data from the National Adult Cardiac Surgery Audit. The 33 NHS that do cardiac surgery are included and 3 Private hospitals that submitted data (Harley Street, London Bridge Hospital, Wellington).

The graph is fitted with a polynomial that captures the apparent rise and fall of data. All other fits failed.


The crude data is as follows. Private hospitals are indicated, the rest are NHS.

Hospital	Num Deaths	Num Operations	% Mortality
London Bridge Hospital (Private)	0	1	0.00%
Harley Street Clinic (Private)	0	3	0.00%
Manchester Royal Infirmary	1	37	2.70%
Barts and the London	7	129	5.40%
Hammersmith and St Marys Hospitals	8	109	7.30%
Papworth Hospital	27	250	10.80%
University Hospital of South Manchester	5	45	11.10%
University Hospital of Wales	13	116	11.20%
Southampton General Hospital	29	241	12.00%
University Hospital Coventry	7	58	12.10%
Wellington Hospital North (Private)	1	8	12.50%
Freeman Hospital	9	62	14.50%
University College Hospital	12	78	15.40%
Castle Hill Hospital	9	57	15.80%
Glenfield Hospital	25	151	16.60%
Basildon Hospital	16	95	16.80%
Royal Brompton and Harefield Hospitals	25	144	17.40%
St George's Hospital	17	94	18.10%
Victoria Hospital Blackpool	16	83	19.30%
University Hospital of North Staffordshire	15	75	20.00%
Bristol Royal Infirmary	30	149	20.10%
Leeds General Infirmary	18	86	20.90%
Nottingham City Hospital	11	51	21.60%
Northern General Hospital	13	59	22.00%
Morriston Hospital	20	91	22.00%
King's College Hospital	29	127	22.80%
Queen Elizabeth Hospital	16	68	23.50%
Royal Sussex County Hospital	13	55	23.60%
James Cook University Hospital	21	86	24.40%
John Radcliffe Hospital	27	109	24.80%
Liverpool Heart and Chest Hospital	31	120	25.80%
New Cross Hospital	10	38	26.30%
St Thomas Hospital	31	105	29.50%
Derriford Hospital	31	101	30.70%

Obviously the Private sector hasn't submitted enough data to enable a comparison between public and private (which rather contradicts their idea of a free market and choice). But grouping the data together a clear trend is visible. As hospitals process more patients the mortality increases, until around 100 operations (3yr period) after which the mortality declines.

This is much as would be expected. Small hospitals can provide personalised care, particularly if those patients are individually paying. As number increase then individual care will suffer. However as hospitals become huge there are advantages from experience, well practiced procedures and more expensive equipment (economy of scale).

Because small hospitals provide less data there is also a larger error bar at the left of the graph. Average mortality is 17.6%. Harley Street which does only 1 operation a year (on average) would only expect a mortality every 6 years (every other 3 year study) if it was an average hospital and would need to maintain zero deaths for 16 years before statistics could conclude it was better than average (at 5% confidence limit)! Small private hospitals thus need to be studied over much greater time periods to assess their performance.

Hospitals to avoid however are the high scoring ones at the end which are also large hospitals and the data is much more likely to represent their actual performance. Performance should improve as patient numbers drop and staff can provide more individual care.

The final conclusion to draw from this is how it doesn't support an argument for privatisation. It suggests rather that while private hospitals might often provide better healthcare outcomes (but not always), they do so by only treated a very few individuals. A private system would then result in higher mortality in the population from people unable to afford the treatment. A public system should provide lower national mortality over all because all people have access to healthcare, even while having higher mortality on its books. Moreover many people arriving in public hospitals from very poor backgrounds may have complicating factors arising from their poverty that will end up on public mortality books, but private clinics will be able to avoid such factors by excluding the poor.

Public planners ought take heed also from the economy of scale that very large cardiac hospitals provide better outcomes than mid-range hospitals. Exactly as predicted by modern economic theory and the ideas of centralisation. While ideologically many people may not like this conclusion, ideology should always be fact based rather then prejudicial.

The obvious next approach is to combine this with budgets. I cannot see how private hospitals can provide more efficient healthcare given the low throughput. So already i suspect this won't support privatisation arguments either.

UK Number deaths as % of population 1901 - 2012

% death rate in UK since 1901. Very crude but a place to start looking at whether our health policies work. Despite massive increases in welfare and medicine not much has changed until recently! Why is this? 

Uk Mortality Files 1901 - 2012

Some data that may be of use: England & Wales Total Mortality 1901 - 2012

England & Wales Mortality Files from Office National Statistics
http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/publications/re-reference-tables.html?edition=tcm%3A77-215593
http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/rel/subnational-health1/the-21st-century-mortality-files/2001-2012/index.html

Year	Deaths	POP	%Death
1901	551585	32612100	1.691351
1902	535538	32950800	1.625266
1903	514628	33293400	1.545736
1904	549784	33731300	1.629893
1905	520031	33988900	1.530002
1906	531281	34342000	1.54703
1907	524221	34699000	1.510767
1908	520456	35155400	1.480444
1909	518003	35423700	1.462306
1910	483247	35792000	1.350154
1911	527810	36136000	1.460621
1912	486939	36327000	1.340433
1913	504975	36574000	1.380694
1914	516742	36967000	1.397847
1915	562253	35284000	1.593507
1916	508217	34642000	1.467054
1917	498922	34197000	1.458964
1918	611861	34024000	1.798322
1919	504203	35427000	1.423217
1920	466130	37247000	1.251456
1921	458629	37932000	1.209082
1922	486780	38205000	1.274126
1923	444785	38449000	1.156818
1924	473235	38795000	1.219835
1925	472841	38935000	1.214437
1926	453804	39114000	1.160209
1927	484609	39286000	1.233541
1928	460389	39483000	1.166044
1929	532492	39600000	1.344677
1930	455427	39801000	1.14426
1931	491630	39988000	1.229444
1932	484129	40201000	1.204271
1933	496465	40349500	1.230412
1934	477075	40467000	1.178924
1935	477401	40645000	1.174563
1936	495764	40839600	1.21393
1937	509574	41031000	1.241924
1938	478829	41215000	1.161783
1939	498968	41246000	1.209737
1940	572644	39889000	1.435594
1941	524434	38743000	1.353623
1942	470657	38243000	1.230701
1943	491531	37818000	1.299728
1944	481050	37785000	1.273124
1945	481274	37916000	1.269316
1946	489054	40595000	1.204715
1947	515591	41786000	1.233885
1948	468645	42750000	1.096246
1949	509973	43100000	1.183232
1950	510301	43830000	1.164273
1951	549380	43815000	1.253863
1952	497484	43955000	1.131803
1953	503529	44109000	1.141556
1954	501896	44274000	1.133613
1955	518864	44441000	1.167534
1956	521331	44667000	1.16715
1957	514870	44907000	1.146525
1958	526843	45109000	1.167933
1959	527643	45386000	1.162568
1960	526254	45775000	1.149654
1961	551758	46196200	1.19438
1962	557599	46657400	1.195092
1963	572868	46972900	1.219571
1964	534737	47324200	1.129944
1965	549379	47671200	1.152434
1966	563624	47966500	1.175037
1967	542516	48272100	1.123871
1968	576754	48510700	1.188921
1969	579378	48738200	1.188755
1970	575194	48891300	1.176475
1971	567262	49152000	1.154097
1972	591889	49327100	1.199927
1973	587478	49459000	1.187808
1974	585292	49467900	1.183175
1975	582841	49469800	1.178175
1976	598516	49459200	1.210121
1977	575928	49440400	1.164893
1978	585901	49442500	1.185015
1979	593018	49508200	1.197818
1980	581383	49603000	1.172072
1981	577890	49634300	1.164296
1982	581861	49582100	1.17353
1983	579608	49616800	1.168169
1984	566881	49713100	1.140305
1985	590734	49860700	1.184769
1986	581203	49999100	1.162427
1987	566994	50122900	1.131207
1988	571408	50253600	1.137049
1989	576872	50407800	1.14441
1990	564846	50560700	1.117164
1991	570044	50748400	1.123275
1992	558313	50854200	1.09787
1993	578512	50986100	1.134647
1994	551780	51116300	1.07946
1995	565902	51272000	1.103725
1996	563007	51410300	1.095125
1997	558052	51559600	1.082344
1998	553435	51720100	1.070058
1999	553532	51933600	1.065846
2000	537877	52139900	1.031603
2001	532498	52359978	1.016994
2002	535356	52602143	1.017746
2003	539151	52863238	1.019898
2004	514250	53152022	0.967508
2005	512993	53575343	0.957517
2006	502599	53950854	0.931587
2007	504052	54387392	0.926781
2008	509090	54841720	0.92829
2009	491348	55235253	0.889555
2010	493242	55692423	0.885654
2011	484367	56170927	0.862309
2012	499331	56567796	0.882712
2013	506790	56948200	0.889913992
2014	501424	57408600	0.873430113
2015	529655	57885400	0.915006202
2016	525048	58381300	0.899342769
2017	533253	58744600	0.907748116