] A group of American anti-war demonstrators who came to
] Iraq with Japanese human shield volunteers made it across
] the border today with 14 hours of uncensored video, all
] shot without Iraqi government minders present. Kenneth
] Joseph, a young American pastor with the Assyrian Church
] of the East, told UPI the trip "had shocked me back to
] reality."

Anti-War human sheilds change their minds about the war upon meeting Iraqis

] When asked to explain what is actually happening in these
] violently pretty pictures, politicians contemptously
] refuse to give "a running commentary", while press
] secretaries hide behind the sandbags of "classified"
] information. This trick of appearing open while being
] closed is also seen in the military tactic of attaching
] reporters to army units. It looks fantastically
] democratic but even the most skilled journalists risk
] becoming, in the jargon, "clientised": coming to share
] the fear, excitement and eventually triumphalism of the
] troops beside them. And if heaps of charred bodies should
] occur on either side, these "embedded" journalists will
] be kept well away from them.

Many thanks to the Guardian for being the first commercial news outlet that I am aware of to have the guts to actually say that this is all a bunch of bullshit. Hear that sucking sound? Thats the complete information vacuum surrounding this campaign. The propaganda coming from both sides is so transparent that you really can't buy into it unless you care about feeling a certain way about it and are looking for justifications.

I don't really need to rip the Iraqi propaganda. The press is happy to offer every imaginable question about it whenever it is released. However, at least the American press is never, ever seen to question the information coming out of the U.S. Military. I've turned my TV off serveral times simply because I didn't feel like I wanted to be treated like an idiot anymore. They are covering this like a football game, and they seem completely naive about how they are being manipulated.

Seriously, in Bush's talk on Monday he gave the EXACT time when the conflict would begin. We ALL turned on our TVs at that exact time. We all saw exactly what we expected to see. The bombing began. And we are supposed to beleive that this was a surpise? Their plans had changed?

Please...

Whether its "Target of Opportunity" or "Shock and Awe" (two words I am so sick of hearing that I hope they are elminiated from the language), these are obviously ways of creating "drama" for the television viewers to follow. They bare little or no relationship to what is actually going on on the ground or in the war room. We have little or no information about what is actually going on other then what is being shown on camera. All the talk is just chatter.

I don't want to see a webcam in baghdad. I want to see 24/7 satellite coverage... 2 meter resolution at least. I want raw data.

Guardian Unlimited | Special reports | Military mind games

] The U.S. 3rd Infantry Division met strong fire and
] resistance when it tried to enter An Nasiriyah, where it
] would cross the Euphrates, sources in the Russian
] military say. Iraqi infantry units supported by the
] Republican Guard reportedly blocked the U.S. forces'
] advance. The sources said the 3rd Infantry declined
] further combat and moved down the western bank of the
] Euphrates.

1. This is a great blow by blow war blog.
2. Yup, it appears at least possible that a US military unit "retreated." The Iraqi information minister was not lieing about that in the statement made around midnight CST. He was spinning it hard, but he wasn't lieing.

The Agonist--by Sean Paul Kelley

] The Iraq invasion is the first major war on the Web. Now
] that the tanks have started rolling, millions of
] Americans are crowding the Internet to catch up on the
] latest news, see pictures, and send e-mail to loved ones
] in danger. After you've checked out Slate -- it was your
] first stop, right? -- here's where you should you go for
] updates, speculation, on-the-ground blogging, official
] statements, and even war comedy.

Link-o-rama from Slate.

The War on the Web - Sites to see on the road to Baghdad. By Avi Zenilman

This was a private message but I've decided to post my comments publically.

Elonka wrote:
] Heh, I have trouble with thinking of the name Tom/Decius and
] "apathetic" in the same thought. ;) You're one of the least
] apathetic people I know! (grin)

I'm not apathetic. Statistically, most of my peers are.

] Just out of curiosity, how often do you vote? When's the last
] time that you voted?

I usually try to vote. I did not vote in the last Presidential election because I was flying to South Korea that day. (And I must say I was quite surpised a month later when I returned to find that we did not yet have a leader.) (Yes, I realise that you can pre-vote, but I was far too busy to research it.)

I last voted in the 2002 California elections. I voted against a communist (not exagerating) electric power system for San Francisco which was literally going to be operated by administrators who admitedly didn't know anything about anything other then that they hate corporations (There was only ONE engineer running for PUD administrator in ONE district). It was defeated by less then 1000 votes.

] Regardless, I do agree with you that it's an excellent idea to
] encourage people to vote.

Its not just voting.

We have an extremely effective propaganda system in this country. I beleive the interest in the Internet/blogging is basically a reaction to that, whether people understand it or not. They want more detail and broader perspectives, and they want to control what they see.

The difference between our legal rhetoric and that of the parliments is stark. People don't watch cspan because it is specifically intended to be boring and obtuse. We have to fight this, not just in terms of access (which has been a hard fight in and of itself) but in terms of accessability.

We need more detailed input into our government's actions then a left/right switch every four years. California leads the way in this respect. There are lots of referendums on every ballot and they send you a packet with pro and con information on each item.

We need more organized voting. Do not vote with a party and do not vote as a generalist ("I like this guy."). Pick a specific issue that you care about. Pick a position on that issue. Pre-announce your position on that issue so that politicians have the opportunitiy to respond to you. Create organizations of other people who will vote the same way you will and sell this organization as a part of a coallition that a politican may court in the context of building enough votes to put him/her into office.

Basically, "Special Interests" are GOOD NOT BAD. Attempts to limit them are attempts to limit democracy. When you vote left/right instead of voting on specifics that you UNDERSTAND, you have less impact on the situation, not more. Your input becomes more obtuse and more related to your identity then your thoughts. Left/right is not important. Right/wrong is important, and none of us has the capacity to understand all the right/wrongs nor are any of the politicians right or wrong on every issue. Understand the right/wrong on AN issue and pursue THAT issue ALONE.

Democracy is not an on/off switch. Its many shades of gray. This country could be a great deal more democratic. Information technology enables this because it scaling democracy is, essentially, an information technology problem.

] These include a powerful propaganda machine — America’s
] is the most comprehensive and sophisticated in history —
] centered around a few simple, powerful symbols which,
] though in themselves meaningless, are nonetheless, in
] old-fashioned parlance, taboo. It remains an offense to
] “desecrate” the flag.
]
] They also include a public rhetoric so far removed from
] ordinary speech as to constitute practically a separate
] language and whose intended effect is essentially to
] baffle...

Do you watch cspan?

ArabNews: Neo-Totalitarianism

Opinion roundup.

United Kingdom, Jonathan Freedland in the Guardian
Saudi Arabia, Nicolas Buchele in the Arab News
Philippines, Adrian E. Cristobal in the Manila Bulletin
Australia, Editorial from the Sydney Morning Herald
Ghana, Editorial from Accra Mail
Israel, Editorial from Haaretz
Russia, Boris Kagarlitsky in the Moscow Times
News Iran, Parviz Esmaeili in the Tehran Times

Salon.com | The world on the war

quote from msnbc weblog central:

"Ostensibly based in Baghdad, Where is Raed? is written by a person blogging under the pseudonym of Salam Pax, a tech-savvy Iraqi whose mastery of English provides for vivid descriptions, cutting wit, and thoughtful commentary. In the past there has been some discussion of the veracity of the writer’s claims, but those appear to have been resolved, with several bloggers offering testimony to Salam’s authenticity —and frankly, the more you read, the less doubt there seems to be."

Where is Raed ?

] In terms of the power he now claims, without significant
] challenge, George W. Bush is now the closest thing in a
] long time to dictator of the world. He claims to see the
] future as clearly as the past. Let's hope he's right.

Its amazing to see something like this from someone like Kinsley. Even the right is moving left in response to this... That last sentence bothers me. "Let's hope he's right" is a wimpy finish. Fuck that.

A. He is obviously "wrong" in a moral sense. Thats the whole point. He is being an imperialistic bastard on purpose in hopes of scaring various people into getting rid of our enemies.

B. Even if it works, its going to cost a fortune.

C. It had better fucking work, but there is no way that anyone can know for sure. This is a grim business we engage in and there really is no room for error.

D. Protesting this, if you oppose it, is only useful to the extent that it convinces people that they should vote against these people in the next election.

E. If there is an interest by the liberals in countering this strategy they must provide a clear counter strategy which enables us to deal with Al'Q. So far I haven't seen it. Daschle? Hello??

We are now too powerful to simply avoid voting out of apathy. Your votes don't just impact us. They impact everyone in the world. People must vote, and they must vote with an international perspective. To continue to apathetically not participate in the electoral process in this country, as most of us do, is no longer acceptable. Our votes are the only thing that can ultimately prevent an empire of good intentions from becoming, years from now, exactly the sort of ruthless international dictatorship that such power usually produces.

Sovereign authority - By Michael Kinsley - Slate.com

] In other words, Iraq is a means toward an end. It is not
] an end in itself. It achieves nothing definitive by itself.
] Its purpose is to enable the United States to achieve other
] ends later, ends that will bring the nation closer to winning
] the war -- or so Washington hopes.
]
] ...the primary purpose of the Iraq war is to set the stage for
] undermining the foundations of al Qaeda in particular and
] of radical Islam as an effective paramilitary force in
] general.
]
] If the campaign goes well, two points will sink in: First,
] that the international system, alliances and institutions
] cannot contain American power; there is no protection there.
] And second, that the American ability to exercise warfare at
] extreme distances is overwhelming. Therefore, resistance to
] the United States is less rational than accommodating the
] United States.

Stratfor explains US strategy really well...

[IP] Stratfor Weekly: Beyond the Iraq Campaign