] MANDRAKE%u2014THE ONLINE ALIAS for 42-year-old Steve
] Bail, borrowed from Stanley Kubrick%u2019s film
] %u201CDoctor Strangelove%u201D%u2014is a war blogger. A
] seven-year veteran of the Royal Air Force, Bail now
] spends his spare time running a Web log, a diarylike
] personal Web page, devoted to chronicling and discussing
] the war in Iraq ( lionelmandrake.blogspot.com ).
]
] He%u2019s not alone: in the past few years,
] hundreds of thousands of bloggers have staked out
] hypertext positions along the Internet%u2019s newest
] frontier. These guerrilla pundits, denizens of the
] so-called blogosphere, come in all shapes and sizes:
] artists, music buffs, politicos and the occasional
] journalist. But with the onset of hostilities in Iraq,
] the news-related sites have moved to the forefront. In
] fact, not since the days after September 11%u2014the
] birth, many say, of the war blog%u2014has online traffic
] been so heavy. %u201CBlogs may come of age in this
] war,%u201D says Bail, noting that since the Tomahawks
] started flying, he%u2019s seen a huge spike in
] readership.

Bloggers Over Baghdad

] On the eve of a fence-mending trip to Europe and Turkey,
] Colin Powell has ratcheted up pressure on Syria and Iran,
] hinting that if they did not change their ways, they too
] would come under intense pressure from Washington, after
] the war with Iraq was won.
]
] Mr Powell leaves today for Ankara, then EU and Nato
] headquarters in Brussels, in a personal bid to ease
] strains between the United States and some of its
] alliance partners over the Iraq campaign.
]
] He will be trying to to defuse tensions with Turkey after
] the latter refused permission for the US to launch a
] second front against Baghdad from its territory.

Powell flies out with a post-war warning for Syria and Iran

] At 68, he might be too old to be the next Scud stud, but
] as the only NBC-affiliated correspondent left in Baghdad,
] Peter Arnett couldn't be hotter.
]
] Tuesday, Arnett spoke by phone for more than an hour from
] his room in the Palestine Hotel with U.S.-based media
] reporters. The veteran war correspondent, who became a
] household name in 1991 while reporting from Baghdad for
] CNN, acknowledged taking "a perverse pleasure" in finding
] himself at the center of a story CNN, which dumped him
] four years ago in the wake of the Tailwind scandal, can
] no longer cover.
]
] Arnett works for MSNBC's "National Geographic Explorer"
] but turns up regularly on NBC ("for me, it's a blast to
] be on Tom Brokaw's show"). With the sound of what he said
] were U.S. B52s buzzing in the background, he talked about
] the impending battle for Baghdad.

Peter Arnett relishes role as NBC's man in Baghdad

] Pulitzer Prize-winning war correspondent Peter Arnett is
] accustomed to the sounds of war.
]
] "It was horrendous, it was thunderous," Arnett says of
] this war's first waves of Baghdad bombing. "But the point
] is, it was a half-mile away."
]
] For him, that's a comfort zone. By his own count, Arnett,
] 68, is covering his 20th war.
]
] "I wouldn't want to be anywhere else," he said Tuesday,
] by phone from his $40-a-day hotel room in Baghdad. "I
] like being at the big story."
]
] Now he's busy again. Sent to Iraq to do features for
] "National Geographic Explorer," Arnett has instead been
] featured on NBC and MSNBC. He remains in Baghdad %u2014
] even though his old network, CNN, was expelled.
]
] "It is particularly ironic because CNN is not here,"
] Arnett says. "I do get a perverse pleasure out of it."
]
] In 1991, CNN was still struggling for attention. It had
] Arnett, Bernard Shaw and John Holliman in Baghdad when
] the first Persian Gulf War began.
]
] "Peter (was) the best war reporter of his generation,"
] Reese Schonfeld, a CNN founder, wrote in "Me and Ted
] Against the World" (HarperCollins, $26). "All of them
] (were) in the right place at the right time ... CNN
] caught lightning in a bottle."
]
] Those three reported live for the first 17 hours of the
] 1991 war. Arnett stayed on, winning a Pulitzer Prize and
] propelling CNN to

Reporter Peter Arnett, 68, covering his 20th war

] CNN's firing of Peter Arnett, the Pulitzer Price winning
] journalist who achieved international acclaim for his
] on-the-spot reporting from Baghdad during the Gulf War,
] sheds further light on the subordination of the US media
] to the military and intelligence establishment.
]
] CNN announced on Tuesday it had agreed to a settlement
] with Arnett, who has worked for the network for 18 years,
] to terminate his employment two and a half years in
] advance of the expiration of his current contract. The
] network's statement came one day after Arnett told the
] press that CNN had rejected his request to report on the
] current war from Belgrade, and had effectively muzzled
] him since last July.
]
] Arnett received a Pulitzer in 1966 for his work as an
] Associated Press reporter in Vietnam. By the time of the
] Gulf War he had become CNN's premier international
] correspondent. He came under criticism at that time from
] government and military circles for his objective
] reportage of civilian casualties resulting from the US
] bombing of Baghdad.

Pentagon pressure behind CNN firing of Peter Arnett

] Veteran war correspondent Peter Arnett, the last Western
] television reporter to cover the gulf war from Baghdad,
] is back in the Iraqi capital on assignment for National
] Geographic EXPLORER television (more details). Arnett
] recently spoke with National Geographic News about life
] in a nation solidly focused in crosshairs of
] international attention.
]
] Do the Iraqi people see war as a foregone conclusion? Or
] are they hopeful of some other outcome?
]
] The people of Iraq base their views of the current
] situation largely on Iraqi government media programs and
] commentary. Government officials are very critical of the
] U.S. and U.K. war plans, and declare that the defensive
] forces are ready to resist. On the other hand, government
] media emphasizes that Iraq has nothing to hide from the
] world and believes "sensible" decisions by the UN will
] prevent attack. Certainly Saddam Hussein is counting on
] his European "allies" of France and Germany to delay or
] eventually avoid war.

In Iraq: Reporter Peter Arnett's View From the Ground

] Mark Broatch, Computerworld New Zealand
]
] Monday, March 31, 2003
]
] If you haven't noticed, Weblogs are escaping the world of
] the opinionated scribbler in the wilderness and being
] taken up as a means to extend corporate intelligence
] gathering.
]
] Blogs, as they're known, are no longer just an online
] epistolary sideline. They're joining traditional project
] collaboration tools like document management,
] whiteboards, e-mail, and other online meeting spaces,
] meaning team members within companies and outside can
] contribute regardless of location. Weblog software
] aggregates unstructured information in a Web-publishable
] form, by time and topic, and XML can be used to embed
] links from a variety of information sources.
]
] IM's Example
]
]
] Advertisement
]
]
]
]
]
] While most private bloggers use free or very cheap
] software to produce their Weblogs (like Blogging.com, run
] by the Google-owned Pyra Labs, motto: "Push-button
] publishing for the people"), software vendors sniff a new
] market in the making. Techdirt, Traction Software, and
] others--including the usual software heavyweights--are
] building in things like enterprise-level security and
] management, as they are to another technology that
] started off life as a cult tool, instant messaging.

Blogs Begin Getting Down to Business

As Pentagon press conferences blend into each other and war coverage churns on, Salam Pax, whoever and wherever he is, has captivated the world's attention.
Blending sarcasm and apparent sincerity, Salam Pax, an Austrian-educated architectural engineer, and his Web site, "Where Is Raed?" - http://dear_raed.blogspot.com - has chronicled life outside his Baghdad window since September. His daily Web diary, or Weblog, had so many readers over the weekend, more than 1 million, it crashed the small, free Texas-based Web server he was using to post his photos. Google has since stepped in and offered to be host of the site and its photos through its company, Blogger.

But now, Salam Pax, a pseudonym for the author, is missing. He hasn't been heard from since Monday, and yesterday chat rooms across the country were abuzz over whether or not he is still alive. Many sent messages in case he was monitoring, telling him to lie low and stay safe.

Pax's appeal lies not in just his compelling portrayals of everyday life in Baghdad buying vegetables or waiting in line for gas, but in his disarming (apparent) honesty. He speaks the casual international language of a tech-savvy, disaffected youth.

Salam Pax has gone missing

] Geraldo Rivera says reports of his journalistic death
] have been greatly exaggerated.
]
] Although it was CNN that claimed the U.S. military was
] expelling Geraldo from Iraq for "violating the cardinal
] rule of war reporting Monday by giving away crucial
] details of future military operations during a live
] broadcast," he blamed his old network, MSNBC.
]
] "Some rats at my former network, NBC, are spreading lies
] about me," Rivera told Fox from Iraq.

Geraldo: Network 'Rats' Are Lying About Me

] How does one make sense of the present conflict? As a
] student of International Relations, I am often asked to
] explain or express my opinion of the war. As a
] Portuguese-American, I am divided about the official view
] of the Portuguese government and the decision of the
] American government to mount an attack without a Security
] Council resolution. This action weakens the status and
] the importance of international law and institutions such
] as the U.N.
]
] Under the current operation of "Enduring Freedom," the
] administration has set forth a clear black-and-white
] policy of "you are either with us or against us" in the
] war on terrorism. The administration's goal after 9/11 is
] to rid the world of potential threats to the U.S. and
] western dominance. Thus, the latest operation, "Iraqi
] Freedom," is based on the administration's perception
] that this war is just and correct based on at least four
] justifications: the cruelty of Saddam against his people;
] the military threat he poses to his neighbors and the
] U.S.; his ties to terrorist organizations; his flouting
] of treaties and United Nations Security Council
] resolutions.
]
] Some contend that there is lack of evidence linking
] Saddam to the 9/11 attacks and minimize the threat that
] Saddam poses to the U.S. and its allies. Jimmy Carter and
] others argue that the diplomatic route was not fully
] exhausted, and the heightened pressure on%2

Divided about America's decision to go to war: 3/30/03