The Devil's Excrement

Via The Command Post blog I learn that there were missiles at the chemical factory taken over near Basra, will this be the missing smoking gun for weapons of mass destruction?

I am trying to understand why people think that the war is going “slower than expected”. Casualties yesterday were less than the number of people killed in Caracas on any given weekend. (Note: Roughly 75-80 people are killed every weekend in Caracas alone in the poor neighborhoods). In fact the estimates for civilian casualties range from 135 to 203 at this time and military ones are 19 casualties and 12 captured or missing in action.  And somehow I have troubles understanding why Reuters reports that this time the war might be different than the ’91 one. Well, in 1991, the Desert Storm began on January 16^th. And it took exactly 43 days for a ceasefire to be declared, so I am not sure what it is they are talking about. Moreover, it was not until Feb. 15^th. that Iraq actually offered to even leave Kuwait!!. The ground offensive began after over a month of bombing on Feb. 23d. and two days later Hussein ordered his troops to retreat from Kuwait. As usual, people rely simply on qualitative arguments that are simply false. As I write this ABC News (TV, not website) and the New York Times are reporting that troops are gathering 50 miles from Baghdad. 50 miles!!. They have gone 300 miles in the desert trying not to get killed and in less than three days they are 50 miles away and people think is going badly? There seems to be something wrong with this picture. Are Americans so cocky that they thought they would get to Baghdad without resistance? How does this jive with the human shields that are surprised that some Iraqis dislike Saddam?

But no matter, the Dow drops a zillion points because this is taking too long, making the stock market as much of a crap shoot as my brother thinks Formula 1 races have become under the new rules. And I do enjoy it when our illustrious and cynical Vice-president says “what is being done to Iraq today may be done to anyone”. Is that his only concern? Where was he when Noriega was ousted? Or when Grenada was invaded? Does he remember the Falklands? He says he is worried about the UN, but nowhere in his statements do I see concern for people from either side. How about the Iraqis that have suffered the whims of their leader for almost two decades? I imagine in his mind they don’t count, after all, Saddam was elected unanimously by the Iraqis last fall. Yes, it would have been wonderful if Saddam had been killed the first day and the whole thing had ended that day, but it did not happen and I expect that Baghdad will not be easy to take, but it will happen sooner rather than later. In fact, the Boston Globe reports that things appear to be getting ready for something to happen in Baghdad.

The Command Post has moved to a new server and the link I provided the other day is not working yet. For those of you that want to keep tabs of the news out of Iraq through what still is the best source I have found, here are two links that are currently working:

http://216.134.209.67/~command/

http://www.command-post.org

From The Politburo, via Instapundit: Definitely worlds apart

(By the way check out the story on how the author of The politburo is banned from North Korea, cute!)

Diane (Diana?) can certainly write powerful stuff, best thought I have seen into what we all are really about:

I cannot not not not get over the irony of this war and how we are all communicating with one another. I am a sort-of-hawk (at least, conditionally pro-war), and I am communicating with a Baghdadi from New York City; an Israeli puts up a mirror site for this Iraqi; the guy in Baghdad wishes an Israeli woman and her family well while he is about to be shocked and awed by my country’s unparalleled ability to wage war; she puts up a website from the IDF Home Command for him to download a PDF survival guide in Arabic.

Cool no?

There is I no question in my mind about the impact of weblogs on media coverage of the Iraqi war. Initially, I checked both traditional and blog sources for news, but today I found myself practically depending on weblogs to tell me where the interesting stuff was all the time. While there was a lot of duplication of coverage across blogs of the Iraqi invasion for obvious reasons, I will try to give an idea of the best sites and what interesting stuff they told me about.

To me the best site so far (opinion evolving fast!) is The Command Post a sort of United Blog International of roughly 50 bloggers where each one posts whatever they have found that is novel or interesting. Obviously, this yields very good coverage at amazingly high speeds. The idea is brilliant why go around checking many blogs at once, when collaborators can post independently whatever they want. And it works for minute to minute coverage exceedingly well. Congratulations to the creators Michele and Alan for their initiative as well as the other 50 or so bloggers for participating. From Command Post I learned today that CNN had disconnected reporter Kevin Sites from its free form blogging, perhaps feeling the heat or smelling possible conflicts of interest a la NYT and Francisco Toro. They also tipped me off at the following fantastic photo from the Washington Post, truly shock and awe:

They also have a few contributions about what may or not be propaganda of the happiness of Iraqi’s that Americans have finally arrived to get rid of Saddam. Perhaps the most shocking was that of the Americans that went to be part of the “human shield” in Iraq and now find themselves shocked by the welcome by the Iraqis of the American attack and how people are willing to give up their homes just to get rid of Saddam. These guys probably have no clue about it must be to live for decades under a dictatorship. This was also the first site that told me that a high Iraqi commander had surrendered. I had read the NYT only minutes earlier, but it was not highlighted sufficiently there to gain my attention. I also loved this picture posted at Command Post, with amazing shock and awe:

I guess I did not like Chuck’s post wondering once again about Salam my friendly blogger from Baghdad. I guess I have been following that site for so long, even before Iraq was a big story that I do believe him, more so after reading Diane’s take on it. I agree with Salam, if you don’t believe him just don’t read it. Moreover, Salam’s silence while the bombing has been strong confirms to me he is quite real. If he were fake, reporting right now frequently would be his crowning glory.

Command post also told me about CNN being kicked out of Baghdad in this post. I like people that keep a sense of humor amidst this real, but necessary tragedy. While I had been using Debka right before the war and it told me about the beginning of the action, I still have problems with the layout. As usual, Instapundit has been a great source of news, unfortunately Glenn’s responsibilities keep him away from continuous news which is what I was looking for, but you can’t beat him for picking the important points and at the French! A case in point was this report on a Saudi’s opinion about what is going on, or this report on when Blix saw the light somewhat late. Tried the Aljezira site, only to learn its all in Arabic. Back to Iraq has been less than I expected, while Warblogs has been too structured for my taste. I guess I like the comments on the news, not just the news. Daily Kos is good,  but more for overall commentary rather than breaking news, which we also need.

All around a pretty impressive output for the first live test of bloggers under true pressure. Little shock at this, lots of awe and cheers to all them war bloggers for a job well done!

From Secular Blasphemy I learn about Back to Iraq 2.0, a blog by independent reporter Christopher Allbritton, who is actually in Northern Iraq reporting live on his blog:

Hi there! Thanks for stopping in. I’m Christopher Allbritton, former AP and New York Daily News reporter. This summer I went stumbling around Iraqi Kurdistan, the northern part of Iraq outside Saddam’s direct control, looking for stories. 

This blog and Salam’s (which I linked to earlier) may provide some of the most fascinating insight into the events in Iraq in the next few weeks.

Pretty amazing how North Korea’s official website has a communist “look and feel” about it

I am adding links on the left to my favorite salon.com blogs which I not only read regularly because I enjoy them (They are good, but I am sure there are many good blogs I don’y enjoy), but also  their owners appear to be very nice people. (The world needs a lot of those!). So here they are in no particular order:  Secular Blashemy, Radio Free Blogistan, Fried Green AlQaeda’s, The Raven and Andrew Bayer is Dreaming of China.

In what I consider a very gutsy move, the Governor of Illinois George Ryan, whom I know practically nothing about, just commuted the death sentences of 164 men and 3 women in death row. His reason was very simple:

“The facts that I have seen in reviewing each and every one of these cases raised questions not only about the innocence of people on death row, but about the fairness of the death penalty system as a whole,”

I bet he will sleep soundly tonight.