War Blogging

Posted on March 27, 2003 in Crosstalk Pointers War

When I went to Borders to browse a bit last night, I picked up a book that promised to tell me everything that I should know about Iraq that Bush did not want me to know. I turned, walked about five steps, and then spun around to put it back. With Michael Cunningham’s The Hours and a Spanish Dictionary already in hand, I decided that I didn’t want to fee d an incipient depression: I chose wonder instead.

• Lynn got Biblical and quoted a passage from 1 Samuel warning against the dire consequences of seeking a king. She notes that even in evil times, the prophets always saw the hand of God. I worry about those who see God’s hand in cruise missiles.
  
  
  
• Donna, the Antisocial Bitch, lambasts the media propaganda machine on the issue of POWs:
  

  You tell me where it says that if the good ol’ USofA decides to bomb the crap out of some country, the people of that country have to reply with “Thank you Sir, may I have one more?”

  
  

• blu iguana wasn’t Simming: she was packing! She still found time to wax sarcastically about the POW videotaping issue in a piece entitled “Shoot ’em, Yes. Humiliate ’em, No.”
  
  The whole POW broadcast thing must have our dogs of war quavering in terror of another Vietnam because they have targeted Iraqi television: it’s obvious that they want to put it off the air. Can’t have both sides of the story, it seems. Too much accuracy means too little support for the present stupidity.
  
  
  
• jeanne d’arc has given me a link and praise. More significantly, she’s turned off her television set for the duration of the war. (We did that in 1991 and haven’t reconnected cable since.) Of her decision to ban TV:

  I have an 8-year-old in the house, and I really don’t know how to explain any of this to her. I could come up with an explanation for why my country is dropping bombs on people, but it wouldn’t be one I believed, and I’m not going to lie to someone who trusts me as much as she does. I can’t believe anything my government is telling me right now. For some reason that makes it more important that my children know they can trust what I tell them. I need a little island where the truth exists, just so I can prove to myself that the truth exists.

• Raye declares herself “stunned” by a Congressional Resolution calling on President Bush to declare a day of fasting and prayer in support of the war. She reprints the entirety of the resolution.
  
  

• Andrew gives another reason why he doesn’t support the troops: they’re opening fire at anything that moves, including civilians.
  
  

• Raed has not posted since Monday. Where is Raed? I wonder what those who have been spreading the rumor that he is a hoax will say when his dead body turns up in Bagdad?
  
  

• Elkit went down to the bookstore and bought herself a copy of Graham Greene’s The Quiet American, a novel set in pre-fiasco Vietnam. It dramatizes, very nicely, the absurdity of getting involved in foreign affairs as a well-intentioned terrorist — which neatly describes much of American foreign policy since 1945 including the current adventure in Iraq.
  
  

• Jeremy has been very busy scanning the news for accurate information about what is happening in Iraq. His comments about who fired a missile that killed 15 innocent civilians in Basra are worth investigating:

  It doesn’t really matter who did it anymore. Oh, sure, it’d be great for someone to be held accountable, but the damage is done. Innocent people are dead. Almost immediately, the citizens of this neighborhood started shouting about their support for Saddam and their hatred of the Coalition. Whoever fired this missle just recruited a whole bunch of people into the ranks of the Iraqi loyalists. Even if Iraq did it, these people will never believe that their own government fired on them, especially since we’ve been bombing them for days. Now we’re also blaming our misfires on Iraq: it’s *their* fault if we kill civilians, because *they’re* putting their weapons in civilian areas.

  Blaming an atrocity on the nation of the victims is nothing new: Serbs accused Bosnians of doing it back in 1993 and I don’t doubt that there are older incidents. I do not trust the United States military as an unbiased, truthful source of information. Until I see verification by an uninvolved party doing independent research, I shall continue to assume that the missile was one of ours.
  
  

• Tanya hasn’t stopped talking about the war even though she promised that she’d do so last week. No problem. Her latest is a revelation about a personal “God Moment“. Science might find that it was nothing but a timely hormone rush, but there’s no reason why one can’t be thankful for such things in these times.
  
  

• Andrea the Serial Deviant caught a live broadcast of the hit on the Bagdad market:

  The colour of the sky was pretty bloody incredible. They showed film of the Iraqi people waving the clothes and shoes of the casualties at the camera. I found it hard to describe what I felt earlier, but I think I have it now. These people were so angry at what’s happened, and all they could do was shout at a camera and wave clothing around. They must have felt so helpless, like pawns in a very costly game.

• Andrea the Shameless Agitator pointed to the True Majority’s New Action Campaign.
  
  

• Billy writes:

  The Iraqis did not, as the servicemen and women were told, greet the American liberators with open arms. Instead, American troops were fired upon. And why no welcome with open arms and dancing in the street, as we had seen in the propaganda film that showed a mural of Saddam being torn down by an American serviceman and from which we were to draw encouragement by seeing the five or six Iraqis celebrating in the town of Umm Qasr?
  
  

  In the 1991 Gulf War, the U.S sought the support of the Iraqi citizenry, and received that support, in exchange for which the U.S. lent arms and ammo to the Iraqis, particularly, the Shi’ite Muslims, and to the Kurds to battle against Saddam. Then the U.S. cut off the supply. Saddam massacred Iraqis in the south and Kurds in the north. So, given that history, should George II have expected a big welcome? The man is a very dim bulb.

• Good karma goddess chari wasn’t impressed with media coverage of the war:

  [BOOM]…whoa…[CRACK]…mommy…[KA-BOOM]…blankey…[RATTA-TAT-TAT]…back to you, Bob.

• Islamic perspectives on rumors in times of crisis formed an interesting sidelight in Al Muhabjabah’s blog:

  The first step is to be deliberate. Avoid haste. Take your time and think through what you’ve just heard. The second step is….verify it. Make the effort to find out the circumstances of the report and whether it can be proved as well as to seek out the truth of the report itself.

  This is excellent advice, for any media watcher, sacred or secular. I recall that the Bible, in a memorable sentence, makes a distinction between war and “rumors of war”. (Does anyone remember the chapter and verse?)

And as for me, I’ve been thinking how I came to be the agnostic pacifist that I am today and facing up to antagonists. I think the latter problem is mostly over, aside from the occasional anonymous roach. I continue to invite civil disagreement and corrections of facts in my comments as well as expressions of support. Watch for more about me as I lived, as I live, and as I hope that will live in these pages.

I’ve also signed up for Moveon’s Media Corps. One more thing in the FBI file, I guess.

I’m being found by members of the Moral Left (who include Christians, Muslims, New Agers, Humanists, and agnostics). Thanks for the new links!

And thanks to my readers for their comments and their support. Please stick a pin on the guestmap. If you have a blog, light a candle.