ANDREW SULLIVAN ASKS "A Million Mogadishus--The Far Left's Wish?":

This lazy form of moral equivalence is not rare among the radical left in this country. But it is based on a profound moral abdication: the refusal to see that a Stalinist dictatorship, that murders its own civilians, that sends its troops into battle with a gun pointed at their heads, that executes POWs, that stores and harbors chemical weapons, that defies twelve years of U.N. disarmament demands, that has twice declared war against its neighbors, and that provides a safe haven for terrorists of all stripes, is not the moral equivalent of the United States under president George W. Bush. There is, in fact, no comparison whatever. That is not jingoism or blind patriotism or propaganda. It is the simple undeniable truth. And once the left starts equating legitimate acts of war to defang and depose a deadly dictator with unprovoked terrorist attacks on civilians, it has lost its mind, not to speak of its soul.

THAT WAS FAST: The Washington Post reports that "Britain's Mirror Hires Fired Veteran Arnett".

FIRST THE TRIPLETS ALL LEAVE THE DALLAS COWBOYS, now this.

"KNOW THY ENEMY": Fun facts about the Iraqi Republican Guard.

Of course, pretty soon, many of them will be checking in here...

AFTER THE WAR: Pat Tillman plans to return the NFL after his stint in the Army is up in 2005.

GROUP CAPTAIN MANDRAKE PRAISED BY MSNBC, in an article that also mentions Sgt. Stryker and Salam Pax.

Congrats Steve!

JUST UPDATED THE LINKS PAGE to include the new URL for Virginia Postrel's new look Weblog. Click on over and check it out!

AMERICAN AIRLINES AVOIDS BANKRUPTCY, according to AP.

MSNBC "terminates" Peter Arnett "after the journalist told state-run Iraqi TV that the U.S.-led coalition’s initial war plan had failed and that reports from Baghdad about civilian casualties had helped antiwar protesters undermine the Bush administration’s strategy."

I have to give MSNBC credit--Ted Turner didn't fire Arnett for his pro-Iraqi bias in the first Gulf War.

UPDATE: Meanwhile, the US military has kicked out Geraldo Rivera. "According to US news reports, Rivera was told to leave Iraq after an on-air appearance during which he drew a map in the sand revealing information about US troop locations", says this AFP article.

ANOTHER UPDATE: On the other hand, according to Drudge, Rivera "said live on FOX this morning that he had not been expelled, and rival media outlets were spreading rumors". Fog of media war?

VERY SILLY UPDATE: Now it all makes sense!

MORE SERIOUS UPDATE: National Geographic axed Arnett as well. And Arnett really groveled on the Today Show this morning, according to Rod Dreher.

Meanwhile, Andrew Sullivan calls Arnett "a stooge". Fortunately, he's now an unemployed one. And Steven Den Beste has some thoughts on Arnett as well.

ALWAYS FIGHTING THE LAST WAR: In the first Gulf War, Saddam thought Americans were weak because of Vietnam. This time around, he thinks they're weak because of Mogadishu:

If the U.S. cannot be made to halt the war through shame, Saddam hopes to try pain. U.S. military-intelligence officials believe the Iraqi command circulated copies of the movie Black Hawk Down before the war, as a manual for defeating the Americans. The film tells the story of the 18 U.S. Army Rangers who were killed by Somalis while attempting to rescue comrades from two helicopters downed in Mogadishu in 1993. The casualties prompted the U.S. to wind up its military operation in Somalia. The Iraqis may hope that similar scenes of Americans being bloodied in the streets of Baghdad would bring the same result.

Too bad Saddam didn't learn from the French, who built the Maginot Line thinking that World War II would be fought using the same techniques as World War I.

(By the way, speaking of Black Hawk Down, my post about its upcoming deluxe edition DVD on Blogcritics has sparked an interesting mini-debate about America and the UN. Click on over to read it--or participate in it.)

"THE GREATER THE GLORY": Provocative email sent to Andrew Sullivan by one of his readers about how the media will make our victory in Iraq even more impressive, simply because of their habitual underestimation of President Bush:

Once again the media -which is almost genetically anti-Bush- has whipped itself into hysteria fueled by the hope that he will fail. I believe their hatred of him is the motivator and they are indulging in a kind of optimism that this will be his Waterloo. The most obvious comparison is of course Modo and Afghanistan.

But my point is that the more they screech that we are losing, the GREATER the glory of victory.

They are walking into a political trap of their own making. I believe they are about to make utter fools of themselves one more time. On some level, a substantial portion of the public senses this, "gets it" and in the end, this will only enhance Bush. They will be doing him a political favor.

Exactly. But do read the whole thing.

ITS SOUL WAS SOLD A LONG TIME AGO: Jonah Goldberg look sat the ludicrous double standard of the United Nations, in his syndicated column.

THE STEPFORD WIVES THE MURDOCH BLONDES: "Easy Distinction" provides a spotting guide for the blondes that inhabit Fox News. (Including the men!)

"ITS SOUL IS FOR SALE": Steven Den Beste looks at Amnesty International, and does not like what he sees.

And he's right.

UPDATE: Nat Hentoff looks at some of Iraq's terriftying human rights violations, and concludes:

I participated in many demonstrations against the Vietnam War, including some civil disobedience—though I was careful not to catch the eyes of the cops, sometimes a way of not getting arrested. But I could not participate in the demonstrations against the war on Iraq.

Hentoff gets it. Too bad Amnesty doesn't.

"ANY SUFFICIENTLY ADVANCED TECHNOLOGY": Sorry for the lack of posting these past few days. Writing for "dead tree" publications just went into overdrive, with numerous articles simultaneously requiring telephone interviews for background material. And our home remodeling efforts, which I've discussed before in this blog, are finally starting to come to fruition. Our contractors have a week or two to go, but there's a light at the end of the tunnel. (And as my wife said, "fortunately, we're close enough to the light that we're sure it's not an oncoming train!")

The contractors have roughed out the telephone and computer network cabling in our home. My wife is eager to get back into her office, so I spent a few hours late yesterday afternoon and evening cutting an opening for a wall plate, and installing a single gang plate that provides her with the following jacks, running off of three Cat-5 cables that I terminated and installed the jacks for:

Line #1 and line #2 of the telephone on one jack
Line #3 of the telephone on another
Fax on another
dial-up modem on another

And because we use a software-based proxy server for the cable modem, there are two LAN jacks in the outlet.

I've written several articles about installing wired and wireless home networks (I've put both in my home), but when I get a hard-wired LAN outlet installed and working, it never ceases to amaze me. Arthur C. Clarke's Third Law is "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." I think my Third Law is "Any sufficiently advanced technology that I can install and make work is indistinguishable from magic"!

I felt so jazzed about getting this outlet in and working that I picked up a copy of Wired on the way back to the hotel where we've been spending nights (getting the plumbing turned on again--major bathroom renovations are also reaching fruition--is part of the light at the end of the tunnel). I don't tend to read Wired every month these days; I only buy it if something leaps off the cover at me. (And their April issue is their tenth anniversary, which, coupled with my network wiring was enough to get me to pick it up.) It's funny, I write three or four technology-oriented articles a month, but I tend to forget the Buck Rogers-like aspect of my life (not the least of which is this blog. People are actually reading my writing on their own computer monitors in their homes and offices. If you had told me that would be happening when I was first experimenting computers back at St. Mary's when I was 12 or 13 years old, that would have been sheer Star Trek-like fantasy!

Sorry to go all Lileksian on y'all--but I did want to explain why there's been less posting recently, despite the war to liberate Iraq. Fortunately, the rest of the Blogosphere has been doing more than share this week. And I'll try to post more this coming week. (Except when I'm wiring up more LAN outlets.)

FIELDSBORO NEW JERSEY "BANS YELLOW RIBBONS": Nice to see this immense show of support for our brave troops from my home state.

No word yet on what Amiri Baraka thinks of the city's gesture.

CLASS ACT: Tiger Woods on Iraq.

PAT MOYNIHAN DEAD AT AGE 76: For our previous coverage of the Senator from New York, click here.

HAMMER TIME: My interview last week with Jan Hammer, the man who composed the Miami Vice soundtrack (other than the hit singles used to create the "MTV cops" feeling of the show) is online at Blogcritics.

Sorry the lack of posting for the past couple of days--I've been on the phone for big chunks of both days, gathering material for upcoming (and mostly dead tree) articles. Watch for more posts soon! (in the meantime, check out all of the usual suspects on the links page for additional--and excellent--real time war coverage.)

RADICAL CHIC, VATICAN STYLE! "Pope Endorses Antiwar Movement", says The Washington Post.

Meanwhile, the Vatican is making de facto endorsements of Palestinian suicide bombers, while still clinging to those old school, pre-postmodern ideas that...suicide is a sin.

Nice to see them able to multitask so well.

"PEACE" ACTIVIST THREATENS REPORTER: Ho-hum, nothing new, right? Except this time around, it's actor Tim Robbins, the husband of Susan Sarandon. Robbins threatened to "find" and "hurt" reporter Lloyd Grove of the Washington Post, for interviewing Sarandon's mother and "outing" her as a Republican.

Shock and Awe indeed: Hollywood actors threatening Post reporters, when they once produced films lionizing them? Now that's far removed!

(On the other hand, I wonder if Robbins is a bit more sympathetic to Newt Gingrich these days? Probably not.)

"GOTCHA! How Reuters transformed an accidental death into homicide": Remember the infamous photo that made the rounds after 9/11 that showed a clueless 20-something standing on top of the World Trade Center posing for a photo on the morning of 9/11 as an Al-Qaida controlled airliner loomed perilously close?

According to David Bedein, Reuters fell for the same type of mocked-up-in-Photoshop shot to "illustrate" anti-Israeli protestor Rachel Corrie just seconds before being hit by an Israeli bulldozer.

Reuters does seem to have a recurring problem with their photos, and their captions lately, don't they?

(Via Andrew Sullivan)

Was last night's Oscar ceremony Hollywood's equivalent of a Free Mumia protest? Let's see. You have a group of people almost entirely against a war that 75 percent of America supports. You have a Best Documentary award going to someone who doesn't support the Constitution's Second Amendment. Plus you have two awards go to a biopic of an unrepentant Stalinst. And worst of all, you have the Best Director award going to a convicted rapist.

Have there been any outcries from feminists over Roman Polanski receiving the Best Director award? (By the way, don't get me wrong--I love Chinatown, arguably the best film to come out of Hollywood in the 1970s. But that was directed before Polanski's conviction for the statutory rape of a 13-year old girl.)

Friviledge indeed: no wonder this ceremony had the worst ratings of any Academy Awards presentation. Talk about being far, far removed from the values of the vast majority of your audience.

RANDOM THOUGHTS, by Thomas Sowell:

Never before in history has the word "unilateral" been thrown around so gratuitously when the issue was war. Only in recent years has there been any question that a sovereign nation takes the solemn step of going to war unilaterally. What a farce to have Cameroon or Portugal deciding whether it is OK for the United States to go to war.

* * * Why do actors -- people whose main talent is faking emotions -- think that their opinions should be directing the course of political events in the real world? Yet it is a mistake that they have been making as far back as John Wilkes Booth. * * * Most people do not realize that Winston Churchill was a pariah in the 1930s, for telling people what they didn't want to hear -- namely that Britain needed to build up its military forces to deal with the threat that Hitler and the Nazis represented. What we are seeing today in the attempts to ridicule or demonize President Bush is nothing new. * * * We can only hope that whoever had the bright idea of dealing with Iraq through the United Nations will be leaving the administration "to pursue other interests," as they say.

On that last one, I'd beg to differ. When we look back on the liberation of Iraq, I doubt we'll focus all that much on the length of the buildup before the War. If Bush has discredited the UN (And as Dennis Miller recently noted, "If you have faith in the United Nations to do the right thing, keep this in mind, they have Libya heading the Committee on Human Rights and Iraq heading the Global Disarmament Committee. Do your own math here."), and banished it to history, then he's done his job.

FROM THE HOME OFFICE IN PITTSBURGH, PA: Dennis Miller has an excellent top ten list for those against the war.

Miller's really come on strong as a rare sane voice in Hollywood. I just hope it doesn't cost him his career.

SEMPER FI: Happy 59th birthday to everyone's favorite drill sergeant, R. Lee Ermey.

DO'S AND DON'TS: National Review Online's Amir Taheri has a checklist for Operation Iraqi Freedom.

MEMOREX: Saddam never mentioned the bombing of his palace or surviving it, Amatzia Baram just noted.

SADDAM'S SPEECH: The bad news: there's enough details in it that he's probably still alive. The good news: as speeches by totalitarian, megalomaniac dictators go, Triumph of the Will, it ain't. "Blah blah blah, Iraq will be victorious...blah blah blah, kill the enemy and enter paradise...blah blah blah, Jihad...blah blah blah...Allah." Those last bits are interesting--calls to Muslims to fight for him.

Did anybody catch the graphic of the Iraqi eagle logo on blue cardboard before and after the speech? PBS in 1968 had better graphics.

(And yes, this time I think it's him, and not a double.)

Whoops--guess I spoke to soon. Walid Phares, MSNBC's Arab expert just said that Saddam didn't mention bombing of Baghdad, captured prisoners, recent battles, meeting of Arab League tomorrow. And this classic--"The bulk of the speech was beautiful Arab poetry." Geez.

MSNBC's man in the field says, "If I had to guess, I would say tape," adding, "Not a clean open" to the speech.

Amatzia Baram, another MSNBC Arab expert says, "This speech is canned." "he knew ahead of time" enough to make canned speech. No mention of prisoners of war. No mention of airplanes down by friendly fire. No mention of battles raging. "Taped maybe even a week before the war started."

Both Phares and Baram agree that no mention of Basra is telling.

By the way, if that was a live speech, Saddam been able to resume his daily paradrop of Grecian Formula--his hair was much blacker than the Saddam we saw on Wednesday night.

Sounds like Memorex to me.

Another man in the field, this time from Qatar: Saddam referenced the commander of the 11th brigade--that brigade has already surrendered.

The US and British "troops will find strong Iraqi troops fighting back", another MSNBC reporter quotes Saddam as saying. Well, they're already fighting back.

FRIVILEDGE: James Lileks, discussing quagmire and the BBC, and the quagmire that is the BBC, is in rare form.

LOVELY PARADOX FOR THE UN noted by Andrew Sullivan, who writes:

In one of the loveliest paradoxes of this battle, the U.N. therefore laid the groundwork for its subsequent self-destruction twelve years later. Without the U.N.'s restrictions on American force twelve years ago, Saddam would not be around today. Any non-U.N., American-led coalition with any sense of military opportunity, would have finished off the old Stalinist more than a decade ago. 1991 was therefore, in one sense, the U.N.'s post-Cold War high-point. Too bad it guaranteed its future nadir.

It didn't have to guarantee that nadir--but the accumulated weight of the UN's actions in the post Soviet 1990s certainly did.

IRAQI FORCES ARMED WITH CHEMICAL WEAPONS, according to this Reuters report, remarkably free of shock quotation marks.

GENIE OUT OF THE BOTTLE DEPARTMENT: Drudge has stills of the footage of captured US POWs originally shown on Al-Jazeera, via Iraqi TV.

(Click here for another example of "the genie out of the bottle".)

FOG OF WAR: Here's more information on the "downed Coalition pilot" being sought in Baghdad--which may or may not be real.

If the footage shown on CNN (look below) is real, didn't the Iraqis just document themselves committing a war crime? Or is it acceptable to shoot at pilots parachuting in from a downed aircraft?

"A FATHER'S WORDS ON GOING TO WAR", is the title of ths MSNBC interview with the original President Bush. I love this exchange, which begins with Bush #41 saying:

What burns me up now are these statements that are critical of the president and of Colin Powell—”failed diplomacy.” The problem they face is so different and so much bigger that I think any comparison is just night and day. It seems to be au courant, if you’ll excuse my knowledge of French, having studied it for 11 years, but I don’t agree with it. I think when history is written people are going to find some very interesting things about the French position. And I’m annoyed at the German position. I don’t talk about it publicly, but I know a lot of German people not in the coalition government with Schroder who are very, very upset about the position of their government.

MSNBC: What do you think is going on with France?

GHWB: [Pause] They’re French.

When asked "What do you say to critics who say the president doesn’t care what the rest of the world thinks?", the elder Bush replied, "in the final analysis, you’ve got to do what’s right, and that’s why I have great respect, not just love and affection, but great respect, for the president because he can make those tough decisions, and for Colin Powell, too, I might add. I hate criticism of Colin Powell from any quarter."

FIVE REASONS WHY MISTREATING US POWS IS A VERY BAD IDEA.

SUNDAY WITH BLOGGER: For some reason, Blogger's archive of Sunday posts usually doesn't start working until after 12 noon. I'll have to change the times of all of the posts that don't have archieved posts, and I'll do so later today.

(Originally posted at 10:24 AM)

UPDATE (1:54 PM): I think I have everything moved--everything I posted this morning should have working links--as well as correct original post times.

BBC: "Given the amount of resistance you've been receiving, has this in fact been more difficult than you expected?"

Lt. Gen. John Abizaid: "No."

Nice to see the Rumsfeld doctrine for handling reporters is filtering down through the ranks.

(Originally posted at 11:43:16 AM)

IRAN SAYS THE MISSLE THAT LANDED INSIDE THE IRANIAN BORDER WAS IRAQI, NOT US, according to CNN.com.

(Originally posted at 11:41 AM)

US GENERAL JUST GAVE AL-JAZEERA REPORTER A DRESSING DOWN for his media showing images of our captured troops. "This is absolutely unacceptable", Lt. Gen. John Abizaid said, during US press conference shown on CNN (and I assume Fox).

Good for him.

UPDATE (12:02 PM): CNN has made the decision not to air the footage (again?), with the exception of one very blurry still with no soldiers' faces shown.

(Originally posted at 11:36:27 AM)

IRAQI ARMED FORCE FALLS TO US ADVANCE: "Late Saturday, the brigade encountered dozens of Iraqi vehicles armed with machine guns and fought with them until dawn Sunday, destroying 15 vehicles, killing at least 100 Iraqi soldiers and capturing 20. The Iraqis were believed to be members of the ruling Baath party militia, loyal to one of Saddam Hussein's sons.

(Originally posted at 10:55:24 AM)

HAVE WE CAPTURED AN IRAQI CHEMICAL PLANT? Needless to say, great news (for all sorts of reasons) if it's true.

(Originally posted at 10:42:05 AM)

IRAQI FOOTAGE SHOWS CAPTURED AMERICAN SOLDIERS. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld says television footage of those POWs violates the Geneva Convention.

Steven Den Beste comments that "Last week the US government announced that Iraq had acquired uniforms like the ones our men were wearing":

I wonder if maybe we just discovered what those uniforms were really intended for? The Iraqis just showed interviews on TV with five people they claimed were captured US servicepeople, and showed a morgue full of dead bodies, all of whom were wearing American uniforms. Hmmm...

I hope so. Otherwise it means something really bad just happened.

Den Beste also links a sign carried by the anti-war protestors last week to the "fragging" incident that occurred yesterday.

(Originally posted at 10:38:13 AM)

DID THE RUSSIANS SELL IRAQ NIGHT VISION GOGGLES?

(Originally posted 10:21:26 AM)

EMBEDDED JOURNALISTS: Good post from the Cut on the Bias blog. See also the post below it about a soldier from Maine killed.

(Originally posted 10:12:55 AM)

RAF AIRCRAFT "HIT BY US MISSILE".

UPDATE (10:15 AM): Not surprisingly, Glenn has links to more information.

(Originally posted 12:02:49 AM)

ARE THE IRAQIS FAKING NEWS FOOTAGE? Wouldn't surprise me in the least. Strange video of Iraqis shooting into a river (The Tigris?) at "a downed US pilot" just shown on CNN with a surprising amount of incredulity from Wolf Blitzer, with numerous "reporters" clicking away with still camera. Hopefully CNN has learned their lesson from the Peter Arnett "milk factory" debacle during the first Gulf War.

The US is claiming that no US planes went down in Iraq. And I tend to believe them, given our overwhelming (near total) air superiority.

UPDATE (6:16 PM): John Derbyshire has an important tip for the Iraqis shooting into the water: "Memo to those idiots shooting into the Tigris, hoping to spot two downed American airmen: Airmen who survive the downing of a military fighter jet do so with the aid of p-a-r-a-c-h-u-t-e-s. Which f-l-o-a-t."

THE DISTANCING OF HOLLYWOOD FROM ITS AUDIENCE CONTINUES: I guess if you support the war, they don't want your money, similar to Apple's recent highly politicized hiring and uber-PC ad campaigns.

The studio moguls who ran Hollywood in its golden era were very, very wise to carefully manage their stars' images. Yet paradoxically, I'll bet the majority of celebrities back then were far more naturally careful to avoid controversy.

And its nice to see such a diversity of opinion on display isn't it?

Incidentally, what's with all the stars who've said they'll sit out the Oscars tomorrow? Is it simply because they fear for their safety (of course, I doubt Cary Grant, John Wayne, or Bette Davis ever missed an early 1940s Oscar awards for fear of a Japanese attack on the theater), or is it the weird belief that "if enough of us don't show, America will wonder why and turn against the war?"

Hey Martha, I don't see Meryl Streep and Will Smith! That's it, this war stinks. I'm joining the protestors!

Update: The Washington Post article linked to above is no longer on the WaPo's site, but was reprinted here.

I WONDER HOW THIS WILL BE COVERED BY CNN.

UPDATE (6:40 PM): Well that didn't take long to find out the initial take. The reporter embedded with the troops in Kuwait interviewed by Larry King has been asked "not to release certain details about the soldier" by the US military. Wonder what happens when those details are released.

UPDATE (9:10 PM): I can understand how both the US military, and the press, for very, very different reasons, want to keep a lid on this story. But the genie is out of the bottle, boys. Everybody who reads blogs knows what that the accused soldier is both black and a Muslim--and it's starting to filter into Internet discussion forums.

Not surprisingly, Charles Johnson has a post on this, and the comments section is quite long and interesting, also not surprisingly.

Back in the early 1990s, I remember watching a show on PBS with a reporter from the New York Times commenting on how the first Gulf War made CNN. "But if all you did was get your news from TV, you didn't get anywhere near the full story, he said. This time around, if you're not reading a variety of blogs and other Internet news sources, you're really not getting the full picture (especially if all you do is watch CNN and read the Times!).

UPDATE (10:40 PM): This AP article reports that one soldier is now listed as dead. And no details about the accused solider other than that he's "an engineer".

UPDATE (11:53 PM): Wow, very interesting newsreading, with lots of long pauses by Anderson Cooper(?) on CNN's Headline News: After giving details about the grenade tossing incident, he said "He is...I'm hesistating to report something, because I'm not sure I can at this point" and a moment later, after a few more details, added "a young american soldier who is described as having recently converted to Islam is in custody".

TERRORIST ATTACK INJURES 10 US TROOPS IN KUWAIT: "From our reports it appears that a terrorist penetrated Camp Pennsylvania, one or more terrorists threw two hand grenades into a tent," said George Heath, spokesman at Fort Campbell, home base of the 101st", who added that 10 people were wounded, six seriously.

IS IRAQ REPOSITIONING ITS MOBILE LAUNCHERS to lob missiles at troops moving north? That's the gist of this New York Times article.

ONE OF THESE THINGS IS NOT LIKE THE OTHER! One of these things does not belong. Spot which one, in this latest series of AP headlines on my My.Yahoo page:

500 Cruise Missiles Hit Iraq: Pentagon

Iraqi TV Declares Saddam in Control

Allies Seize Airport, Bridge in Basra

Of course, Iraqi TV may simply be using their own copy of the the software that runs the Marc Herold polypseudomathicator to analyze their situation.

"DO WE KNOW HEROES WHEN WE SEE THEM?": Good article by Peter H. Gibbon on the growing gap between reality and rhetoric in our schools:

War is a terrible thing. Students should know its dark side. But they should also be asked to consider that America goes to war reluctantly, only after agonized debate or after years of provocation by reckless tyrants. We do not have to love war to understand that some wars may be necessary or to appreciate the soldier’s values: self-sacrifice, honor, loyalty, and endurance.

Read the whole thing.

QUOTE OF THE DAY: "You're late. What took you so long? God help you become victorious...I want to say hello to Bush, to shake his hand!"

Meanwhile, this story is a must read.

CHECK OUT THIS ASTONISHING EXCHANGE between the BBC and General Tommy Franks, as spotted by a reader of Andrew Sullivan.

Sullivan continues his thorough job of cataloging the excesses of the BBC and the New York Times.

In another example of the growing gap between reality and rhetoric, not surprisingly, the Village Voice has been caught using the D-word.

TODAY'S PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT: While no method is 100 percent safe, if you're going to get in bed with France, make sure you wear protection!

Since, as Rod Dreher recently noted, for the left, "every war is Vietnam", let's look at how Vietnam has led directly to our current state of affairs. Reading this recent post by The Volokh Conspiracy, and watching the protestors last night, I figured I'd discuss a geopolitical theory that I'm surprised I didn't post yet (and because this a blog, this is going to be grossly simplified--I'm just trying to connect the dots, not paint a detailed landscape): how Vietnam is related to our current war on terrorism.

On TV last night, I saw a guy in his late 40s or 50s (he looked trim, clean shaven, with a nicely cut shock of graying hair) protesting in San Francisco, when he was asked by an interviewer, "why are you here"? He replied, "Well, we made a difference during Vietnam, and I think we're making a difference now."

As for the latter, it's hard to say how--except, as Andrew Sullivan and Glenn Reynolds have recently noted, making your cause look distinctly bad to the rest of the country. As to the former, yes, you may have made a difference, but it wasn't the one that you think.

Its possible to tie 9/11 all the way back to Vietnam if you wanted to: the combination of Johnson and MacNamara's "carrot and stick" tactics because they were scared witless that the Soviets would enter the war, causing us, especially during the critical early phases of the war to hold back our strength, not bomb critical military targets, etc.

This, slow, grinding style of warfare, coupled with the 1960s protestors, caused many to be demoralized by the war, causing that era's Democratic Congress to cut the budget for fighting the war, causing our eventual pullout. (Read Stephen Hayward's excellent document of that era, The Age of Reagan: Volume One, to put that period in perspective.)

Watergate was tied directly to Vietnam, via Nixon and his "Plumbers'" reaction to Daniel Ellsberg leaking the Pentagon Papers, and Watergate would of course cause Nixon to resign, but not before his appeasement of the dictatorial Soviet Union and China. America's appearance of weakness, both post-Vietnam, and (after Gerald Ford had a quick cup of coffee at the White House) under the uber-dovish Jimmy Carter, led directly to one of America's lowest periods: letting the Shah of Iran fall, the takeover of Iran by a radical Islamic regime, and the Iranian hostage crisis.Perhaps the lowest point was Carter's response to it: lots of nail biting, the bungled Desert One rescue mission, and even more nail biting.

While Reagan's build up of our defense, and our liberation of Kuwait helped our rep in the Middle East a little (and yes, I know I'm really simplifying here for the sake of space), leaving Saddam in power, those dreadful images of American soldiers dragged through the streets of Mogadishu, and Clinton's lack of military response to the first terrorist attack on the World Trade Center kept us looking largely as a paper tiger, especially when it came to responding to Islamic terrorism.

And we all know the rest.

As Alvin Toffler wrote in War and Anti-War, the American military's tactics were radically changed after the debacle of Vietnam. How different things might be today had we fought that war to win--and didn't abandon the country afterwards.

LIFE IMITATES THE ONION: "Don't Hurt Zoo Animals in Iraq War, Pleads UK MP".

Malcolm Muggeridge, call your office.

(Via The Brothers Judd.)

FUNNY NUMBERS: Orrin Judd looks takes a look at wartime polling data.

PROPPING UP THE HOME FRONT: Stephen Green shows support for the war in a way that only he can do.

ON THE OTHER HAND, GIVE LIZ CREDIT FOR SOMETHING: She at least identified a link between Saddam and terrorism on American soil, something that much of the left has been unable to do.

FOUND IN A DAILY VARIETY FROM JANUARY 1942: I was going through some of my father's old World War II-era memorabilia, and was flabbergasted by this article, which began, "Up and coming childhood starlet Elizabeth Taylor shocks Hollywood by her pro-Hitler remarks:

The beautiful young brunette from National Velvet said, "What the [bleep] are the Americans doing by saying to Hitler, 'Pack up your bags, hop a train, and get out of town!' What if someone said that to Roosevelt?

"You don't think Nazis are going to retaliate? You don't think they're going to bomb the s--- out of us? It's going to be terrifying."

You probably guessed it--that's not from a sixty year old Variety, it's from the New York Daily News today, with Saddam and Bush changed to that era's mustachioed totalitarian butcher and American president.

Whatever Hollywood stars or starlets had anti-war views after Pearl Harbor, they kept them to themselves, for fear or damaging both their careers, and the war effort.

Amazing how times change, huh?

FUN WITH PHOTOSHOP: The The Command Post Blog catches CBS doctoring a photo of B-52s over Baghdad.

Be sure to read the comments.

THREE BLIND DEAD MICE: ABC reports, "Three Key Iraqi Leaders Believed Killed", including "Chemical Ali", Saddam's cousin.

8000 (YES EIGHT THOUSAND IRAQI SOLDIERS SURRENDER: AP reports, "Entire Division of Iraqi Army Surrenders".

Fantastic.

IS SADDAM DEAD? Steven Den Beste puts the week's events, along with Saddam's command structure in crisp perspective in this excellent post.

COULD SADDAM FIND EXILE IN AFRICA? Stephen Green says its possible.

GOOD QUESTION: Andrew Sullivan looks at one group of protestors who've defecated(!!) on a San Francisco sidewalk and writes, "If these Saddam-enablers are ticking off Bay Area liberals, can you imagine what the rest of the country thinks?"

NOT ONE IRAQI PLANE OR SAM LAUNCHED, according to Fox military expert. Scuds launched into Kuwait yesterday were the only Iraqi missiles launched.

Now that's my definition of US air superiority.

UPDATE: Andrew Sullivan writes, "No use yet of any biological or chemical weapons; and only relatively "minuscule" sabotaging of the oil wells. Early days yet - but these tactics were expected early on as well."

LOVE IS THE DRUG: Eric Olsen writes that British pop star Bryan Ferry of the legendary group Roxy Music, is getting divorced from his wife, who's replaced another woman who left him for another man: Jerry Hall, who dumped Ferry for Mick Jagger, in 1979.

Olsen has lots of details on Ferry and Roxy Music, who've made some great--if criminally under appreciated in the US--albums in the 1970s and '80s.

PERFECT: This is a riot.

In other important strategic news, I'm pretty sure that John Gibson and Kent Brockman share the same barber.

And Tom Daschle just can't seem to get anything right.

(Daschle and Helen Thomas links via Andrew Sullivan, who has lots of other good--and serious material up today.)

D'OH! Brit Hume: "General, when did the B-52 first fly?", General, "about 1948, 1949, Brit."

Hume: "But it's jet powered now, right?"

Oy.

LOTS OF SURRENDERS: The Times reports, "The commander of Iraq's 51st division and his top deputy surrendered to United States Marine forces today, according to American military officials", in an article whose headline says, "Military Sees Indications That Other Division May Give Up".

Meanwhile, "Hundreds of [other] Iraqis eagerly surrender".

And on Tuesday, the French bought themselves a rare clue:

Liberation reported that Dominique Dord, a deputy from the majority UMP party, said during Tuesday's assembly debate, "We would look really stupid if Iraqis applaud the arrival of Americans."

Exactly.

ROCKET HITS OIL REFINERY DEPOT IN SW IRAN, according to this Reuters article.

Wow--I didn't realize that Barbra Streisand programmed guidance systems!

UPDATE: Stephen Green has some plausible--and even more worrisome--explanations.

MORE VIETNAM: A female reporter just asked Ari Fleischer about "will the massive bombing" require massive additional humanitarian efforts. Fleischer told her that the destruction of some of Saddam's palaces doesn't necessarily equate to massive civilian hardship.

No wonder the media has such sympathy for the "peace" protestors--they seem stuck in 1969 along with them.

And why on earth are these reporters fixated on how much TV coverage President Bush watches??

Fleischer just reminded one reporter that freedom is a basic human desire. I'd love to see him throw some of these questions back to the reporters, or even a simple, "Don't you agree, Helen?" just to see their responses.

BAGHDAD BY MONDAY, says H.D. Miller , who also owned the story on Uday's "hemorrhage", long before the rest of the media picked up on it.

WELL THAT DIDN'T TAKE LONG: In the middle of recieving emails from other bloggers, I just opened my first X-rated spam with the headline of "Shock and Awe". Bet it won't be the last!

GEEZ--Some reporter just mentioned Haiphong Harbor in a question to Rumsfeld. What an idiot.

UPDATE: The other reporters around also sound like they're stuck in 1972, covering the Linebacker II mass B-52 bombing of Hanoi.

Rumsfeld is handling them deftly. It must be seem strange to be a 40-something reporter listening to a 69-year-old man who's more modern than you are.

MORE TO COME: Myers said, "Several hundred military targets will be hit in the coming hours".

GOOD FOR RUMSFELD: He's slagging the reporters who compared the bombing of Baghdad to WWII bombing campaigns.

In other words, this isn't Dresden, Brian.

RUMSFELD BRIEFING FROM THE PENTAGON: First words: sympathy for US soldiers killed yesterday from Donald Rumsfeld. When and if a transcript is available, we'll post it here. Rumsfeld is joined by Gen. Richard Myers, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Rumsfeld's comments were very similar in their phrasing to President Bush's recent pre-war speeches. He mentioned that our efforts will allow the people of Iraq "to chose their own leader", but didn't actually say the word "democracy", which is disappointing, of course.

Gen. Myers did tell the Iraqi soldiers to stop fighting "so that you can enjoy a free Iraq". Good deal.

DRUDGE: "A senior U.S. official said the escalation of the aerial campaign might not be as intense as originally planned because U.S. surrender talks with senior Iraqi officials were continuing..."

BOMBING CONTINUES IN OTHER IRAQI CITIES: Meanwhile, there appears to be a lull in the bombing in downtown Baghdad.

"I HOPE KIM JONG IL IS WATCHING THIS RIGHT NOW": Great line by a retired general who's one of Fox's military experts.

NBC HAS DRAMATIC FOOTAGE OF SADDAM'S MAIN COMPOUND with a huge black cloud of smoke and intense red flames rising from it.

SKY NEWS SAYS ABOUT 30 BOMBS HAVE FALLEN: (Sky is Fox's sister network.) And Shepard Smith says Saddam's main palace is in ruins, as about 12 bombs fell on it.

MUSHROOM CLOUD SHAPE RISING: Some kind of bunker buster bomb?

IF YOU'RE NEAR A TV, TURN IT ON NOW--astonishing images from Baghdad, and I don't know how long they'll last, until the power gets cut, satellite uplinks get blown, or Saddam cuts communications.

BIG EXPLOSIONS IN BAGHDAD ON FOX: Looks like Shock and Awe to me.

UPDATE (10:19 AM): AP: "U.S. Launches Massive Air Strikes on Iraq".

JUST CURIOUS: I wonder if all of the lights on in Baghdad is a sign that Saddam and his lieutenants have lost control.

UPDATE (10:22 AM): Fox's general-in-residence says that we haven't targeted Baghdad's electrical generator, to signal to Iraqi people that are battle with Saddam, not with them, even though it increases risks to our pilots.

REUTERS: LARGE EXPLOSIONS HEARD WEST OF BAGHDAD, according to Fox News Ticker.

NBC SAYS CRUISE MISSILES LAUNCHED TOWARDS BAGHDAD.

WILL THE TURKS ATTACK THE KURDS? Are they beginning to do so right now? Interesting (and very speculative) post by Rich Lowry, transcribing a phone call from David Pryce-Jones.

PENTAGON DECLARES "SHOCK AND AWE" OFFICIALLY UNDER WAY, according to Fox. So far everything looks calm in Baghdad, but the shock and awe could hit the fan at any moment...

UPDATE (9:47 AM) Lots of anti-aircraft fire coming from Baghdad. And apparently a few bombs have already been dropped.

SATELLITE SCOOP: Virginia Postrel notes that a blogger "picked up Iraq's torching of southern oil wells three hours before CNN."

The "is it or isn't Saddam" meme was also all over the Blogosphere hours before the rest of the media picked up on it, thanks to NRO's Corner, Stephen Green, and our little corner of cyberspace.

Obviously, this early information is going to be raw, and frankly, often wrong--but no more wrong than some of the gaffes that the media have made. But just as CNN came of age during the first Gulf War, then this will be the war that makes Blogs.

As to some of the reasons why, if you haven't read it already, be sure to check out my essay from early 2002 in SpinTech.

"IF I'VE LOST AARON BROWN, I'VE LOST THE IRAQI PEOPLE!" That seems to be what Saddam is thinking, as four CNN reporters were expelled from Baghdad today.

For a look at what it was like for reporters under Saddam, click here.

JUST CURIOUS DEPARTMENT: How would the left react if a couple of B-52s or B-2s made a detour to drop a few ordinances into North Korea's nuclear facilities? Or if a cruise missile or two went a bit off course, and ended up there.

Would they say, "finally Bush, we kept saying you had to do something about North Korea", or would they turn on a dime and condemn the man?

As I said, just curious.

Hans Blix may have actually found an actual by-God violation of Iraq's agreement with the UN yesterday!

Here's a flashback to April Fool's day of last year, when in the midst of all sorts of silliness and cutting up in the Blogosphere, I posted:

MUGGERIDGE'S LAW: When Malcolm Muggeridge was the editor of the British satirical magazine Punch in the early 1960s, Khrushchev had announced he was going to tour England alongside its prime minister. Muggeridge wrote up a list of the silliest tour stops he could think of, and then put the article to bed, ready for publication. When the actual tour list was drawn up. he had to massively rewrite the article. At least half the tour stops in his satirical piece were actually on Khrushchev and the British PM's agenda!

Which is why Muggeridge's Law is: there is no way that a writer of fiction can compete with real life for its pure absurdity.

Especially when it comes to the UN--and Hans Blix.

THIS PRO-WAR RIOT in California's Central Valley is just as idiotic as the "peace" protests yesterday in San Francisco, Berkeley and LA. As Joanne Jacobs writes, "What's next: Firebombing a French's mustard plant?"

MEANWHILE, OVER IN IRAN: Glenn Reynolds has some thoughts on why students at Tehran University seem rather pleased that the "Great Satan" is setting up shop next door.

AXIS OF EVIL, SOUTHEAST ASIA BRANCH: A reader of The Corner on National Review Online has some thoughts on what Kim Jong Il is thinking as he watches CNN this week. Scroll up to the next post for Jonah Goldberg's reaction.

DECAPITATION: James S. Robbins writes:

Beyond logic and utility, targeting dictators is a moral approach to war. If it must be fought, this is a very humane way to do it. No innocent Iraqis should be killed by Coalition arms in pursuit of their liberation. Some probably will be, but striking at the leadership decreases the probability that innocents will die. In fact, it limits both civilian and military casualties, on both sides. And if successful, it ends war quickly, which also spares lives and decreases destruction overall. It is much more humanitarian than resorting to mass slaughter on the battlefield, or destroying the infrastructure of cities and creating tens of thousands of refugees.

It is worth noting that this technique is only effective against dictatorships, in which a single person or small group comprise the center of gravity, the focus and source of power. It would not be effective against a liberal democracy like the United States, because in our system, power is fundamentally divorced from personality. The system itself is the power, and clear rules of succession guarantee that the government will continue to function regardless of changes at the top. Dictators rarely focus on making lines of succession clear, because it only encourages the successor to speed up the process, and the enemies of the heir apparent to try to preempt the transfer of power. The infighting between Saddam's sons is a case in point — both suffered assassination attempts when considered the leading candidate to take over power. (Note that there is a report that the elder son Uday suffered a brain hemorrhage yesterday after an attack by a member of the Saddam Fedayeen militia he commands. He was also alleged to have been killed in the decapitation strike.)

The fact that the US media--and presumably the media of other nations--was chattering away all day that Saddam may be dead has got to be increasing the sense of confusion that the Iraqi troops are facing--meaning that "decapitation" has its benefits even if Saddam wasn't actually killed.

FOX TICKER: B-52s LAUNCHED FROM RAF BASE IN UK: "Group Captain Mandrake" actually mentioned the first of the "BUFFS" taking off earlier yesterday.

TOM DASCHLE IS ON FOX RIGHT NOW, playing it very close to the vest, and initially saying nothing in perfect political non-speak. When pressed about his remarks on Monday, he smiled, flashed those dead eyes of his, and stressed that "a unified message" is important to our troops, with only a hint of nervousness about being pressed.

"So at this point you stand behind the President and our troops?", the blonde Fox talking head asked him.

"Absolutely."

William Kristol just remarked "I think Senator Daschle is retreating faster than the Iraqis".

Jacques Chirac, if you ever need a running mate, here's your man.

FIRST COMBAT CASUALTY REPORTED: "U.S. Marine Killed in Iraq Combat". Kathryn Jean Lopez reports from NRO's Corner that "In his memory, the U.S. flag flies over the seaport town [of Umm Qasar] now."

SHOCK AND AWE: Just woke up for a few minutes in the middle of the night and saw my stats. "Wow!" doesn't even begin to cover the jump in traffic. A warm thank you to everybody's who's logged in here yesterday and late Wednesday night--and thank you to everyone who's linked to us, and especially to Glenn and Stephen, for mentioning us in your Weblogs, whose stats counters are probably reading tilt! right about now.

If you're new to our site, be sure to use the navigation buttons to the left, check out our faqs and about us pages, Google Search, and our links page, where lots of other great bloggers and journalists await as well.

And if you like what you see, why not hit the tip boxes and visit the stores on the left? Your contributions help to keep this site online--thanks.

FOLLOW THE MONEY, says Stephen Green.

DARING RIVER BOAT RAID DEEP INSIDE IRAQ: HBO's currently showing Hot Shots: Part Deux right now.

Best line? Phone rings, Charlie Sheen answers, and then hands Saddam the phone and says, "It's your wife, Hillary Rodham Hussein".

It doesn't really answer my earlier question though, as their Saddamalike is most definitely on tape.

Also in the "art imitates life imitates art department" (or something like that), last night TNT showed Dave, a film about a world leader being impersonated by an actor.

ARMY'S 3RD INFANTRY DIVISION IS IN DMV, quickly moving into Iraq. Fox's Greg Kelly is one of the reporters "embedded" with the troops. I think he was the reporter streaming the images mentioned in the post below.

FOX IS SHOWING LIVE IMAGES FROM US TANKS, via a reporter's videophone. Very cool looking stuff, as we march towards Baghdad.

UPDATE (7:17 PM) Shepard Smith is drooling over the technology behind these images, and the US military's authorization to allow these images to be shown.

16 DEAD: 12 American, four British soldiers killed in Marine helicopter crash in Kuwait.

UPDATE (4:09 AM 3/21/03): This number has been revised downward to 12 dead:

[The first known U.S. or British military casualties were reported early Friday, however, in the crash of a Marine CH-46 Sea Knight helicopter in the Kuwaiti border area just south of the Iraqi port of Umm Qasr, at the head of the Persian Gulf. Marine officers said the aircraft, carrying four U.S. crew members and eight British Royal Marines, went down after encounter- ing haze from burning oil as it sought to reinforce a British position on the Faw peninsula. All aboard were reported killed.]

Needless to say, that's 12 too many. But I'm always happy to revise casualty figures downward.

BLESSED BY THE GODS DEPARTMENT: Or goddess, in this case, as Postrel linked to my piece on Hollywood stasists versus Silicon Valley dynamists in Tech Central Station. Stasists and dynamists were of course the terms used by Postrel in her book, The Future and its Enemies, and as I've written before, Postrel's Weblog was one of the main inspirations for this blog.

Thanks!

Virginia Postrel is none too thrilled that Al Gore joined the Apple Board:

Maybe I'm nuts, but trying to grow your market share by excluding everyone who doesn't share hippie-dippy Bay Area politics strikes me as a dumb strategy. Of course, there is a way to make amends: diversify those black-and-white portraits.

She's taking nominees.

Hey, Rush Limbaugh has said for years that he loves Apple. Talk about thinking different: Apple's PR firm would have never, ever considered him to be featured in their campaigns. And as I wrote a few months ago, I doubt this guy's name ever came up in the boardroom, either.

UPDATE (3/21/03): For those people clicking through Virginia's link, here's what I emailed her yesterday:

Want a nominee for the Apple portraits? I hate to sound like Floyd R. Turbo, but Rush Limbaugh comes immediately to mind. The guy's probably sold more Apples to conservatives by simply mentioning repeatedly how much he likes their computers on his radio show than Apple ever would have through their ad campaigns. (At least, he always used to mention he was an Apple man when I listened to his show more regularly a few years ago--I don't know if he's now a PC user, but I would doubt it.) Yet there's a not a shot in hell that they'd consider using him in their advertising.

By the way, they can keep John (he wrote some wonderful songs with the Beatles; frankly, I don't mind if they lose Yoko), but Virginia's absolutely right--why not a little diversity in their images? Or, as she wrote yesterday, maybe they do want to exclude everyone "who doesn't share hippie-dippy Bay Area politics".

There's only so much coverage of protestors I can watch, when the local stations break away from Fox and other network coverage, so I went surfing, and came across a devastating piece on ESPN about how brutally Iraq treats its Olympic athletes--Uday Hussein led its Olympic program. One former volleyball star says that Uday is insane, and "urinates on athletes". He's showing the scars he has from being chained to the wall for days at a time. A former top soccer player says, "I was lucky: I was only tortured four times", including once after his team lost, when "we're were beaten, and nobody knows why." When he tried to quit, his feet were whipped 20 times a day, and he was dragged on his back until it was bloody.

I think it was taped some time ago--here's a companion piece from December of last year from their Web site.

LOTS OF GOOD STUFF--and even more links, via James Taranto and Best of the Web Today.