back to Iraq weblog?!
Christopher Allbritton, former AP and New York Daily News reporter, is now in Iraq and planning to independently report on the war directly to his weblog, Back to Iraq 2.0 He has no news corporation affiliation, he seems to care about the subject, and he seems to have some balls. It could turn out to be interesting…
Interesting site. What I found most interesting was the fact that he’s been warned about his use of sattelite uplinks…should he happen to be standing anywhere near any Iraqi military unit while he does one of his dispatches, he risks being bombed (even if they know exactly where he is)…They have no real way to distinguish his electronic transmissions from those of the Iraqi’s
so I had some down-time here at work, and I read more into this guy’s site. A very cool concept, but the only thing “independent” about this guy is his lack of an actual job. Some big media critic last month came out with an article called “what liberal media?”…All you need to do is read this guy’s site to see it. Don’t get me wrong, his writing is really good, and he definitley asks the right questions. No one is ever going to “snow” this guy. I am really enjoying it. But every piece of content is editorialized. He does not know how to step back and create objective journalism. he’s come in with an angle, and that angle is clear: How Bush is deceiving everyone.
…And I’ll admit, Bush has used moronic tactics that make him appear (to many) totally Orwellian. His people have obfuscated this whole thing. I like that this guy is pointing these things out…But that seems to be ALL he is pointing out. No wonder he won’t be riding along on any humvees into Iraq. At least the appearance of propriety is a good thing. This man doe snot have it.
From back-to-iraq.com (great url chris):
“Meanwhile, farther south, average Iraqis are apparently arming themselves in preparation of the chaos that will surely follow the onset of hostilities, um, Wednesday? It’s apparently an old cultural tradition of Iraqis, but this time — surprise! — it’s been encouraged by the Ba’ath regime.
But the real danger is not that Iraqis will start firing on American troops but on each other. “No one knows at whom these weapons will be pointed and after a U.S. strike we might see a new Iraq, in the Lebanese or Algerian style,” an Arab diplomat said.”
I’ve never really thought about it. We tend to view Iraq as a place that is as simple as:
- A bunch of anti-Saddam Kurds in the north
- A bunch of anti-Saddam shiites in the south
- Take Saddam away and it’ll all be cozy and ‘back to normal” again (phew)
But it just might be a whole lot more complex than that. Saddam’s regime has squeezed and compressed domestic Iraqi turmoil for so long now, we don’t have any real idea what an “uncompressed” Iraq will be like. It could be far different than we expected.
Pretty interesting stuff. I think most analysts are just thinking that anything is better that the Saddam dicatatorship even if it means civil war. The is THAT bad. I don’t know how this one will go. It is likely the US will back the Kurds over the Shiites which would significantly impact the outcome.
a cool link about depleted uranium (the most likely cause of Gulf War Syndrome):
http://www.defenselink.mil/news/Mar2003/t03142003_t314depu.html
I think 1st Lt. Mark V. Shaney USMC said it best when he said:
“Responsible journalism should include responsibility for one’s actions in publishing a news story in such a way that puts many other people in harm’s way; has a direct result of publication of a particular story might have on other people.
“We are a people that cherish the democratic system of government and therefore hold the will of the enemy is trying very hard to portray our efforts over here, you can refute them by knowing that we are failing, even if we are making the whole world safer. ”
Raymond Onnar
And as always: “Quidquid excusatio prandium pro!