I SPENT THE AFTERNOON buying a new (environmentally friendly!) lawn mower and mowing my lawn. Then I read a book and had a nice dinner. I’m taking the rest of the evening off in an effort to stay sane amid all the war hysteria. I’m also taking a moment to think of our troops, who don’t have that luxury.

I’ll be back tomorrow. In the meantime, check out the Command Post, which should be here now (at least, the new URL of www.command-post.org is working for me; if it doesn’t work for you try this one instead), and the many fine blogs linked below. Oh, and don’t miss this piece by Howard Kurtz on weblogs and war.

And if you want to help out some service people, Operation Uplink lets you donate calling cards so that they can stay in touch with the folks at home.

See you tomorrow.

WHEN YOU HEAR CLAIMS OF “CIVILIAN DEATHS” keep in mind this post from the BBC Warblog:

One of the problems in the fighting in Umm Qasr has been that some of the conscript army appeared to surrender, but then disappeared.

It’s thought they then took off their uniforms, became civilians, but kept their guns. And so they were effectively acting as a guerrilla force which makes it very hard for conventional armies to fight that because they don’t want to risk killing civilians.

Soldiers out of uniform, of course, are war criminals. I eagerly await the European protest marches regarding this practice.

UPDATE: CNN is now reporting that Iraqis have executed American prisoners of war. I eagerly await the demonstrations over that, too.

ANGRY CLAM NOTES THAT IT’S NOT THE POOR WHO ARE DYING in this war, despite Rep. Rangel’s claims.

WHAT DO YOU HAVE TO SAY ABOUT THIS REPORT, HANS?

About 30 Iraqi troops, including a general, surrendered today to US forces of the 3rd Infantry Division as they overtook huge installation apparently used to produce chemical weapons in An Najaf, some 250 kilometers south of Baghdad. . . .

It wasn’t immediately clear exactly which chemicals were being produced here, but clearly the Iraqis tried to camouflage the facility so it could not be photographed aerially, by swathing it in sand-cast walls to make it look like the surrounding desert.

Stay tuned, but this looks like another Blix embarrassment, following upon the Scuds that weren’t supposed to be there.

UPDATE: A couple of readers say that MSNBC is reporting (on TV) that this story is false. I can’t find anything about it on the website at the moment. As I said, stay tuned.

ANOTHER UPDATE: This story from Fox, this story from ABC news, and this story from Agence France Presse say that there was a chemical weapons factory found. I suppose that could change, but for now the story seems reasonably credible.

LOTS OF STUFF AT THE COMMAND POST. Also, I’ve been remiss in not mentioning The Agonist earlier, but when I tried to visit his site it was down.

UPDATE: Note: The Command Post is now here instead of at the above link, because of — hold your breath at this improbability — some sort of Blogger/Blogspot glitch.

JAMES RUMMEL thinks I’ve blacklisted him. I haven’t. Has anyone else had this problem?

THE ANGLOSPHERE MEME continues to spread. I think that this article confuses the term — at least as Jim Bennett and others have used it — with British-style imperialism, though.

MAX BOOT ON DIPLOMACY AND “UNILATERALISM:”

Bush has gotten the most flak for, in essence, placing too much stock in the U.N., not too little. Like his father, he thought it could become an effective collective-security organization once it was freed of Cold War constraints. This approach worked in the first Persian Gulf War, because his father was confronting a clear-cut case of aggression — Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait. But not even Bush père could have gotten U.N. approval for regime change in Baghdad.

That’s why he didn’t try. His son did — and nearly succeeded. His mistake was becoming a little too ambitious. Not satisfied with U.N. Resolution 1441, which passed unanimously in November, Bush unsuccessfully sought a second resolution (or, more accurately, an 18th). Now, like every U.S. president since 1945, he has embarked on military action without explicit U.N. authorization. . . .

It’s true that acting “unilaterally” — actually with a substantial “coalition of the willing,” in Bush’s words — increases distrust of U.S. power. But it’s far from clear what the consequences are. Will France and Germany stop fighting al Qaeda? Refuse to continue helping to rebuild Afghanistan? Torpedo the free-trade treaties they have supported? All possible, but all unlikely, because they didn’t undertake these actions as a favor to Washington — it’s in their self-interest to promote trade, stamp out terrorism and foster peaceful development in war-torn lands.

Political scientists warn of “bandwagoning” against a hegemon, and they might see some evidence of this in the U.N. debate, where France, Russia and China ganged up on the United States. But only one of these nations — China — is making an effort to challenge U.S. power, and then only in one region. France and Russia, along with the rest of Europe, are doing little or nothing to build up their military capabilities. If they were serious about taking on America, they would be forming a military alliance against us. No one imagines this will happen.

Why not? Because for all their griping about the “hyperpower,” our fair-weather friends realize that America is not Napoleonic France or Nazi Germany.

Indeed.

THEY’RE NOT PEACE PROTESTERS:

Two Jewish youths were hospitalized Saturday afternoon after being stabbed in Paris by individuals who had taken part in an anti-war demonstration. . . .

One young man was stabbed and lightly wounded after a group of men noticed his yarmulke. He was taken to the hospital for treatment. The attackers are believed to have been immigrants from North Africa.

They’re just the enemy.

UPDATE: Reader Khalid Yukub emails from Britain and sends this link, with the suggestion that it somehow parallels the story above. I can’t read the Arabic, but it has a picture of what I assume is supposed to be a dead Iraqi civilian killed by Americans. After the Baby Milk Factory episode in the last war, I can hardly swear to its accuracy — and, statistically, a dead Iraqi civilian is far more likely to have been killed by Saddam than by Americans. But assume it’s what it purports to be, a dead Iraqi civilian.

War is hell. Civilians get killed. The United States is trying hard — far, far harder than any Arab nation ever has — to avoid killing civilians in the course of war. Nonetheless, it still happens. To suggest that somehow that sort of thing is the same as deliberately targeting someone for stabbing because of his religion is — well, it’s typical, is what it is.

UPDATE: Khalid emails:

I’m not suggesting that there is a direct parallel between the attack on the Jewish youth and the killing of the Iraqi civilian, although both attacks are on innocent people and are indeed illegal and immoral. I’m suggesting that your coverage, in general, focuses more on the suffering (or jubilation) of some people more than others. Violence you agree with is downplayed and/or justified, while violence you (often rightly) disagree with is highlighted to bolster your black-and-white view of the world.

Uh, no. “Both attacks” are not illegal and immoral. Collateral damage in a war is neither, though it is unfortunate and the United States has made unprecedented efforts to avoid it — far more than against Germany in World War II despite lame claims that this is a “racist” war. It’s not remotely comparable to deliberately stabbing someone because he’s wearing a Yarmulke. (And the original email sure seemed to suggest that to me).

As to whether my presentation reflect my beliefs — you bet it does. I also go out of my way to offset the biases of mainstream media, who swallow Iraqi propaganda rather uncritically (as with the “Baby Milk Factory” episode).

What I find interesting is that any act of violence by the United States seems always to be condemned, while almost any act of violence by third world thugocracies is excused. If recognizing that is a “black and white view” then so be it.

If Saddam, or Osama, had the power that the United States enjoys, how would they be exercising it? And yet that difference is seldom recognized.

UPDATE: Meryl Yourish thinks I’m giving Khalid too much credit here:

It’s Jew-hatred, plain and simple, Glenn. Don’t let him distract you with trying to get you into moral arguments. These two young Jewish men did nothing. “Immigrants from North Africa” stabbed one, tried to break into a Jewish building to stab more, and instead beat the hell out of the next Jew to exit the building.

She goes on to say that Khalid’s guilty of the same kind of sentiments. Well, I don’t know Khalid. I try to give people the benefit of the doubt here. The war has everyone on edge, and his comments may reflect that. I don’t want to see innocent people killed, and I don’t see any evidence that Khalid does, either. I think it’s worth making clear, however, that although some Muslims seem determined to see this as a war against Islam, it’s not. I don’t want it to be, and I don’t think anyone much in America does. Certainly Bush has gone out of his way to make that clear, as he did with his visit to a mosque right after 9/11. And those Muslims who want to turn it into one don’t have the best interests of Muslims, or anyone else besides themselves, at heart.

Anyway, for more on civilian casualties, etc., read this lengthy and thorough post by Jacob Levy.

YET ANOTHER UPDATE: Another email from Khalid makes clear that he condemns the stabbing above, as I thought. Unlike rather a lot of my anti-war emailers, he has managed to be quite civil, too, which I appreciate. The email from the “peace” movement has never been especially pacific, and it’s gotten a lot worse lately.

JEFF JARVIS REPORTS:

DENVILLE — Holding signs that read “Honk if you hate Saddam” and “Honk if you support our troops,” about 50 boisterous but orderly Denville middle school students held a pro-war rally Friday on Main Street.

The spontaneous demonstration began when students, on their way home from Valleyview School after a half-day, picked up cardboard and started scrolling their feelings on the makeshift signs.

Slowly, more children joined in and, by 1:30 p.m., the students had seized the corner of Broadway and East Main Street — to the delight of the multitude of passing motorists honking horns around them.

“Too many people are against the war,” said 14-year-old Zac Walsh, one of three students who organized the rally. “We wanted to show our support for it.”

Here’s a list of pro-liberation rallies, most with pictures. I haven’t seen much reporting on these, though I understand that Ashleigh Banfield covered one yesterday.

UPDATE: Here are pictures from a pro-America demonstration in Knoxville. Looks roughly comparable to the anti-war demos here in terms of size, but I didn’t see it.

AMITAI ETZIONI reflects on journalistic values.

ANNA WRITES on the failures of the peacemongers. There are quite a few on her list. Meanwhile Russell Wardlow says in my name but not yours, all right.

ON TO BAGHDAD: Friendly fire seems to be the biggest danger so far, and I suspect that there’s a systematic problem in communications involved — though it may be just that the absence of other fire makes it seem so conspicuous. Here’s a UPI story too.

UPDATE on Friendly Fire: Apparently, the British plane didn’t have a working IFF system. Why the hell not?

ANOTHER UPDATE: Reader Gerald Hanner emails:

Sometimes the IFF/SIF goes out in-flight. There are no backups. In addition, there are times when you want to turn off your IFF/SIF to avoid giving the enemy a chance to interogate it themselves. I don’t know what they’re doing in Iraq. In many cases, most of them peacetime, IFF/SIF is not strictly needed. In this case it was sorely needed. I’m wondering what AWACS was doing during all of this.

Me, too.

BILL HERBERT HAS SOME THOUGHTS ON PRESS FREEDOM, and he wonders why Reporters Sans Frontieres aren’t complaining about Baghdad’s expulsion of journalists.

Meanwhile Susanna Cornett points out security issues with embedded journalists — and, surprise, the French are involved.

UPDATE: Randy Paul sends this link indicating that they’re at least criticizing Castro for his crackdown on journalists in Cuba.

“I was a naive fool to be a human shield for Saddam.” Why yes, yes, you were. But at least he’s learned:

I was shocked when I first met a pro-war Iraqi in Baghdad – a taxi driver taking me back to my hotel late at night. I explained that I was American and said, as we shields always did, “Bush bad, war bad, Iraq good”. He looked at me with an expression of incredulity.

As he realised I was serious, he slowed down and started to speak in broken English about the evils of Saddam’s regime. Until then I had only heard the President spoken of with respect, but now this guy was telling me how all of Iraq’s oil money went into Saddam’s pocket and that if you opposed him politically he would kill your whole family.

It scared the hell out of me. First I was thinking that maybe it was the secret police trying to trick me but later I got the impression that he wanted me to help him escape. I felt so bad. I told him: “Listen, I am just a schmuck from the United States, I am not with the UN, I’m not with the CIA – I just can’t help you.”

Of course I had read reports that Iraqis hated Saddam Hussein, but this was the real thing. Someone had explained it to me face to face. I told a few journalists who I knew. They said that this sort of thing often happened – spontaneous, emotional, and secretive outbursts imploring visitors to free them from Saddam’s tyrannical Iraq.

I wonder why they haven’t been reporting on that more? Here’s my favorite part, though:

The driver’s most emphatic statement was: “All Iraqi people want this war.” He seemed convinced that civilian casualties would be small; he had such enormous faith in the American war machine to follow through on its promises. Certainly more faith than any of us had.

Perhaps the most crushing thing we learned was that most ordinary Iraqis thought Saddam Hussein had paid us to come to protest in Iraq. Although we explained that this was categorically not the case, I don’t think he believed us. Later he asked me: “Really, how much did Saddam pay you to come?”

Heh.

BIOLOGICAL WARFARE? “Kurds hemmed in by Turds”? Eew. I wonder if any of those defecating San Francisco protesters were involved.

From The Telegraph:

Thanks to reader Eric Williams for the screenshot.

HOW ARE THINGS GOING? Well, pretty well so far. Iraqis are surrendering, the biggest casualties seem to be from accident and friendly fire, not enemy action, and Iraqi leaders seem demoralized while Iraqi citizens seem pleased. Still, it’s too early to say, really. Steven Den Beste is happy with how things are going, but has a list of things he’s worried about.

JAY CURRIE and some other Canadians have set up the Canadian Friends of America website. Drop by and say hello — and if you’re an American, say thanks!

THE PARABLE OF THE GIANTS: A tale of considerable relevance for our time.

AN INTERESTING COINCIDENCE relating to the D.C. sniper.

UPDATE: Here’s more. This is very troubling if it turns out to be true. (LATER: Dixie Flatline clarifies and retracts a few of his more overwrought statements, which he added in response to Oliver Willis after I initially linked this report. I’m not surprised. Everybody gets overheated from time to time. Even Oliver.)

ANOTHER UPDATE: Still more:

“Two men are being held, one of which is a Muslim soldier who is an engineer,” Ramsay said.

“It appears he was hiding in a barrack where the attacks happened. A second man, who we believe is not an American soldier, is being held by the military.

“As the man who carried out the attack moved away there was some shooting. He was shot in the leg. He was held on the ground less than 100 yards from where the attack happened.”

He said fears about the Muslim soldier’s behaviour had been raised in recent days by colleagues.

As I say, troubling. Here’s another report, via Howard Owens’ constantly updated warblog.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Tacitus has more.

LOTS OF GOOD STUFF at Outside the Beltway and Letter From Gotham. There’s a lot of war coverage on BlogCritics, which you might not have expected. And, of course, Jeff Jarvis’s Big Media warblog has lots of cool stuff, too. And here’s a journalist’s blog by John Pendygraft of the St. Petersburg Times.

UPDATE: Mark Steyn looks at war coverage — and North Korea is getting worried:

The United States says it wants a peaceful settlement to the dispute. But the U.S. war in Iraq is getting intense study from North Korean officials, Strong told reporters.

“They are watching it very carefully and with deep concern, and questioning what this means in terms of the U.S. ultimate intentions toward them,” Strong said.

I’d be concerned, too, if I were them. Especially because if the war continues to go well, the United States won’t need much time to replenish its stocks of JDAMs and Tomahawks, which I suspect North Korea has figured out. I also think there’s more going on with regard to North Korea than meets the eye.

(Both links via Bill Quick). Meanwhile, Tom Daschle is happy about how the war is going.

And check out the BBC Warblog, which is kicking CNN’s ass, especially since CNN shut down Kevin Sites’ blog (though it would be better still if individual items had permalinks). Excerpt:

Basra :: David Willis :: 1446GMT

I’m looking out now as this large convoy and can see local people in Basra . There are lots of people coming out, lots of children and they are applauding. The people coming out to shake the hands of American forces who are seen as liberating the city of Basra. This has a significant impact on morale.

No doubt it’s affecting a lot of people’s morale. And there’s this, too:

Two direct blows on the Iraqi command – including Thursday night’s strike on the headquarters of Qusay Hussein, son and anointed heir of President Saddam – appeared to have unnerved Iraqi officials. But so long as the rest of Baghdad remains almost unscathed, ordinary Iraqis appear relatively buoyant, as they reach for the possibility that maybe this war will be less punishing than they had feared. Perhaps, they reasoned, the Pentagon’s warnings of days of shock and awe were merely part of a propaganda war meant to unnerve Iraqis.

If that was the intent, it appeared to be working its magic on Iraqi officialdom. By Mr Ahmed’s side, the information minister, Mohammed Sayeed al-Sahaf, similarly attired in olive green uniform, was spitting fury at the selection of targets in Thursday night’s air attacks.

Of course, it’s from that warmongering, Bush-loving propaganda outlet, The Guardian. But then there’s this:

Interviewer: You probably are aware of the demonstrations being held around the world. A lot of them were happening before you came here, and probably in the month that you were here more have popped up around the world. What would you say to these demonstrators who are pretty much living in free and democratic countries and here they have a great deal to say about the U.N. and the United States coming into Iraq?

David: Well, I would tell them I’m proud of you. That’s what democracy is all about. That’s what freedom is all about. Free, you can talk, you can do anything you want to do. But the people of Iraq cannot do it. Where you been when Saddam Hussein killed 100,000 Kurds? Where you been when he killed a million Iraqi soldiers and Iraqis and Iranis? Where you been when he occupied Kuwait and he killed over a thousand Kuwaitis? Why nobody says nothing?

Interviewer: If Saddam Hussein were in front of you instead of me what would you say to him?

David: (Laughs) I would tell him, “What comes around goes around. Now, your time to go. Your time is up. Now, we’re twenty-first century. No room for dictators.”

This is good, too. And Howard Owens’ big-media warblog is a regular linkfest.

BRYAN PRESTON HAS MORE INFORMATION on the Paris Ricin episode’s linkage to both Iraq and Al Qaeda.

PAUL JOHNSON WRITES: “In one blow, Chirac shattered the U.N., NATO and the EU.”

JAMES LILEKS’ OBSERVATIONS about the BBC:

It’s interesting, listening to these guys – I’m unsure how it’s possible to sneer the entire time you’re speaking. I fear the announcer’s face will stay that way. Perhaps you can recognize an old Beeb hand by the permanently curled lip. I’ve tuned in twice in half an hour; both times they were talking about the FAILURE to get Saddam, and what this FAILURE means for the war which might be hindered by this initial FAILURE. And then the reporter – a female one, with a sneerier sneer – says the question now is when the attack will come, and whether the President will give his generals permission to act with a free hand.

Um . . . haven’t we already settled that question? I know it conflicts with the Beeb’s view of Bush as a vulture with a bloody globe clutched in one claw, the other holding the leashes of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, but I heard hours ago that theater decisions had been left to the folks who do this for a living.

Yeah, and Congress voted its approval. Twice. Now Mickey Kaus has been listening and says:

Now I know what Andrew Sullivan’s been talking about! … And James Lileks is right about the British network’s near-permanent anti-U.S. sneer. (There was also a hilarious segment in which the Beeb’s man-on-the-scene, in the best British tradition, had chosen to report on the mood of the American citizenry from “Lake County” in California — i.e., California wine country. He managed to find a few Republican citizens and make them sound like comically rabid John Birchers.) … If I were in the Bush White House, I too would be paranoid and suspect the BBC’s airing of Bush’s pre-speech primping wasn’t just an honest mistake. …

Yes, it’s funny how often anti-Americanism goes hand-in-hand with being a state-funded apparatchik. That goes back to the anti-capitalism point mentioned below.

As Andrew Sullivan notes, a lot of people are experiencing epiphanies as the dishonesty of once-respected media institutions becomes apparent.

UPDATE: A reader emails:

Speaking of BBC lip-curling: I’ve just seen one reporter on BBC News 24 question an Iraqi at an anti-war protest. The reporter obviously didn’t do any kind of pre-rehearsal, because things did not go As Planned.

The young lady turns out to be absolutely pro-war, despite having family members in Bagdad, and was about 2000% more eloquent than some of the more telegenic air-heads that the BBC seems to have this curious talent for singling out, and then airing footage of over and over again.

Finally the reporter asks “Why are you at an anti-war rally if you agree with the war?” in a rather peeved tone of voice. The gist of her answer is that most of the protesters don’t have the faintest idea of what it’s like to live under a regime such as Saddam’s, which is right of course.

Then the reporter turns to the camera and says “Well, there you go, one Iraqi who approves of the war” as if this was some mind-boggling occurance, and as if their own footage didn’t show Iraqis dancing in the streets when the US Army showed up, and as if there was not one single Iraqi, anywhere else on the entire planet, who might have a itsy-bitsy-teensy-weeny little bit of an issue over how Saddam has been running their country.

No surprises here. (LATER: Here’s an account of what seems to be the same interview, from OxBlog.)

ANOTHER UPDATE: Rand Simberg has been listening to The Beeb too, and has some not-very-flattering observations.

YET ANOTHER UPDATE: Perry DeHavilland writes:

The coverage of SkyNews has been head and shoulders better that the rest, as was also the case during the fighting against the Taliban/Al Qaeda in Afghanistan. CNN and ITN are both fair to adequate, and the BBC is hovering between adequate and truly dire, with dreary hackneyed commentary filled with technical errors. Are the BBC incapable of finding a few ex-military people to employ who might know that there is no such thing as an ‘Abrahams’ battle tank?

It is also easy to see the institutional political biases of the different channels: SkyNews has been repeatedly showing an extended clip of bemused Royal Marines in Umm Qasr surrounded by exuberant Iraqi men welcoming them as liberators… I saw one clip of about 6 or 7 seconds long of this on the BBC. Once.

Interesting.

JIM MILLER has some thoughts on unilateralism.