JAMES LILEKS ISN’T HAPPY WITH THE TV COVERAGE:

TV is useful for pictures – I get the feeling sometimes this should be called Operation Stock Footage – and it’s useful for seeing retired military people draw lines on maps. . . .

The details never seem to filter into the TV reports – for all the embeddedness of the reportorial faction, I’ve yet to see a big smashing battle. The more you watch the more you realize how little you’re seeing.

Jason Kottke wrote something similar the other day:

I’ve had the TV on all afternoon, watching it while I work. Right now, I’m watching tiny pixelated people moving around on the deck of an aircraft carrier. This scene imparts absolutely no information, knowledge, or perspective to the viewer.

Meanwhile, Mr. Cranky says he hates the coverage — but, of course, he hates everything. And — at a more professional level — Martin Van Creveld says that “all the pictures shown on TV are color pieces which have no significance.”

I agree, and I’ve barely watched it. There’s more, and better news on the web. And this view transcends whether you’re pro-war or anti-war, as the quotes above illustrate. They’re just not doing a very good job.

UPDATE: Bryan Preston has some further thoughts.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Bill Hobbs points to this interesting piece on what the war coverage is hitting, and missing.

MICHAEL FUMENTO writes that SARS is being overhyped. I hope he’s right.

“PROOF” OF IRAQI BIOLOGICAL WEAPONS:

“British forces have made significant discoveries in recent days which show categorically that Iraqi troops are prepared for the use of such horrific weapons.

“I want to make it clear that any Iraqi commander who sanctions the use of such weapons of mass destruction is committing a war crime and will be held personally responsible for his action.”

“Paperwork and other equipment” had been found in the command post search, Chief of Defence Staff Admiral Sir Michael Boyce said.

Meanwhile this report notes that “a woman believed to be one of the Iraqi regime’s top biological weapons scientists was seen in a televised meeting with President Saddam Hussein, U.S. officials said. It is not yet known, however, when that taped meeting took place.” Let’s hope it was an old tape. But there’s also this report of chemical weapons being readied.

Hey, I thought he didn’t have those?

IS THE BBC ENDANGERING SALAM PAX? Sounds like it.

I’m supposed to be on CNN later talking about warblogs, and I had talked them out of featuring Salam. Like it matters, when it’s been all over the BBC World Service, with lots of personal details. If he turns out to have been killed by Saddam’s goons, I’m going to very publicly blame the BBC.

UPDATE: A couple of people ask when I’m going to be on CNN. Looks like 12:15 EST, but there’s some sort of White House event that may kill it. Stay, er, tuned.

One person also asks why I’m slamming the BBC when I’ve linked to Salam myself. That’s a fair question. But what I haven’t done is release a lot of identifying details that have never been published online. The New Yorker did that, but took it off their website pretty quickly when people complained. Apparently, though, the BBC World Service — which is sure to be carefully monitored by whatever’s left of Iraqi intelligence services — repeated those details and maybe some more. My feelings on linking to Salam are that when you put stuff on the web, you expect for people to read it. He’s a big boy, and knows the risks better than we do. But putting up information that he hasn’t seen fit to make public seems to me to be crossing a line.

DORIS LESSING WRITES on the disaster that is Robert Mugabe. A must-read.

LOTS OF NEWS ON THE SARS VIRUS over at Gweilo Diaries (plus a cool Jennifer Capriati item) and medpundit. Though this will probably turn out to be nothing serious, as many similar scares have, it’s starting to worry me a bit.

ALAN BRAIN WRITES that it’s Western Germany in 1945 all over again:

Coalition forces are now within 100 km of Baghdad, and still rolling forward. It’s virtually a replay of May, 1945 in Western Germany. Even with some of the original cast. Many conscripts who surrender at the first opportunity. Small pockets of Nazi – or in this case, Ba’athist – fanatics, who, knowing their own crimes, are prepared to fight to the death in ambushes. A populace going about their normal lives, just wanting for it to be all over, and deeply mistrustful of the Liberators. Some people who think “Saddam’s a bastard, but he’s our bastard.” Some people who are saying “Thank God you came when you did, what kept you?”.

I’d expect more of the same. When we get to Baghdad, there may be some street-clearing operations, if the opposition isn’t too high. Until recently I didn’t think there would be, but from all reports the Coalitions MOUT (Military Operations in Urban Terrain) doctrine and training are paying off, with far fewer civilian and friendly casualties than could reasonably have been expected. But more likely we’ll hold off, and let the Free Iraq Forces currently in training go in, identify who the Ba’athists are, and get the Iraqi populace to actively aid us.

This too is already happening – considerable support has been given on-camera by Iraqis pointing out where the Ba’athist Werewolves are holed up.

I hope he’s right. I think he is. Just read this:

Residents of the southern Iraqi city of Basra are helping coalition forces to arrest Iraqi militiamen, General Richard Myers, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of staff, said in an interview.

“We are receiving a lot of help from Basra residents who are directing us to the positions of the Iraqi armed forces, to Baath officials and hideouts of Saddam’s Fedayeen,” Myers told the Qatar-based Al-Jazeera satellite network.

Stay tuned.

HERE’S A SPEECH BY DAVID GELERNTER, delivered at the Yale pro-war rally mentioned below.

WHAT WE’RE UP AGAINST:

AMSTERDAM, The Netherlands — The man accused of assassinating Dutch anti-immigration politician Pim Fortuyn has told judges he acted on behalf of the country’s Muslims. . . .

Van der Graaf, a father-of-one, allegedly confessed to the killing last November, saying he was worried Fortuyn was gaining too much power and posed a threat to “vulnerable members of society.”

Lots of Euros feel this way about the United States.

RANDOM OBSERVATION #1: Funny, isn’t it, that Osama bin Laden hasn’t released a statement — even a fuzzy tape recording — praising Saddam’s resistance and blasting the U.S. effort in Iraq. It’s like he’s not even alive, or something. . . .

Observation #2, from Nelson Ascher:

Before the war in Iraq there was much speculation about the possibility of a second front being opened, against Israel, either by the Palestinians, the Lebanese Hezbollah, or both. However, all of them seem to be lying low right now and none seems to be craving much attention. I’d say this is a good sign that even they agree that Saddam is not the favourite horse in this race.

Yeah. Possibly they figure that Israel will be able to retaliate against them without worrying about much world attention. And maybe it’s hard to recruit killers when Saddam’s financial support looks doubtful.

AL QAEDA FORCES FIGHTING WITH IRAQIS?

Near Basra, Iraq: British military interrogators claim captured Iraqi soldiers have told them that al-Qaeda terrorists are fighting on the side of Saddam Hussein’s forces against allied troops near Basra.

At least a dozen members of Osama bin Laden’s network are in the town of Az Zubayr where they are coordinating grenade and gun attacks on coalition positions, according to the Iraqi prisoners of war.

It was believed that last night (Thursday) British forces were preparing a military strike on the base where the al-Qaeda unit was understood to be holed up.

A senior British military source inside Iraq said: “The information we have received from PoWs today is that an al-Qaeda cell may be operating in Az Zubayr. There are possibly around a dozen of them and that is obviously a matter of concern to us.”

If terrorists are found, it would be the first proof of a direct link between Saddam’s regime and Osama bin Laden, the mastermind of the 11 September attacks on New York and Washington.

The connection would give credibility to the argument that Tony Blair used to justify war against Saddam – a “nightmare scenario” in which he might eventually pass weapons of mass destruction to terrorists.

Hmm. It was Tom Holsinger who suggested this, based on the tactics the “Fedayeen” were using. Looks like he might be right.

Looks like some other people, who said it was absurd to see a Saddam/Osama connection, might be wrong.

And looks like Austin Bay, who said that invading Iraq would smoke out Al Qaeda, is right, too.

MICKEY KAUS has a lengthy obituary for Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan. Worth reading. Plus: Good news about welfare reform!

TONY ADRAGNA HAS more thoughts on liberation theology. Conclusion: “There is certainly room for justifying our instant war along the lines of the church’s theology on liberation. But, let’s be careful to distnguish this from what the Latin American authors taught.”

THE GOOD NEWS AND THE BAD NEWS: Good news — the French government finally seems to be getting some vague idea of how much damage Chirac’s chicanery has done to U.S./French relations. The bad news — they still can’t get it right:

With French-American relations severely strained over the conflict in Iraq, Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin of France offered an olive branch to Washington today — but immediately declined to say explicitly who he hoped would win the war for Baghdad.

And even as he insisted that France stood ready for reconciliation with Washington, the French official delivered an impassioned attack on American plans to sideline the United Nations and assume the leading role in running post-war Iraq.

This, of course, is only going to make things worse. I thought the French were supposed to be sophisticated where diplomacy was concerned.

KANAN MAKIYA WRITES:

Do not believe any commentator who says that a rising surge of “nationalism” is preventing Iraqis from greeting U.S. and British troops in the streets with open arms. What is preventing them from rising up and taking over the streets of their cities is confusion about American intentions and fear of the murderous brown-shirt thugs known as the Fedayeen Saddam, who are leading the small-arms-fire attacks on American and British soldiers. The coalition forces have an urgent need to send clear and unmistakable signals to the people of Iraq that unlike in 1991, there is no turning back from the destruction of Saddam Hussein. . . .

The United States needs to understand that Iraqis do not get CNN. They have not heard constant iterations of how Saddam’s demise is imminent. More importantly, they have not seen it demonstrated. American forces so far have been content to position themselves outside southern Iraqi cities; they have only just began to disrupt Iraqi TV, which is Saddam’s principal tool of maintaining psychological control over Iraq; and, above all, they have not allowed Iraqis to go in and organize the population, a task which we are very eager to carry out.

Read the whole thing.

IRANIAN STATE-CONTROLLED MEDIA are taking a strongly pro-Iraqi, anti-American line. Iranian viewers aren’t buying the slant.

State television marks its war coverage with a logo reading “War of Dominance,” and broadcast media without fail call the United States and Britain the “aggressors” in their campaign to topple Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.

This is despite Iran’s official policy of “active neutrality” on the war.

“Some media coverage of the war gives the impression of defending (Iraq’s) Ba’ath regime,” Rajabali Mazroui, a pro-reform parliamentarian, was quoted as saying in a newspaper. “State media are not safeguarding our national interests.”

One analyst who asked not to be named said: “Iranian television has become like Iraqi television. Its reports about the war obviously take the side of the Iraqi regime.” . . .

Many viewers are tuning into Western radio and television instead. “Why should I watch Iranian television when it is trying to brainwash me with its one-sided coverage?” said Ali, a 33-year-old engineer. . . .

The (the official media) should not make our decisions for us. I want them to just offer straight facts,” said Abbaseh, a 38-year-old housewife,

The use of satellite dishes is officially prohibited in Iran but many Iranians ignore the ban.

“I bought a satellite receiver two days after the war started,” said Fariba, a teacher. “Before that I felt out of touch with the world.”

Heh. Of course, by taking a pro-Saddam line the increasingly-unpopular Iranian clerics are only boosting America’s reputation in Iran.

I JUST SPOKE TO A WOMAN FROM CNN who said that The Command Post is very popular in their newsroom today. I love that.

THE LEMON is a parody of The Onion — and this one is pretty funny.

CANADA’S HOUSE OF COMMONS HAS unanimously voted in favor of trying Saddam Hussein for war crimes:

The motion, adopted unanimously by the house of commons, parliament’s elected chamber, calls on the government to help “bring to justice Saddam Hussein and all other Iraqi officials responsible for genocide and crimes against humanity and war crimes – including through the formation of an international criminal tribunal.”

I suspect it’ll be a posthumous trial, but I appreciate the sentiment, which is a blow to Kofi Annan-style moral equivalence — one that is even more stinging coming from the Canadians.

I’M ALL FOR PATRIOTISM, and even for cyberwar against terrorism, but I’m not so keen on things like hacking Al Jazeera’s website.

Okay, so they’re a sleazy propaganda arm. But hey — so’s Reuters! And it’s just not the same as hacking, say, Al Qaeda or Taliban sites.

Am I wrong about this? I don’t think I am.

DANIEL DREZNER writes that Michael Ledeen (see post below) is being too hard on the European Union. He’s right as far as he goes — but Ledeen’s really writing about French diplomacy, not EU diplomacy (even though France is using Turkey’s desire to enter the EU), so that I think this is apples-and-oranges to some degree.

WHY LIBERATION THEOLOGY supports liberating Iraq.

Well, yeah.

UPDATE: Tony Adragna has more.

COMING INTO WORK today I saw the headline on the local paper, and it seemed like one of those things you expect to see in an old newspaper, the kind you might find in a closet at your grandparents: “PARATROOPS OPEN NEW FRONT IN NORTH.”

But it’s today. Of course, one way you know it’s today is you can see the same headline on their webpage, and what’s more, if you go there you’ll see that the Knoxville News-Sentinel is linking to Howard Owens’ Ventura Star warblog. I wonder how many papers are doing that now?

BRIAN CARNELL WRITES:

One other thing Mugabe shares with Hitler . . . he and others in his government are free to move as they want across Europe.

With the help, of course, of the French.

A PRO-WAR RALLY AT YALE got a good deal of coverage. There’s even video. Go here (click on “Pro-War Rally at Yale”), here, and here.