...more recent posts
Still no real news. The story, at the moment, seems to be Basra. Is there an "uprising?" There are rumors, but not much more. You can be sure that reporters will be rushed in if we do secure the city, so that clearly hasn't happened yet. Either we go in soon, or there will be a humanitarian disaster, as the million plus residents have been without electricity and water since Sunday. That is very bad, and it would appear that time is essentially up. We have to move on Basra immediately.
But without an uprising from inside the city British forces tasked with capturing the city will either lose a lot of men, or inflict huge casualties on the civilian population they are supposedly liberating, or both. But they can't just stand outside the city and watch a million people die.
And Basra was supposed to be easy. The first photo op of the war. Gulp.
The other story is the 4th Infantry Division. My understanding (I'm just getting up to speed on the all the military nomenclature) is that this is the group that would have come through Turkey, but since they weren't allowed they sailed through the Suez on their way around to Kuwait. (I understand they are not on the ships, just their mechanized equipment - they'll be dropped where ever the machinery is unloaded.)
There are 3 U.S. divisions closing in on Baghdad. One from the West of the Euphrates, one just east of the Euphrates, and one along the Tigris. But these soldiers have been fighting for many days and need a rest. Also, they need to be resupplied. The 4th (and maybe more) is apparently necessary to shore up these troops before the big fight can begin.
Supposedly it will be at least Saturday or Sunday before the 4th can join the fight coming up from Kuwait. But there are two other wild cards:
- the many unconfirmed reports of Turkish troops coming over the boarder are actually misidentified U.S. troops. Somehow we cut a deal with the Turkish military and they are letting the 4th through against the expressed wishes of the government.
- the ships with the 4th's gear have secretly landed at Al Aqabah on the Red Sea in Jordan instead of sailing all the way around the peninsula to Kuwait. From here they will cross Jordan and materialize out of the western Iraqi desert to join the fight on Baghdad. This would be Gen. Frank's wild card surprise move.
My money is on the second possibility, but it's still going to be many days before we have enough strength around Baghdad to start the fight. I say Friday at the earliest (with the surprise Jordan route,) or Sunday at the very earliest if they do go all the way around. And it could even be longer. It's a long way around that penninsula (Here's a general map of the region; here's one of Jordan.)
So we wait. Watch what the British do in Basra. And continue our psy ops in an effort to get Iraqi generals to turn on Saddam. This is really our only plan, as far as I can see. Try to draw some RG divisions out into the open where we can crush them, showing our massive fire power - while working back channels to try and get someone inside to off Sadam. Maybe keep this up for a week? Two weeks?
Only when it is clear that Sadam will not be taken out from inside do we launch the assualt on Baghdad. I guess at that point we'll find out if they are going to use chemical or biological or radialogical weapons. If they do then I have no idea what will happen. If they stay conventional, then we go in and slug it out. Most likely amazingly bloody. Huge Iraqi casualties - many tens to hundreds of thousands. Thousands of U.S. and British casualties.
But eventually we will take the city. And then the really hard part starts: keeping the country together. Ugh. Enough for now.
The Agonist keeps going after a bandwidth crunch yesterday afternoon. Supposedly had 90,000 hits yesterday, but no explanation of what that means (raw server requests? page loads? unique visitors?) There was a mention of him in the NYT today that I haven't seen yet, so I'll assume that number is going way up today. Maybe in the Wall St. Journal as well? He is doing a great job, but at a certain point his model will break down.
Jorn is in the comments, and I saw at least one posting with advice on reducing bandwidth. I couldn't agree more. The page is freakin' huge (over 120k!) I think he should get rid of the graphics and put all the side links on a secondary 'links' page, and reduce the length of the page to just the last three posts. That would get the page size down to around 12k.
Instead, he's going with mirrors (i.e., duplicating the site onto other servers and encouraging people to hit the mirrors instead of the main site.) But this won't work because the reason people are reading him is for up to the minute (second) news, and the mirrors are lagging in time. So what's the point?
In any case, this is the most important blog story ever, I think, and I hope he is able to stay up under the load.
Remarkable lack of information coming from the battle field. That's the only story for the last 12 hours.
Where can I watch oil and gold prices? Any links?
If you've got the war info monkey on your back, and debka just isn't doing it for you (where are the updates? Come on! It's not like we expect it to be true...) you can take a stab at this - at first glance - even less credible source from Russia: aeronautics.ru. That front page doesn't really get you into it. Start here for the 03/23/03 update - especially if you're reading this in anything like war time real time.
Most of their reports seem to rely on "intercepted U.S. military comunications". This seems unlikely to me given the theoretical ease of use of high quality encryption. I'm sure the military is using such non trivial encryption. Still, this page would seem to be some sort of explanation about how these military intercepts are possible - and thus, by inference, how they might have information not available otherwise.
Yeah, OK, I'll take what I can get.
I can't really analyze this information. It doesn't seem obviously wrong like so much encryption industry marketing. But I can't really tell. This part, for instance, "sounds" potentially correct to me, in the sense that this is usually how codes actually are cracked:
However, security afforded by frequency-hopping methods is very dependant on the strict adherence to protocols for operating such radios. The US troops and other operators of frequency-hopping radio sets frequently disregard these protocols. An example would be an artillery unit passing digital traffic in the frequency-hopping mode, which would enable an unauthorized listener to determine the frequency-hopping algorithm and eavesdrop on the transmission.Anyway, like I say, more junk for the junkie.
So far the US was unable to destroy the air defense networks in central Iraq. As before, the Iraqis continue to covertly use their radars and SAM launchers on a limited bases while employing a huge number of decoys designed to imitate radars.This plays into the top unconfirmed story I've been following. Are there Russian technicians on the ground in Baghdad (sorry for the possibly non-direct wapo link) training the Iraqi's in the use of GPS jamming equipment? And maybe more?
Pure speculation. But what else do we have?
I've mentioned AKMA, the highest profile theologian blogger, a few times before. Here's an interesting email exchange between him and Stewart Butterfield. Stewart is part of Ludicorp which is creating The Game Neverending, a massive multiplayer online role playing game (MMORPG.) He is looking for AKMA's advise on how religion should work in their virtual world.
Anti-war march thread. I'll post in the comments here if I can get a signal on my mobile. Others should feel free to do the same.
These are some complex and distracting times. The television assault is mind numbing. The repitition of certain phrases and images wears you down. But it's important to keep trying to think critically. Having to write about it helps.
If you've been following along here you know I got some, uh, negative feedback. I'm surprised this hadn't happened before. Probably the best response is no response ("don't feed the trolls") but of course I appreciate the supportive comments even while hoping they don't egg on our new friend. I'd perfer him to be one of those friends you don't ever have to spend any time with.
As I said before, I'm sure my position is infuriating to many. But my feeling is that I am not actually in opposition to these people. I mean, even though they think I am. For instance, I believe Sadam is a bad guy. I believe the world will be a better place with him removed from power. I would myself, under certain conditions, participate in a military action.
So what's the beef? I think the problem is that the excitement of war narrows people's focus. The barrage of television coverage allows some to forget that this situation is embedded inside a larger global situation, and the consequences of our actions in Iraq will travel far beyond that country. Do we want Sadam gone? Of course. Will we do anything to get that result? I, for one, don't think so.
Consider (and I don't mean to make light of the situation): If an asteroid struck the earth killing all life, that would remove Sadam from power. But obviously people don't want that to happen. I make this extreme case on purpose, just to establish that we wouldn't do just anything to accomplish our goals. Some courses of action are too costly. While the present situation is much more complex then my extreme example, I think that this present campaign is also too costly. My point with the asteroid is just to show that calculating costs like this is necessary. The gung ho "whatever it takes" attitude is obviously wrong in some cases, and so the debate should be going on as to whether this is one of those cases.
The cost is the destruction of the global framework of cooperation among countries that has been represented by the UN. In other words, the cost is the destruction of fraternity among the people of the world. The cost is the isolation of the U.S. from the concerns of all mankind.
I consider myself a patriot. But maybe there should be a new term? I don't know. I know I differ from many who call themselves patriots, and I think I know the difference. Some so called patriots would place the interests of the United States above the interest of all foreign individuals and nations. This made sense at a certain point in the past. But today, with the U.S.'s overwhelming military and economic power, we have a new responsibility. Perhaps a responsibility that no other nation has ever had to shoulder. The responsibility to look out for the interests, not just of ourselves, but of the whole world.
This will take great sacrifice. And great complexity of thought. But we are strong enough to do it. Unfortunately, our present government doesn't seem to have much interest in this. Isolationists to begin with, I think they were so scared (either personally or politically) by 9/11 that they vowed to protect this country "at all costs." But again, some people need to continue to think critically, and point out that some costs are indeed too high. Especially when your country is the undisputed leader of the world, and as such cannot morally think only of ourselves.
I think we should immediately stop this war. Our leaders should step down or be impeached. (I don't really care if they are prosecuted for war crimes, but probably they could be.) And then a new government should be elected, and we should begin the long difficult process of rebuilding our global alliances. Rebuilding the work in progress that is/was international law.
And then we should return - as a unified world - to the question of dangerous rouge regimes everywhere. We should attack these problems diplomatically, and where that doesn't work, with a global force sanctioned through international law. Is this road more difficult then "going it alone"? Yes. Much. But that is no argument against doing it.
Let's be strong.
I'm off to the protest. Maybe I'll see you there.
If you want to know what the big media news guys (CNN, MSNBC, etc...) are reporting without actually watching them, you can tune into The Agonist.
Hopefully his wife won't kill him.
[update: Here's the Monday 3.24 link - I'll keep this at the top of the left hand column from now on.]
[update: Here's the Sunday 3/23 link]
[update: Here's the Saturday 3/22 link]
Quick low bandwidth Iraq headlines at a glance from the BBC. No links. No analysis. No fluff.
[Update: the BBC is changing the link every day. Here it is for Friday 3/21/03.]
[double update - updated link fixed - thanks Tom!]