03.24.03 - 12:51 p.m.

well, so. we're at war. we're at war and i'm a news junkie, in such situations. i cannot get away from it, i want more information, and more information now, a desire often thwarted by the fact that i do not, unfortunately, have cable and am thus limited to the network coverage and NPR and the internet (it's not enough), and not allowed CNN and MSNBC and FOXnews, or whatever.

well, i'm not convinced that those would satisfy me much, either. the thing is, almost all of the coverage i hear and see: even on NPR, even on PBS, of all places, lacks the sort of width and depth i want, and uses this jingoistic language that tends to happen whenever we go to war.

the u.s. protests the treatment of american POWs when the iraqis put them on television, and... i agree. likely a violation of the geneva convention. brutal and humiliating.

of course, i saw similar broadcasts over the american channels of iraqi POWs: being arrested, face down on the sand, huddled beneath a blanket, curled on the ground, whatever. similarly: disheartening, humiliating, dehumanizing coverage. even the language used by the media-types seems demeaning and dehumanizing, somehow. i think we've forgotten, largely, how the shiites were willing to rise against saddam and how we encouraged them and how we abandoned them twelve years ago, and what those sorts of betrayals can do to the psyche of a people. but even more, meh. the language...

bush said the iraqi soldiers were "gleefully" surrendering. gleefully. someone needs to smack his speechwriters around.

or something. hey, i'm allowed to be troubled by this, right? i wonder, now, why i was so opposed to the previous gulf war, and now think we should've just gohne all the way and deposed saddam. how we allowed 12 years of sanctions to decimate the people of iraq...

...and another war, and everything that goes along with it. how we can sit here beneath peacful blue skies while bombs are exploding half a world away...

i think i was in favor of this war, though not for security threat reasons or for links to al qaida reasons or such: i don't think those are good reasons. i think, the whole throw babies out of helicopters to keep their parents in line, rape chambers and torture as a state-sponsored sport, those things are a damn good reason to end saddam's reign. the problem is how we handled it, how we built up to it, and now...

...man. now. heh. the world's reaction to it, particularly the arab world's reaction to it.

bleh. that's what i think: bleh.