March 25, 2003

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The "E-Bomb": Ready for Prime Time?

For a brief while this evening, CBSNews.com was reporting that U.S. forces unveiled a new generation of weaponry in Iraq today when they used a so-called "directed energy" bomb against Iraqi TV facilities in Baghdad. Here is the lede from that disappeared dispatch:

(CBS) (NEW YORK) The U.S. Air Force has hit Iraqi TV with an experimental electronmagetic pulse device called the "E-Bomb" in an attempt to knock it off the air and shut down Saddam Hussein's propaganda machine, CBS News Correspondent David Martin reports.

The highly classified bomb creates a brief pulse of microwaves powerful enough to fry computers, blind radar, silence radios, trigger crippling power outages and disable the electronic ignitions in vehicles and aircraft.

Then a funny thing happened. The indefatigable Drudge barely had time to post his link ("U.S. Drops E-Bomb on Iraqi TV") before all reference to E-bombs vanished from the CBS story in question. None of the Big 3 cable news network sites have it either. Possibly this means that CBS had its story wrong; possibly it means that they did not. Generals and journalists alike have got to pull together in this thing, you know. 

We'll see what if anything the papers have to say tomorrow. Meantime, here are a few backgrounders on Our New Bomb. The first is an FAQ from the GlobalSecurity.org website; the other two (in the very best Crossfire tradition) are from the conservative Weekly Standard and City Pages' left-lib sister publication The Village Voice.

 

Posted by Steve Perry at March 25, 2003 10:34 PM

 

War and Vertigo

Okay, take a breath. Everyone I know who has been trying to follow the course of this war conscientiously is feeling a little dizzy by now, if only from trying to pick and choose amid all the disinformation. (Today, for example: Did the civilians in Basra rise up against Iraqi forces, as Western media reported, or against U.S. and British forces, as the Middle Eastern media suggested? We'll find out eventually, but for now: Don't know, can't know.)

At this juncture, any piece of writing that manages to survey the first week of war and produce a reasoned, coherent picture is a rarity. So by all means check out this essay by the fine New York magazine columnist Michael Wolff.  Nothing else I've read so far gets it right on so many important things, chief among them the polarization of opinion at home and the surreally Pentagon-friendly coverage in American media. 

Posted by Steve Perry at March 25, 2003 05:28 PM

 

Fisk: The Un-Embedded Journalist

The Independent's Robert Fisk--the English-speaking press's most controversial Middle East correspondent, and one of the best--spoke with a Democracy Now! panel about the war so far. He offers, among other things, the best account of covering a war from ground zero that I've seen in a long time. The experience Fisk describes is no doubt quite different from that of the "embedded" American journalists peering anxiously over their commanders/protectors' shoulders.

Posted by Steve Perry at March 25, 2003 04:55 PM

 

Shock & Awe: Shocking or Just Awful?

One of the more respected politics & commentary blogs around, The Daily Kos, has just posted an analysis of the shock and awe campaign purportedly written by "a fairly well known military officer and commentator who under the circumstances is going to have to remain unidentified.... This memo doesn't spill any secrets, but it is a thoughtful analysis based on Officer X's conversations with some of his colleagues--all of whom are harshly critical of the war plan and Rumsfeld's meddling with it." Take a look.

Posted by Steve Perry at March 25, 2003 02:27 PM

 

Press Roundup 3/25

 

Al-Jazeera for Anglos

The English-language version of the Al-Jazeera webpage (a special edition, not a real-time mirror of the main Arabic page) is up. Needless to say it's already running slow from high traffic. Meanwhile, the indispensable Cursor continues to offer its Al-Jazeera translation page.

The Iraqi Gambit

Thoughtful analysis of Saddam's military strategy in this morning's London Independent from Christopher Bellamy, a professor of "military science."

The U.S.'s High Risk Psy-War

One of the usual suspects--Edward Luttwak of the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS)--wrote a cautionary analysis of the whole "shock and awe" game in Sunday's London Telegraph.

Will Bushies Push Tactical Nukes?

For years certain Pentagon hardliners have pushed for the aggressive development and eventual use of low-yield nuclear weapons, the main ideas being to a) get over that silly "Hiroshima Syndrome" regarding nuclear weapons once and for all--these baby nukes are the mother of all bunker busters, that's all; and b) cow any prospective foe into capitulating without war. The U.S. interest in tactical nukes is revisited this week in one of the Middle East's better English-language publications, the Al-Ahram weekly from Cairo.

The Turkish Domino

Turkey has denied last weekend's reports that it was already sending troops to Northern Iraq to deal with the Kurds there, but they expressly reserve the right to do so. It would be a potential disaster for the U.S. war effort and the stability of the region; for that reason the EU is joining the Americans in trying to discourage them, as today's Independent reports. 

The GI Fragging Suspect

Today's LA Times (registration required) features a backgrounder on Asan Akbar, the 101st Airborne's alleged grenade-thrower.

 

Posted by Steve Perry at March 25, 2003 10:55 AM

 

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