"It looks as though the Israel-Lebanon are-we-calling-it-a-war-yet of 2006 is the first conflict to be blogged from day one. Bloggers from both sides of the border - some of whom were already aware of one another before this tragedy began - have been providing live updates, commenting on one another's blogs and sometimes linking to posts by bloggers on the other side of the border. Will this turn out to be the first time that residents of "enemy" countries engaged in an ongoing conversation while missiles were falling?"I thought that it was interesting then and almost a month later I find it even more interesting. The blogosphere is actively churning out posts that question and analyze every little detail of the war. There are questions about reporting, bombings, pictures that might have been tampered with and more.
It is just fascinating to me to consider how so many of us are sitting at a keyboard typing furiously about the same topic. We may not all agree, in fact there is no question that there are vast disagreements.
And it is certain that the war is also being fought here in cyberspace. There is a battle for hearts and minds that is taking place, a cyberspace chess game. Consider for a moment how we have the opportunity to go check out the other side.
With a couple of keystrokes we can join them in their discussion and listen to their concerns and react to those.
In short this makes me wonder how much influence we really have here and to ask myself more questions about what is going on behind the scenes. Are there people who are savvy enough to try and harness the power of the Net. Are they working to push their stories with their slant into our living rooms.
If it was me there is no question that I would.
In the years to come I wonder if we will gain access to the classified intelligence and be able to compare our own analyses of the events and see how they compared to the experts.
For now I suppose that we will have to wait and see.
4 comments:
Call me an extremist (which in retrospect is fine by me) but I'm not so big on the buddy buddy with other side schtick..
This is now a 4 week long war, well beyond the original conflict and in my opinion this sycophantish notion of dialog with peoples and countries who did absolutely nothing, and continue to do absolutely nothing about the terrorists living in their midst launching rockets & missiles (over 2500 of them) at Israel is pure crapola.
Many if not most hate Israel and want us to lose the war and smile when soldiers or civilians are killed.
On your notion of fascinating to read I can agree, on the original quoted post and the notions behind that post back then, my opinion then was pfft.. and it has not changed. This may be offensive to more left thinking individuals, personally I find Lebanon quite offensive right now. I feel no need to 'understand' the other side per say now, my blog's tag line is Israel vs The Global Jihad.. and that is exactly what is going on imho.
I'm sure many feel the same way on the other side, there's a time for dialog and there's a time for tanks, now is the time for tanks imho.
Saus,
You extremist. I agree with what you are saying. Right now is a time for force.
I don't know that I see any buddy buddy thing, what really catches me is technology.
Remove military censors and you have instant reporting of where the bombs fall.
And on top of that who knows how much intelligence is floating around because it has made its way into cyberspace. Just amazing.
The USA stated about 2 months ago that they do intend to monitor blogs & the internet for intelligence purposes on the war on terror so your point was very correct. I saw it on LGF I think.
My point before was regarding moderate Lebanese, there was opportunity for 6 years, and massive opportunity the last 14 months to act in moderation, to make things happen. The same old excuses were trotted out, Israel was continuously blamed (sheba farms what have you) & no peace was offered, no action was taken vis a vis hezbollah despite worldwide support.. What I was trying to get across is that coddling the Lebanese is the worst possible thing one can do, because the entire Arab world needs to grow up already and stop being treated like 3 year olds.
It is precisely because they have been coddled for many decades now that these disasters are unfolding. There's a tendency on the left for unchecked or misplaced sympathy - for sympathy's sake. As a parent you more than I know the need at times for 'tough love' and you've stated as much here. My post was for your readers sake.
It's time to solve this problem once and for all, and yes there is sufferring, and killing and war, and innocent people paying the price.
Saus,
If tough love does the trick then I am all for it. All I am sure of is that it is going to have to get worse before it gets better.
Meaning I think that the Arabs are going to have be defeated so severely they cannot consider war.
Now there is more to this than the simplistic explanation I provided, but I am a little short on time now.
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