From the AP’s Hans Greimel, in the Washington Post: Republican Guard a no-show in Baghdad.

One U.S. official involved in both military operations and intelligence said there are thousands of Iraqi troops unaccounted for.

“That’s the scary part. We don’t know where these guys went to. Did they just melt into the population? Are they planning to come back out as paramilitary? Are they laying in wait?” the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

It’s not like I have any special insight that others don’t, but I guess I’m inclined to think yeah, all of the above. Time will tell, though.

From the New York Times’ Alessandra Stanley, a description of the way yesterday’s events in Baghdad were portrayed in various TV outlets: Amid the scenes of joy, a sight less welcome. I like her comment on Fox’s reaction to the Marine draping a US flag over Saddam’s head:

Even the Fox News Channel, the 24-hour cable news network that has been the most consistently ardent in celebrating the American show of force, seemed a bit nonplussed by the imagery. “You can understand these marines who have put their lives on the line, sweated with blood and guts for past three weeks wanting to show the Stars and Stripes in this moment of glory,” David Asman said quietly as the flag went up. “It is understandable, but no doubt Al Jazeera and others will make hay with that.”

Another version of the same story, from the Washington Post’s Howard Kurtz: The shot seen round the world.

The problem, as Ted Koppel put it, was that he remembered seeing anti-Soviet crowds trying to bring down a statue of Lenin, and “it took them 17 hours.”

Television wanted the pictures faster than that. And daylight would soon be gone.

As if sensing the impatience, some Marines brought in a tank to speed the statue’s destruction. Then one of them clambered up the statue and threw an American flag over Saddam’s head – producing precisely the wrong image, that of a foreign occupying force.

“You had troops with specific orders – no displays of any American flags,” NBC’s Jim Miklaszewski noted.

“This was not the picture the Pentagon wanted to see,” said CNN’s Barbara Starr.

Finally, from CNN.com, proof that where you sit really does make all the difference sometimes. Despite that fact that commentators the world over were clucking their tongues at Marine Corporal Edward Chin’s bonehead mistake in draping the flag over the statue’s head, that didn’t stop his family in Brooklyn from going batshit over his 15 seconds of fame: Family cheers as ‘their Marine’ leads statue’s destruction.

“I [am] so, so proud, so very proud,” said an emotional Nai Koon Chin, the Marine’s mother. “He used to play like GI Joe as a little boy. He always dreamed he would be a Marine.”

Updating the Jap… You’re Next! war bonds poster seemed like an obvious thing to do, so I did a (fairly lame) version of it, which in turn inspired ymatt to produce this much-more-awesome rendition (click for a larger image):

Heh.

And, in a less frivolous vein, this piece from Newsday: Hawks in US eyeing Syria as next target.

Update: And now, here’s an updated version, with a new, simplified message to help it sneak in under the pro-war-types’ radar:

Lest it get overlooked in all the excitement of at least one actual Baghdadi draping at least one actual flower on a US soldier, I feel compelled to link to this New York Times piece: Republicans want terror law made permanent. Seems those pesky sunset clauses that the few legislators with any spine managed to attach to the “emergency” suspension of our civil liberties in the wake of the 9/11 attacks are due for removal.

Which is only to be expected. There’s a ratchet on that particular cog in the machine of government. It tightens down oh-so-easily, but turning it the other way is a real bitch.

Sigh.

Here are a few interesting pieces that talk about what’s going on inside the US these days. From the Lebanese Daily Star: Pockets of anti-war resistance in America. And from Geov Parrish: Picking a challenger, in which he handicaps likely 2004 presidential aspirants based on (what else?) their fundraising ability. “This is now how America chooses its presidents — through money, media, polling, and more money. Actual voters are only invited at the very end.” Democracy, American style.

Some interesting stuff this morning as journalists, especially, digest the lesson that even they are not immune to the with-us-or-against-us logic of the forces invading Baghdad. From Cox Newspapers’ Craig Nelson: The killer attack journalists never saw coming.

There’s been a fair amount of back and forth over just what circumstances caused the US tank’s crew to fire on the hotel. Early reports said they saw a sniper in front of the hotel. Journalists have disputed that, saying there was no gunfire coming from their vicinity. Then more detail emerged: The tank crew said they saw binoculars watching them from the hotel, and wanted to take out someone who might have been spotting their location for a sniper located elsewhere.

Well, yeah. I mean, there were lots of lenses focused on them from that hotel, with live images probably being fed to a few million TV screens all over the world. And the rules of engagement for the US forces invading Iraq seem to have very much become “shoot whatever you want to, if it makes you feel safer.” I could easily see a person in that tank feeling better if his precise position weren’t being broadcast to anyone with a satellite TV receiver, and the ear of someone with an artillery piece a short distance away.

Again, this sort of thing shouldn’t take anyone by surprise. Our side wanted a quick resolution. And I’m sure the argument will be made, many times over, that by being so ruthless towards the non-combatants in Baghdad we actually helped them, since we thereby avoided the wholesale blunt-instrument trauma that would have resulted from a more sedate approach to conquering the defending forces. See, for example, this story from the Washington Post: Military defends risks of aggressive tactics.

So go ahead and make that case, if you want to. But if you do, you have an obligation to look square in the face of those innocents whose lives are nevertheless being destroyed by our actions, and explain to them that their suffering is justified by the greater good. Like the maimed children described by Arab News’ Essam Al-Ghalib: The evil of cluster bombs.

Slate’s Michael Kaplan has this interesting realtime take on the much-reported toppling of the big Saddam statue today: Toppled: National styles of pulling down statues. Thanks to ymatt for the link.

One of the better responses to the flurry of Republican outrage over Sen. John Kerry’s recent remark that we could use a little “regime change” in this country is this New York Times op-ed piece from Paul Krugman: The last refuge. His conclusion:

For years to come, then, this country may be, in some sense, at war. And all that time, if Mr. Racicot and his party are allowed to set the ground rules, nobody will be allowed to criticize the president or call for his electoral defeat. You know what? If that happens, we will have lost the war, whatever happens on the battlefield.

This story, from Newsday, caught my attention mainly because it constitutes the most-prominent call that I’ve seen so far for Powell to step down as Secretary of State: Nation scarred by many wars.

A really nice summing up of the march to war is this piece from Robert Parry: Bush’s Alderaan. The best part is his comparison of Bush to Darth Vader:

Once Bush had chosen the site, there was virtually nothing the Iraqi government could do to avoid war, short of total capitulation. As a demonstration of both America’s military might and his own itchy trigger finger, Bush had decided to make Iraq his Alderaan, the hapless planet in the original Star Wars movie that was picked to show off the power of the Death Star.

The piece contains nothing that will be news to anyone who’s been paying attention, but again, it does a good job of assembling the pieces into a coherent (if scary) whole.

No more Russian military spook briefings, apparently: Ramzaj discontinues operation. Bummer.

Seeking that imminent regime collapse our leaders keep talking about, we appear to be taking the gloves off when it comes to blowing up civilians in Baghdad. There are lots of reports this morning about the dropping of four “bunker buster” bombs on a residential neighborhood (or a restaurant?) where Saddam was believed to be meeting with Baath party officials. Also much in the news are the missile attack on the al Jazeera (and Abu Dhabi TV?) offices in Baghdad, and the decision by a US tank commander to fire shells into a hotel containing journalists, killing two of them, based on his belief that a sniper was located in or around the building. This comes on top of several days’ worth of stories about our more widespread bombardment of the city, and a number of “unfortunate” incidents in which carloads of civilians, including women and children, have been incinerated for the crime of failing to follow directions shouted at them by jumpy invaders. Likewise with the rolling incursions our armored columns have been making, in the course of which we seem to be prepared to blow away anything that moves, or anything behind which something might be moving.

Some good links: Al Jazeera: US warplanes bomb Al Jazeera office, kill journalist. Yahoo News/AP: Al Jazeera: Journalist killed in blast. Washington Post: Two journalists killed as new battlefield emerges. The Independent: US bomber attacks Saddam ‘hide-out’. The Globe and Mail: U.S. flattens ‘leadership target’ in Baghdad.

Please note that I’m not surprised to see this. I think it’s been more or less inevitable from the outset that we would reach this point, where we demonstrate that we are just as willing as Saddam’s forces to rank the preservation of innocent civilians well below the preservation of our own skins, or at least the achievement of victory.

What bothers me more is the effort to portray this as an unfortunate necessity, brought about solely by Saddam’s refusal to do what we told him to do. It was not a necessity. It was a choice, one exercised by George Bush, in the full knowledge of (or at least, as full a knowledge as his mind is capable of) the eventual consequences.

The other part of this that bothers me is the surge in support Bush’s poll numbers are showing. We seem to have decided, as a people, that we know as much as we need to about this conflict. Just as we get to the part where the really horrible cost is being inflicted on the Iraqi people, we’ve apparently reached our saturation point, and can’t be bothered with paying attention to what’s going on. It has suddenly receeded into the “fog of war,” or at least the fog of foreign events that are not as important to us as the season finales of the various TV shows we follow.

Sigh. Anyway, here’s a nice piece from a member of the Iraq Peace Team, who has been on the ground in Baghdad throughout these events: Open letter to all Americans and our ‘allies’ the Brits.

The Miami Herald has a short bit on an Army chaplain taking advantage of the current water shortage to increase the number of soldiers getting baptized. It’s good to know that 500 gallons of water are being reserved for baptisms, while all of the soldiers who are loyal to their current faith (or lack there of) are being forced to go weeks without bathing.

From the Philidelphia Inquirer’s Dick Polman comes this interesting look at Bush’s obsession (or non-obsession) with the war: Bush spin doctors flip between hands-on and hands-off image. There’s no smoking gun here; just lots of examples of Ari saying one thing and someone else saying something completely different, as Bush’s handlers struggle to portray him in the best possible light.

After pulling off the ultimate lie for over 30 years, Vincent “The Chin” Gigante has finally admitted to faking his mental condition in a plea bargain that will get him off early. Gotta love it when somebody goes so far as to stand buck naked in a shower with an umbrella when being served by the FBI just to stay outta jail.

As described in a piece by John Sutherland in The Guardian, the folks in the Russian GRU (the Russian military’s espionage arm) are publishing un-spun analysis of just who’s doing what in Iraq. The main place their reports are being published is iraqwar.ru, but as someone who doesn’t know Russian I’m limited to the English translations available at the site for Venik’s Aviation.

It’s really fascinating stuff. And, as far as I can tell, it really does offer a much more objective picture of what’s going on than you can get from either side’s propaganda.

Forgive me for my behind-the-times-ed-ness, but I’m just getting caught up after my sojourn away from civilization. Anyway, here’s a story I would have linked to when it appeared two days ago, except I was still trying to figure out what was going on. From Daily Kos: Raiding Baghdad. He basically makes the case that US claims notwithstanding, we haven’t defeated the heart of Saddam’s army. It’s simply hiding. Talk of M1s rolling triumphantly through the streets of Baghdad, blowing up pickup trucks and withstanding small arms fire and RPG attacks, do not a defeated heavy armor division make.

Which begs the question: where is the Iraqi army? Apparently it’s hidden away in a huge underground tunnel system, awaiting a time and place of Saddam’s choosing to launch its counter-attack. From the Washington Post (again, from a few days ago): Closing in on Baghdad will push war underground, and from debka.com: Battle for Saddam’s underground regime centers.

From George McGovern, via The Nation, via The Smirking Chimp, comes this nice roundup of ways in which the Bush presidency sucks: The Reason Why.

From today’s New York Times comes an interesting review of the 1999 movie on the aftermath of Gulf War I: One Film, Two Wars, ‘Three Kings’. Reviewer David Edelstein is a big fan of the movie, which he describes as “the most caustic anti-war movie of this generation.” He also quotes from a recent email he received from David O. Russel, the movie’s writer and director, on how he’d like to believe that the American public is smarter today about the realities underlying our mideast war aims, “but I honestly don’t think so… I mean, come on, it’s a SCANDAL that Bush has pulled this off. It’s mind-blowing.”

Anyway, if you haven’t seen the movie yet, you should rent it. Good performances by George Clooney and Mark Wahlberg, among others.

I’m not sure why, but I’ve found myself drawn to war movies lately. On some level I guess it’s obvious: a steady diet of raw news from the front lines has left me wanting something a little more polished, something that puts all the technology and amoral strategic calculation into a more-human context.

I recently Tivo’d and re-watched Full Metal Jacket, mostly for Lee Ermey’s Sergeant Hartman in the first half of the film, but as usual for a Kubrick movie, once I started watching it I was sucked in, hypnotized by his vision, and ended up watching the whole thing.

I also rented Saving Private Ryan last week, which really is an incredibly good war movie, as long as you skip the ham-handed opening and closing present-day sequences where Spielberg felt compelled to hammer us over the head with his message, just in case there were any five-year-olds in the audience who’d missed it.

Two war movies I’ve meant to see, but haven’t gotten around to, are The Thin Red Line (with a pre-Two Towers performance by Miranda Otto!), and Tears of the Sun, which has that Bruce Willis thing going for it (assuming we’re talking about the Bruce Willis who was smart enough to associate himself with The Fifth Element and Twelve Monkeys), which I’m hoping is enough to make up for the frighteningly twisted Hollywood premise of a war movie predicated on a Navy Seal officer’s heroic decision to violate his orders in order to save a bunch of Third World civilians.

Anyway, get out there and get your war (movies) on.

It’s not the sickest fetish you’ll ever hear of, but the amusing part to focus on here is that it took the Los Angeles District Attorneys a while to figure out what charges they could file against a man who was sneaking up behind people to cut off their hair. Apparently “Hair is property like anything else, and it was taken by force, so that’s robbery”. That’s why they make the big bucks ladies and gentlemen.