Not Just MilBloggers...

...on this MacBeth story, and Allah keeps updating hie collection. He's also screen captured those military.com pages - which I suspect might "disappear" from the original site.

I can't help but notice the similarities to the Jimmy Massey story. If both these "IVAW" vets had killed as many Iraqis as they claim to have the country would be empty.

Re: Re: Fun with MacBeth

Not really related, but a bit of tangential trivia:

Mrs. Smash is a very talented thespian, and has done a couple of Shakespearean productions in recent years. She played Ophelia in Hamlet, and Bianca in Taming of the Shrew. She also stage-managed two productions of The Compleat Wrks of Wllm Shkspr (abridged), which isn't really Shakespeare, but is quite funny.

One thing I've learned from hanging out with actors is that they never say the word "MacBeth," if they can avoid it. Apparently the play is cursed, and the mere mention of it is rumored to bring bad luck upon a theater company. Instead, they refer to it as "The Scottish Play," or "The Scottish Tragedy," or just plain "M".

Re: Fun with MacBeth

On account of we need more culture around these parts, here's a bit more of that classic literature:

Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more: it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.

-- Shakespeare, MacBeth

Code Pink Gone Wild

You should read the account of what happened when Cindy Sheehan and Code Pink showed up at Donald Rumsfeld's house.

What am I saying? Thanks to tgslTakoma, you can watch it.

As some of you know, I occasionally attend these "functions" here in DC. I do it so you don't have to.

UPDATE 8:22 p.m.: Bill O'Reilly is talking about this right now and showing footage of the moonbats at Rumsfeld's house.

Misha...

... just reminded me of Micah Wright.

Phony Ranger Micah Wright (You have to scroll down at link to see the big pictures at the bottom of the post). It's been just over two years since we helped expose that fraud.

Mike remembers too.

I can't let Smash have *all* the fun with MacBeth.

Our man Jesse has a profile on Military.com. H/t, Barb at Righty in a Lefty State.

So, I'm supposed to believe he served from 2001 to 2005 and:

An E4 with a Special Forces tab?

A Ranger with only a Marksman's (lowest basic qualification award) medal?

A Combat Infantryman's Badge *with* Star *and* a Close Combat Badge *with* Star (that's two awards *each*)?

An E4 Special Forces Ranger with 3 *combat* jumps, but otherwise only cherry (basic) Jump Wings? Has 3/75 made three combat jumps since 2001? And is it really possible to be with them over that period of time, as a grunt, and still only have cherry wings?

4 years in service, with all that skill, and all he has to show for it is a Bronze Star sans V (which is a performance award, not a heroism award), a Purple Heart, and a Good Conduct Medal? And while he has his National Defense Service Medal, Overseas Service and Army Service Ribbons showing - no GWOT ribbons? No Army Achievement or Army Commendation Medals?

Eh?

Someone should contact the members of the two groups he's joined and see if they remember him.

Methinks, were I MacBeth, I would worry that the Birnam Wood, even now, might be moving to Dunsinane.

Which is allegory people - don't do anything dumb on my part!

Arrrr, could he be a pirate, matey?

Boing Boing:

GW Bush's iPod contains "illegal" (according to RIAA) music
In the video linked below, we see that President Bush's iPod contains songs by the Beatles; since no Beatles songs have been licensed for the iTunes Music Store yet, these must have come from ripped CDs. Remember last February, when the RIAA told a federal agency that ripping CDs is illegal? I wonder if they'll bring charges.

Arrrrrr.

And here be a som'at related story, with video.

More Jesse MacBeth

The video also appears at Information Clearing House, with the tagline "What we are doing over there is wrong." Some of the commenters there have also begun to express doubts and reservations about MacBeth's credibility.

Jesse (sometimes spelled "Jessie") also appears in a blog entry by Abbie Pickett at Operation Truth:

More troops than ever before are surviving heavy combat, and as I read Corporal Poole's story of brain and head injury I can't help but think of my friends who have looked death straight in the face and lived to tell the story. Their stories are much like Poole's, joined at 17 looking for a better life, only to be nearly killed by 23 or 21 or 20. I think of Robert Acosta who lost his arm and nearly his legs, and of Thomas Yong who will never walk again. I think of Jesse MacBeth and Herold Noel who will forever wear shrapnel in their skin. These are only a few names of the over 16,000 soldier that have returned home injured.

Pickett is a genuine Iraq veteran (and a poster child for female vets suffering from PTSD), who should have easily been able to pick out a fraud like MacBeth.

SoCal blues

SECNAV spoke truth yesterday. In an interview with the San Diego Fishwrap, he touches on a big I-told-you-so. We over BRAC'd SoCal (all California if you ask me) in the 1990s. With the importance of Asia in the 21st Century, we just don't have enough military space where we need it. We once did. We won't get it back. We have no one to blame but ourselves. Static, bean counting got us here.

Don't even get me started on Mare Island, Moffett Field, and Long Beach. I am sure we all have stories. Guam is small, Barbers Point is overgrown, Japan and Korea don't want anymore...........but hey, everyone wants to fly out of Lemoore -- right?

Short term thinking. Then again, in the 90s we thought it was a good idea to sell/give the Chinese military technology.

Interesting

Noah Shachtman and David Axe on the rise of net-centric warfare:

Every war becomes a proving ground for new tactics and new technologies. Battleships rose to prominence in World War I; tanks and bombers determined the course of World War II; Vietnam brought air power definitively into the Jet Age. The current conflict is no different. The Pentagon began this war believing its new, networked technologies would help make U.S. ground forces practically unstoppable in Iraq. Slow-moving, unwired armies like Saddam Hussein’s were the kind of foe network-centric warriors were designed to carve up quickly. During the invasion in March 2003, that proved to be largely the case—despite most of the soldiers not being wired up at all. It was enough that their commanders had systems like BFT, which let them march to Baghdad faster than anyone imagined possible, with half the troops it took to fight the Gulf War in 1991. But now, more than three years into sectarian conflict and a violent insurgency that has cost nearly 2,400 American lives, an investigation of the current state of network-centric warfare reveals that frontline troops have a critical need for networked gear—gear that hasn’t come yet. “There is a connectivity gap,” states a recent Army War College report. “Information is not reaching the lowest levels.”

Read the whole thing.

Fox News Does Milbloggers

Great article from Fox News on milbloggers. Andi, Blackfive, Dadmanly, Greyhawk, Steve Schippert, and Op For are featured.

For those of you who don't know him, Major Mike Lawhorn is an Army public affairs officer who is doing a year long tour with Fox News. He's also got a great blog called Kosovo Dad, which is well worth a read. His article wasn't bad either, heh.

Iraq Urban Legends

Starving Marines beg Iraqis for food.

Female GIs die of dehydration after they quit drinking water for fear rape if they go to the latrines at night.

Headless bodies everywhere.

Over (xx) thousand troops "maimed", "grievously injured", or "lost".

Atrocities without number...

There are tons of "urban legends" concerning Iraq. I'm not talking about different opinions or perceptions, I'm talking about outright false stories, often propagated by the media, and always cheered by the anti-war crowd.

Let's collect 'em all. If you've got some on your home blog, post a link to them here. If you know of some on other blogs, link them too. We'll compile the whole collection of links into one big entry. We can even assign a "red" green" or "amber" (because yellow is the color of cowardice, that's why!) to them like Snopes does. (Speaking of which, did the Mayor of Tall Afar write a letter to US troops? You bet he did. Sorry Snopes, you're wrong.)

The Atwar Bahjat story remains amber, though.

I propose this as a long-term project, but today seems a fine day to start.

Hell, we could do several pages on Jack Murtha claims alone.

Nope.. No Spin Here

Never a clearer case...

Here's CNN coverage of a speech the President gave in Chicago today...

CHICAGO (AP) -- More than three years after the Iraq invasion, President Bush acknowledged to war-weary Americans Monday that the situation is improving only gradually and urged patience with "more days of challenge and loss."

"Our progress is incremental," Bush said during a freewheeling question-and-answer session with restaurant industry representatives after a speech on Iraq and the war on terror. "Freedom is moving, but it's in incremental steps and the enemy's progress is almost instant on their TV screens."

The president used his opening remarks to herald the swearing-in of the Iraqi government on Saturday, saying it represents "a watershed event" for the troubled region and "a turning in the struggle between freedom and terror."

Yet, with the new government facing security challenges and a host of other problems and the U.S. public increasingly disapproving of his leadership of the war, Bush repeatedly returned to the word "incremental" to describe progress there.

The president acknowledged the American lives lost in Iraq, past mistakes and tough days to come.

"Our nation's been through three difficult years in Iraq," Bush said. "And the way forward will bring more days of challenge and loss. The progress we've made has been hard fought and it's been incremental. There have been setbacks and missteps like Abu Ghraib. They were felt immediately and have been difficult to overcome."

And here's FoxNews coverage...

WHITE HOUSE — President Bush on Monday said the inauguration of Iraq's new cabinet over the weekend is a "watershed event" that marks the newest "constitutional democracy in the heart of the Middle East" and a major milestone in that country's movement toward stability.

"This is a free government under a democratic constitution and its formation marks a victory for the cause of freedom in the Middle East," Bush told the National Restaurant Association meeting in Chicago.

Bush called on Iraq's new government to seize the moment and for the country's three main sectarian groups to pursue a common agenda. Bush told the crowd that in a phone call to Iraq's three main leaders, he congratulated new Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, President Jalal Talabani and parliament speaker Mahmoud al-Mashhadani and promised continued U.S. support.

And ABC's coverage...

Lacing Up the Shoes of Truth

Remember Jon Adam? He was the American GI kidnapped by terrorists in Iraq last year. But his real name was Special Ops Cody, and he was 12 inches tall and made of plastic. We milbloggers had some fun with that one too. Blogs had debunked the story within hours - I was one of them.

But later that night I got a call. We had a guy named John Adams in my unit in Iraq and the DoD had identified all the John Adam, John Adams, Jon Adam, and Jon Adams in Iraq and were making absolutely sure that they were okay. That's wonderful, but if you followed the links above you know the effort was borderline fraud waste and abuse. But hey, you gotta be sure you know? Don't want to come off looking stupid.

So being a super secret unknown blogger, I had to pretend to be ignorant of what the call was about (they wouldn't reveal the top secret reason why they were tracking down every John Adams in the theater) and assured them that our John Adams was just fine, thanks. No really, I promise. He's okay.

No doubt within days they were able to confidently declare the story a hoax.

No doubt within a few weeks we might hear something from the Pentagon on this whole MacBeth story too - if it explodes into a major scandal.

Data on 26.5 million veterans stolen from home

From CNN.com... I hope they charge and jail the little twit... How do we know that he didn't sell the data and claim it was stolen?

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -- Personal data on about 26.5 million U.S. military veterans was stolen from the residence of a Department of Veterans Affairs data analyst who improperly took the material home, Veterans Affairs Secretary Jim Nicholson said Monday.

The data included names, Social Security numbers and dates of birth for the veterans, Nicholson said, but "there is no indication at this time" that the data had been used for identify theft.

Nicholson said the theft of the data took place this month, but declined to identify the employee or the location of the burglary.

"Army Ranger's Testimony"

The Left fawns over their latest anti-war hero poseur:

Macbeth is a former US Army Ranger, who served in Iraq for 16 months before being wounded and ultimately discharged. His squad did night raids, using the same techniques the Marines are accused of, 4 or 5 times a night for many months. Macbeth, who is now a member of "Iraq Veterans Against the War," was interviewed for the public access TV show "Indymedia Presents." His story is available here: www.peacefilms.org. In this interview Jessie describes killing children to make the parents talk. He describes one episode where his squad responded to the much-reported incident in Falluja where 4 US mercenaries were killed and hung from a bridge. Shortly after Iraqis killed the mercenaries, according to Macbeth, his squad of Rangers gunned down Iraqis praying inside a mosque on a holy day, then hung some of the bodies from rafters, and defaced the mosque with graffiti. Macbeth's hand held the smoking gun, and his testimony in this interview shows clearly that the Marines who are now in trouble for very similar actions are not the exception to US tactics in Iraq, but represent only one in many incidents of war crimes.

It would almost be a shame to tell them he's a fraud.

RE: ATTN: PAOs

(Wow - headline includes no complete words!)

Grim's post below points out the missing piece of this whole Jesse MacBeth story. I've been scanning the .mil sites for some kind of response, but zip. Nada. Zilch.

Possible reasons: Belief that it's not imporatant. Not aware of the developing story. "Researching and staffing" a reply takes time.

But by now, and in fact hours ago, the military could have put out a statement on whether Jesse was in the units he claimed he was, whether those units were where he claimed they were, etc. etc. If not: he's a liar. And if so, by now they should have hauled him off to jail somewhere for crimes against humanity - he confessed, for gosh sakes. (That could be in the works, but I doubt it.)

Rumsfeld has repeatedly expressed his frustratrion that the lie has travelled 'round the world while the truth is lacing up it's shoes. For whatever reason, that's already happened today. You think the terrorist network hasn't spread this story far and wide? You think anyone in any foreign land is going to translate the MilBlog response into the native tongue? It ain't gonna happen.

I've pointed this out before, more people read milblogs than read the CENTCOM web site, but a quick response from the DoD would have been nice in this instance.

(Coming up: A "funny" story I never told from my Iraq days).

Jesse Gets Around

Here's a photo of Iraq Veteran Against the War Jesse MacBeth (left foreground, holding banner), leading an anti-war march in Tacoma, Washington.

According to this site, the photo was taken March 19, 2006.

Re: MacBeth in Fallujah

That explains it -- MacBeth must have been a Marine, because they're the ones who did the Fallujah seige in
April 2004 (this would also explain the sleeves). As far as I know (and I could be wrong), the Rangers weren't involved in that operation. But he had already returned from Iraq with a "back injury," so maybe he reovered, and went back for a second tour (this time as a Ranger) in time for the Battle of Fallujah in November. That must have been when he shot all those people in the mosque, and got stabbed all those times...

I'm so confused.

RE: Jesse Macbeth, Time Traveler

Now hold on there SMASH, there's no way Jesse was in that coffee shop in April 2004 - he was in Fallujah!

We would leave the bodies in the streets and blame it on the Shi'ites or the Sunnis. [In Fallujah] we were ordered to go into mosques and slaughter people while they were praying. I won't go into full detail because I'm still haunted by the memories.

What was the assault on Fallujah like?
Fallujah is where we slaughtered people in mosques. We provoked the people there. Some people escaped from the mosques and saw us. We would dig holes and leave mass graves of children, women, and old men. We were ordered to let people die on the street. We were told that the Geneva Convention means nothing to us in combat.

Jesse Macbeth, Time Traveler

He was involved in a protest at a coffeshop near Arizona State University in April, 2004 -- barely a year after the war in Iraq began. He claims he "returned from Iraq after sustaining a back injury" (no mention of slaughtering women and children). He couldn't possibly have completed a 16-month tour by then, without the benefit of a time machine.

Jesse MacBeth told another story.

MacBeth, a 20-year-old U.S. soldier who recently returned from Iraq after sustaining a back injury, said Coffee Plantation banned him from the store in March for the way he was dressed -- in his training uniform.

He had been sipping coffee calmly when a store employee asked him to leave. He refused.

Management insisted that he leave even after he took out his military ID card. Security guards escorted him off the premises under threat of arrest if he returned.

He said he hoped the protest would disrupt the flow of customers into the store.

"If you cut down the customers a lot, then they won't keep their business going," MacBeth said. "That's the whole point, to let society know what's going on."

Someone really should look into the background of the other IVAW members.

ATTN: PAOs

After I-MBC, we had a conversation about Public Affairs, and getting into the game of the information war. In the comments there, we have an illustration of how things like this Jesse MacBeth situation become a problem. The most important sections for today's business are here and here.

The USSR fought a heavy propaganda war against the United States throughout the Cold War. They funded hostile political movements and parties in nations across the globe; newspapers and whole news services; NGOs that would tend to be hostile to American interests; and so forth... After the USSR closed up shop, a lot of those organizations continued to exist on the infrastructure the USSR had built for them.... That White Phosphorous story, for example, started in an Italian Communist organ. It got worldwide distribution fast because it was pushed by this interlaced infrastructure of allied, anti-American groups. And then it got picked up by the Islamist organizations. That's the new piece in the puzzle, and it shows how dangerous that old, continuing structure of enemy organizations still is. If you look at websites run by Hizb-ut Tharir (say, 1924.org), you'll see that they have learned that they can draw on and assimiliate these old organizations' messages.

This guy's name, and his BS story, are going to appear around the world in several languages before it's done. It will be distributed by these old communist networks, and picked up by Hizb-ut Tahrir and their ilk. It's been knocked down in English, but if you don't get ready to knock it down in French and Italian, in Indonesia and Pakistan and Malaysia, it will still do the damage. Those people, the ones we need to keep from becoming anti-American terror supporters, aren't coming back to the English blogs. If you don't get into their media space, in their language, all they'll ever see is this guy's claims that he went into mosques as a Ranger and killed people at prayer.

The blogs have done their part. Be ready to use what you've been given.

Jesse MacBeth: "We would Kill the Youngest Child"

In the extended section, excerpts from that interview with Jesse MacBeth. If his confession is true, he's a murderer and should be tried and sentenced to death.

Jesse better be ready to give names. Who pulled the trigger? Who gave the order? This is cold blooded murder he's confessing to.

I'll go further - after the trial, put Jesse, his buddies, and his chain of command up to whoever gave the order on a gallows, and l'll pull the lever.

I might have to wait in line for that honor though. The 75th Ranger Regiment (to which Jesse claims to belong) doesn't treat his sort of "soldier" very kindly:

BAGHDAD — Five Army Rangers have been charged with abusing detainees after a Sept. 7 incident in which Iraqi prisoners allegedly were punched and kicked while in their custody, U.S. military officials in Baghdad said Monday.

The five soldiers, whose names and ranks are being withheld, were charged Saturday with assault, maltreatment and dereliction of duty.

The soldiers are assigned to the 75th Ranger Regiment, an elite special operations unit based at Fort Benning, Ga. They were guarding a small group of prisoners who were about to be moved to detention facilities in Iraq.
<...>
Although the prisoners received mostly bruises, Keefe said, "the allegations are serious. We don't tolerate people who are going to behave that way."

RE: Michael Ware on Ramadi

The IA 7th Division is West of Ramadi, the IA 1st Division is East of Ramadi. Given the level of recruitment in AlAnbar, one would think that their respective AOR's would eventually include Ramadi.

The US could commit 2 or 3 brigades to Ramadi, and then spend 12-24 months transitioning security to the ISF, or the US could keep some level of "lid" on the violence in Ramadi, and wait for the Iraqi's to be in a position to "Clear and Hold" Ramadi on their own.

Aerial Defenders, Past & Present

I missed this from Murdoc...everyone loves pictures.

...purdy...

Re: Impersonating A Ranger

POSEUR WARRIORS are not a new phenomenon. A junior sailor from my first ship was busted in the San Diego airport for impersonating a Navy SEAL. He was wearing choker whites with ensign shoulderboards and a SEAL trident. A Naval officer spotted him easily, because the shoulderboards were attached upside down.

He was busted to E-1, and put on restriction for a month. But his real punishment was the years of ridicule that he got from his fellow Sailors.

MORE: SocialistAlternative.Org interviews "Jesse Macbeth, formerly a Special Forces Ranger in Iraq."

Impersonating a Diety?

Allah has a roundup on the MacBeth story.

Re: Impersonating A Ranger

While it's of obvious significance, I wouldn't place too much emphasis on whether or not Jessie MacBeth is an ex-Ranger.

Remember Dennis Edwards?

Jimmy Massey?

Jeff Englehart?

One more liar in the chain doesn't increase the credibility of any of them.

And the key point is that Ranger or not, MacBeth is a liar.

Given the sheer numbers of troops who've deployed the past three years it's not surprising that some go this route on return. The military is society in microcosm, with heroes, villains, glory hounds, and a few very 'emotionally troubled' individuals. But mostly a lot of average folks trying to do the right thing.

Here in Germany the wife and I visit the wounded troops who've been evac'd out of Iraq. Many express the complaint that the Rules of Engagement are far too restrictive (sometimes referred to as "the hearts and minds bullshit"), and that their hands are tied from responding with the force they'd prefer to attacks. But they follow those rules. While that could be the sort of background that could lead to a snap (as alleged in the Marine incident) it's far removed from the "orders from the top" accusations that this guy is throwing around.

I've mentioned the ROE bit before...

Update: Via Soldier's Mom, MacBeth's "profile" from Military.com's "Buddy Locator". (Note: military.com is a commercial site, not a military site.)

RE: Michael Ware on Ramadi

Greyhawk, just followed your Mudville link to this article on Time.com about Ramadi. As much as I distrust Michael Ware and his motives, it paints a pretty accurate picture of everything that we were briefed about Ramadi and how out of control it is still. Our battalion was prepared to move down there after Mosul and spend the last quarter of our deployment doing what we could to put the hammer down on the insurgents. But then the new Iraqi PM was chosen and suddenly the political winds shifted and we were sent packing to sleepy, deserted Tal Afar instead.

Good Riddance, Yuogslavia!

The Montenegrans have voted to take their nation out of the rump Yugoslav Federation. Good riddance, I say...to Yugoslavia, not to Montenegro. The Serbs made their choice to go for a "Greater Serbia" instead of acting like the Slovenes - peaceful and seeking to become part of Europe. Compare the fate of the two, and you'll see the consequences of such choices. Hopefully this will be the last chapter in the story of Yugoslavia.

This is what I remember of Yugoslavia and what it meant...this used to be Zetra Ice Arena in Sarajevo. When I was there in 1997 with SFOR, the parking lots had mostly been turned into graveyards for victims of the seige.

The Cost of Freedom

The London Times:

How $45m Secretly Bought Freedom Of Foreign Hostages

Documents seen by The Times show three countries paid ransoms in spite of denying it in public

FRANCE, Italy and Germany sanctioned the payment of $45 million in deals to free nine hostages abducted in Iraq, according to documents seen by The Times.

All three governments have publicly denied paying ransom money. But according to the documents, held by security officials in Baghdad who have played a crucial role in hostage negotiations, sums from $2.5 million to $10 million per person have been paid over the past 21 months. Among those said to have received cash ransoms was the gang responsible for seizing British hostages including Kenneth Bigley, the murdered Liverpool engineer.

Beware Those Who Call for an Iranian Cold War

A recent article in National Journal too comfortably arrives at the conclusion that deterrence of a nuclear Iran through MAD(Mutually Assured Destruction) is certain. We should hope that this is true, for it would mean that the messianic nature that parts of the regime exhibit is nothing but false bravado. That would be a dangerous conclusion if the article even considered it. But it does not. How seriously can we take the conclusions of a lengthy (and at times even well reasoned) article that fails to even mention the most frightening and least predictable aspect of the Iranian theocracy?

Forgive the shameless plug (I try to avoid them), but perhaps you will agree that Distinguishing Impatience from Urgency is an important consideration.

With the godless China and Russia, the psyches of our adversaries were clearly different than that which appears evident among at least some of the Iranian leadership. I, for one, care not to will to my children a nuclear 'Cold War' (supposedly insured by MAD) with the world's foremost state sponsor of international terrorism...a tyrrany in which at least some leaders appear bent on ushering the return of the 12th Imam. ....I certainly care not to do so blindly, as Paul Starobin seems comfortable doing.

National Maritime Day.

(H/t to Eagle1 for the reminder).

Over at the Castle, National Maritime Day, Past and Present.

Dawn Patrol

Here's the latest reports on Iraq and Aghanistan

Impersonating A Ranger To Spread Lies

[Update 1514 23 May: Not surprisingly, all the original links in this post are now dead, as the "progressive" websites scramble to cover their butts. Those who've come here from some of the other coverage of this issue (I'm pretty sure this was the first milblog post on MacBeth) can check out the rest of the site for more information -- or, if you'd like, you can head to my home blog and read about submarines.]

Lots of "progressives" will probably be excited today about a new "interview" with an alleged former "Ranger", "Jessie MacBeth", being hyped by the Centre for Research on Globalization. The alleged Ranger accuses American soldiers of all sorts of war crimes. Luckily, the makers of the film didn't know enough about how military uniforms really work, so real soldiers are pointing out the discrepancies to show it's unlikely that this person was really who he claims to be. Examples of the discrepancies noted in the site's comments are in the extended entry.

5 years of incompetence and arrogance

Echoing a lot of what many(but not all) of us here have had to say about the MSM, the war, and the “Revolt of the Pensioners;” Victor Davis Hanson does an outstanding WWII send-up. A must read.

The Espionage Act

This is going to be big news today. For those who'd like to comment on it, though, you might want to consider how the NSA report differs from this report, linked at milblog Euphoric Reality, on terrorists crossing the American southern border. Both use classified documents as part of their report; both transmit the information from those documents, using the press, to people who aren't authorized to receive it.

The relevant parts of the US Code are here and here, if you'd like to look them over for yourself. I put up my own thoughts here, if you're interested in those.

Needing a Reality Check

On the night that HBO airs "Baghdad ER", these women are on the cover of Time magazine? And they think someone really cares whether we like the Dixie Chicks or they like us or what their opinion of the world is? Get a grip people... You definitely need a reality slap up side the head...

Programmers say that even now a heartfelt apology could help set things right with listeners, but it's not happening. "If people are going to ask me to apologize based on who I am," says Maines, "I don't know what to do about that. I can't change who I am."

As proof, the first single from the Dixie Chicks' new album, "Taking the Long Way" (out May 23), is called "Not Ready to Make Nice." It is, as one country radio programmer says, "a four-minute f--- you to the format and our listeners. I like the Chicks, and I won't play it."

Really. "Radical Chicks?" Get a grip "Dixie Chicks in the Line of Fire"? My a$$$,"sisters". Only ones in the line of fire these days are American soldiers, sailors and marines protecting these spoiled rich women's right to shoot their mouths off and say stupid things.. And the rest of us don't care one lick if they ever sell another record. Jeez louise.

Look To The Small Papers

Professor Cori Dauber's observations here are spot on. I can find more real news, interesting news, and good stories about the war (not necessarily "good news", but good reporting) in a small paper than I can find in a bigger one. And it's changing information warfare:

Only now that all these papers have their own web sites is it possible to discover that there's this second, competing, exclusive narrative -- and to discover that fact in real time.

Maybe that's a very long argument only of interest to a researcher, but I'd argue that it's just another example of the way the military is fighting in a radically different media environment than ever before. This really is the first Internet war, and that fact can (is) having real consequences.