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The US is currently sending out satellite TV news in Persian 24 hours a day. It's on Telstar 12; the eastern edge of coverage is near the Iran-Pakistan border, and the whole EU is covered. Someone please take a look and see what they're sending. The IBB doesn't seem to have the transponder number, symbol rate, or frequency on their site, which is lame.

I would hardly equate "Bowling for Columbine" with NPR's All Things Considered. And that's about as close as you're going to get to "government run news" in the US.

Yeah, NPR is so left wing that they appointed Kevin Klose, Director of the International Broadcasting Bureau, as their president. The IBB is the US Government run network which operates the Voice of America, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Radio and TV Marti and Radio Free Asia.

...the Bureau website, with its editorials against human rights violations, its copy of the Freedom of Information Act, and all its press releases about sticking it to fascist regimes, hasn't a single thing on China.

...the Bureau website, with its editorials against human rights violations, its copy of the Freedom of Information Act, and all its press releases about sticking it to fascist regimes, hasn't a single thing on China.

...the Bureau website, with its editorials against human rights violations, its copy of the Freedom of Information Act, and all its press releases about sticking it to fascist regimes, hasn't a single thing on China.

i have typed and re-typed. this whole thing is cloudy and would be better served by a real discussion with points clarified but...

Can you identify for me a point of view, be it Air Force One,...

my lunch analogy, yes it was poor. but, ok, i'll point my finger -- it was the job of the president and his staff to drop everything and find out what's going on. maybe his staff did but he did not seem to. the president does have the authority to order the military to an immediate state of alert. perhaps asking the FAA what happened (FAA: a plane deviated from course and ceased responding) and if similar actions were occuring (FAA: yes) would have helped. but the second question is the clincher -- he had to know this wasn't isolated.

really, i'm less interested in what happened on 9/11 than i am in what happened next and what happens now. i posted that (and this) without the +1 bonus 'cause it's admittedly silly speculation on my part.

The contrast you are attempting to make is poorly supported by the practices and doctrine of the US military, which takes incredible measures to protect the lives of enemy civilians, and by the fact that the only people being shot at in Iraq right now are U.S. pilots. I therefore find your suggestion as to the state of mind of military planners with regard to said civilians to be extremely suspect.

from my armchair, i hear strategists claiming that the only way to oust saddam is to engage in military action in densely populated areas which i expect would result in civilian lives lost. this is purely speculation and hopefully we can find a better solution (my briefly suggestions come later). until this point the loss of life has been limited to the Iraqi side -- no coalition pilots have been killed since the beginning of the no fly zone. sure we've been fired at but they have actually taken hits.

yes, the US will try to avoid civilian losses but in a war such as this there will be civilian casualties (*see next paragraph). the only way to avoid these casualties is to avoid war. and the reasons for war that the US has proposed (iraq's possession of chemical, biological and nuclear weapons) are suspect. so we're checking it out -- Kofi says the inspections are going well, George says they're going poorly. i guess it comes down to who you belive.

for the long term stability of relations between the middle east and us (US, Europe, etc.) we need to 'make friends'. bombing a nation of people that hates us is going to leave more people more angry -- even if we don't kill anyone we will be imposing our will on them. i propose that we work towards a political resolution rather than another military coup. we probably will never be friends with saddam but the people of iraq are another story. just look at the progress in iran (don't believe George, they're not evil in fact before George we had made great progress towards 'friendship'). the very large and influencial demographic of youth in iran want more democracy and like much western culture but it must happen to them -- we can't force it.

briefly, my suggestion promoting friendship is to take a close look at the damage the embargo did to iraq and determine what can be done to reverse this damage. beyond this it comes down to education. in iran radio sawa has the largest market share with youth. radio sawa is run by the international broadcasting bureau, funded by the US but run entirely seperate. it plays music with brief news stories promoting democracy and cultural activities outlawed by current government.

i could go on but want to get to one more point:

I find that we are instinctively driven to find a meaning in disaster, so that we can try to create a construct of belief that we can avoid it in the future.

if i read this right, i mostly agree with this paragraph. what happened happened. we are human, humans make mistakes and maybe the only way to avoid the outcome was to know the future. what matters is that it happened in one day and hopefully won't happen ever again. however the reasons for what happened remain and i think that is part of why we are still talking about this.

there are still thousands (millions?) who hate the actions and influence of the US in their country. some say this hatred is because the US is the last superpower and they're mad about that. though a born citizen, i'm also mad that the US is the last superpower -- there should be no superpower and i'm doing what i can to move towards an egalitarian world and will never use violence to make my point.

shit, i hope that wasn't too long scattered -- my longest post yet. my thoughts flow better when talking instead of typing in a 10x50 char box...