AP (via GoUpstate.com) reports: Jordan Foils Two Iraqi Terror Plots.

The article is so slim on detail, it makes you wonder why it made the news feed? Perhaps the headline is meant to say it all? It seems to me that a diplomat attempting a terrorist act is more likely a response to the unsanctioned war – and it was aimed at military target, not civilian.

Scott Rosenberg talks about the momentum of violence in the U.S. led invasion of Iraq expressing my thoughts far more eloquently than I can.

If you’re a fan of Joi Ito’s blog (like me) you’ll find this v.funny

AP (via GoUpstate.com): U.S. Troops Kill at LEast 7 Civilians.

This is a horrible story. It shows just how effective the Saddam loyalists have been in making it near impossible for civilians to escape, or soldiers to surrender.

As much as a report of such an event upsets me on a gut level, I can’t blame the soldiers for this incident. It is not their fault that they are in this situation, they are doing their “duty”. The civilian “costs” were always going to be big, and yet Bush and Co kept driving forward anyway. Ultimately, the blood is on their hands…

Yeh – we’ve heard all about it. Here’s National Geographic’s take on things (via Joi Ito).

I thought this statement was interesting:

“His decision to grant an interview and express his personal views on state-controlled Iraqi Television, especially during a time of war, was a serious error in judgment and wrong.”

Now, I don’t agree with Arnett’s decision, it seems to me to be a rather strange move, but this statement needs deconstrucing.

How is expressing a personal view wrong? Because it was on Iraqi state TV. We are hearing countless “personal views” daily on our news services here, and strangely enough they seem to reinforce Arnett’s perspective on the U.S. war strategy. However, it is “wrong” to do this on “the enemy’s” TV network. Do you not think that Iraqi state TV will be monitoring CNN and reporting what’s being said? Of course they will, but this was an American journalist expressing his right to free speech in the wrong place.

Silly move, and the reaction is predictable, but he had every right to do what he did, to consider this “wrong” in a country that prides itself on the concept of free speech seems indicative of the state of media affairs in the U.S., and one could argue globally.

Short flash animation about the liberation of Afghanistan. Via Scripting.com via Tom Hammer.

AP (via GoUpstate.com) reports on the failure rate of precision weapons used in the conflict. The claim is that approx. 10% miss (which is a surprising high rate of success). However, this accounts for about 70 weapons missing the mark. The article states that some have even landed in Iran, Turkey and Saudi Arabia. Too bad if you’re in the way of one of the misguided ordinances…

Joi Ito on the Kevin Sites blog issue (my understanding is that Kevin Sites is run by a journo paid by a BigPub and the site has been shut down at the request of the BigPub).

My response…

In my view, the editing process serves 3 purposes:

1. To improve the quality of writing in a structural and syntactical sense
2. To ensure that any arguments made in the work are sound
3. To determine what gets published

It is this third point that can be utilised as a form of censorship. To say, as Joi’s friend does, “If you’re going to call script approval censorship then you’ll have to call the whole editing process censorship” is misguided. Of course not all of the editorial process is censorship, but it can, and does, play a big role in censoring what is presented to the public. This cannot be ignored.

Regarding “work for hire”: completely depends on the circumstance. If the BigPub is paying for the journalist to be in Iraq, and the journalist is contracted to submit all work created during that time to the BigPub, fair argument. And in this circumstance this seems to be the case.

In different circumstances perhaps the argument can be more strongly challenged. But if you factor in the censorial role that the BigPub is going to play, there is also a very strong freedom of speech argument to be made too. But that’s a whole other issue…

John Robb on Palestine and the U.S. led war on Iraq.

AP (via GoUpstate.com): U.N. Water, Food Trickle Into Iraq