Bloggasm

Andrew Olmsted is a Major in the United States Army Reserve serving on active duty at Fort Carson, Colorado. He has served fourteen years on active duty in Georgia, Kentucky, Texas, Cuba, Korea, Colorado and Kansas. He is currently deployed to Fort Riley, Kansas, where he is helping to train American forces preparing to deploy to Iraq to support the Iraqi Army and security forces. He began penning his eponymous blog in October, 2001 and includes commentary on the military, philosophy, politics, movies, major league baseball, and frequent diversions into current events.

Simon Owens: In our last interview, you predicted that the Republicans would be able to hold onto their majority. As it got closer to the election, did your prediction change? What other issues besides Iraq do you think really hurt them?

Andrew Olmsted: My Election Day prediction was pretty bad: I predicted the Democrats would take the House, but with a 219-216 majority, and that the Republicans would hold the Senate 52-48. I’m not sure how much of the Democratic landslide was due to Iraq, however. I think that a great deal more voter outrage was directed at the Republicans’ apparent cluelessness regarding the reasons they were handed the keys to Congress twelve years earlier and their arrogance in power. Which is not to say the war wasn’t a factor at all, but I think that many people, including me, voted Democratic because they believed that the Republicans were running Congress as a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Presidency rather than as the first branch of government. Add in the degree of corruption and things like Mark Foley, and the end result is unsurprising.

Simon Owens: You, like most military bloggers, were angry at William Arkin’s recent outburst. His constant backstepping since the incident has reinforced my own belief that opinion columnists are completely useless. Why do major media outlets hire pundits/columnists like Arkin, Malkin etc… Can’t they just report the news and let people form their own opinions?

Andrew Olmsted: That’s a tough question, given that like most bloggers, my site is about my own opinions on things. So it’s tough for me to argue that people shouldn’t be interested in how other people interpret the news. For the most part, I think it is a business decision. I don’t have access to the Washington Post’s server stats, but I’ll wager that Arkin’s series of articles damning the military drew a lot of eyeballs to the Post’s website. That helps the bottom line, since advertisers tend to look at issues like hit counts when determining where to spend their money. And the media hasn’t reported straight news in a very long time. Opinion suffuses every aspect of most media reports, as we saw just this week with the media spinning the Republican filibuster of the Iraq War resolution as ’shutting down debate’ rather than providing an accurate and dispassionate description of what occurred.

Simon Owens: As a Major in the Army Reserve, how do you view the new troop “surge”?

Andrew Olmsted: I should note up front that my time in the Reserve is about to come to an end. I have been accepted back into the active force and will return to active duty on the 18th of March, at which time I’ll start training to deploy to Iraq, although not as part of the surge. I am very dubious that the surge can work. Counterinsurgency warfare requires a lot of manpower and a lot of time, and this surge provides insufficient amounts of each in my opinion. If we have any hope of prevailing in Iraq, it is going to take years and a few hundred thousand troops, and I don’t think the American people are willing to go that distance at this point.

Simon Owens: In our last interview, you indicated that there wasn’t a large Libertarian voice in the blogosphere. Now that Libertarians are distancing themselves from Republicans, do you think that voice will grow?

Andrew Olmsted: Actually, I think there is a very large libertarian voice in the blogosphere, but not a very large Libertarian one. There is a vast gap between small-l libertarians and big-L Libertarians, in that the former refers to a pretty large group of people who share generally libertarian ideas and the small group of Libertarians who support the Libertarian Party. Just as liberals make up the base of the Democratic Party and conservatives make up the base of the Republican Party, libertarians comprise the base of the Libertarian Party. But unlike Democrats and Republicans, Libertarians tend to be a small-tent party, which is a major factor in their inability to influence the debate meaningfully. Much as I might like to see a lot of government programs torn down, to be effective in politics you have to be willing to make compromises, and that’s something most Libertarians don’t like.

I think that the blogosphere already has a pretty strong libertarian presence, as befits a medium based on the Internet, and the recent spate of ‘libertarian democrat’ arguments that shot around the blogosphere for a time last Fall indicated the value the major parties see in trying to co-opt libertarians to their side, and as long as we remain a closely-divided nation, we’ll see that continue, because small groups hold value disproportionate to their size in closely-divided societies. But most Americans are intellectually libertarian but functionally statist, so I doubt we’ll see any major changes in how government operates. The strength of libertarians on the Internet is very disproportionate to their strength in the electorate, and politicians understand that. Nonetheless, as the blogosphere continues to evolve, I think that the presence of libertarians in great numbers will at least help to get more libertarian arguments into the discussion, and I see that as a good thing.

Simon Owens: You’ve been a harsh critic of Al Gore and his attempt to make Global Warming a major agenda, going so far as to say that he hasn’t produced any real change. But to me, it seems that ever since his documentary came out, there’s been a lot more political and news coverage on the subject, and I’ve noticed that fewer news outlets refer to the “debate” over global warming and are starting to accept it as fact. You don’t think there’s a slight chance that he has essentially helped produce a chain reaction?

Andrew Olmsted: I think harsh overstates the case. My post in which I noted that Gore hasn’t done a great deal towards alleviating global warming was more directed at the devaluation of the Nobel Prize than a swipe at Gore. While I disagree with Gore on what needs to be done regarding global warming, I respect his passion for the issue and I concur that his efforts are probably getting the issue more attention than it might otherwise have received, although it’s difficult to tell cause and effect. Are the spate of global warming stories a result of Gore’s efforts, or do we notice Gore’s efforts more because of the spate of stories about global warming? Ten years from now, it will probably be easier to discern how effective Mr. Gore’s contributions were. I think the real balance of power with global warming remains with the Chinese and Indians, however, as I don’t know if many western nations will be willing to make truly substantive efforts to curb their carbon outputs as long as those two nations continue on their current course. If Gore can effect their actions, then he’ll deserve every bit of publicity he gets for making a major impact on the global warming debate.

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(Relates posts: Interview with Kevin Holtsberry from Collected Miscellany, Every single doner to a Green Party Campaign fund was made by a Republican, Put on your tin-foil hats: Here come the 9/11 Conspiracy Theorists)

This was published some time ago, but there’s a wonderful profile of 9/11 Conspiracy Theorists in this New York Magazine article:

They keep telling us 9/11 changed everything. But even in this Photoshopped age of unreliable narrators, much remains the same. The assassination of President John Kennedy, the Crime of the Last Century, occurred in plain sight, in front of thousands—yet exactly what happened remains in dispute. The Warren Commission found that Lee Harvey Oswald, fellow traveler of the Fair Play for Cuba Committee, shot Kennedy with a cheap Mannlicher-Carcano rifle from a sixth-floor window of the Texas School Book Depository. The commission found that Oswald, who two days later would be murdered by nightclub owner Jack Ruby, acted alone.

Yet, as with so many such events, there is the sanctioned history and the secret history—players hidden from view. In the Kennedy murder, the involvement of shadowy organizations like the Mafia and the CIA came into question. This way of thinking came to challenge the official narrative put forth by the Warren Commission. It is not exactly clear when the grassy knoll supplanted the sixth-floor window in the popular mind-set. But now, four decades after Dallas, it is difficult to find anyone who believes Lee Harvey Oswald was the lone gunman.

But if Oswald didn’t kill the president, who did? So 11/22 remains an open case, an open wound.

Now here we are again, contemplating the seemingly unthinkable events of September 11. An official explanation has been offered up: The nation was attacked by the forces of radical Islam led by Osama bin Laden and his Al Qaeda jihadists. Again, this narrative has been accepted by many.

But not all.

The article makes a great point that this it the first major conspiracy theory of the internet age, and how the internet is perfect for conspiracy theories, where one link leads to another and before you know it, you can’t weight the legitimacy of the website you’re on. Rumors are allowed to spread like wildfire, and chain letters go through so many mailing lists that you don’t know the original Sender.

The article tries to truly understand the mindset of a conspiracy theorist — What causes one to search for the “truth,” and how these seemingly normal people become so enraged by their own cause. The article writer is sympathetic to the conspiracy theorist, and points out that, if nothing else, they seem to be more concerned with finding out the facts than those in our own government.

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When I read this article, I couldn’t help but think of Gandhi, and how his life would have been different if he tried to go on food strikes and only lasted for one meal: SADDAM’S ONE-MEAL FOOD STRIKE

SADDAM Hussein has ended a hunger strike after missing just a single meal, it was claimed yesterday.

The former Iraqi leader was said to have announced the protest after Shia gunmen murdered Khamis al-Obaidi, a senior lawyer in his defence team, on Wednesday.

But US military officials said Saddam - on trial in Baghdad for crimes against humanity - refused lunch on Thursday, then ate his dinner.

Maybe he was just going on a lunch strike? That’ll show them who’s boss.

Related Posts: Right out of an action movie: Man hijacks helicopter to help his brother to escape from jail, Interview with Dean Esmay from Dean’s World

Dean Esmay is a democracy and human rights advocate who lives near Ann Arbor, Michigan. He is also a freelance writer and editor, and one of the internet’s most popular webloggers. He is a senior contributor to Pajamas Media. He is a board member and co-founder of Operation Give, a charity that does major works helping distribute medical supplies and toys to children in Iraq. He is a graduate of Colorado Technical University, a husband and a father.

He is also a blogger for Dean’s World.

Simon Owens: One of the hotbed issues dealing with Middle Eastern terrorism has to do with access to weapons, and as you indicate in your post “Reports: Yemen Arming Somalia Again,” we are having a hard time with this particular problem. How do you think our US military should go about solving it?

Dean Esmay: The international arms trade is much like the international drug trade, and there is very little the U.S. military can do about either one. The State Department can apply pressure to government regimes that are irresponsible in the arms trade, such as Yemen. The U.S. military can find and destroy weapons caches in areas it controls, such as Iraq, but otherwise this is a matter of diplomacy and international finance, not military action.

Simon Owens: As a follow up question, do you think that the best way to fight terrorism is to cut off their weapons resources?

Dean Esmay: No. This is like saying that the best way to fight drug abuse is to cut off access to drugs to the drug dealers. No, the best way to fight terrorism is to help promote democracy, promote human freedom, and to put pressure on those government regimes which coopoerate with terrorist networks (all of which are non-democratic states, I might add).

Simon Owens: Do you tend to blog about whatever issue is the most talked-about at the time of posting, or do you like to search for the overlooked stories that nobody has noticed yet?

Dean Esmay: More the latter than the former. Obviously some stories are so big you can’t help but remark upon them, but we usually try to avoid the mad rush of the 24 hour news cycle.

Simon Owens: How do you go about finding the articles you link to in your blog? Do you find them from other blogs, or are there particular news services you monitor?

Dean Esmay: I get a ton of links mailed to me every day. I’d say about a quarter of my links come from that. I also enjoy randomly browsing the blogs from my blogroll, looking for something interesting. And yes, I scan a few different internet news services periodically.

Simon Owens: Do you think that as each election cycle comes around, political blogs gain more and more influence over the political process?

Dean Esmay: Yes. And they’re alread more important than most people think. But not in the way some bloggers would like to think. It’s not that so many people read political blogs, or that a majority of voters will ever read them. That’s not what makes blogs important. Ditto the impact of blogs as a fundraising tool, which can be significant but will never replace traditional fundraising channels.

What’s most important and powerful in politics is ideas. In the past, most political ideas were nurtured in the pages of political journals like The Nation, The New Republic, The National Review, and other such publications. Those journals at their height never had more than 100,000 readers, usually less. But they were read by decision makers, political figures, academics, an so on, and were enormously influential on the nation in ways that many people even today are unaware of. And I see political blogs as the modern equivalent of that. To the extent that they discuss ideas, they have a cumulaitive long-term impact that’s difficult to measure, but it’s large and it’s growing.

There are people in the White House whose job it is to monitor political blogs. What does that tell you, even if you don’t read blogs yourself?

Simon Owens: What are the five blogs you’d recommend to supplement the reading of your own blog?

Dean Esmay: My wife Rosemary’s blog, The Queen of All Evil. She’s far more conservative than I am, and daily rides into battle with the lefties of The Daily Kos, Eschaton, and other far-left blogs. She’s always fun, too.

Trudy Schuett’s Desert Light Journal, covering issues of domestic violence and gender issues from a perspective that’s too rarely seen in the mainstream media.

Michael Demmons’ Gay Orbit. A GLBT community blog with an attitude and a perspective you don’t see much in traditional sources. Plus very funny.

Austin Bay. International relations and military analysis from a fine mind and a terrific writer.

Mohammed and Omar’s Iraq The Model. Whenever I really want to know what’s going on in Baghda, they tell me.

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Cori E. Dauber is an Associate Professor of Communication Studies (and Adjunct Professor of Peace, War, and Defense) at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and a Research Fellow at the Triangle Institute for Security Studies. She has published in journals such as Security Studies, Armed Forces and Society, Contemporary Security Policy, and Rhetoric and Public Affairs. Her research focuses on the way the media represents war, the military, and terrorism, and since 9/11 her work has focusesd on the press coverage of the War on Terror, including the war in Iraq. She has presented her work in a variety of forums, including the US Army War College, the Canadian Forces College, and the Kennedy Center for Special Warfare. Her blog, Rantingprofs.com, offers daily commentary on the press coverage of the War on Terror.

Simon Owens: One of the hot new political issues right now is the distribution of security funds for anti-terrorism. Did you agree with this distribution? How should it have been done differently?

Cori Dauber: I agree with the general notion that the money should be distributed according to a risk formula, but it seems as if the cuts in New York and DC’s funding were awfully sharp. So I would say that I agree with the general approach that was supposed to be used, but it seems to me that without more explanation of the way they went about applying that approach, it’s hard to understand the result they got.

Simon Owens: As a professor, how do you feel when pundits like Bill O’reilly call for the firing of professors for their political rhetoric? Do you find this notion dangerous?

Cori Dauber: I don’t generally watch O’Reilly, so I can’t comment on anything he’s said specifically, but I would make two comments. One is that in general people (and I would include many of my colleagues in this, actually) often confuse the political and free speech rights that professors have, the same as any other citizen, and academic freedom. I have the same rights you or anyone else does to express myself in the public square. That’s different from academic freedom, which is my right to express my best judgment on matters pertaining to my field in my research and in the classroom. (It doesn’t mean, by the way, that I can say anything I want about any topic I want in the classroom, nor does it mean I am free to violate standards of academic integrity regarding standards of evidence etc etc in my research.) I think the way those two get confused is dangerous, and the way that tends to get played out is in calls for eliminating tenure. I worked very, very hard for a long time to get tenure, and I’m at a University where we continue to be evaluated both as teachers and as reseachers forever after (which I think is now the norm, by the way.) Tenure provides very important protections in all kinds of ways, and I think that it’s easy to pull out examples of particular comments that can be used to make the system look bad, but you can do that with individuals in any profession.

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Simon Owens: Which conservative bloggers do you think create the most spin? And if you had to pick a conservative blogger to label a worthy adversary, which blogger would that be?

Steve Gilliard: None. I think the lot of them are liars and preternaturally dishonest. I don’t read them, I don’t link to them, I don’t like them.

SO: Bush has had many failures both on the domestic and foreign front. Which of the two do you thin he’s the worst at?

SG: I would say Katrina and Iraq are the obvious ones. His complete failuire on Katrina will take a generation to correct. Iraq’s effect will be lucky if they end in a generation.

SO: Conservative pundits continue to claim that we must “win the Iraq war.” What does “winning” the war entail? What does it mean to win?

SG: First, most of them are cowards who want teenagers to die for their beliefs. They act like this is a game, yay Marine Corps. Well, winning in Iraq means getting the US Army home in one piece, hoping there isn’t a general uprising against us by the Shia majority. We have little to no hope of influencing the political course of the country at this time. That’s the only victory possible. The resistance will continue as long as we stay there.

SO: What are the five blogs everyone should be reading (besides your own)?

SG: Firedoglake, Crooks and Liars, Informed Comment, The Black Commentator (more magazine than blog), Jesus’s General

You can find The News Blog over here.