"It has been hacked," said Jihad Ali Ballout, a spokesman for al-Jazeera...
The Arabic daily's websites, both English and Arabic language services, were subjected to what's called 'denial of services' attack.. basically what the hackers did was flood the site with useless information, blocking legitimate traffic..
One group, called the 'Freedom Cyberforce Militia'.. directed people who logged on to al Jazeera's English site to another website.. with the message 'God Bless Our Troops'..
Another group has those using the English language site taken to a map of the States with Old Glory spread across the landscape.. and the message Let Freedom Ring..
Those using the Arabic language service were re-directed to a porn site..
The TV channel has described the electronic onslaught as a vicious attack on the freedom of the press...
Appears they have a fine sense of irony..
And y'know..according to British pathologists.. some 35 hundred seeming healthy Britons die in their sleep each year.. they're going to call it SADS.. Sudden Adult Death Syndrome..
We were looking for a new disease just the other day..
One wonders why they tell us of these new things.. that we've always had around us.. but which now seem to be deadly.. like sleep..
It's not as though they're in a position to actually do anything about it.. they've no cure...
One supposes the medical profession now naturally assumes that this society wants more involvement with illness.. what with the proclivity towards hypochondria we've developed over the past few decades.. It certainly makes a good public case for more funding..

They made a good pair.. Tony and George facing the media after their Camp David talks earlier today..
There was talk of 'taking the time to do the job..' and' freeing the oppressed Iraqi peoples'.. disgust with al-Jazeera and the Ba'ath regeme for releasing the photo's of 'executed' British soldiers.. an overwhelming sense of dedication and commitment..
But y'know.. one's attention was caught a few times by George.. the thought that's he's possibly slipped off the wagon or was equally possibly taking some heavy duty anti-anxiety script bounced across the pub this afternoon..
It was the almost lacadasical attitude the President showed.. a certain gleam in the eye..
As for the tone of the world in general.. it appears Australians have swung behind the war effort.. the French are talking about strained but normal relations between itself and the US.. their Defence Minister stressed today that their objection was not specifically aimed at the US.. but was against the concept of war in this case in the most general of terms..
Yes.
The lights of Baghdad shine through a mist.. a fog.. smoke from the oil trenches and pits wafts through the entire city..
One can only hope that in this effort.. the Iraqi people themselves actually do end up the winners..
Perhaps in future.. the marches might be better directed to ensuring control of the country stays in the hands of those who live there.. permanently..

A definative statement from Geof Hoon.. Tony's Defence Secretary.. to the effect that Britain has 'categorical proof' that Saddam has, and plans to use, chemical weapons..
This Geoff's basing on discoveries of chemical warfare protective suits that Iraqi Command had issued to southern forces.. and some as yet undefined 'discoveries' made in Iraq by British troops..
Geoff also mentioned at his briefing that the explosion yesterday in Baghdad might not have been caused by the Iraqi's themselves.. that as yet there's no evidence they were firing anything in that direction when the 14 people were killed..
Curious..

ArabNews is the only English language daily in Saudi Arabia, and understandably it's going to show a somewhat slanted version of the news.. looking for those analysts and commentators and authorities who back their own particular version of the truth..
This.. at least.. the East has taken from the West..
Now today they've pubished a telephone interview.. conducted with one of Labour's own..
This is what the BBC bio has to say about George..
George Galloway is one of the most visible backbenchers in the House of Commons, with a strong line in fiery oratory and a skill for enthusiastic denunciation.
However, the idiosyncratic uses to which he puts his skill had led to his being almost as detached from the Labour party as from the opposition parties.
His abrasive and intemperate style has left him without a great deal of sympathy in Parliament, but he continues implacably nonetheless.
He is a left wing opponent of privatisation and of nuclear weapons, and has previously been arrested while protesting outside naval bases.
However, his major political interests, and the ones which cause the most controversy, are international, where he is a self-styled friend of oppressed countries and opponent of Western imperialism.
He has fought a long campaign against sanctions on Iraq, and was an adamant opponent of the Gulf War and the military action in Afghanistan.
In 2002, he caused the first ever suspension of Westminster Hall when he refused to withdraw his allegation that Ben Bradshaw was "a liar".
Mr Bradshaw had described him as "a mouthpiece to the Iraqi regime over many years".
Thus endeth the lesson.. on how to choose one's sources..

One would think.. the spin doctors that worked for the Iraqi's before this war began.. mobilizing all those protestors for Saddam's cause.. would be advising al-Jazeera against broadcasting photo's of dead British soldiers and POW's..
This alone is turning a significant number of people away from 'the cause'.. perhaps giving them for the first time a glimpse of what it is they were marching to preserve..
Mind you.. having said that.. the Western mindset.. Western concepts of morality are only partly shared by those in the Middle East..
Not to say they're uncivilised.. merely different..
To them.. the dead bodies of their enemies.. are trophies to be celebrated over..
The prisoners.. a sign their cause is just.. and an oppostunity to display the foreign devils..
A corpse is not an uncommon sight in that part of the world.. and parading them is as much a part of their life as disguising them is in ours..
Tradition..

Baseball..
Damn y'know.. when it gets to be this time of the year.. one expects to see kids out with bats and gloves.. spring training games on television.. the thwak of bats hitting balls all over the country.. It's part of the North American seasonal parade.. much as the leaves turning in the fall.. and snow up past your backside in the winter..
One has to miss it.. even if you can't stand the game itself, it means summer's not that far away when your windows occasionally become colateral damage..
It's a cultural thing..
As is the reaction of many to this war..
Know this fellow.. lives in South Western Ontario.. works in computers and makes a damn good living at it too.. drives three hours a day to get to and from his job.. has a house paid for.. a wife he loves to bits.. she works as well and between them they can afford to take several vacations a year..
They couldn't care less about Iraq.. this war..
They have no opinion on the morality of it all.. they've been asked, and quietly smiled while saying 'I pay politicians to make these decisions.. the army to enforce them.. don't waste my time..'
And when pressed about the 'morality issue..for gods sake..' their smile becomes a trifle more strained.. their tone of voice closer to that one would use with an annoying but handicapped zealot.. and they answer 'we do what we can.. we watch our own.. and we leave national issues to the people elected..'
They are the silent majority.. and they have every right to be just that..
When people decry the stance of one side or another in this conflict.. they're merely stating for whatever record they might feel will exist.. that they agree/disagree with decisions they are powerless to affect. Once the machinery is set in place.. we as a whole are subject to the 'whims and fancies' if you will.. of those we have given the job of running it to..
Truth be told.. as my friend says.. 'Why would I want to be Prime Minister..? I make more money.. and can sleep at night..'
Indeed..
In the meantime we'll march to the sound of the band we hired for the night.. even if some of us wanted rock and roll.. and the group plays polkas..

Safwar.. a small town on the Iraq-Kuwaiti border.. was the first to get Humanitarian Aid Packages..
It was an odd scene to watch.. a crowd of some several hundred Iraqi's.. crowding around a couple of articulated lorries.. tractor trailers.. as boxes and plastic bags of water.. food.. are scrambled over.. The picture speaks for itself.. These are people who have not suffered from this American action.. who's lives have not been battered by the effects of foreigners wading heavily armed through their country..
Rather this shows a people who have been starved by their own government.. who are desperate for whatever they can get from those fighting against Saddam..
In how many more small villages in the south will this scene replay itself..
How many cities.. towns.. small villages.. are there in Iraq..?
An update on the Shaab incident this morning.. the number of killed in the explosions has now been dropped to 15.. and the Americans are scratching their heads.. saying '..we can't say if this was our doing..' They investigating.. but other scenario's have been speculated on..
Odds are it was a couple of American missiles.. but keep in mind they're subject to damage from anti-aircraft fire.. and were a couple thrown off their guidance systems.. that market area lies in the flight path to a military target..

'Stupid villains'..
The Iraqi Information Minister disputes that the port of Umm Qasr is under Coalition control.. saying the invading forces.. are confined to Dock No.10..
That this small town is not yet defeated..
Odd.. the dolphins seemed comfortable yesterday..
Nevertheless.. the news that will have the wires burning is from Baghdad.. the Shaab district in the Iraqi capital was bombed this morning.. reports are 45 civilians were killed while doing their morning shopping.. The Iraqi Government itself has been quiet about this incident.. no mention of it in the Information Minister's briefing..
But western media's on it like white on rice..
One might deplore war itself.. one certainly deplores the loss of civilian life.. what's almost cavalierly referred to as 'colateral damage'..
But even more.. one must deplore the machinations of a government openly engaged in the attempts to destroy one's way of life..
Very nice to say 'live and let live'.. admirable..
Now in a perfect world..

Extraordinary..
Australian divers are at work in Umm Qasr harbour.. clearing away mines hopefully faster than government boats can lay them..
And for the first time.. dolphins are working with the military.. to sniff these mines out.. so to speak.. so the divers can deal with them..
Not to say dolphins hadn't worked with humans before.. but this is the first time in combat conditions..
Meanwhile.. back on the road to Baghdad.. there's a report for a massive firefight east of the city.. In that weather.. one can only speculate..
By the way..those two British tankers killed today.. were fired on by another British tank..
It was dark.. and fifty Ba'ath tanks were staging a breakout..
The talk at the pub this evening was subdued.. There's almost universal amazement that so few have lost their lives in this so far.. on both sides.. Not that the regulars are looking for massive body counts.. very much the opposite in fact.. but the precision and restraint.. is unprecidented..
If we're not carefull.. war will revert to the old conventions..
Like the Shannon and the Chesapeake..

Umm Qasr seems to be under control.. which means the supplies of food.. clothing.. medical supplies for the Iraqi people themselves can begin to dock as soon as the Ba'ath mines are cleared..
Basrah.. has again responded to the opportunity to rid themselves of Saddam's control.. and this is what the Coalition forces were hoping to see.. In fact the cooperation of the Iraqi's is imperative in the American plans.. Not only does it allow Coalition soldiers to avoid a Belfast street-to-street situation, but it lends creedence to the entire effort..
This will really be a war of liberation.. if the Iraqi people stand up in support of it.. It appears they might indeed..
In the meantime.. Baghdad's suffering under a sandstorm.. winds high enough to bend palm trees.. it would be hard to think of conditions that are harder on machinery..
Yet the strategic bombing runs will continue..
One can only thank whatever gods there might be.. that one doesn't live near Fairford in Glocestershire.. the B52's.. and they're big birds.. have been flying rotating missions non-stop for a few days now..
Makes all of us reflexively look up at our own roof-tiles..

Polarization.
A meeting today of the Arab League.. OPEC essentially..
Iran.. a country somewhat eager to see the US and Britain involved in a war with it's neighbour just a few weeks ago.. has changed hats again.. Iranisn Foreign Minister Naji Sabri called this 'a violation of the UN Charter'..a 'threat to world peace'..
Lybia waxed prolix on 'Iraqi heroism'..
All very much feelgood and hail fellow well met, in a Middle Eastern sort of way.. but just what it means in practical terms is very unclear..
This group has no executive powers.. cannot even censure member states such as Qatar..Bahrain.. Kuwait.. who have American troops launching attacks from their airfields..
This has become a problem for the PanArab League.. While public opinion in their individual states is strongly opposed to this war.. most leaders would just as soon see the back of Saddam..
But there remains ingrained distrust of the west.. and questions concerning the future of other Arab governments.. should the US take umbrage with them..
These are not good times for politicians.. it's a case of being universally damned if we do.. and comprehensively damned if we don't..

What we have here.. is a city which rose twelve years ago against the dictator.. expecting a change in government.. supporting the American troops all the way..
A city that.. when the Amerians pulled back without removing the dicator.. was subjected to terrible reprisals by the government left in power..
A city today.. that has had problems for three days now with water supplies.. wherein three of five children already suffer from malnutrition.. who wonder if this time the Americans will follow through and remove Hussein..
It's part of the reason Basrah has been so hard to finish off.. why there exist 'pockets of resistance' in residential areas..
The people of Basrah remember.. they fought before and were punished for it..
This time.. they'll want a sign of good faith.. some food for their kids would be a good start, and to that end we have the UN involved.. UNICEF in Jordan is loading up supplies earmarked for Basrah.. One can only hope they manage to find a way to get it there..

What a scene..
The briefing room at the White House.. a detailed update on progress in Iraq.. with the members of the media hanging on every word..
To begin.. the attitude of the reporters present was demanding, to say the least.. the White House spokesman was repeatedly pressed for details of casualties and POW's.. Unsatisfied with the response that the military has a proceedure to follow.. notifications to make.. before numbers and names can be released..
The reporter pressed for a number.. citing the right of the American people to know..
Now.. there can only be two reasons for such demands.. neither is particularly pallatable..
The first could be that indeed, the hysteria surrounding this particular campaign has infected the members of the 5th Estate to the extent they've forgotten SOP.. that indeed it's what they've been told to get.. the gory details..
The second is that they're that naive, that they'd expect a government at war to release to the world what their battle damage reports contained..
Either possibility has one shaking one's head..
For the attitude of the media.. only reflects the attitudes of those who watch.. who direct this war from their armchairs.. who make up ratings..

Disinformation through the chatrooms..
The range of emotions displayed concerning this war runs the gamut.. with foaming anti-americanism vying for position with rabid anti-Iraqism.. perhaps anti-Saddamiam might be more correct.. but it does get confusing where one line ends and the next begins..
It's crises the likes of this that bring out the best in folks..
However.. point is there appear to be those in the chats.. who's sole purpose is to distort the ubiquitous reports we're getting.. to 'demoralize' those who would support the action against Saddam.. to twist the aim of the invasion away from the Ba'ath and towards the innocent Iraqi's themselves..
It's a tactic that might work on those in Baghdad.. or Basra.. Then again that might prove difficult.. what with the internet not really common to Iraqi households..
One of the fundamentals in Middle Eastern diplomacy has historically been.. when asked a direct question.. obfuscate.. lie.. It buys time for a considered response to be formulated.. and lies on the international level can be shrugged off as 'misunderstandings'..
This is the approach we're seeing from some chatters. and while highly amusing.. it has sinister overtones..
As for the peace activists.. some are so frustrated with their lack of success.. they're ready to take a swing at someone..

An amazing exercise we're watching really..
Casualty figures are so low they're not really indicative of a full-blown war.. more like an early seventies meeting between the Mods and the Rockers.. or Hell's Angels v Devil's Disciples.. perhaps that's dated..
Nevertheless.. of all the wars in history.. this one will go down as perhaps the least costly in terms of human life..
Now it comes down to guerilla warfare.. and perhaps we'll see damage by the Saddam Fida'iyin.. and the hardcore Ba'ath troops.. those who have absolutely nothing to lose should the Saddam regeme fall..
This might be close to the time Jaques Chirac.. the UN.. and all the rest begin diplomatic pushes..
Perhaps an effort to prevent street warfare..
But.. with all the cards being held now by George.. to some extent Tony.. it'll needs be a large olive branch the politicians begin offering..

Ahh here we go..
The American troops near Basrah.. have apparently discovered a chemical weapons factory near the city of Najaf.. and several other sites are apparently being examined with 'some interest'..
One would put money on that.. 'some interest' indeed..
This is the news Jaques Chirac had no doubt been expecting.. no doubt dreading..
It's the 'justification'..
Coming up to 5am in Baghdad, and the sky's a dull red with the mixture of flames from bombed buildings and the oilpit fires.. lit for whatever reason by the Iraqi defence.. the power and water supplies were cut for the first time yesterday.. the people will be wondering how long now.. before the sound of assault rifles punctuates the call to prayer..

Terry Lloyd had been with ITV for 20 years.. He'd covered Iraq before.. back in 1988 when Saddam gassed the Kurds Lloyd sent reports from the villages in the path of the gas clouds..
He knew his way around a war..
It's confirmed now he was killed while driving away from Iraqi outposts near Basra.. by what was almost certainly friendly fire..
Tonight we have both George and Tony condemning Saddam and his cronies for televising part of the interrogations, of American POW's.. as if Saddam is truely concerned with something as petty as the exact nature of the Geneva Convention..
At times.. this posturing for the camera can become tedious..
What is to be noted.. particular to this conflict.. is the degree to which the motk is involved.. we are immersed in minute by minute updates.. constant analysis.. pictures of real-time action.. This war is being fought very much in public.. so no misunderstanding here.. it's all available for the viewing..
Thank gods for satellite television.. where somewhere, on one channel or another.. Happy Days is always being aired..
We, all of us, can occasionally do with a good mental enema..

An idea of what's going through the minds of the other leaders of the Arab Middle East..
The PanArab League met.. to discuss this war in their backyards.. and the various leaders just couldn't seem to get themselves to discuss a regeme change in Iraq..
The sole voice came from the Sheikdom of the UAE.. saying it was time to ask Saddam to step down..
The others adopted postures not unlike those seen along the bar at the pub.. with fingers along the nose and glazed eyes lost in thought.. as perhaps they contemplated should Saddam be asked to remove himself by his Arab confreres.. who indeed might be next..?
Yet.. as this war continues towards what is certainly the inevidable removal of the Ba'ath and Saddam.. these same Arab leaders will have to face their angry citizens.. several camps of angry citizens.. each with their own agenda for the modernization of their respective countries and the redistribution of power..
Egypt is not happy.. it's traditional stance against Israel will be severely impededed by an American presence in the area.. and the Shi'ite majority in Iraq will certainly have a much louder voice, once the Sunni core has lost it's influence in government..
Ahh...and there's also the question of France and the EU to be considered.. The Middle East has always had close ties with France in particular.. and now Chirac has put himself beyond the pale as far as the reconstruction of Iraq's concerned.. there must be many who're wondering if they've backed the wrong horse..

Sunday after church.. as the men wandered in to face the bar.. their wives taking up customary stations along the window seats..
Much shaking of heads.. regretfull statements about the sad inevidability of casualties under friendly fire.. comments about the state of British materiel..
An RAF Tornado shot down as it returned from a mission by an American Patriot missile.. a mistake..
Two helicopter crashes within the past three days.. 19 dead.. 14 of them British..
A British Television reporter and his crew missing behind Iraqi lines.. now thought to be KIA.. again it was friendly fire..
There are those here who remember the Ai Shau.. with the thousands.. literally thousands of enemy casualties.. our own men falling in their hundreds..
Relatively speaking.. after 4 days of warfare we're getting off lightly..
It does seem to date.. that we're more dangerous than the Iraqi's by far though.. certainly as far as our own troops are concerned..

Justification.
Seems to be the issue on most people's minds these days.. from the micro to the macro people are constantly engaged in the process of making others understand why they're doing whatever it is they're involved in.. That also includes the often tedious task of explaining exactly what it is one's doing to begin with..
Gets complicated.. and truth be told.. it needn't be..
While one certainly does not advocate unaccountability.. but one questions the number of times that issue's raised over the course of a day.. and the issues called under scrutiny.. The most mundane acts.. walking down one's own street..driving into town for a loaf and a pint while you're at it.. spending an unplanned hour or so talking with one's neighbours..can become 'issues' in some eyes. 'This calls for an explanation' could be the catchphrase of the era..
Case in point.. on the micro we have one of the regulars down at the pub, being hauled unceremoniously out of our company, accompanied by some surrepticious chortles from those he left behind and his vastly annoyed wife who had been expecting to go shopping..while offering weak protests of '..it's Saturday hen..it was only a pint.. half an hour at best there..' ..
On the macro we have General Tommy Franks.. and four members of the 'coalition' brass.. spending quite a while presenting to members of the 5th Estate a battle plan.. and a synopsis of what will happen to Iraq once Saddam's away..
Justification.
Poor Tommy's got far too many wives here..