Exactly, Brooke! Bravo. I too have been very uncomfortable with the “Support our Troops” mantra. You mention “only following orders”, of course, deliberately evoking Nuremburg, but the better analogy would be Vietnam. It took courage for segments of the peace movement then to demand moral conscience (read: noncollaboration) from the troops, but it was the right thing to do. Rather than the gospel which said that returning Vietnam vets suffered from their nonrecognition and abandonment by the American people, many suffered more from their own ethical misgivings about what they had been forced to do in the name of justice and freedom (just as heads of state and military leaders find the courage, when retired and no longer ’embedded’, to become peacemakers). If there were a way to communicate some pressure of conscience to the ethically unformed and challenged 18- and 19-year-olds who are dying and killing in Iraq, that would be “supporting our troops.”

Here’s more on ‘following orders’, relative to the US POWs shown to the media by Iraq:

Al-Jazeera satellite channel showed a US soldier lying prone on a camp bed in a bare concrete room, his face covered in blood, wounds in his side and arm.

He was propped up for the interview by a reporter from Iraqi television. Asked his name, he replied haltingly: “Edgar, my name is Edgar.” He said he was from Texas.

Another who identified himself as “Private First Class Miller”, was asked why he had gone to Iraq. In a strained voice he said: “I was told to come here.” They were from the 507th Maintenance Company, from Fort Bliss, Texas, rather than a combat outfit. “I just followed orders,” he said. “I came to fix broke things. I don’t want to kill anybody.” Guardian/UK

On the topic of the media display of the POWs, US officials lost no time arguing that it was a violation of the clause in the Geneva Convention proscribing humiliation of prisoners to show them on television (whereas, our televising the long lines of Iraqi POWs the prior day was not?). The indignity to which they were exposed, however, was not by the Iraqis but the indignity of war itself and, moreso, of a war with only the thinnest veneer of a lying rationale, if that is becoming clear to our forces there. (Can you imagine that US infantry forces might start scratching their heads about why the Iraqis are not welcoming us as their liberators? why, if we were in such imminent danger of a CBW attack fro Iraq that we had to preemptively disarm them, there has been no deployment of CBW on the battlefield yet?) I would think US families and authorities would actually want visual confirmation that missing soldiers were captured and alive when that was the case. The ICRC agrees that media display of POWs does not automatically amount to indignity:

Amanda Williamson, a Red Cross spokeswoman, said it would not automatically be a contravention. “There’s an article that prisoners should not be exposed to public curiosity, but this was not envisaged to include the media, so it’s not a violation per se to put them on TV.” Whether they were being exposed to public curiosity would depend on how they appeared on TV’ [via also not found]

On this day in 1957, U.S. Customs agents seized 520 copies of Allen Ginsberg’s Howl [text here] on the grounds of obscenity…, leading to a trial that October — before a judge who was a Sunday school teacher, and who had recently been in the news for sentencing five shoplifters to a screening of The Ten Commandments. Nonetheless, it was soon clear that the prosecution had little response to the long line of scholars and critics who testified to the literary importance of Howl — many comparing it in importance to Leaves of Grass – and the judge’s ruling was unequivocal:

I do no believe that “Howl” is without even “the slightest redeeming social importance.” The first part of “Howl” presents a picture of a nightmare world; the second part is an indictment of those elements in modern society destructive of the best qualities of human nature; such elements are predominantly identified as materialism, conformity and mechanization leading toward war. . . . It ends in a plea for holy living. . . . In considering material claimed to be obscene it is well to remember the motto: “Honi soit qui mal y pense” [Evil to him who thinks evil]. Today in Literature

The reality of the electroneurological interface is at hand. Jack in! New Scientist

Whenever Jeff Jarvis accuses someone else of intellectual snobbery, I have to laugh. Especially when a former TV Guide writer thinks he understands the subtleties of the subliminal effects of the media better than any of a number of psychologically astute types who have made it their life’s work to do so. I’m talking, of course, about Jarvis’ kneejerk rejection of the idea that media coverage of war can desensitize us to its horror. He reduces the argument to a ridiculous caricature (no one but the Doctor can tell the difference between media entertainment and reality) and thinks he’s been profound when he lambasts the caricature.

In This War, We Report What They Decide — ‘In the unwritten code of media bigfoots, name-brand journalists don’t criticize each other. But there was Breslin, in his column, taking Tom Brokaw to task for a tacky and exploitative interview with the mother of a dead serviceman. For good measure, he threw in the texts of some signs he had seen at a New York peace march: ““U.S. Media – The Coalition of the Fawning”; “TV Networks-Stop Using the War to Up Your Ratings”; and “Networks Don’t Cover Peace.”

No human with an ounce of emotion can watch young kids under fire and not respect them, fear for them, feel for them. That’s the reason we need skeptical journalists on the home front to counterbalance the ‘embeds’ who will, quite naturally, start feeling parental, protective, and proud of the troops they cover. The Administration understands this all too well.’ TomPaine

From the incisive Ethel: “The latest installment of Timothy Noah’s Kurd sell-out watch reports something I’ve been predicting for well over a year: the Cabal will not only sell out the Iraqi Kurds (again) but also be *SHOCKED! SHOCKED AND APPALLED!* to discover that the Kurds have really been terrorists all along. The initial trial balloon for this is being floated at – where else – the War Street Journal.”

George Soros: “The Bush doctrine is grounded in the belief that international relations are relations of power; legality and legitimacy are decorations.” TomPaine

As the U.S. and U.K. campaign to “shock and awe” the Iraqi leadership and population continues, as “bunker buster” bombs hit the Iraqi Presidential palaces and coalition forces attempt to disrupt the command and control of the Iraqi military, one widely-reported offensive capability is nowhere in sight: the United States has not yet officially used the tools of cyberwarfare.

The U.S. military has reportedly developed impressive offensive cyberwar capabilities, including the ability to use microwave or other electronic impulses to disrupt or destroy electronic components. If this is true, why have we not yet seen an all out cyberwar? The Register