It suddenly seems to me deeply ironic that the one thing I haven't been talking a lot about on this blog is the war, while it's the thing I'm certainly most preoccupied with lately...

I guess I felt like there wasn't much I could say. The war seems to be progressing well, and like building a bridge, it's a slow, carefully planned process. Unlike building a bridge, things can change quickly... Maybe it's actually more like building software. Except nobody really builds software like "engineers" yet. ;)

I think the war will be substantially finished in a week or two, and then the long process of establishing a functioning government will ensue. I'll bet that after people start getting their food and water, and see the baathists getting arrested, they'll be quite relieved to say the least. They're already showing signs of it, but may still be too apprehensive about reprisals from the remaining baathists.

The worst thing about this whole war, in my mind, is that Bush is such a dimwit. I wish that we could have gotten someone in there like Blair, someone who could have articulated with emotion his position. I'm afraid that Bush was the marketing campaign though, for Cheney's administration, which is what is really running the country anyway... It's too bad they couldn't just have a few different Presidents on hand for different audiences: the articulate one for those like me, and the current one for the masses... he's really just their spokesperson after all...

But I'm really optimistic now that once the government of Iraq is changed, once new institutions are set up, once there are free media, there will be a real revolution of thought in the middle east. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict must be solved soon, but if that can be achieved as well, then we're looking at a whole new middle east in 50 years... I'm hoping I'll be able to go see tons and tons of new archeological discoveries in Iraq with my future kids, and make a trek across all the greatest Shiite muslim shrines and mosques... ;)

The death of so many prominent journalists has been a blow I've felt though. Those guys really were tough. My respect for journalists has probably hit an alltime high, up from it's low after the death of Princess Diana.

In contrast with the first Gulf War, most media are reporting at least a little bit about headlines and stories in the Arab media as well. Most of them seem ridiculous, but not as ridiculous as the Iraqi information minister saying that U.S. troops are still nowhere near Baghdad... I wonder what he'll say after they take his building... ;)

It's nice to see the destruction of all of Saddam's narcissistic monuments and pictures. It satisfies the need for justice in us all, I think.

And it seems like Britain will really have pulled off an incredibly good move in supporting us. France is really getting hammered here -- people here are going to have a bad impression of them, justified or not, for a long time to come...