“That’s the positive side of what an independent blogger such as Roggio can do for Iraq coverage. He is unafraid to go into dangerous places and he offers a very different perspective. For that reason, he is a worthwhile read on Iraq, so long as he is not the only read on the subject. He shows what one blogger in a war zone can do.”

Yes, it is difficult in today’s world to sift through seemingly endless stream of information. But people need to make the effort to seek out balanced coverage, it’s out there. Don’t just listen to the MSM, or just what the President/Tony Snow says, or just Malkin or Huffington say.

But will they? Jury’s still out on that one.

It’s a strawman argument against a point not made. The point made in the post was that the CSM is warning it’s readers to take Roggio with a grain of salt because he’s, you know: Optimistic. When everyone knows that pessimism is the only right frame of mind.

People are war-weary because they’ve been lulled – mostly for political purposes, but also because they want to believe – into thinking that we have a real choice on whether or not to fight. They’ve been told what they want to hear, that we can bring the troops home and all the killing will stop. Or at least the killing of people we care about.

Pity about those poor, benighted wogs, lied to again, disappointed again, left to be slaughtered again. But they ought to have been used to it by now, wot?

Not to worry though. Once enough of them have been murdered, the most brutal killers – and we already know who they are, which takes some of the drama out of it – will rise to the top of the 21^st century Golgotha that we have left behind for them to craft.

Having consolidated their power – with the help of some friends to the east – they will next turn their attention to the south, and find a fat land of impoverished millions ruled by thousands of indolent princes. Should be a pushover.

Just wogs though, again. Nothing to do with us.

Except that one quarter of the world’s population has been taught, as an article of faith, that their religion is final and perfect and they themselves given domination over the world. And yet, maddeningly, it has proven not to be so – the rest of the world marches on impressively, as they stew in corruption and inefficiency and oppression.

They are faced with two options: Either their faith is not final and perfect, or they themselves are imperfectly faithful.

Down one path lies reason and peaceful co-existence, down the other the conquering sword of jihad – not for the first time.

We should strive to encourage the first option. Our enemies in Iraq and elsewhere are busily promoting the second. If we abandon the Iraqi field of battle to them, one billion people will observe our failure and know which is the strong horse, and which the weak. And they will do it empowered by a stranglehold on the major reserves of the lifeblood of global commerce.

These aren’t children’s games we’re playing.

Mass casualty events have a remorseless way of changing lifestyle priorities overnight.

Skippy’s ‘war-weary’ is a good way to describe it, yet it seems to be more of a public exasperation with a channel that refuses to change. They keep hitting the TV remote to switch to the next daytime soap or infomercial, but the ugly world keeps coming back. Their brains aren’t so tired as much as their thumbs are. Denial isn’t working so well any more, but the habit of ignoring nasty reality is still hard to break. Especially when you don’t really have a better idea. So it’s bad, or it’s worse–choose.

Yes, our enemies and their medial enablers are masters of the information war –for now. The general public still hasn’t caught on that attention and awareness are the high ground in this confict. It’s like the bystanders haven’t yet discovered they are the prize. MSM is rightly afraid of what happens to their monopoly when the bystanders eventually do.