Blogs of War

Blogger, and former Army intelligence analyst/computer specialist, Jeff Quinton is looking for work in the Baltimore/DC area:

I’m looking for something in the Baltimore-DC area that would be full-time for the rest of the summer (after 7/16) and could be flexible PT/FT in the fall depending on my school schedule. Drop me a line (jeff-dot-quinton-at-gmail-dot-com) if you have any suggestions,connections or ideas. I do have a couple of things I had in the works back a couple of months ago that I need to follow up on (anyone involved in those reading this should expect contact from me in the next few days.) More information on my work and skill background can be found here.

It’s ramping up but the Palestinians are only witnessing a fraction of Israel’s power:

He did not, however, hold back IDF troops from continuing the operation that was already in play. More than 500 artillery shells have been fired by the IDF in Gaza in the past 24 hours.

An Israel Air Force helicopter fired at an Islamic Jihad terrorist as he attempted to launch a Kassam rocket at Israeli forces. 25-year-old Abdel Rael later succumbed to his wounds, the first to die since the start of the IDF operation.

IAF jets scored direct hits on close to a dozen targets in the wee hours before dawn on Friday. In Gaza City alone, the Palestinian Authority Interior Ministry was struck, as was a Fatah office and a Hamas terrorist training camp. PA Interior Minister Said Siyam’s office was targeted because it was “a meeting place to plan and direct terror activity,” said IDF sources.

Where are the cable news networks on this story?

It does seem a little late for them to be realizing that blogs might be useful but at least the story more or less gets the details right:

The Air Force Office of Scientific Research recently began funding a new research area that includes a study of blogs. Blog research may provide information analysts and warfighters with invaluable help in fighting the war on terrorism.

Dr. Brian E. Ulicny, senior scientist, and Dr. Mieczyslaw M. Kokar, president, Versatile Information Systems Inc., Framingham, Mass., will receive approximately $450,000 in funding for the 3-year project entitled “Automated Ontologically-Based Link Analysis of International Web Logs for the Timely Discovery of Relevant and Credible Information.”

“It can be challenging for information analysts to tell what’s important in blogs unless you analyze patterns,” Ulicny said.

Nothing really new here. Blogs of War has been mined by government funded companies for years. One even sucked down my RSS feed (and yes your comments too) several million times during 2004-2005. I thought that was a little rude (and told them as much) but let them continue because they were a well respected company and there was a slight chance that they were doing useful work. This new effort will attempt to sort through the datalanche that is the blogosphere:

“We are developing an automated tool to tell analysts what bloggers are most interested in at a point in time,” Ulicny said.

This analysis, Kokar said, is based on what Versatile Information Systems calls the RSTC approach to blog analysis – relevance, specificity, timeliness, and credibility. RSTC helps information analysts filter the most important information to study.

“Relevance involves developing a point of focus and information related to a particular focus,” Kokar said. Timeliness has to do with immediacy – how important is a topic now. “Credibility,” he continued, “is the amount of trust you have in an information source.”

$450,000 to reinvent Technorati? I wonder if these guys are hiring…

I’d rather see the Military spend that $450.000 on something more productive like learning how to communicate with bloggers. They’re still patting themselves on the back for sending me and other bloggers the link to DefenseLINK via email. There’s so much more that they could be doing, on the PR and technical fronts, to move their information.

Related:
Answer Me! (Dr. Brian E. Ulicny)

Sooner or later the militant Palestinians will have to realize that they can’t go head to head with an increasingly unrestrained Israeli military:

Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak demanded from his Syrian counterpart Bashar Assad to deport the Syrian-based Hamas leadership unless it agrees to release kidnapped IDF soldier Cpl. Gilad Shalit, Palestinian sources said on Friday.

The demand was made in the context of a compromise that Egypt was attempting to draft between the Israel and Hamas, whose Damascus leader, Khaled Mashaal was demanding that thousands of Palestinian detainees, held in Israeli prisons, be released. Mubarak warned Mashaal that his position was leading the Palestinians to disaster, Israel Radio reported.

Sadly the Palestinians were led to disaster decades ago and have only themselves to blame for chosing hatred, over peace and prosperity, at every opportunity.

The offer was unconfirmed for a while:

In an interview with Egypt’s leading pro-government newspaper, Al-Ahram, Mubarak said “Egyptian contacts with several Hamas leaders resulted in preliminary, positive results in the shape of a conditional agreement to hand over the Israeli soldier as soon as possible to avoid an escalation. “But agreement on this has not yet been reached with the Israeli side,” Mubarak said.

But now it appears that Israel has rejected the offer:

However, the terms set by the group were rejected by Israel. Egyptian President Hosni Mubarek told the al-Ahram interviewer he warned the terrorist kidnappers to change their “extreme positions” in order to bring the crisis to a close.

I know I will sound callous but Israel did the right thing. They should refuse additional conditional offers as well. Instead, they should keep kicking ass until the terrorists break. And if they don’t break, and Gilad is murdered, destroy Hamas and any other terrorist operatives that can be located. Give them the war they want but can’t hope to win.

Enemy Territory: Quake Wars is one of the most anticpated games of 2006 and id Software has promised a native Linux version. Initial video, screenshots, and reviews all look pretty amazing:

The first task that we had to complete was rebuilding a bridge in order to advance into the Strogg base. In order to do that, someone had to be the engineer class and use their special skill of repairing things. Everyone else has to cover that person because of all the people (including their alien mothers) on the Strogg team was trying to take him out. That task took the longest to complete because no one wanted to be the engineer right off. Each class has their strengths and weaknesses that go along with their special skills. The engineer is good at repairing things but had a short ranged main weapon (namely a shotgun). And seeing as how the enemy was on the other side of the damaged bridge, the engineer wasn’t much use in fighting them. This means that our teammates had to cover him while he repaired the bridge. Enemy Territory: Quake Wars is great team based game because it, using this unique task system, forces you to work as a team. There is no way to win with out teamwork. I am more of a team player than a loner, so this type of game is right up my alley.

I played as every character class except for the medic. I found that I was pretty good as a solider, laying down support fire for my fellow teammates while they were doing more delicate work. I also don the role of the covert op, sniping Strogg from a far. Sometimes it wouldn’t matter my class. Like the times when I hopped in a tank and laid waste to everything in my path. Speaking of things in my path, everything in the game was very visually pleasing. It was cool to see allies being airdropped in right in time to save me from attacking Strogg, especially, when your allies are rendered in top of the line graphics. I felt like I was really in an epic battle for all humanity. I could even see the bullet holes in the vehicles I drove during the match. You can’t help but be amazed at how good this game looks.

Enemy Territory: Quake Wars was an amazing experience. This game is definitely one of the best that E3 had to offer this year. I just wish I had a stronger computer, that way I could spend hours saving the world when Quake Wars is finally released.

The game should be released sometime this year and hopefully we’ll see the Linux version soon. I’ll update this post as more information becomes available.

Resources:
Official Enemy Territory Quake Wars Site
Enemy Territory Quake Wars FAQ
QuakeWarsHQ.com
Unofficial Fan Site Kit
Wikipedia – Background and links

The Israelis continue to crank up the pressure:

Israeli warplanes struck more than a dozen times in Gaza in the hours after midnight, hitting the Palestinian Interior Ministry and a Fatah office in Gaza city, as well as a Hamas training camp in the city’s outskirts.

Israel Air Force aircraft early Friday struck the Palestinian Interior Ministry in Gaza City, Palestinian witnesses said, setting it on fire.

…The Interior Ministry is nominally in charge of Palestinian security forces, though Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas removed most of its authority

Well it’s a video featuring a still photo of OBL and audio of his voice. Or someone that sounds like him anyway. He praises Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, probably mumbles something about the infidels, endorses Barbara Boxer and whatnot. Really, who cares?

Fighting terrorists, and finding a solution to the Gitmo problem, just got a little more difficult:

“The Supreme Court decision on Guantanamo is the most significant challenge to date of the Administration’s war on terror,” said CBS News foreign affairs analyst Pamela Falk, a law professor who has been to the Base, “because the rebuke was on international law and U.S. Law grounds and gives support to the Geneva Conventions in U.S. courts.”

The court’s ruling says nothing about whether the prison should be shut down, dealing only with plans to put detainees on trial.

“Trial by military commission raises separation-of-powers concerns of the highest order,” Kennedy wrote in his opinion.

Cohen notes that the detainees are “neither going to go free or get tried, at least in the short term.” He suspects, however, that there will be an increase in political and legal pressure to change their status or at least get them out of Guantanamo Bay.

Thomas, Scalia and Alito filed dissents:

Justice Clarence Thomas wrote a strongly worded dissent, saying the court’s decision would “sorely hamper the president’s ability to confront and defeat a new and deadly enemy.”

The court’s willingness, Thomas said, “to second-guess the determination of the political branches that these conspirators must be brought to justice is both unprecedented and dangerous.”

Justices Antonin Scalia and Samuel Alito also filed dissents.

Michelle Malkin and SCOTUS Blog are all over this.

Marty Lederman comments:

This almost certainly means that the CIA’s interrogation regime is unlawful, and indeed, that many techniques the Administation has been using, such as waterboarding and hypothermia (and others) violate the War Crimes Act (because violations of Common Article 3 are deemed war crimes).

If I’m right about this, it’s enormously significant.

Mark Levine fears an erosion of executive power:

the justices no longer feel limited by the Constitution or precedent and will intervene further in the executive’s war-related policies.

Andy McCarthy sums up some of the really distasteful aspects of this ruling:

If this reasoning is used to apply Geneva, and thus strike a treaty with al Qaeda (one which obligates only the U.S. — al Qaeda can be expected to go on bombing civilians and torturing and beheading prisoners), who knows what combatant trials will look like? Notice the Article 3 language I have highlighted three paragraphs above. It will be the courts, ultimately, which decide what is “a regularly constituted court,” and what “judicial guarantees” are “indispensible” according to “civilized people.”

Anyone want to bet against me that this won’t come to mean criminal trials with virtually all the protections required to be given to U.S. citizens under the Constitution?

Drifting Through The Grift has thoughts on the defense attorney:

Even more striking was the comments by Swift after the press conference. Interviewed by a CNN reporter, he was asked his feelings about arguing a case essentially against his superior, the commander in chief, in the chain of command.

Swift pointed out that it had happened several times in history and that he was, like President Bush, bound to defend the Constitution. He concluded by emphasizing that his participation and a peaceful resolution to a difficult problem exemplified the beauty of our system.

Amen, Commander Swift.

Marvin isn’t sweating it:

1) US Supreme Court again sez we can hold these folks.

2) US Supreme Court sez that a Military Commision is not the proper forum to try them for war crimes.

The US can Court-Martial them.
or Just continue to detain them.

Agreed but I share Mark Levine’s fears about interventionist courts.

Supreme Court Opinions:
Hamdan v. Rumsfeld
Clark v. AZ