April 9, 2003

In This Issue

WITH "embedded journalists" and cool new technology, TV was supposed to bring all of the realities of the war in Iraq right into our living rooms. Instead, what we've gotten so far has been video games and sanitized action-adventure movies, stuff that would work just fine in military-recruiting ads. On the ground, obviously, the reality is a bit different: The U.S. troops are moving into Baghdad without major resistance – but people who live in that city are paying a pretty stiff price. There are hundreds, maybe thousands of civilian casualties that never make the evening news or the morning papers in the United States (although they do in Europe, and we've got some of the best of the British papers' material – particularly Robert Fisk of the London Independent – at sfbg.com).

(Fisk's latest line: The flash and dazzle of the bombing has made it hard to realize, he writes, "that a western army on a moral crusade has broken through to the heart of an Arab city for the first time since General Allenby marched into Jerusalem in 1918. But Allenby marched into Jerusalem on foot, in reverence for Christ's birthplace; Monday's American thrust into Baghdad had neither humility nor honor about it.")

Where you do see amazing footage of the war – the war at home – is on the Web, particularly at the San Francisco Bay Area Independent Media Center (sf.indymedia.org), which has done amazing work putting up the latest news from the ongoing antiwar protests. This is where technology is actually working: Within hours after the Oakland Police Department went crazy and started shooting rubber and wooden bullets into protesters at the Port of Oakland, the S.F. IMC had streaming video that showed the ugly welts all over the bodies of people who were unlucky enough to get in the way of the guns.

In other news: Judge Kay Tsenin decided Friday to dismiss the conspiracy charges against the five top cops in the Fajitagate scandal. As we note in an editorial on page 11, that was a mistake – this case should have gone to a jury. Now, five senior officers who were involved in what was clearly a cover-up are going back to work, with impunity. Bad stuff.

But, as A.C. Thompson reports on page 12, the case is by no means over.