Thursday, July 13, 2006

Why the "blogosphere" is something else.

Not that the events in Gaza and, especially, Lebanon aren't potentially far more important but they knocked the Mumbai train murders off the airwaves and I very much interested in following what comes from that particular senseless act of murderous brutality.

So I was interested to click in when I saw that Chicagoboyz' Lexington Green had posted The Mumbai Attack: A Success for "Global Guerillas"?

Lex's piece is a well constructed disagreement with a post, Bombing Systems in Bombay. That piece is by a man named John Robb who has a blog called Global Guerrillas. I am unfamiliar with both Mr. Robb and his blog but the article is interesting and I encourage those interested in the GWoT to read it. I tend to agree with Lex on this rather than John but John makes some points that need to be seriously considered. I just don't believe the Sploding Jihadidopes have reached anywhere near that level of capability.

But what makes this even more interesting and demonstrates why the "blogosphere" has such usefulness and even greater potential is that John responded to Lex who responded to John and the discussion was responded to, in turn, by Tom Barnett.

The exchange is, IMHO, thought provoking and well worth reading. One cannot get this level of discussion about a topic from any other media other than hard slogging in a big library - and especially not from the Presse Ancienne - in anything approaching this rapid level of delivery and small investment of time and effort on the part of the audience.

There's been much made of the screaming and catfights recently but just is no easier way to gain access to intelligent, in-depth, reasonably well-informed discussion so rapidly. Quite astonishing if'n you aks me.

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