24 February 2003

Information Warfare

I am running late already, not because I overslept, but because of the depth and texture to everything that is happening. My brain soaks it up like a sponge. It is supposed to snow the rest of the week.

More snow. The Commonwealth has spent the snow removal budget through 2015 already. This global warming is hell. I was trying to deal with that as the tide of information began to rise around me, filling up the little apartment and threatening to slosh out onto the balcony. Radio, web content, information I need to frame a busy working week.

The Democratic candidates for President are leaping up everywhere. It might be easier to say who isn't running, they clearly smell the prospect of disaster for the Second Bush, and for the same reasons his father his defeated. They have nothing to lose. Another charred body was found in the club in Rhode Island, new count 97; number of Grammies won by a 23-year-old I had never heard of (Nora Jones, five), the results of the first vaccine against Human Immuno- Deficiency Disease (not that good, but a start); opinion of the Non-Aligned movement on the coming war (they seem to be against it) and some consensus on what might be the smoking gun that starts it (missile called the Al Samoud 2). It appears that the hundred or so missiles that Saddam has in his inventory represent a clear violation of the arms sanctions, and now there they lie. Either he destroys them or the roof comes in. General Powell is on a three day whirlwind through Asia to shore up support, deal obliquely with North Korea and plead with the Chinese to not exercise the veto in the Security Council that the Communists inherited from Chang Kai Chek when they threw him across the channel to Formosa in 1948. The Secretary has to be the hardest working man in show business these days. The diplomatic heavy-lifting on this enterprise is complex only a robust figure like Mr. Powell could do it.

That is a lot of information before first coffee and I didn't even get to the sports scores. The only one that counted was my younger son's intramural league, and I didn't think I would find it on the web this morning, though you can't tell anymore. Since I was there, and early enough that I got tagged with keeping the official score book, I have an authoritative view. Despite being hacked and fouled throughout four quarters, they played valiantly. They only had one substitute and had to be on their best behavior. It was a barn-burner. My son's team rallied from a double digit deficit, only to lose in the last seconds, 66-65. Outside the gym the wind was gusting to near gale and the cold cut like blades.

Now a score like that is information you can use. Amid the torrent of everything else. I opened up my Internet service this morning to check the mail, see what other new information might be lurking. I continue to subscribe to America On Line, though my brand loyalty is beginning to run a little thin. If it were not for the effort required to transfer my address book elsewhere I would probably do it. The cover content page opened and the little icon told me I had fifteen new messages. I had cleaned off all the messages before I went to bed last night. I clicked on the "you've got mail" button and up came the list. Here is my overnight content for the Monday of the last week in February: a valuable offer to improve the performance of my septic system, an enticement for an advanced university degree, a compelling argument to reduce my mortgage payment, one to improve my website, own a casino, get a loan, consolidate my debt, two for Viagra and two promising measurable genital enlargement.

There was plenty of Spam for breakfast and nothing from anyone I cared about. I try to be a good subscriber, and I use the little button that AOL provides to block addresses of spammers, even though it takes an additional two clicks on the mouse to banish the offending spammer into the system buffers in the gigantic server farm out in Vienna, Virginia, where AOL has it's global headquarters.

There was only one message in the lot that had any promise, and that was from my friends at the New York Times. I scrolled through the highlights, noting which of the albums which won honors at the Grammies might be worth purchasing, and the fact that Simon and Garfunkle sang "Sounds of Silence" to open the show, not even appearing to despise each other. I clicked on a likely story that seemed to meet the needs of my increasingly frantic information morning.

THOM SHANKER and ERIC SCHMITT are already on the case, and based on the dateline, the lads worked right through Saturday to crank out a report on a war that appears to already be in progress. They claim the American military is starting an assault using a "growing arsenal of electronic and psychological weapons on the information battlefield." They cite a variety of highly placed sources who assert that a sophisticated assault of phone calls has been targeted at the private cellphone numbers of key leaders in Iraq, and over eight million leaflets have been dropped, presumably telling the military it might be wise to schedule a now day over the Ides of March. They quote a spokesman from the Central Command that will run the war as saying the goal of this information campaign is to win the war without firing a shot. I am definitely in favor of this approach. But as usual, this is a government enterprise and thus by definition ponderous. Not agile like the private sector.

They should contract this thing out, outsource the war. They could contract with our take-out food industry to do the leaflets, and our telemarketers to do the phone calls. "Hello! Am I speaking to Uday Hussein, son of the famous dictator? My name is Amy and I am calling to alert you to an exciting opportunity to live through March....."

I'll tell you what. If they sign up the spammers that have been targeting me, they will bludgeon the Iraqi people into submission in no time. And the upside of it all is that there will be no infrastructure damage after it is over. We will end sanctions, and occupy a nation with smoothly functioning septic systems, advanced university degrees, lower mortgages payments, consolidated debt and marvelously rewarding sex lives.