news and information

[winterbadger]

I've gotten into a number of discussions recently about the war in Iraq with people who I had a good deal of respect for going into the discussion but whom I have found I resepct less coming out the other side because they seem unwilling to question their own opinions or (worst of all to me) to fully inform themselves. They seem to buy a POV from one part of the political spectrum or another and go no further in exploring to find out more. They don't seem to approach information sources critically, just accept ones that agree with the POV they're comfortable with and demonize those that disagree as "spin," "lies," and so forth. Also, they seem tunable to discuss differences of opinion in a rational, mature way without descending into personal abuse.

Not much one can do about the latter (everyone matures, or fails to do so, at their own speed), but FWIW I'd like to do what I can to share information sources. Some of my friends are always coming up with new ones I haven't heard about, and I think that at least part of the difficulty in acheiving productive debate and discussion is that a good many people rely just on a few easy to use news outlets that they accept pretty uncritically.

And that critical approach is tremendously important. No news source--professional, amateur, government, commercial--is without its bias. To be able to use a news source effectively, one needs to be able to recognize what its bias is and how that shapes the way it presents (or withholds) information. Just labeling the sources one likes "reliable" and the sources one doesn't "untrustworthy" is too simplistic; one needs to go deeper than that, or risk swallowing something whole (or throwing it out entirely) without regard to its limitations (or possible value).

Before going on to my list, I'll acknowledge that I have some sources of information--and some personal biases--that I know not everyone shares. I have or have had personal and professional relationships with a good number of people in the US military, diplomatic, intelligence, and law enforcement community. I also have access to unclassified but restricted sources of information, and have worked with classified material in the past. Some information I can't share for security reasons. Other information I can't discuss because it was divulged to me in confidence--passing it on wouldn't break any law, but it might get people in trouble. But very little of that information is critical to this ongoing discussion; one of the interesting (to me) and surprising things about classified data is how tactical it usually is--it may dictate how a specific situation or operation is handled, including operations that are essential tot he *implementation* of policy, but it rarely proves crucial to broad policy decisions.

OK, so enough of my opinions &c. Below is an attempt at a comprehensive list of useful and interesting information sources that touch on public policy as it relates to foreign affairs in general and with specific focus in Iraq and the Middle East. If there's somethign you don't see here that you find useful for information or just perspective, please feel free to include it as a comment. Also feel free to comment on sources you do see listed here.

I've tried to break things up into a few categories to keep them from simply being overwhelming; I've not made a lot of specific comments, though. I'm not claiming this is by any means exhaustive or comprehensive, or that my list is free of metabias--like everyone else, I *tend* towards reading sources that present news from a particular POV; I just try to find other POVs as well. And I have my technology biases as well; I don't spend much time on chat boards, because I find the signal-to-noise ratio rather low, but I recognize that there are some coherent, insightful people that post to them (in a kind of "salmon fighting their way upriver" kind of way). I also don't use television much at all for gathering news, simply because if I have time to watch TV I prefer to use it in different ways. Most of my news and perspective comes from the Web, from the radio, and from books. And, yes, some of them are on topics more generally related to my day-to-day work.

Media

http://english.aljazeera.net/HomePage
http://www.asiasource.org
http://www.nytimes.com/pages/aponline/news/
http://news.bbc.co.uk
http://www.cnn.com
http://www.dailystar.com.lb/
http://www.doonesbury.com/media/dailybriefing
http://news.findlaw.com
http://www.guardian.co.uk
http://www.independent.co.uk
http://www.interfax.ru
http://www.nytimes.com
http://www.onlinejournalism.com/topics/index.php
http://english.peopledaily.com.cn
http://www.prospect.org/web/index.ww
http://www.reuters.com/
http://www.salon.com
http://slate.msn.com/
http://releases.usnewswire.com
http://www.npr.org/
http://www.wamu.org
http://www.washingtonpost.com
http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/

Government

http://www.9-11commission.gov/
http://call.army.mil/
http://www.centcom.mil/
http://www.ndu.edu/ctnsp/home.html
http://www.cia.gov/
http://www.cpa-iraq.org/
http://www.defenselink.mil/
http://www.dhs.gov/dhspublic/
http://www.ndu.edu/inss/insshp.html
http://www.portaliraq.com/
http://www.rferl.org/specials/iraqcrisis/
http://www.whitehouse.gov/nsc/index.html
http://www.state.gov/
http://www.carlisle.army.mil/ssi/

Think tanks and other academic resources

http://www.acronym.org.uk
http://www.armscontrol.ru
http://www.apcss.org
http://www.armscontrol.org
http://www.bnsc.gov.uk
http://www.basicint.org
http://www.americanprogress.org
http://www.cooperativeresearch.org
http://www.cdi.org
http://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/academic/intrel/research/cstpv/
http://www.csis.org
http://www.cfr.org
http://www.fas.org/
http://www.foreignaffairs.org
http://globalsecurity.org
http://www.hoover.org/
http://www.iiss.org/
http://www.ips-dc.org/
http://www.isn.ethz.ch/
http://www.iraqfoundation.org/index.html
http://www.istc.ru
http://www.jinsa.org
http://www.loyola.edu/dept/politics/intel.html
http://www.nautilus.org
http://www.newamericanstrategies.org
http://www.nti.org
http://www.ransac.org
http://www.sipri.se/

Blogs

http://www.spinsanity.org
http://suhax.blogspot.com
http://www.back-to-iraq.com
http://www.cipherwar.com
http://www.commondreams.org
http://www.dailykos.com
http://hammorabi.blogspot.com
http://healingiraq.blogspot.com
http://iraq-iraqis.blogspot.com
http://iraqataglance.blogspot.com
http://lunaville.org/warcasualties/Summary.aspx
http://iraqthemodel.blogspot.com
http://iraqi-dude.blogspot.com
http://ishtartalking.blogspot.com
http://kurdo.blogspot.com
http://fayrouz.blogspot.com
http://www.nielsenhayden.com/makinglight
http://mediamatters.org
http://www.zackvision.com/weblog
http://www.roadofanation.com/blog
http://www.schneier.com/index.html
http://sunofiraq.blogspot.com
http://www.blackcommentator.com/index.html
http://www.thememoryhole.org/index.htm
http://messopotamian.blogspot.com
http://www.muhajabah.com/islamicblog/veiled4allah.php
http://andrewsullivan.com
http://www.tacitus.org
http://www.vodkapundit.com
http://www.warblogs.cc/
http://dear_raed.blogspot.com/

Books

(I'll add these and my Israel-Palestine links later on)

Comments

[dwarfrage.livejournal.com]

May want to take a look at http://talkingpointmemo.com it's the liberal-centrist counterpoint to Sullivan's conservative centrist. (Actually I found it via Sullivan).

[robbysmom.livejournal.com]

Badgie, bravo!

dawrf, good addition: typo in the link: it's

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/

[winterbadger]

Interesting site; thanks for the referral, guys!