War / Peace

"When Allied forces were last on their way to the Gulf in 1991, the Internet was little more than a gaggle of bearded academics swapping information on their latest computer programs," reports Owen Gibson. Today, however, the web "is opening up a world of different perspectives and viewpoints. ...

Terrorists and the U.S. government are both using the media to achieve propaganda goals, according to Hafez Al Mirazi, bureau chief of the Al-Jazeera satellite TV network. "If CNN or Fox or others are not going to have breaking news flashing on their screens if Palestinians are killed, but only if Israelis are killed, then [terrorists] will go out and kill an Israeli," he said.

As an employee of the Hill & Knowlton PR firm, Lauri Fitz-Pegado helped coach Nayirah, the 15-year-old daughter of Kuwait's ambassadors whose false testimony about Iraqi atrocities helped build public suport for the first U.S. war in the Persian Gulf. Participating in one of the most scandalous PR scams of the 1990s hasn't hurt her career, though. After Operation Desert Storm, she went to work for Iridium LLC, a satellite phone company that went bankrupt a few years later.

The United for Peace and Justice coalition has secured a rally location for the New York city anti-war protest on February 15, announcing that "this massive, peaceful demonstration to stop the Iraq war will go forward no matter what. But in an outrageous attack on our civil liberties, Federal Judge Barbara Jones ruled ... that we may only hold a stationary rally. ... This fight is about far more than one protest march; it's about how much political space for dissent there will be in this country for the foreseeable future.