This, in turn, has filtered back into Big Media. ABC's Nightline even aired an entire episode in which Ted Koppel toured Baghdad with blogger Salam Pax. A huge anti-terrorist demonstration featuring 20,000 Iraqis--almost completely ignored by large American media organizations--was covered by Zeyad, another Iraqi blogger, whose from-the-scene report and photographs were reprinted in the Weekly Standard the following week. (Zeyad's reports of thuggish behavior by security guards associated with the New York Times' Baghdad bureau also got some American attention.) Zeyad himself became the subject of a lengthy and positive profile in the online magazine Salon, which has generally taken a very negative line on the Iraq invasion. And Salon even went on to note, in a follow-up piece, that Zeyad had scooped the Times, and that the Times' explanations for its failure in coverage were not very impressive. That the Times was even forced to explain such failures, of course, was news: in previous conflicts, such an omission would have gone unnoticed, and the false picture created thereby would have been taken for truth.

Since the war, there has been even more hands-on work by bloggers. There are a number of military bloggers in Iraq, reporting all sorts of news without Big Media filters, and sometimes bypassing the chain of command. One blog report, by a Marine, that Al-Jazeera was actually paying people to shoot at U.S. troops during Iraqi protests was read by superiors and led to the arrest of some Al-Jazeera reporters. Another U.S. military blogger, using the pseudonym "Chief Wiggles", made arrangements for the delivery of toys and other supplies for Iraqi children with help from dozens of volunteers and thousands of donors in the United States. And reports of alleged U.S. troop misconduct in Iraq--also from Zeyad--produced a swift investigation once they received attention from weblogs, even though U.S. officials in Iraq had originally rebuffed Iraqis' requests to investigate. Iraqis were reassured when Chief Wiggles's blog noted that he was looking into the matter too, as he had earned their trust through his reporting and his actions.

The upshot is that the Internet is serving a role of disintermediation: Where once large media organizations reported facts on the ground (sometimes generating enough heat to bypass the chain of command and get investigations going), and large relief organizations delivered toys and medical supplies, now ad hoc operations involving dedicated individuals do the same thing. (An Internet-based charity, Spirit of America, has also been instrumental in coordinating volunteers and donations to get important supplies to American units in Iraq for distribution to Iraqis).

The Pro-War Effect?

This is a change, but it could, in theory, be a neutral one--the same functions being undertaken by different people. The reason why it has had something of a pro-war effect is happenstance: the people and organizations being disintermediated tend to take an anti-war, and sometimes (especially in the case of the relief organizations) anti-American line. Those replacing them tend to hold opposing views.

This doesn't mean that the projected role for the Internet in preventing war and in toppling tyrants won't materialize. In fact, it's probably the tyrant-toppling nature of the Iraq War that has confounded the usual predictions. Internet access may, in fact, build stronger bonds among nations--but nations ruled by tyrants are less likely to allow Internet access to begin with. Kim Jong-il's North Korea, for example, has not developed any sort of Internet community, and isn't likely to.

Looking elsewhere, the story is more complex. Iran has developed a large weblog culture--with literally tens of thousands of Iranian weblogs, many by women, providing an outlet for dissidents who are otherwise unable to share their views in the public sphere. The mullarchy ruling Iran isn't happy with this development and has tried to shut it down, with only limited success. When Iranian blogger Sina Motallebi was imprisoned, the Iranian government was taken aback by the strength of the international response, which was mediated by bloggers around the world. As Motallebi told the Online Journalism Review:

"There was a petition with more than 4,000 signatures on one site. And there was coverage of the story in the foreign media. And there was pressure from other countries that were concerned with human rights. I think they found the cost of arresting me more than they thought before. . . . They didn't expect the pressure from Webloggers and foreign media in my case. They think I'm an individual [freelance] journalist and not affiliated with any political party, I'm not an insider. So they think that when they arrested me, there wouldn't be strong pressure to release me. But the community of bloggers came together and helped me, and spread the news around the Web, and became united."

Though it would be easy to exaggerate the amount of pressure that the Internet is putting on the Iranian mullahs, it is certainly the case that the mullahs themselves regard the new medium as a serious problem. Internet pressure, and freelance reporting by individuals coupled with self-organization on the Web to protect those individuals, becomes yet another burden for tyrannical regimes.

The Iranian example illustrates another potential of the Internet--the extension of disintermediation to diplomacy. Internet-based businesses have already cut out the middlemen in commerce, and Internet bloggers are cutting out the middlemen in journalism. But the growth of Iranian and Iraqi blogs, and the close interaction between many of these bloggers and their counterparts in America and elsewhere, suggests that the Internet may, in time, come to displace some of the work of diplomats. While government-to-government negotiations are likely to remain the province of professionals, the role of diplomats as a public face for their home country may be reduced as communication between individuals and small groups becomes widespread. Though the potential for misunderstanding is significant, it is probably smaller--and less likely to be significant in any individual instance--where this sort of communication goes on.

The definitive story of the Internet and the War on Terror has not yet been written, and such a story would undoubtedly include events not mentioned above--such as, to name just one, the role of "white hat" hackers in pursuing and sometimes even seizing control of Al-Qaeda affiliated websites. But it seems safe to say that prewar predictions that the Internet would be a force against war, and in favor of lefty, EU-style moral equivalency human rights advocates, turn out to have been partly right, but not in the way advocates seem to have thought. The Internet turned out to be a stronger force for human rights properly understood than for peace at any price, and the ability of people to use the Internet to bypass traditional organizations with different priorities has made a significant difference. This effect will probably grow larger over time. With the growing ubiquity of digital cameras (including digital video cameras) and broadband Internet access, the gatekeeper role of traditional news media, and other international organizations, is likely to disappear.

Such a change is unlikely to be "pro-war" or "anti-war" in the abstract. Rather, it is likely to change the kinds of wars that get good coverage. Wars that liberate oppressed populations, and especially wars that do so with minimal civilian casualties, are likely to fare the best. It is the good fortune of the United States that those are the sorts of wars it is likely to be fighting in the foreseeable future.