Blogging and War

Instapundit highlights a column by Austin Bay and also posts reader John Beckwith's thoughts:

As it is, we came pretty close as a society and electorate to giving up last year. If we had, it's hard to see how the Jan 30 elections and and nascent democracy movement in the Middle East would have happened. If blog readers are as influential as some polls indicate, they may have done just enough to turn the tide. I ask because, by last fall, I was getting 90% of my Iraq news from blogs that provided an on the ground perspective from soldiers and Iraqis in theater instead of the major media outlets. This led me to be cautiously optimistic despite the problems we have there. Certainly this affected my vote on Nov 2. I doubt I was alone and I think this was a consequential election.

I doubt I influenced anyone much on how to vote in this last election. Nonetheless, the Iraq war is a huge part of why I started blogging (the biggest part was being required to have an account to comment on Random Gemini's blog and the fact that when I made a blogger account I had to have a blog name at least.) I have strong feelings, and I think some pretty good reasons for those feelings, on how we need to fight the War on Terror and what is the proper course for the Arab world. With an issue this big, it seems somewhat wrong to remain silent. As I said, I doubt I influenced anyone's vote. Perhaps though, I helped give someone an argument that influenced someone's vote. Perhaps I just helped build some understanding between people where otherwise it would not have existed.