Warmongers and Traitors

Robin Mullen Boyd's book, "Warmongers and Traitors", is an off-shoot of this cosmic shift in information flow. It is one of the first books to actually compile postings from message boards and to somehow derive an understanding of the subject at hand, as well as the way people view it and talk about it.

This book selects thirteen different subjects related to the Iraq War, everything from the "blood for oil" controversy to Baghdad Bob. It is filled with reasoned arguments as well as the vitriol that typically fills message boards. Yet it is all instructive.

The web seems to be the new grapevine of modern society. Rumor and innuendo are rampant. Yet it is also the place where ideas are hashed out before they are tried. Bulletin boards perform a slightly different service than websites. While websites convey information in a controlled manner (by the webmaster), message boards are more of a cathartic free-for-all. They are a way for every viewpoint, no matter how ridiculous, to be aired. While they sometimes encourage fools and hot-heads, they also illustrate to the majority of readers every side of an issue, sides they would never be exposed to by the main-stream media.

One of the bad things about message boards is their transient nature. As a record for historians they are unreliable. All trace of them can be lost or destroyed at the whim of a webmaster. Even boards that remain on the web for years, especially if they are well-traficked, have threads that become obscure and seldom read.

As message boards generally contain immediate and often visceral reactions to current events, they give us a view of human psychology and even the mood of a people or class of people. Stock traders frequently visit stock message boards to get a feel for what the stockholders think about the company. They even make their own contributions to the board in the hope of influencing that opinion. In the same manner political operatives monitor message boards, gauging their candidate's chances or shaping policy on what they glean there.

Robin Mullins Boyd has done historians as well as contemporary readers a great service by publishing these exchanges on the Iraq War message boards. While she has largely remained aloof from the boards themselves, she is not afraid to express her own opinions on the subjects discussed. This serves two purposes. First, it lets us know where the author is coming from. Second, it shows how someone who has viewed the material in detail and then analyzed it comes to their own conclusions.

Anyone who has experienced reading message boards knows that there is considerable extraneous nonsense and off-topic diversions to be waded through to get to the nub of the matter. Fortunately Ms. Boyd has sifted the material and removed the grubs, bugs and lumps. We are left with a fascinating give and take.

Warmongers and Traitors is a new approach to political science and history. It is recommended for anyone wanting to understand the political side of the Iraq War and its relation to the world wide web.