Dear Salam, Where Are You?

Sunday, February 16, 2003

3.45 am

I helped my mother pack things today. We have not decided to leave Baghdad
if "it" happens, but just in case we absolutely have to. We are very
efficient packers, me and my mom. The worst packers are the emotional ones.

The (oh-let’s-remember-when-I-bought-this-thing) packers, we just do it
in cold blood, we have done this quite often, we are serial packers. Grrrrrrrr.

Sunday, March 23, 2003

8:30 pm (Day 4)

We start counting the hours from the moment one of the news channels report
that the B52s have left their airfield. It takes them around six hours to get to
Iraq. On the first day of the bombing, it worked precisely. Yesterday, we were a
bit surprised that after six hours, bombs didn’t start falling. The attacks on
Baghdad were much less than two days ago. We found out today in the news that
the city of Tikrit got the hell bombed out of it. Today, the B52s took off at 3
pm, and on half an hour, we will know whether it is Baghdad tonight or another
city. Karbala was also hit last night.

From the blog of an Iraqi who calls himself Salam Pax (peace in Arabic and
Latin)

(http://dear_raed.blogspot.com)

At
the time of going to press, Salam Pax had not written for 11 days. Those who
follow Salam’s Web diary hope it’s just a server problem (he had one in
mid-March). They fear it isn’t.

It’s a whole new information paradigm. It’s straight from the horse’s
mouth, bypasses all official channels, and it’s uncensored.

It’s Anne Frank’s Diary in real time. Blogs–shorthand for Web logs–are
online versions of daily diaries that people maintain on the Net, most of them
for public view and comment. Originally the exclusive domain of fringe tech
enthusiasts, the war on Iraq has made them mainstream. The Agonist, The Command
Post, A Civilian War Diary, Back to Iraq 2.0, War Blogs: cc, Live from Kuwait...–they’re
all over the Net.

The two most visited and most famous are coming from the heart of the
battlefield–one of a Navy reserve called Lt Smash, Live From the Sandbox, and
another of a 29-year-old Iraqi called ‘Where is Raed?’ There are others–coalition
soldiers in the Gulf who are officially allowed Internet facilities. Journalists
embedded with various Army divisions who blog in addition to sending in their
daily reports (though one blog site recently had it that CNN had forbidden its
reporters from blogging–for fear that they may be putting out uncensored,
politically incorrect stories). Academics and politicians. But what do blog
sites really offer? Some have argued that this is just vanity–the kick of
putting up your innermost thoughts up on the Net for public viewing. But is it?

Vanity or truth?

Sometimes it is vanity, but war blogs have gone beyond that. They have
become online meeting places. Sometimes acting as venues for venting spleen, a
little fist-shaking for people who have no other means of showing their
frustration. Sometimes as sources of real information that official authorities
either refuse to give or sanitize.

When Salam Pax began writing, he was constantly mailed by media watchers and
bloggers on whether he was real. On whether he was actually in Iraq. And if he
was, was he just a propaganda tool of Saddam Hussein? "Please stop sending
e-mails asking if I were for real. If you don’t believe it, then don’t read
it. I am not anybody’s propaganda ploy. Well, except my own," Salam Pax
wrote. As it turned out, while Pax was no fan of the war, he was no fan of
Saddam Hussein either. "The radio plays war songs from the ’80s non-stop.
We know them all by heart. Songs saying things like ‘We will be with you till
the day we die, Saddam’. No one gave that line too much thought, but somehow,
these days, it sounds sinister," he wrote one day. And on another, "We
also saw the latest Sahaf show on Al-Jazeera and Iraq TV, and the most
distressing minister of interior affairs with his guns. Hurling abuse at the
world is the only thing left for them to do."

In search of the uncensored...

Dataquest spoke to a few bloggers on why they hang out at such sites.
"Why do I war blog? It’s more objective, with less disinformation than
you may find on news agency websites," says Tom C, who frequents sites like
the agonist.org, sifting through tons of postings for an idea of what the war is
doing to the US. "I hang out at places like the agonist.org because I want
to know if the US is going to end up being hated by most of the world’s
governments, and that really concerns me. I just want the truth–not
disinformation from all the governments and the US military."

To
be sure, opinion easily mixes with observation and fact on blogs–as it does in
personal diaries. The absence of an editor or an ‘official sponsor’ often
puts credibility of facts under question. Not always, though. In the US,
bloggers caught New York Times on two glaring errors on the number of deaths
reported in Afghanistan, forcing the paper to retract. Blogs, however, are not
merely about information. They’re a lot more about thoughts uncensored and
undirected by news hawks and speechwri-ters. "On BBC, we are watching
scenes of Iraqis surrendering. My youngest cousin was muttering ‘What a
Shame!" to himself. Yes, it is better for them to do that, but still,
seeing them carrying that white flag makes something deep inside you
cringe." Now what’s to question in that?

The blogs of war

This, in many ways, is what one writer called the ‘War of Blogs’. The
Spanish War of the 1890s–it was delivered at American homes every morning
through the newspapers of William Randolph Hearst. Radio brought World War II to
the living room through the voices of correspondents like Edward Murrow. The
sights and sounds of the Vietnam War came home in black and white television
sets. Desert Storm came in color through satellite. This time, the reins of
information and opinion are not in the hands of a few people. This time, Lt
Smash and Salam Pax speak to you direct. Technology, like time and death, is
becoming the great leveler.

Sarita Rani in Bangalore

A Whole New Information War

You disastrously overestimate the chances of a regime change leaving a stable
democracy. The US bombed these countries for that reason:

And in how many countries did they leave a stable govt? None (except for S
Korea). Also, in 1941, the British attacked the Iraqi Army in Basra, ousting the
president and installing a pro-British govt. How long did that govt last?

Posted by Phroggie on March 12, 2003 05:08 am. From the blog site deanesmay.com. Post to be found at
http://www.deanesmay.com/archives/000790.html