Wednesday, June 4, 2003A minor legend in his own time. In some circles (the blogerati??) he is a legend already. An Iraqi who wrote on a public weblog before, DURING, and after the war. Lots of speculation that he might not be a real person. Or that he was some CCD (camouflage, concealment, deception) of the U.S. or whomever. Turns out he is very much a real, normal Iraqi.
Jonathan: Translating from theoryspeak to geekspeak. Now that I think of it, the most powerful thing about blogging may be that it pushes use towards a more conversational form and get us away from the sort of jargon-filled speech we all use professionally.
Speaking of which, there's this from today's Salam Pax story in the LA Times:
"He's a lot like us but he's not us," Maass said in an interview. "Salam sees what's happening around him ? the tragedy or the absurdity and he communicates it in a human voice that most journalists don't have."
Related: Salam's famous blog (possibly still the only one in Iraq), his new Guardian column, the Slate piece by Peter Maass that blew Salam's cover (for a long time Maass didn't know Salam was his own interpreter ? a great story), and Paul Boutin, who, as the oft-quoted Geekjourno On The Case, assured us for some time that evidence suggested Salam was for Real.
Salam's column, like his blog, is the most encouraging sound to come out of the war: a voice so human it makes propaganda into a joke. A sample:
"Vacancies: President needed - fluent in English, will have limited powers only. Generous bonuses." This appeared on the first page of the Ahrar newspaper. Another new weekly. Newspapers are coming out of our ears these days. There are two questions which no one can answer: how many political parties are there now in Iraq? And how many newspapers are printed weekly?" Most of these papers are just two or four pages of party propaganda, no license or hassle. Just go print. I am thinking of getting my own: "Pax News - all the rumours, all the time".
On the first page of the Ahrar paper you will also see a picture and a column by the founder and chief editor. When the newspaper guy noticed how I was staring at the picture he said: "Yes, it is the guy who sells Znood-al-sit [a popular Iraqi sweet]". From pastry to news, wars do strange things to people....
Although the ministry of information has been broken up and around 2,000 employees given the boot, the media industry, if you can call it that, is doing very well. Beside all the papers we now have a TV channel and radio; they are part of what our American minders have called the Iraqi media network. My favourite TV show on it is an old Japanese cartoon (here it is called Adnan wa Lina). It is about what happens after a third world war when chaos reigns the earth. Bad choice for kids' programming if you ask me. Some cities have their own local stations and there are two Kurdish TV channels. But the BBC World Service killed in one move a favourite Iraqi pastime: searching for perfect reception. The BBC Arabic service started broadcasting on FM here and it is just not the same when you don't hear the static.
And here's the opening passage of The Cluetrain Manifesto:
A powerful global conversation begun. Through the Internet, people are discovering and inventing new ways to share relevant knowledge with blinding speed. As a direct result, markets are getting smarter ? and getting smarter faster than most companies.
These markets are conversations. Their members communicate in language that is natural, open, honest, direct, funny and often shocking. Whether explaining or complaining, joking or serious, the human voice is unmistakably genuine. It can't be faked.
Four years later, I see Salam Pax as the living opposite of the Dutch kid with his finger in the dike.
A voice inside me says At last...
[The Doc Searls Weblog]
- Posted by William A. Riski - 9:53:05 PM - comment []
From George Wright in The Guardian: Wolfowitz: Iraq war was about oil. Sez the Wolf,
Let's look at it simply. The most important difference between North Korea and Iraq is that economically, we just had no choice in Iraq. The country swims on a sea of oil.
William Blaze points to the above and says,
Christ, I almost have to respect Wolfowitz, despite all his evil, he at least shoots straighter then the rest of the Washington chickenhawk terror squad. The lies are coming out in the open. The question is, does anyone really care? My gut is that they do care, but not on a scandal level. Come next years elections though, Bush is going to be in trouble convincing people to trust him. He better pray for economic recovery fast...
Daniel Drezner calls Wright's piece a galactically stupid distortion. I've heard Wolfowitz being interviewed before, however, and I don't think it's much of a distortion at all. Basically, Wolfowitz believes we needed to hit Iraq because (a) they matter (which countries with less-enriched geologies don't), and (b) because we could. This is exactly what Thomas Friedman wrote in Because We Could, his NY Times column this morning (hope that link stays live):
The failure of the Bush team to produce any weapons of mass destruction (W.M.D.'s) in Iraq is becoming a big, big story. But is it the real story we should be concerned with? No. It was the wrong issue before the war, and it's the wrong issue now.
Why? Because there were actually four reasons for this war: the real reason, the right reason, the moral reason and the stated reason.
The "real reason" for this war, which was never stated, was that after 9/11 America needed to hit someone in the Arab-Muslim world. Afghanistan wasn't enough because a terrorism bubble had built up over there ? a bubble that posed a real threat to the open societies of the West and needed to be punctured. This terrorism bubble said that plowing airplanes into the World Trade Center was O.K., having Muslim preachers say it was O.K. was O.K., having state-run newspapers call people who did such things "martyrs" was O.K. and allowing Muslim charities to raise money for such "martyrs" was O.K. Not only was all this seen as O.K., there was a feeling among radical Muslims that suicide bombing would level the balance of power between the Arab world and the West, because we had gone soft and their activists were ready to die.
The only way to puncture that bubble was for American soldiers, men and women, to go into the heart of the Arab-Muslim world, house to house, and make clear that we are ready to kill, and to die, to prevent our open society from being undermined by this terrorism bubble. Smashing Saudi Arabia or Syria would have been fine. But we hit Saddam for one simple reason: because we could, and because he deserved it and because he was right in the heart of that world. And don't believe the nonsense that this had no effect. Every neighboring government ? and 98 percent of terrorism is about what governments let happen ? got the message. If you talk to U.S. soldiers in Iraq they will tell you this is what the war was about.
The "stated reason," of course, was weapons of mass destruction, a red herring from the start. I thought it was obvious they were gone because getting rid of them was the one way Saddam Hussein could stay in power. It was his last chess move. A way to say in check and avoid checkmate. He didn't realize that the U.S. would lie to itself and blow off the inspectors' findings in order to oust him anyway.
Anyway, once again, Tom Friedman serves as the de facto Minister of Lucidity for the Bush administration.
What blows me away about this is the simplistic mentality behind the whole thing, and the belief that the ends justify the means ? even as the means amount to Operation Piss Off the Planet.
Check here, here and here. I could list more, but you get the drift.
By the way, the "real reason" for the war was stated, often, by plenty of warbloggers. Read Nick Denton last August. He nailed it:
The US needs to destroy Saddam Hussein's regime because he's a bad man, sure, because he may conceivably be connected with Al-Qaeda, because he's developing weapons of mass destruction, because a friendly Iraq would alter the balance of power in the Middle East, sure, because of all of that. But the US needs to destroy Saddam Hussein's regime mainly because the West needs to humiliate the Arab world, and dispel the Islamic millennial fantasy.
That was, pretty much, the plan.
And it's a long way from playing out.
[The Doc Searls Weblog] - Posted by William A. Riski - 9:34:32 PM - comment []
