Demon in the Dark

The Buzz
Machine is posting live from a conference on blogging at Harvard. I've left
the typos in and excerpted a few lines. One eye catching exchange goes as
follows:

: Jimbo Wales, founder of Wikipedia, says that a few years ago, nobody
could have predicted that a bunch of unpaid citizens could replace the
Encyclopedia Brittanica with its budget of $350 million but it happened. He
said that the business model of The New York Times is not sustainable.
Abramson shudders, of course. Kaplan said Wales doesn't know what he's talking
about; he has not been in a place like Baghdad and does not know the
dififculty of getting information there and does not know how the existing
system can be replaced.

:Hinderaker goes back to Bill Mitchell's question from his presentation, in
which he asked what tool we need to help build trust. Hinderaker says it would
help to show us the material behind the story. The attitude bloggers have is
-- via the link: "See for yourself. Don't take our word for it."

Then somewhat later.

: Jill Abramson, an editor at the NY Times, and Dave Winer, get
kerfluffling together and I can't summarize it well. But I entered in when she
went on about the expense of keeping journalists in Iraq -- which is true and
for which we are grateful. But I started telling the story of Zeyad taking
his camera to cover an antiterrorism demonstration last December that The
Times didn't cover. As soon as I mention it, Abramson starts shaking her
head and looking away.

: Abramson said that it is "completely contrary" to the
histyry and standards of The Times to run content that they do not vet.

I would have given anything to have asked whether Abramson of the Times
preferred an unidentified AP stringer taking pictures of Iraqi election workers
being executed on Haifa
Street over Zeyad, and why. But that would have been churlish, and I must
admit, intellectually shallow. The really interesting question was posed by
Jimbo Wales. The engine that enabled Wikipedia
to overtake Brittanica at the encyclopedia game was self-evidently a powerful
one; a phenomenon, which I am tempted to surmise may structurally resemble
asymmetrical warfare. Abramson shuddered and well she should. But at what? What
was out there in the dark about which these conference participants are talking?
It is a something that has already swallowed Brittanica. No one is quite sure
what it is, but everyone should be quite certain that it will strike again.

The Lost Elections 3

The target="_blank">Washington
Post report on Iraqi elections is unlikely to convince those who regard it
as 'illegitimate' otherwise because the polling results on which the story is
based were funded by the National Endowment for Democracy.

BAGHDAD, Jan. 20 -- An overwhelming majority of Iraqis continue to say they
intend to vote on Jan. 30 even as insurgents press attacks aimed at rendering
the elections a failure, according to a new public opinion survey. The poll,
conducted in late December and early January for the International Republican
Institute, found 80 percent of respondents saying they were likely to vote, a
rate that has held roughly steady for months.

"Despite the efforts of the terrorists, Iraqis remain committed to
casting their vote on election day," IRI President Lorne Craner said in a
statement. The organization, which is funded by Congress through the National
Endowment for Democracy and the U.S. Agency for International Development,
commissioned the poll, which surveyed 1,900 Iraqis in all but two of the
country's 18 provinces. Poor security made two in the far north, Nineveh and
Dohuk, inaccessible. The margin of error was plus or minus 3 percentage
points.

Wouldn't the only way of verifying the poll predictions be to hold the
elections? That would assume the existence of compelling objective arguments
which still persuade both sides of the current debate over the War on Terror.
Peggy Noonan is afraid that the time of argument is over; positions have become
an article of religious faith. In an article entitled href="http://www.opinionjournal.com/columnists/pnoonan/?id=110006184"
target="_blank">Too
Much God, Noonan says:

The inaugural address itself was startling. It left me with a bad feeling,
and reluctant dislike. Rhetorically, it veered from high-class boilerplate to
strong and simple sentences, but it was not pedestrian. George W. Bush's
second inaugural will no doubt prove historic because it carried a punch,
asserting an agenda so sweeping that an observer quipped that by the end he
would not have been surprised if the president had announced we were going to
colonize Mars.

The president's speech seemed rather heavenish. It was a God-drenched
speech. This president, who has been accused of giving too much attention to
religious imagery and religious thought, has not let the criticism enter
him. God was invoked relentlessly. "The Author of Liberty."
"God moves and chooses as He wills. We have confidence because freedom is
the permanent hope of mankind . . . the longing of the soul." It seemed a
document produced by a White House on a mission.

The Left has been on a mission for a long time; what alarms them and even
some conservatives is that they may have conjured up their own mirror image on
the Right. This is less an intellectual development than an emotional one. Wars
do not alter the underlying causes of conflict, but they fundamentally sharpen
the attitudes of those who fight them to the point where the ultimate goal of
the struggle becomes victory itself. The armies of the First World War could not
bring themselves to retreat from strategically insignificant ground simply
because they had paid so much in blood for it. They had to keep or declare it
was not worth the price. You could not break the faith on Flanders Fields. The
intractability of modern Leftism is the understandable result of the defeat they
have endured in recent years. But until recently large parts of Conservatism
exuded the easy air of the Reagan years, and answered in the part-humorous,
part-taunt of P. J. O'Rourke. But the grim struggle with domestic Liberalism and
foreign terror has left its mark. "Man, I look old" President Bush was
target="_blank">reported
to have said when he saw his photo on the cover of Time Magazine.

Whatever the War on Terror is, it is a duel to the death. A glance
at target="_blank">Juan
Cole's website -- which is a reliable thermometer of Leftist temper -- is a
case in point. It should be the website of a respectable academic but it's a
shrine to half-forgotten causes and a casket of exorcisms against
half-apprehended devils. To illustrate the right of peaceful assembly he has a
photo of flag-draped military caskets being shipped home. To illustrate the the
8th Amendment he has an Abu Ghraib photo. Noonan worries about religion. So do
I, coming upon a room of stubbed out and smoked ideas. As for the elections,
Cole says they are a href="http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/0,2106,3158868a10,00.html"
target="_blank">joke,
and it is doubtful if any poll would persuade him otherwise.

"These elections are a joke," said Juan Cole, a professor of
modern Middle East history at the University of Michigan. "The Bush
administration has created the worst possible advertisement for democracy
because the perception across the Middle East is that democracy means you get
a country where everything is out of control," he said.

If so, he is the only one laughing, though maybe we all did once, and I
forget whether that's a promise or a threat.

The Lost Elections 2

The Iraqi
Election Newswire links to this letter in the href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1395206,00.html"
target="_blank">Guardian
which exactly echoes the analysis of the href="http://http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20050207&s=editors">Nation.

Iraq is being denied free and fair elections, after enduring decades of
Saddam's brutal dictatorship. The US and British occupation governments have
engineered a process for reproducing the US-appointed Iraqi interim government
to prolong the occupation and incite sectarian and ethnic conflicts.

Millions of Iraqis, under siege in many parts of their homeland, will be
disenfranchised. While boycotting this undemocratic exercise, we strongly
condemn all forms of violence against Iraqis participating in it. We, as
exiles, are confident that the vast majority of Iraqis, at home and abroad,
shall unite to end the US-led occupation and establish democracy, whatever
their stance on participation.

We echo opinions within Iraq stressing the impossibility of holding free
and fair elections while under occupation, and being subjected to war crimes
by the US-led forces.

However, we support demands for minimal pre-conditions: setting a strict
timetable for the withdrawal of all occupation forces; ceasing all attacks,
and confining all occupation forces to barracks until withdrawal; ending
martial law and releasing all political prisoners; establishing an independent
election commission, led by Iraq's senior serving and retired judges, and
including all Iraq's political forces. It could be assisted by anti-occupation
figures, eg Nelson Mandela, and the UN. Sami Ramadani, Haifa Zangana, Prof
Kamal Majid, Tahrir Numan, Dr Imad Khaddur, iMundher Adhami, and 14
others.

The Nation
advocated exactly the same thing: that the US give up on the election as a
botched job and retreat from Iraq as quickly as possible confident that things
will work themselves out.

Therefore, for the sake of Iraq's future and the safety of our young men
and women, the United States must begin an orderly withdrawal, coordinated
with stepped-up US and international economic assistance. We recognize that
further violence and internal fighting among Iraqis may follow, but to believe
that a continuing US military presence can prevent this is na�ve or
disingenuous; it will, rather, contribute to the instability. The best
long-term outcome is for Iraqis to regain control of their own country and
sort out their own future.

Those who may have hoped that 'insurgents' could somehow prevent the Iraqi
elections from taking place have given that up as a botched job and
fallen back on Plan B. The belated emergence of the 'elections are rigged' line,
only two weeks from the scheduled polls, are virtual admissions that they cannot
now be stopped. They can only be discredited. In all probability the new line
will be. 'So what if elections were held in Iraq. It's still illegitimate, etc.'
That sad thing about that is it will tend to immunize the elected candidates in
the eyes of American Conservatives and mask any real shortcomings they may have
in the turbulence of ideological conflict. That process has already done much to
deodorize 'insurgents' who, properly considered, are by any standard some of the
lowest sorts of snakes ever to slither in the dust.

That said, the 'elections are rigged' line is a masterpiece of irony. There
is oblique reference to 'millions of Iraqis, under siege' without identifying
the besiegers; it disenfranchises voters in Shi'ite and Kurdish Iraq, by making
their suffrage contingent upon the pleasure of their former Ba'athist masters.
It is in effect, an announcement of electoral results before the first vote has
been cast, which in a way, has the force of custom behind it. In
October, 2002 href="http://archives.cnn.com/2002/WORLD/meast/10/16/iraq.vote/"
target="_blank">CNN
reported that Saddam had won 100 percent of votes in a referendum granting him
another seven year term. Now that was a peaceful and legitimate election.

Baghdad, Iraq -- Iraq has declared Saddam Hussein the winner with 100
percent of the votes in a referendum granting him another seven-year term,
bringing bursts of celebratory gunfire in Baghdad's streets. The
statistics-busting result were seen in Baghdad as a message of defiance to
U.S. President George W. Bush and his declared desire to end Saddam's 23-year
rule."Our leader President Saddam Hussein, may God preserve him and look
after him, has won 100 percent of the votes of eligible voters," said
Saddam's top deputy Izzat Ibrahim, reading official results at a news
conference in Baghdad. Saddam was the only candidate in the referendum ...

Ibrahim, vice-chairman of Iraq's Revolutionary Command Council, said all
11,445,638 Iraqis eligible to vote had done so and every single one of them
answered "Yes" to another seven-year term for Saddam, 65, who was
appointed president in 1979.

The Lost Elections

The Nation argues in its article
href="http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20050207&s=editors">
Iraq's Lost Election that the elections in Iraq are a lost cause
because the
interim government and the United States have failed to provide adequate
security for the campaign and balloting to take place according to an accepted
standard.

As Dexter Filkins of the New York Times reported, rather than the normal
democratic ritual of voters and candidates, what Iraqis know is
"a campaign in
the shadows, where candidates are often too terrified to say their names.
Instead of holding rallies, they meet voters in secret, if they meet them at
all. Instead of canvassing for votes, they fend off death
threats." Filkins
further reported: "Of the 7,471 people who have filed to run,
only a handful
outside the relatively safe Kurdish areas have publicly identified
themselves.
The locations for the 5,776 polling places have not been announced, lest they
become targets for attacks."

As conditions deteriorated, it became harder for the Bush
Administration to
spin the upcoming poll to choose an Iraq National Assembly as a major step
toward restoring security. Gen. George Casey, commander of coalition
forces in
Iraq, predicted more violence on election day and "for some
time" thereafter,
while a new US intelligence estimate foresees the elections being followed by
more violence and possible civil war. ...

As long as the occupation continues, any Iraqi government or constitution
will be tainted and incapable of producing the compromises necessary for a
stable and unified Iraq. Therefore, for the sake of Iraq's future and the
safety of our young men and women, the United States must begin an orderly
withdrawal, coordinated with stepped-up US and international economic
assistance. We recognize that further violence and internal fighting among
Iraqis may follow, but to believe that a continuing US military presence can
prevent this is na�ve or disingenuous; it will, rather, contribute to the
instability. The best long-term outcome is for Iraqis to regain control of
their own country and sort out their own future.

There are two parts to the Nation's indictment. The first is that the
elections will fail; and second, that even if elections formally take place a
civil war will follow. From these premises they conclude that  the United
States should withdraw, but not before leaving a large chunk of money,
though to
whom is not explained; that civil war may follow anyway, yet somehow this civil
war will be less destructive than one they predict will follow the
elections and
therefore the lesser of evils.

A few loose ends might remain. For example, the Iraqis and Kurds who joined
the Iraq government interim forces under American tutelage may find themselves
hunted down by the 'insurgents' once US forces leave and become refugees. Who
should accept them? If a civil war ensues as the Nation admits is
possible, if Syria and Iran enter the lists of their
co-religionists, how
should America restrain them? Surely all-out conflict would be the time to heed
the Nation's advice "No more money for war!". And if
the Kurds were
subsequently attacked and massacred all over again; and the Marsh Arabs
slaughtered once more, without elections too, would there be enough days of
silence, enough bags of flour in the UN relief warehouses, enough editorial
handwringing to make it all up to them?

What then but to blame America for being the root cause of a tragic
conflict,
which was nevertheless the least evil of all remaining paths, once the
basic and
tragic mistake of invading Iraq was undertaken. Or is the Nation
referring to the wrong lost election?

Unrepentant

Thomas Friedman observes that it's hard to be an American in Paris these
days, unless you are an anti-American American. Europe, he says, is the
"ultimate Blue State". Only in Iran, apparently, is the general population
looking forward to a second Bush Administration.

Watching George W. Bush's second inaugural from a bistro in Paris is like
watching the Red Sox win the World Series from a sports bar in New York City.
Odds are that someone around you is celebrating -- I mean, someone, somewhere
in Europe must be happy about this � but it's not obvious. Why are Europeans
so blue over George W. Bush's re-election? Because Europe is the world's
biggest "blue state." This whole region is a rhapsody in blue.

But European disapproval is counterpointed by the emotion of surprised
helplessness:

and then suddenly, as the truth emerged, there was a feeling of slow
resignation: 'Oh well, we've been dreaming,' " said Dominique Moisi, one of
France's top foreign policy analysts. "In fact, real America is moving away
from us. We don't share the same values." ... Moisi said. "It is not that we
are so much against America, it is that we cannot understand the evolution of
that country. This election has weakened the concept of 'the West.'

The unspoken assumption of Friedman and Moisi was that the West was authentic
only as long as it remained a development of the secular European ideologies of
the 19th and 20th centuries. For Friedman, Europe remained the ground of
Westernism; and when America and Europe diverged, it was America that had left
the 'West'. If so, the 'West' had become a museum. The
NIC
2020 report stressed that globalization had so revitalized
the world economy that 21st century modernity would
almost certainly wear a non-European face.

While today�s most advanced nations -- especially the United States -- will
remain important forces driving capital, technology and goods, globalization
is likely to take on much more of a �non-Western face� over the next 15 years.
Most of the increase in world population and consumer demand through 2020 will
take place in today�s developing nations�especially China, India, and
Indonesia�and multinational companies from today�s advanced nations will adapt
their �profiles� and business practices to the demands of these cultures. ...

Countries such as China and India will be in a position to achieve higher
economic growth than Europe and Japan, whose aging work forces may inhibit
their growth. Given its enormous population�and assuming a reasonable degree
of real currency appreciation�the dollar value of China�s gross national
product (GNP) may be the second largest in the world by 2020. For similar
reasons, the value of India�s output could match that of a large European
country. The economies of other developing countries, such as Brazil and
Indonesia, could surpass all but the largest European economies by 2020.

What Moisi should have said was 'in fact, due
to unstoppable trends the World may be moving away from us. We don't share
the same values.' Friedman's celebration of Europe as the world's largest 'Blue
State' avoids mention that it might become the world's only Blue State.
Certainly in the matter of religion, the

differential growth in populations between the Europe on the one hand, and
the Third World and even the United States on the other, is dooming 'Western'
secular atheism, and perhaps much else, to demographic extinction. Nor, with
India on track to surpass the French and German economies in size by the 2020s
is there any realistic hope of re-imposing 'Western' European values on the
benighted Red States of the world by aid packages which will by then be regarded
as chump change. It is perhaps the subconscious realization that it has awakened
to a nightmare new world that drives the the Left's incredulous reaction to
George Bush. A story on the
Kerry
Spot describing a Leftist assault on conservative protesters is provided by
Glenn
Reynolds, who describes it in terms of  'crushing free speech'. But the
real caption should be 'Nooo! It can't be!! This can't be happening!!"

Hundreds of people gathered at both ends of Meridian Hill Park in Northwest
Washington for a peace rally sponsored by the D.C Antiwar Network. But there
were interlopers: Thirteen members of ProtestWarror, supporting the Bush
administration and its policies in Iraq. When the Bush supporters arrived,
about 20 black-clad, self-described anarchists emerged from the crowd,
shouting profanity and epithets and demanding that they leave the peace rally.
When the Bush supporters refused to leave, the anarchists tore the sign out of
the Bush supporters' hands and stomped on them. When ProtestWarrior leader Gil
Kobrin objected, several male anarchists knocked him to the ground, kicking
him in the back and punching him. Other anarchists punched and shoved Kobrin's
12 colleagues.

Yet it is happening. The European ideologies of the last century have left
the stream of history and will not, cannot acknowledge it. But it is not
merely Liberalism that is unrepentant.
Austin Bay
listened to President Bush repeat the evangelical themes of his War on Terrorism
and said: faster please. "The President�s inaugural speech said in spades what I
wish he would say every day. When I returned from Iraq I said our biggest
mistake was failing to �ideologize� the war. This war is truly a fight for
the future -- a struggle between liberty and tyranny." The

Daily Demarche has a literate yet uncompromising reiteration of the same
theme: the Delaware is crossed. Fly the colors.

I have long been opposed to the phrase �War on Terror� itself. Designed to
be non-offensive to the public in general and Muslims in particular it is an
incredibly vague construct. �Terror� is not the enemy, it is the tactic. We
have, more or less, declared war on a feeling in order to spare the feelings
of a certain demographic and avoid the PC issues inherent in naming a readily
identifiable enemy. We can�t even argue that we are at war against terrorists-
we are not, after all, pursuing the Basque separatists, or Chechnyan rebels.
As was argued on this site back in November, if we are at war with anyone it
is the islamo-fscists. We need to clearly articulate who the enemy is, and
then define how we will defeat that enemy, thereby identifying an endpoint in
the �war�.  ...

As the President delivers his speech at the inauguration tomorrow, and as
we enter the final countdown for the election in Iraq, we must be sure to say
what we mean, and mean what we say. This administration has been accused of
oversimplifying matters when it comes to global relations and foreign policy.
I accuse the MSM, the apologists and the anti-America crowd of obfuscating
what are simple truths: there is an enemy, the enemy can be named and must be
defeated. Islamo-fascism is our �bird�- but you can call call this flock what
you wish, the name is not important. We have all seen them at work. We all
recognize them when presented with their deeds. We all know what they want-
nothing short of the death of the West. We all know the difference between the
name of this war and the reality. The time has come to stop mincing words.

Personally I find it difficult to conceive of an enmity with Muslims in general

when it is Muslims doing the most dying on the side of freedom in Iraq. Surely
that is proof that the basic faultline is nothing so slender as the
boundary between Sunni and Shi'ite; Muslim and Jew; atheist or Christian, but
something wider still. Yet Col. Bay and the Daily Demarche are correct in insisting that the great
issues which divide the world must now be called by their proper names, although
that name is not religious war. The
listeners in Friedman's bistro would have listened to the Bush

inaugurual speech more carefully if they understood that Moisi was very near
the truth when he remarked, 'Oh well, we've been dreaming' -- a belated
realization that words taken to be empty were really uttered in earnest -- that
things had changed. Each would have listened, with fear or upliftment,
according to his gifts, as the President said:

America's vital interests and our deepest beliefs are now one. From the day
of our founding, we have proclaimed that every man and woman on this earth has
rights, and dignity, and matchless value, because they bear the image of the
maker of heaven and earth. Across the generations, we have proclaimed the
imperative of self-government, because no one is fit to be a master, and no
one deserves to be a slave. Advancing these ideals is the mission that created
our nation. It is the honorable achievement of our fathers. Now it is the
urgent requirement of our nation's security, and the calling of our time. ...

We will persistently clarify the choice before every ruler and every
nation: The moral choice between oppression, which is always wrong, and
freedom, which is eternally right. America will not pretend that jailed
dissidents prefer their chains, or that women welcome humiliation and
servitude, or that any human being aspires to live at the mercy of bullies.
...

When the Declaration of Independence was first read in public and the
Liberty Bell was sounded in celebration, a witness said, "It rang as if it
meant something." In our time it means something still. America, in this young
century, proclaims liberty throughout all the world, and to all the
inhabitants thereof. Renewed in our strength tested, but not weary we are
ready for the greatest achievements in the history of freedom.

May God bless you, and may He watch over the United States of America.

"I've Never Been Happier"

The Mudville
Gazette has a special on Rick Rescorla, the man who fought in, among other
things, the battle made into the movie We Were Soldiers Once, And Young.
But being in a particular place at certain time was nothing so special as being
a particular kind of man in every place and time.

The survivors of the 7th Cavalry still tell awestruck stories about
Rescorla. Like the time he stumbled into a hooch full of enemy soldiers on a
reconnaissance patrol in Bon Song. "Oh, pardon me," he said, before
firing a few rounds and racing away. "Oh, comma, pardon me," repeats
Dennis Deal, who followed Rescorla that day in April 1966. "Like he had
walked into a ladies' tea party!"  ...

After fighting in Vietnam, he returned to the United States and used his
military benefits to study creative writing at the University of Oklahoma.
Literary minded, even before college he had read all fifty-one volumes of the
Harvard Classics and could recite Shakespeare and quote Churchill. He had
started writing a novel about a mobile-air-cavalry unit, and had several
stories published in Western-themed magazines. He eventually earned a
bachelor's, a master's in literature, and a law degree.

Later he took jobs in corporate security and become vice-president for
security at Morgan Stanley Dean Witter -- the largest tenant in the World Trade
Center. And he was Rick Rescorla on September 11, 2001 too. After the plane hit,
he made the decision to evacuate everyone he could from the tower despite a
request from the Port Authority to hold in place, but Rescorla knew better.

"What'd you say?" Hill (a colleague he had called by phone to
help him on that day) asked.

"I said, 'Piss off, you son of a bitch,' " Rescorla replied.
"Everything above where that plane hit is going to collapse, and it's
going to take the whole building with it. I'm getting my people the fuck out
of here." Then he said, "I got to go. Get your shit in one basket
and get ready to come up."

When the second plane slammed into the South Tower, Rescorla knew he had been
right. It had been no accident.  Rescorla made one final call to his wife
and spoke words which to many will seem curious yet from a certain point of view
were perfectly natural.

"Stop crying," he told her. "I have to get these people out
safely. If something should happen to me, I want you to know I've never been
happier. You made my life."

There was a time when stories like this were special; they are special still
but not quite so unique. Too many men all over the world -- in Iraq and
Afghanistan, on the Horn of Africa or in Southeast Asia -- have said words to
keep them company.

Hill reached Susan (Rescorla's wife), who had just got off the phone with
Sullivan. "Take it easy," he said, as she continued to sob.
"He's been through tight spots before, a million times." Suddenly
Susan screamed. Hill turned to look at his own television and saw the south
tower collapse. He thought of the words Rescorla had so often used to comfort
dying soldiers. "Susan, he'll be O.K.," he said gently. "Take
deep breaths. Take it easy. If anyone will survive, Rick will survive."
When Hill hung up, he turned to his wife. Her face was ashen.
"Shit," he said. "Rescorla is dead."

But he was wrong. Only we the living can still betray; Rick will survive as
Rescorla until the end of time; undiminished and forever who he was.

A Ghost on the Internet

There are interesting points of contrast between

Sarah Boxer's speculation on the affiliations and motives of the
Iraq the Model
bloggers and Associated Press' determination to protect the anonymity and
refusal to judge the motives of a stringer who photographed the execution of
Iraqi electoral workers at fairly close range on

Haifa Street. The juxtapositions are even more interesting because one of
the bloggers in Iraq
the Model  is standing for election under the Iraqi Pro-Democracy Party
ticket while the victims of the Haifa Street execution were workers helping
organize that election.

Iraq the Model Bloggers	Unknown Associated Press Photographer
When I telephoned a man named Ali Fadhil in Baghdad last week, I wondered who might answer. A CIA operative? An American posing as an Iraqi? Someone paid by the Defense Department to support the war? Or simply an Iraqi with some mixed feelings about the American presence in Iraq? Until he picked up the phone, he was just a ghost on the Internet. -- Sarah Boxer	From JACK STOKES, director of media relations, Associated Press: [This is a solicited letter regarding Salon's "The Associated Press 'insurgency.'"] Several brave Iraqi photographers work for The Associated Press in places that only Iraqis can cover. Many are covering the communities they live in where family and tribal relations give them access that would not be available to Western photographers, or even Iraqi photographers who are not from the area. Insurgents want their stories told as much as other people and some are willing to let Iraqi photographers take their pictures. It's important to note, though, that the photographers are not "embedded" with the insurgents. They do not have to swear allegiance or otherwise join up philosophically with them just to take their pictures.
Jeez guys � I thought you said everything was fine in Iraq!This trio uses their real names in interviews, on their web sites and even in press releases. This USA Today article and this LA Times piece also mentioned the CIA allegations (in the context of rebutting them, though Boxer also seemed to conclude the bloggers weren�t with the CIA). (Both are pay links, alas). -- Derek Rose	A source at the Associated Press knowledgeable about the events covered in Baghdad on Sunday told Salon that accusations that the photographer was aware of the militants' plans are "ridiculous." The photographer, whose identity the AP is withholding due to safety concerns, was likely "tipped off to a demonstration that was supposed to take place on Haifa Street," said the AP source, who was not at liberty to comment by name. But the photographer "definitely would not have had foreknowledge" of a violent event like an execution, the source said. -- Salon

The most powerful argument that can be mustered in favor Ms. Boxer is, as
Derek Rose pointed out, that she could hardly make things worse for Ali or his
brothers. After all, in Ms. Boxer's own words, things had already hit a low
point after "the Washington Post wrote about the meeting, and the Arabic
press ended up translating the story, which, Ali felt, put his family in real
danger." One might even argue that Ali and his brothers put their own lives in
jeopardy after they decided to blog, visit America and stand for elections. So
it is no one's fault but their own. 'Insurgents' and journalists are above the
moral judgment  --  they are merely disinterested, impersonal forces
that visit the necessary fates or coverage on those who bring it on themselves.

The problem with this line of argument is that it fails to account for the
weight given to symbolism in the insurgent's targeting calculus. The Iraqi
electoral workers were killed on Haifa Street not out of any personal spite
against them but because these noncelebrities symbolized a process which the
insurgents were determined to derail. A photographer was invited -- through
subterfuge according to the Associated Press -- but invited nonetheless to
record the execution of the symbols. It was a kind of burning in effigy with
real people acting as effigies. Hence, Ms. Boxer's semiotic operations on the
Iraq the Model
bloggers are not as harmless as Derek Rose would make it seem. Neither, for that
matter, is this post itself, a fact of which I am most acutely aware.

Then there is no help for it but to destroy these insurgents root and branch;
because for so long as these terrorists exist then expressing an independent
opinion, running for election or shaking the hand of the President of the United
States will always be offenses punishable by death. That is to say, for so long
as terrorists and their publicists prevail, then neither bloggers, nor a free
press nor people anything remotely like Sarah Boxer will never be able to exist
in Iraq. It is not necessary to agree with
Iraq the Model
in order to
defend
their right to say it. Of all the uses to which Ms. Boxer could have put
freedom, this was the worst.

Update

Reader MJ links to

Ali's reponse to the

Sarah Boxer piece on
Iraq the Model.

The article was, despite Ms Boxer's kindness, a bad piece of journalism. I
had around 45 minutes long phone call with the reporter about my journey with
Iraq the Model, my new site, the elections, the general situation here in
Baghdad but she (or the paper) seems to have a certain agenda and managed to
change the whole issue into a very silly gossip (going as far as quoting
trolls!) that is way beneath any respectable paper and certainly beneath me so
I won't give it more attention but lesson learned and I won't make the mistake
of talking to anyone from the NY times again.