Posted on 05/15/2003 3:29:50 PM PDT by quidnunc
David Warren comes out and says something that’s been my privately held belief for quite some time: 'Salam Pax' Plays Americans for Fools in Iraq .
What we can know, just by reading his blog, is that this Salam is up to no good. He is spreading "inside views" of the new Iraq, not only to the blogosphere, but directly among the journalists still encamped at the Meridian (formerly Palestine, formerly Meridian) hotel. Not the "embeds" who've gone home after remarkable learning experiences, but those "hacks" not yet transferred to the next breaking news story, and so still kicking around this mysterious city of Baghdad, trying to figure out what's happening without exposing themselves overmuch to danger.
And they lap it up. They depend on translators and guides to show them around, and seem only partially aware that the people who've come forward to provide them with these services are almost all unemployed former Baath regime officials. (They trust them because they speak English so well.)
Hence our media fixation on a series of stories — starting with the entirely false account that was given of the looting of the Iraqi National Museum — that show the American occupation in the worst possible light, and blame each lapse in public order on American oversight, instead of on the perpetrators.
"Salam Pax" is the creme de la creme. He drops brilliantly casual asides. For instance, one of his insightful tips to the Western journalists was that "ordinary" Iraqis despise all these exiles who have parachuted in with the U.S. military, and who have "appropriated" such private property as the old Mansour Social Club, and Iraqi Hunting Club — which were Baathist social preserves (clubs in which Salam would likely have had memberships). He falsely suggests that these properties were obtained through "looting." (They were assigned to the exiles by the U.S. military.)
My opinion is that “Salam Pax” is not only “up to no good,” he is (or was) very probably a member of — or working directly for — the Mukhabarat (Iraqi intelligence). It strains credibility to the breaking point to believe that someone could be blogging from Baghdad without Iraqi intelligence being aware of every word he wrote.
Update: Mystery novelist Roger Simon agrees.
(Excerpt) Read more at littlegreenfootballs.com ...
I wasn't going to post anymore today, work on my new novel instead (of which slightly more anon), but Charles Johnson telephoned me to look at his site Little Green Footballs. He was linking a just-posted article in the Ottawa Citizen by a writer we both respect David Warren. Warren was alleging something that Charles and I had discussed privately often — that blogger Salam Pax of "Where is Raed?" fame was actually an Iraqi intelligence agent, probably for the Mukhabarat or one of its sister organizations.
Our reasoning was simple and instinctive: Who better to infect the American (and world) intelligentsia with anti-war views, especially since he was cool, hip, gay (supposedly) and superficially an anti-Saddam insider? Don't bomb us, he seemed to be saying, we're just like you. If David Warren (and Charles and I) is correct in this, SP is one of the most brilliant intelligence operatives of all time — no exaggeration! Read the entire article. Warren has great sources.
(Also, talking about my work-in-progress, which I never should, SP is a very peripheral character. [Yes, I'm warning other people off.])
Update: A gentleman named Craig over on LGF asked me an interesting question which demands a longer response: so I am answering here.
Why, he wonders, would Salam Pax still be blogging if he were a Mukhabarat agent. After all, the war is over.
Answer: of course it's not. The war is still being fought in Iraq under numerous covers. Ex-Baathists, like Salam Pax's family, are battling hard for position in the new regime. (Witness the fact that the US had to change leadership after only a couple of weeks.) The story, El Awrence, is not yet written. Or as a better man than I wrote: "Nothing is written, Lawrence!" And those words were spoken by Alec Guiness, who also played George Smiley, so they can't be wrong.
Roger L. Simon, May 14, 2003
http://rogerlsimon.com/archives/00000134.htm
Substitute "Kabul" for "Baghdad"....
Substitute "Managua" for "Kabul"....
Substitute "Saigon" for "Managua"....
The presstitutes school like fish, they know that in the pack there is safety. That's why they trumpet their "liberty" from any identification with the West or the USA, but shamelessly suck up to any narcissistic personality with a moustache and uniform (that, and all reporters these days fantasize about being ravished by these dictators... yeah, male reporters especially... as a profession, journalism has a low "loafer-weight quotient.")
d.o.l.
Criminal Number 18F
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