Iraqthe model: disinfo blogs?
brian | 23.12.2005 02:06
My attention was recently drawn to the existence of pro-american blogs by iraqis, one, Iraqthemodel, even got an invitation to theWhitehouse and has the support of zionist hatchet site Campus-Watch.
Jeff Jarvis, Juan Cole and Iraq The Model
Jeff Jarvis at BuzzMachine really tore into University of Michigan Professor Juan Cole on December 14, 2004, for daring to question the motives behind Iraq the Model, an Iraqi blog favored by some supporters of the U.S. occupation of Iraq. In a December 13, 2004, post on Informed Comment, Mr. Cole asked if there was manipulation of the blogging world on Iraq. He contrasted the approach of the Fadhils brothers' Iraq the Model and Riverbend, whose Baghdad Burning, opposes the U.S. occupation of Iraq. Mr. Jarvis, who views the Fadhils as "my freedom-loving friends from Iraq, called Mr. Cole "pond scum," adding:
Prof. Juan Cole libels my freedom-loving friends from Iraq.
The man is pond scum. I know no other way to say it. This guy Cole (supported by your tax dollars in Michigan) decides that if he disagrees with someone, he should imply that that someone must be backed by the CIA or other nefarious forces. Prof. Cole is too deaf, dumb, and blind to see the liberal irony in that; back in the day, when people disagreed with those on his side of the political spectrum, people on the other side implied that they must be backed by the Soviet Union, by Commies. It's an old trick, Prof. I'm ashamed of you for using it.
Ever since America engaged in Iraq, Cole has spent every day on his blog doing nothing but collecting bad news -- never good news. And people looking for bad news -- chicken liberals -- celebrate him for that. I'm a liberal but I don't celebrate Cole. I haven't bothered reading him for months, because he never had anything new to say.
But I had to read him today as he libeled my friends Omar and Mohammed from Iraq The Model
Mr. Jarvis calls Mr. Cole's views "spiteful idiocy," and a few other names. Most of the comments from his readers follow the same line. This is what has Mr. Jarvis in a snit.
Joseph Mailander of the Martini Republic weblog has an extremely important posting on Sunday about the dangers of "blog trolling." To "troll" in the world of the internet is to lurk on a discussion board and make deliberately false and inflammatory comments, to which all the other posters feel they must reply, so that it roils the list. There is also a connotation of dishonesty about the troll's real identity.
A related practice has been called by Josh Marshall "astroturfing," where a "grass roots" campaign turns out actually to be sponsored by a think tank or corporation. Astroturf is fake grass used in US football arenas. What Mailander is talking about is not really astroturfing, but rather the granting of some individuals a big megaphone.
The MR posting brings up questions about the Iraqi brothers who run the Iraq The Model site. It points out that the views of the brothers are celebrated in the right-leaning weblogging world of the US, even though opinion polling shows that their views are far out of the mainstream of Iraqi opinion. It notes that their choice of internet service provider, in Abilene, Texas, is rather suspicious, and wonders whether they are getting some extra support from certain quarters.
Contrast all this to the young woman computer systems analyst in Baghdad, Riverbend, who is in her views closer to the Iraqi opinion polls, especially with regard to Sunni Arabs, but who is not being feted in Washington, DC.
The Foreign News Observer's sister blog, The National Political Observer, commented on and linked to the column in question, on December 13, 2004. We also linked to Iraq The Model's comments on the attention some of its bloggers visiting the U.S. were getting. There was confusion about who they were, which necessitated a "correction" from Iraq The Model. This post can also be found at The National Political Observer.
Posted by Munir Umrani at 04:46 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
http://66.102.7.104/search?q=cache:SlcgykDgk1UJ:www.theforeignnewsobserver.com/archives/2004/10/has_bremer_burn.html+iraqthemodel+bremer&hl=en
=========================================
Jeff Jarvis, Juan Cole and Iraq The Model
Jeff Jarvis at BuzzMachine really tore into University of Michigan Professor Juan Cole on December 14, 2004, for daring to question the motives behind Iraq the Model, an Iraqi blog favored by some supporters of the U.S. occupation of Iraq. In a December 13, 2004, post on Informed Comment, Mr. Cole asked if there was manipulation of the blogging world on Iraq. He contrasted the approach of the Fadhils brothers' Iraq the Model and Riverbend, whose Baghdad Burning, opposes the U.S. occupation of Iraq. Mr. Jarvis, who views the Fadhils as "my freedom-loving friends from Iraq, called Mr. Cole "pond scum," adding:
Prof. Juan Cole libels my freedom-loving friends from Iraq.
The man is pond scum. I know no other way to say it. This guy Cole (supported by your tax dollars in Michigan) decides that if he disagrees with someone, he should imply that that someone must be backed by the CIA or other nefarious forces. Prof. Cole is too deaf, dumb, and blind to see the liberal irony in that; back in the day, when people disagreed with those on his side of the political spectrum, people on the other side implied that they must be backed by the Soviet Union, by Commies. It's an old trick, Prof. I'm ashamed of you for using it.
Ever since America engaged in Iraq, Cole has spent every day on his blog doing nothing but collecting bad news -- never good news. And people looking for bad news -- chicken liberals -- celebrate him for that. I'm a liberal but I don't celebrate Cole. I haven't bothered reading him for months, because he never had anything new to say.
But I had to read him today as he libeled my friends Omar and Mohammed from Iraq The Model
Mr. Jarvis calls Mr. Cole's views "spiteful idiocy," and a few other names. Most of the comments from his readers follow the same line. This is what has Mr. Jarvis in a snit.
Joseph Mailander of the Martini Republic weblog has an extremely important posting on Sunday about the dangers of "blog trolling." To "troll" in the world of the internet is to lurk on a discussion board and make deliberately false and inflammatory comments, to which all the other posters feel they must reply, so that it roils the list. There is also a connotation of dishonesty about the troll's real identity.
A related practice has been called by Josh Marshall "astroturfing," where a "grass roots" campaign turns out actually to be sponsored by a think tank or corporation. Astroturf is fake grass used in US football arenas. What Mailander is talking about is not really astroturfing, but rather the granting of some individuals a big megaphone.
The MR posting brings up questions about the Iraqi brothers who run the Iraq The Model site. It points out that the views of the brothers are celebrated in the right-leaning weblogging world of the US, even though opinion polling shows that their views are far out of the mainstream of Iraqi opinion. It notes that their choice of internet service provider, in Abilene, Texas, is rather suspicious, and wonders whether they are getting some extra support from certain quarters.
Contrast all this to the young woman computer systems analyst in Baghdad, Riverbend, who is in her views closer to the Iraqi opinion polls, especially with regard to Sunni Arabs, but who is not being feted in Washington, DC.
The Foreign News Observer's sister blog, The National Political Observer, commented on and linked to the column in question, on December 13, 2004. We also linked to Iraq The Model's comments on the attention some of its bloggers visiting the U.S. were getting. There was confusion about who they were, which necessitated a "correction" from Iraq The Model. This post can also be found at The National Political Observer.
Posted by Munir Umrani at 04:46 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
=======================
The Betrayal of the "IraqTheModel" Bloggers
Yesterday the warblogs and Cult-of-Bush blogs exploded in veritable unison with trumped-up outrage and hysteria which ricocheted throughout their echo chamber in a matter of hours over the story in the NY Times Arts Section on the Iraqi bloggers of Iraq the Model and Free Iraqi. On the theory that such an avalanche of comment must be about something of significance, I think a closer look at the Brothers Fadhil is warranted.
Continued below the jump....
The first oddity that leaps out about the Fadhils is their rather singular outlook on the American occupation of Iraq. The Fadhil brothers aren't the only pro-occupation Iraqis blogging, but they stand out by virtue of their relentlessly positive postings and lack of criticism of events that most Iraqis are finding, to put it mildly, disturbing. Middle East expert Professor Juan Cole, in his Informed Comment weblog, speculated,
The MR posting (Martini Republic) brings up questions about the Iraqi brothers who run the IraqTheModel site. It points out that the views of the brothers are celebrated in the right-leaning weblogging world of the US, even though opinion polling shows that their views are far out of the mainstream of Iraqi opinion.
This is self-evident with the most cursory glance at the blog. Juan Cole has the poll numbers here. Whereas a large majority of Iraqis say they feel occupied and not liberated, the Fadhil brothers post endlessly about their liberation. They praise the conduct of the US soldiers and even managed to rationalize the Abu Ghraib torture scandal by interviewing an Iraqi who claimed he worked there who recounted how the prisoners were playing volleyball and basketball every day, took baths anytime they wanted and had fans in their cells. Their rhetoric is larded with phrases and terms common to American warbloggers and neocons like "MSM" for main stream media and "terrorists" for everyone resorts to violence against the occupation, and they dispute tales of misery by other Iraqi bloggers. They praised the Allawi regime for the rubblizing of Fallujah. They link to FOX News and the US government created and sponsored Radio Sawa on their blog while calling for a boycott of al-Jazeera. Taken together, these things spell Iraqi Neocon.
Iraq the Model began, as Justin Raimondo describes it, "..with a moniker that manages to express the essence of the neocon program for the Middle East..." The credulous brothers bought the neocon vision and committed themselves in a loud and public way, to its success. True believers in the promises of a "democratic Iraq," they founded a political party and planned to run in the Iraqi elections. They hooked up with "Spirit of America" and "Friends of Democracy," both US based organizations (which deny links to the US government) and attended a SoA conference in Jordan in October . In December, two of the brothers made their trip to the US and that's where things get really nasty. Here's Ali, on December 11 (emphasis mine):
We were always known as the Fadhils brothers and I don't know who made this confusing change and why, but I have an idea about it. We were all invited in the beginning and I was very excited to meet our friends that we met through this blog, and I wanted to be able to say "Thank you America" in America, but I decided few days before the trip not to go (for reasons that I'll discuss in the future, probably). However, my invitation was cancelled even before I tell the people who set up the trip about my decision. So I asked Mohammed and Omar to go ahead, as I thought it might be good for our project "Friends of Democracy" and Iraq.
I still hope to visit America some day, but I would love this to happen normally, and not through exceptional procedures and I would be so happy to meet all my American friends and to say thank you to the American people.
Why was Ali disinvited to go on the trip? Was it because he knew or suspected (with good reason, it turned out) that the brothers were going to be cynically used and exploited by the warbloggers and Washington Neocons, and he felt this would endanger all of them? Ali again (lambasting Professor Cole who had speculated as to whether their blog was "astroturfing"), on December 16:
I was never invited to meet Bush (neither my brothers knew until they were there) and we don't know why he wanted that, but this is where I agree with you that those who did set up this meeting had their own motives that we don't share with them.
The thing that upset me the most is that if there are some powers that are trying to use us and our writings as propaganda tool, you and other bloggers as well as some of the media outlets are doing the same with anti-American Iraqi bloggers...
Ali, December 19:
This is the last time I write in this blog and I just want to say, goodbye. It's not an easy thing to do for me, but I know I should do it. I haven't told my brothers with my decision, as they are not here yet, but it won't change anything and I just can't keep doing this anymore.
My stand regarding America has never changed. I still love America and feel grateful to all those who helped us get our freedom and are still helping us establishing democracy in our country. But it's the act of some Americans that made me feel I'm on the wrong side here. I will expose these people in public very soon and I won't lack the mean to do this, but I won't do it here as this is not my blog.
At any rate, it's been a great experience and a pleasure to know all the regular readers of this blog, as I do feel I know you, and I owe you a lot.
Best wishes to all of you, those who supported us and those who criticized us as well.
That was Ali's last post on the ITM blog. He then started "Iraqi Liberal," which he changed to "Free Iraqi" after his largely neoconservative pro-war following showed up and complained about the word "liberal." Ali's new blog began December 24, and he made 8 posts before admitting he was Ali from ITM. A full two weeks after posting his ominous farewell threatening to "deal with" and "expose" some Americans, an oddly calmer and apologetic Ali posted this explanation of his defection from ITM:
I had some serious doubts about that trip to the US and did express them to my brothers. I saw that it was an unnecessary risk and I feared there would be more than just the harmless meetings with readers and donors. When I didn't get answers that calm these doubts I decided not to go. As I was sitting here behind my computer watching the reactions to my brothers' visit, my doubts grew stronger. I believe that they were exposed to a great risk and despite we were promised that there would be no major media, I got a mail from a journalist in the Washington Post asking about the meeting with (POTUS). After that mail, I decided to quit.
My brothers were not as concerned as I was and thought that western media is hardly read by terrorists or fanatics. However, few days ago a friend of ours came to our house telling us that he read about the visit and the meeting with Bush in "Al Sharq Al Awsat" a widely distributed Arabic newspaper that reaches most Arab countries if not all. They had the news through the Washington Post and this was not strange to me, as it's a common thing that Arabic newspapers and Satellite TV channels discuss western media regularly. It's one thing to risk your life for doing what you believe in and serving your country and humanity and it's totally another thing to risk your life just to meet (POTUS).
So we see that Ali was, despite his relentless optimism and support for Iraqi elections, aware that candidates were being executed regularly by the resistance as "collaborators" and he knew that the surest way to paint a bullseye on your back in Baghdad was to associate with any Americans, let alone tour the US with your pro-invasion American "friends" and visit the widely-despised US President George W. Bush. Having compromised themselves in a way that the Iraqi Olympic Soccer Team refused to allow, the hapless Iraqis were then feted by every warblogger who could get in on the action, as well as written up in various "MSM" papers and featured in radio interviews. Warbloggers plastered pictures of Omar and Mohammed on their blogs which underwent a succession of changes as the brothers, possibly galvanized by Ali's reaction in Baghdad, begged them to first, obscure their faces and then remove the pictures. (The picture issue was a bit ridiculous because the brothers already had their pictures on their campaign website.)
The warbloggers and their various fellow-travelers would prefer to forget this moment of blogger triumph and glory when at last some trophy Iraqi bloggers arrived who were willing to validate their bloody invasion of a country that posed no threat to them (they ignored Salam Pax, the most famous Iraqi blogger, who made his way to the US in October) , especially when they need to make a vicious attack on an "MSM" reporter for doing what they would now pretend they had never done first and far worse: endangering and exploiting the people they were ostentatiously "liberating," who mistakely thought that they were under the protection of people who cared about them and their wellbeing.
The writing is already on the wall to indicate how the War Party and it's Internet Cadres intend to handle the looming demise of their Great Iraqi Vision when it inevitably swallows up the Iraqis who listened to them and trusted them (along with the Americans already mired in the quagmire.) They're going to pin it on the very people who warned them from the beginning that they were wrong and bound to fail. Already you hear it constantly, the whiny accusations against the media and analysts who dare to criticize - negative, sapping morale, breaking our will to win - as if not acknowledging reality could somehow keep it at bay. The hypocritical charge of the Fighting Keyboarders - endanger, endanger, endanger, endanger echoed through the warblog-O-sphere as they all linked to one another's posts.
And so, at this moment when these severely compromised and exploited Iraqis have returned to the life-threatening chaos that is now the New Iraq and still live, I challenge all of you who clamored for meetings and held parties with real, live Iraqi centerpieces to step up and accept the responsibility for what you've done. You brought these guys here and - according to Ali, "...despite we were promised that there would be no major media, I got a mail from a journalist in the Washington Post.." You lied. These guys are dead men walking because the most dangerous occupation on this planet right now is being a candidate for election in Occupied Iraq, and Baghdad is in it's own little category of hyper-danger.
Now, it becomes obvious why all of you latched on to the NYT Boxer piece. In the time-honored method of cowards and low-lifes everywhere, you were looking for someone on whom to pin the blame when these guys get killed, just like you'll do and have done with every other miserable, predictable consequence in this murderous war.
If any of you had any decency, you'd arrange for these guys to take refuge in the Green Zone, at least. I really hope you already did that and arranged for a phalanx of bodyguards to follow them everywhere, but I doubt you did. Because you're all too busy pretending your fantasy Iraq really exists.
Posted by: Tex MacRae on Jan 20, 05 | 6:42 pm
http://www.antiwar.com/blog/more.php?id=1668_0_1_0_M
Jeff Jarvis at BuzzMachine really tore into University of Michigan Professor Juan Cole on December 14, 2004, for daring to question the motives behind Iraq the Model, an Iraqi blog favored by some supporters of the U.S. occupation of Iraq. In a December 13, 2004, post on Informed Comment, Mr. Cole asked if there was manipulation of the blogging world on Iraq. He contrasted the approach of the Fadhils brothers' Iraq the Model and Riverbend, whose Baghdad Burning, opposes the U.S. occupation of Iraq. Mr. Jarvis, who views the Fadhils as "my freedom-loving friends from Iraq, called Mr. Cole "pond scum," adding:
Prof. Juan Cole libels my freedom-loving friends from Iraq.
The man is pond scum. I know no other way to say it. This guy Cole (supported by your tax dollars in Michigan) decides that if he disagrees with someone, he should imply that that someone must be backed by the CIA or other nefarious forces. Prof. Cole is too deaf, dumb, and blind to see the liberal irony in that; back in the day, when people disagreed with those on his side of the political spectrum, people on the other side implied that they must be backed by the Soviet Union, by Commies. It's an old trick, Prof. I'm ashamed of you for using it.
Ever since America engaged in Iraq, Cole has spent every day on his blog doing nothing but collecting bad news -- never good news. And people looking for bad news -- chicken liberals -- celebrate him for that. I'm a liberal but I don't celebrate Cole. I haven't bothered reading him for months, because he never had anything new to say.
But I had to read him today as he libeled my friends Omar and Mohammed from Iraq The Model
Mr. Jarvis calls Mr. Cole's views "spiteful idiocy," and a few other names. Most of the comments from his readers follow the same line. This is what has Mr. Jarvis in a snit.
Joseph Mailander of the Martini Republic weblog has an extremely important posting on Sunday about the dangers of "blog trolling." To "troll" in the world of the internet is to lurk on a discussion board and make deliberately false and inflammatory comments, to which all the other posters feel they must reply, so that it roils the list. There is also a connotation of dishonesty about the troll's real identity.
A related practice has been called by Josh Marshall "astroturfing," where a "grass roots" campaign turns out actually to be sponsored by a think tank or corporation. Astroturf is fake grass used in US football arenas. What Mailander is talking about is not really astroturfing, but rather the granting of some individuals a big megaphone.
The MR posting brings up questions about the Iraqi brothers who run the Iraq The Model site. It points out that the views of the brothers are celebrated in the right-leaning weblogging world of the US, even though opinion polling shows that their views are far out of the mainstream of Iraqi opinion. It notes that their choice of internet service provider, in Abilene, Texas, is rather suspicious, and wonders whether they are getting some extra support from certain quarters.
Contrast all this to the young woman computer systems analyst in Baghdad, Riverbend, who is in her views closer to the Iraqi opinion polls, especially with regard to Sunni Arabs, but who is not being feted in Washington, DC.
The Foreign News Observer's sister blog, The National Political Observer, commented on and linked to the column in question, on December 13, 2004. We also linked to Iraq The Model's comments on the attention some of its bloggers visiting the U.S. were getting. There was confusion about who they were, which necessitated a "correction" from Iraq The Model. This post can also be found at The National Political Observer.
Posted by Munir Umrani at 04:46 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
http://66.102.7.104/search?q=cache:SlcgykDgk1UJ:www.theforeignnewsobserver.com/archives/2004/10/has_bremer_burn.html+iraqthemodel+bremer&hl=en =========================================
Jeff Jarvis, Juan Cole and Iraq The Model
Jeff Jarvis at BuzzMachine really tore into University of Michigan Professor Juan Cole on December 14, 2004, for daring to question the motives behind Iraq the Model, an Iraqi blog favored by some supporters of the U.S. occupation of Iraq. In a December 13, 2004, post on Informed Comment, Mr. Cole asked if there was manipulation of the blogging world on Iraq. He contrasted the approach of the Fadhils brothers' Iraq the Model and Riverbend, whose Baghdad Burning, opposes the U.S. occupation of Iraq. Mr. Jarvis, who views the Fadhils as "my freedom-loving friends from Iraq, called Mr. Cole "pond scum," adding:
Prof. Juan Cole libels my freedom-loving friends from Iraq.
The man is pond scum. I know no other way to say it. This guy Cole (supported by your tax dollars in Michigan) decides that if he disagrees with someone, he should imply that that someone must be backed by the CIA or other nefarious forces. Prof. Cole is too deaf, dumb, and blind to see the liberal irony in that; back in the day, when people disagreed with those on his side of the political spectrum, people on the other side implied that they must be backed by the Soviet Union, by Commies. It's an old trick, Prof. I'm ashamed of you for using it.
Ever since America engaged in Iraq, Cole has spent every day on his blog doing nothing but collecting bad news -- never good news. And people looking for bad news -- chicken liberals -- celebrate him for that. I'm a liberal but I don't celebrate Cole. I haven't bothered reading him for months, because he never had anything new to say.
But I had to read him today as he libeled my friends Omar and Mohammed from Iraq The Model
Mr. Jarvis calls Mr. Cole's views "spiteful idiocy," and a few other names. Most of the comments from his readers follow the same line. This is what has Mr. Jarvis in a snit.
Joseph Mailander of the Martini Republic weblog has an extremely important posting on Sunday about the dangers of "blog trolling." To "troll" in the world of the internet is to lurk on a discussion board and make deliberately false and inflammatory comments, to which all the other posters feel they must reply, so that it roils the list. There is also a connotation of dishonesty about the troll's real identity.
A related practice has been called by Josh Marshall "astroturfing," where a "grass roots" campaign turns out actually to be sponsored by a think tank or corporation. Astroturf is fake grass used in US football arenas. What Mailander is talking about is not really astroturfing, but rather the granting of some individuals a big megaphone.
The MR posting brings up questions about the Iraqi brothers who run the Iraq The Model site. It points out that the views of the brothers are celebrated in the right-leaning weblogging world of the US, even though opinion polling shows that their views are far out of the mainstream of Iraqi opinion. It notes that their choice of internet service provider, in Abilene, Texas, is rather suspicious, and wonders whether they are getting some extra support from certain quarters.
Contrast all this to the young woman computer systems analyst in Baghdad, Riverbend, who is in her views closer to the Iraqi opinion polls, especially with regard to Sunni Arabs, but who is not being feted in Washington, DC.
The Foreign News Observer's sister blog, The National Political Observer, commented on and linked to the column in question, on December 13, 2004. We also linked to Iraq The Model's comments on the attention some of its bloggers visiting the U.S. were getting. There was confusion about who they were, which necessitated a "correction" from Iraq The Model. This post can also be found at The National Political Observer.
Posted by Munir Umrani at 04:46 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
=======================
The Betrayal of the "IraqTheModel" Bloggers
Yesterday the warblogs and Cult-of-Bush blogs exploded in veritable unison with trumped-up outrage and hysteria which ricocheted throughout their echo chamber in a matter of hours over the story in the NY Times Arts Section on the Iraqi bloggers of Iraq the Model and Free Iraqi. On the theory that such an avalanche of comment must be about something of significance, I think a closer look at the Brothers Fadhil is warranted.
Continued below the jump....
The first oddity that leaps out about the Fadhils is their rather singular outlook on the American occupation of Iraq. The Fadhil brothers aren't the only pro-occupation Iraqis blogging, but they stand out by virtue of their relentlessly positive postings and lack of criticism of events that most Iraqis are finding, to put it mildly, disturbing. Middle East expert Professor Juan Cole, in his Informed Comment weblog, speculated,
The MR posting (Martini Republic) brings up questions about the Iraqi brothers who run the IraqTheModel site. It points out that the views of the brothers are celebrated in the right-leaning weblogging world of the US, even though opinion polling shows that their views are far out of the mainstream of Iraqi opinion.
This is self-evident with the most cursory glance at the blog. Juan Cole has the poll numbers here. Whereas a large majority of Iraqis say they feel occupied and not liberated, the Fadhil brothers post endlessly about their liberation. They praise the conduct of the US soldiers and even managed to rationalize the Abu Ghraib torture scandal by interviewing an Iraqi who claimed he worked there who recounted how the prisoners were playing volleyball and basketball every day, took baths anytime they wanted and had fans in their cells. Their rhetoric is larded with phrases and terms common to American warbloggers and neocons like "MSM" for main stream media and "terrorists" for everyone resorts to violence against the occupation, and they dispute tales of misery by other Iraqi bloggers. They praised the Allawi regime for the rubblizing of Fallujah. They link to FOX News and the US government created and sponsored Radio Sawa on their blog while calling for a boycott of al-Jazeera. Taken together, these things spell Iraqi Neocon.
Iraq the Model began, as Justin Raimondo describes it, "..with a moniker that manages to express the essence of the neocon program for the Middle East..." The credulous brothers bought the neocon vision and committed themselves in a loud and public way, to its success. True believers in the promises of a "democratic Iraq," they founded a political party and planned to run in the Iraqi elections. They hooked up with "Spirit of America" and "Friends of Democracy," both US based organizations (which deny links to the US government) and attended a SoA conference in Jordan in October . In December, two of the brothers made their trip to the US and that's where things get really nasty. Here's Ali, on December 11 (emphasis mine):
We were always known as the Fadhils brothers and I don't know who made this confusing change and why, but I have an idea about it. We were all invited in the beginning and I was very excited to meet our friends that we met through this blog, and I wanted to be able to say "Thank you America" in America, but I decided few days before the trip not to go (for reasons that I'll discuss in the future, probably). However, my invitation was cancelled even before I tell the people who set up the trip about my decision. So I asked Mohammed and Omar to go ahead, as I thought it might be good for our project "Friends of Democracy" and Iraq.
I still hope to visit America some day, but I would love this to happen normally, and not through exceptional procedures and I would be so happy to meet all my American friends and to say thank you to the American people.
Why was Ali disinvited to go on the trip? Was it because he knew or suspected (with good reason, it turned out) that the brothers were going to be cynically used and exploited by the warbloggers and Washington Neocons, and he felt this would endanger all of them? Ali again (lambasting Professor Cole who had speculated as to whether their blog was "astroturfing"), on December 16:
I was never invited to meet Bush (neither my brothers knew until they were there) and we don't know why he wanted that, but this is where I agree with you that those who did set up this meeting had their own motives that we don't share with them.
The thing that upset me the most is that if there are some powers that are trying to use us and our writings as propaganda tool, you and other bloggers as well as some of the media outlets are doing the same with anti-American Iraqi bloggers...
Ali, December 19:
This is the last time I write in this blog and I just want to say, goodbye. It's not an easy thing to do for me, but I know I should do it. I haven't told my brothers with my decision, as they are not here yet, but it won't change anything and I just can't keep doing this anymore.
My stand regarding America has never changed. I still love America and feel grateful to all those who helped us get our freedom and are still helping us establishing democracy in our country. But it's the act of some Americans that made me feel I'm on the wrong side here. I will expose these people in public very soon and I won't lack the mean to do this, but I won't do it here as this is not my blog.
At any rate, it's been a great experience and a pleasure to know all the regular readers of this blog, as I do feel I know you, and I owe you a lot.
Best wishes to all of you, those who supported us and those who criticized us as well.
That was Ali's last post on the ITM blog. He then started "Iraqi Liberal," which he changed to "Free Iraqi" after his largely neoconservative pro-war following showed up and complained about the word "liberal." Ali's new blog began December 24, and he made 8 posts before admitting he was Ali from ITM. A full two weeks after posting his ominous farewell threatening to "deal with" and "expose" some Americans, an oddly calmer and apologetic Ali posted this explanation of his defection from ITM:
I had some serious doubts about that trip to the US and did express them to my brothers. I saw that it was an unnecessary risk and I feared there would be more than just the harmless meetings with readers and donors. When I didn't get answers that calm these doubts I decided not to go. As I was sitting here behind my computer watching the reactions to my brothers' visit, my doubts grew stronger. I believe that they were exposed to a great risk and despite we were promised that there would be no major media, I got a mail from a journalist in the Washington Post asking about the meeting with (POTUS). After that mail, I decided to quit.
My brothers were not as concerned as I was and thought that western media is hardly read by terrorists or fanatics. However, few days ago a friend of ours came to our house telling us that he read about the visit and the meeting with Bush in "Al Sharq Al Awsat" a widely distributed Arabic newspaper that reaches most Arab countries if not all. They had the news through the Washington Post and this was not strange to me, as it's a common thing that Arabic newspapers and Satellite TV channels discuss western media regularly. It's one thing to risk your life for doing what you believe in and serving your country and humanity and it's totally another thing to risk your life just to meet (POTUS).
So we see that Ali was, despite his relentless optimism and support for Iraqi elections, aware that candidates were being executed regularly by the resistance as "collaborators" and he knew that the surest way to paint a bullseye on your back in Baghdad was to associate with any Americans, let alone tour the US with your pro-invasion American "friends" and visit the widely-despised US President George W. Bush. Having compromised themselves in a way that the Iraqi Olympic Soccer Team refused to allow, the hapless Iraqis were then feted by every warblogger who could get in on the action, as well as written up in various "MSM" papers and featured in radio interviews. Warbloggers plastered pictures of Omar and Mohammed on their blogs which underwent a succession of changes as the brothers, possibly galvanized by Ali's reaction in Baghdad, begged them to first, obscure their faces and then remove the pictures. (The picture issue was a bit ridiculous because the brothers already had their pictures on their campaign website.)
The warbloggers and their various fellow-travelers would prefer to forget this moment of blogger triumph and glory when at last some trophy Iraqi bloggers arrived who were willing to validate their bloody invasion of a country that posed no threat to them (they ignored Salam Pax, the most famous Iraqi blogger, who made his way to the US in October) , especially when they need to make a vicious attack on an "MSM" reporter for doing what they would now pretend they had never done first and far worse: endangering and exploiting the people they were ostentatiously "liberating," who mistakely thought that they were under the protection of people who cared about them and their wellbeing.
The writing is already on the wall to indicate how the War Party and it's Internet Cadres intend to handle the looming demise of their Great Iraqi Vision when it inevitably swallows up the Iraqis who listened to them and trusted them (along with the Americans already mired in the quagmire.) They're going to pin it on the very people who warned them from the beginning that they were wrong and bound to fail. Already you hear it constantly, the whiny accusations against the media and analysts who dare to criticize - negative, sapping morale, breaking our will to win - as if not acknowledging reality could somehow keep it at bay. The hypocritical charge of the Fighting Keyboarders - endanger, endanger, endanger, endanger echoed through the warblog-O-sphere as they all linked to one another's posts.
And so, at this moment when these severely compromised and exploited Iraqis have returned to the life-threatening chaos that is now the New Iraq and still live, I challenge all of you who clamored for meetings and held parties with real, live Iraqi centerpieces to step up and accept the responsibility for what you've done. You brought these guys here and - according to Ali, "...despite we were promised that there would be no major media, I got a mail from a journalist in the Washington Post.." You lied. These guys are dead men walking because the most dangerous occupation on this planet right now is being a candidate for election in Occupied Iraq, and Baghdad is in it's own little category of hyper-danger.
Now, it becomes obvious why all of you latched on to the NYT Boxer piece. In the time-honored method of cowards and low-lifes everywhere, you were looking for someone on whom to pin the blame when these guys get killed, just like you'll do and have done with every other miserable, predictable consequence in this murderous war.
If any of you had any decency, you'd arrange for these guys to take refuge in the Green Zone, at least. I really hope you already did that and arranged for a phalanx of bodyguards to follow them everywhere, but I doubt you did. Because you're all too busy pretending your fantasy Iraq really exists.
Posted by: Tex MacRae on Jan 20, 05 | 6:42 pm
http://www.antiwar.com/blog/more.php?id=1668_0_1_0_M
brian