We are developing the social individualist meta-context for the future. From the very serious to the extremely frivolous... lets see what is on the mind of the Samizdata people.
Samizdata, derived from Samizdat /n. - a system of clandestine publication of banned literature in the USSR [Russ.,= self-publishing house]
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A bit more civility guys… Salaam Pax is covering the story of how his friend, Baghdad photo blogger “G” was knocked about by US soldiers. Those in the know around the blogosphere have enjoyed “G’s” candid shots around Baghdad.
Here at Samizdata we don’t take kindly to our fellow bloggers getting roughed up. So whoever did it, go and apologize to him. NOW!
Well, I’m waiting!
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If the soldiers that did that had just been shot at the same day, they have reason to be nervous. That said, there probably is no excuse for what happened at that particular location, but, given the VERY touchy situations all over the country, many times it is the only way to control a situation. Until we hear all the circumstances, hold your fire, please.
Yeah, like you got both sides of the story. Geat real.
Other than the issue of “G” and whatever really happened to him…
I think Salam Pax is a whiner and crybaby about a lot of other things, and I have written a bit on it at the above link.
I’m a bit skeptical also. Soldiers aren’t perfect, but Salam’s account seems one sided and quite proably exaggerated. Besides, at least they’re doing something. What does Salam ever do besides whine?
I read Salam’s latest article. In answer to his question “do you have any idea what it feels like to sleep in 50C?” — Why yes, I do. Try it in chem gear. Perhaps if you did more to control your tyrants and fanatics, you could now be enjoying air conditioning.
I wonder if the reaction would be the same from you lot if it was an American getting beaten up by Iraqis.
If the American is in Iraq, being an asshole, and being in the way as an American I have no problem whatsoever with the US Army kicking the shit out of him. Satisfied Cobden.
Besides Cobbo this is a war not a police action. Sheesh.
The actions of US troops are understandable… but that does not makes them always correct or acceptable. Dale was calling for a little restraint and civility when those are due, not heads-on-pikes. Like Dale, I was and still am a supporter of the actions to crush Ba’athism but that should not make it impossible to criticize all allied actions in Iraq.
Dale was being snarky and enjoying an opportunity to stuck it to Americans. He is just having fun the only way he knows how.
“Here at Samizdata we don’t take kindly to our fellow bloggers getting roughed up. So whoever did it, go and apologize to him. NOW!
Well, I’m waiting!”
It sounded more like he was taking a side in this soap opera and demanding the Americans to apologise when he obviously didn’t have the whole story.
Interesting how the request for a bit of civility was greeted by Cody.
“Requests” don’t usually include the word “NOW!”, written thusly, in all caps with an exclamation mark.
Oh Dear. Dale Amon should have known better than to post anything capable of being construed as even the mildest criticism of US troops’ behaviour. It’s noteworthy (just…) that Mr Boness assumes Dale cannot be one of his compatriots, I mean, it’s only spineless and morally decrepit non-Americans who could write such stuff.
At this point, I would be hard pressed to say with any confidence that the incident happened at all. Basically, what we have here is not just hearsay, not just anonymous hearsay, but double anonymous hearsay – one anonymous person tells another anonymous person who tells you that something happened. (Apparently, “G” may be using his real name on his blog, or it could be a pseudonym. Who knows?)
I guess you could find less reliable evidence, but you would be hard pressed.
Even if the account is more or less accurate, one wonders how complete it is.
I do agree with Dale’s headline, though. If the Iraqis were being more civil to the US troops, we probably wouldn’t see any incidents like this.
I ain’t budgin’.
We are guests in their home, there to assist in taking out the trash. It is up to us to give due respect to the people whose home it is. It ain’t ours.
Please imagine yourself (or your son or daughter) out in your home town while armed foreigners are tromping around. It’s *your* town so you (or your kid) start taking pictures. They hassle you: you hassle right back because it’s your home and it ain’t theirs.
Put the shoe on your own foot and start rethinking what you’ve been saying. Start thinking about exactly why we are there. It’s people like these we are there *FOR*.
I’m not looking for courts martial. Everyone has a bad day and stress is a bad thing. But an apology is deserved and should be forthcoming.
AND you are SURE a) the incident happened as reported and b) no apology was offered???
Boy, are you naive.
No more sure than I am that you are not an AI program or someone posing as rkb. Salaam has been a good source of information and has been part of our “crowd” for over a year or longer. We all loved what he said when it met our pre-conceptions and what we wanted to hear.
Perhaps we should listen even harder when he *doesn’t* say what we want to hear.
MB would only say, again: hold fire until all the evidence is in. Salam says he’ll be putting up G’s story soon. Of course it’s going to be from G’s pont of view; that’s what we all do as bloggers/commentors. What one can only hope for is some kind of statement from the Coalition side as to their version of events.
Then, and ONLY THEN will we have the right to take potshots, willy-nilly.
I’ve been a Salaam skeptic since day one. Its one thing to be anonymous in a police state, but I don’t think Salaam needs to fear the Baathists anymore (if he ever did – he is obviously from a well-connected family, and his claims that his parents quit their jobs to avoid Baath party membership are awfully convenient and inconsistent with other things he has written). If you want your factual reporting taken seriously at all, then you need to drop the anonymity and come out of the shadows.
I discount anything with anonymous sourcing, and I dismiss just about any factual reporting put up by an anonymous reporter, absent the kind of extraordinary circumstances that Salaam can no longer claim and a proven record of accuracy that Salaam doesn’t have.
As for us being guests in their home, the host has certain obligations as well. Among the usual host obligations in most cultures is not shooting your guests, mining your driveway, or otherwise blowing up their vehicles. I wouldn’t take the host/guest analogy too far.
Perhaps one has a different viewpoint on these matters when one has seen the recieving end with their own eyes. Note my dateline is BELFAST.
I seriously doubt the coaltion has the least bit of interest in what happens to one Iraqi blogger so I am not seriously holding my breath expecting anyone to apologize.
The point is, if you piss off enough decent folk, you will create a situation in which the goodwill has drained away and you will find yourself in very deep excrement.
I want this war to bring about an Iraqi renaissance, not long term strife.
Don’t ever believe that just because someone wears an American uniform that they will always operate to the standards set for them. Our guys aren’t that different from soldiers anywhere. Put them in harms way long enough and some will be turned into the sort who would rape you poodle and then roast it over a spit for supper.
I think we’re now in a race against the clock between knocking off enough of the Baathists to stabilize things so we can replace combat troops with civilian police and alienating enough Iraqi’s that it will all just fall apart.
I *want* this to work. I’m not going to stick my head in the sand if I see problems coming.
I’m hoping Salaam will come over to our humble samizdata abode (where he is most welcome) and answer Mr Dean’s insinuations about his veracity.
Wow! When I saw this post, I thought it was a tongue-in-cheek (that means slightly humorous, folks) comment about what could be (that means may or may not be) an unfortunate incident (that is to say, something one wishes did not happen, like an accident or mistake).
I didn’t know it meant Dale has gone over to the dark side and is harboring Saddam under his bed. Gee, I have to get better at reading between the lines and keeping my enemies list up to date.
PLEASE NOTE: This is NOT an endorsement of Saddam Hussein, Arnold Schwarzenegger or the bona fides of Salaam Pax. The incident in question may or may not have happened. If it did, it may or may not have happened the way it is ultimately portrayed. All things considered, however, if someone HAD to accidentally get roughed up by accident, I would have preferred it to be Robert Fisk and not someone generally sympathetic to the liberation of Iraq, like G.
A few thoughts on the anonymity issue. Obviously if one were to apply the standards mentioned by one of our respondees evenly, we would have to also discount the fine postings of the crew at Sgt Stryker; and our own inimitable (and anonymous) British soldier correspondent in Basra.
Dale – I too would love Salaam Pax to come clean about his identity and background. Until he does, though, I will read his dispatches with a great deal of skepticism.
I also want an Iraqi renaissance, but I am trying to keep a little perspective. It has been less than four months since we got rid of Saddam’s regime. There seems little sign of organized resistance, and none of what we see has any strategic significance at all. Our policing, from what I can tell, is much less intrusive than the Iraqis are used to from Baathists. If anything, many Iraqis seem to think we have been too soft in our attempts to track down Baathists and keep order – a fair amount of whatever resentment that the Iraqis have for the occupation seems to come from their beleif that we are too soft, not from heavy-handed tactics. For cripes sake, these people are used to hearing about their neighbors disappearing into industrial shredders. I doubt they are much offended by one kid getting slapped around a little for mouthing off to a military patrol.
This is a military occupation, not a daycare center, that will come to an end as soon as the Iraqi transition regime is ready to take over. Things are moving toward that goal at a brisk clip. There are problems in Iraq, to be sure, but I think that by almost any realistic standard the occupation is going quite well. There are definitely some things to keep an eye on, but heavy-handed policing is pretty far down on my list at this point.
X-post with Dale, sorry.
“Obviously if one were to apply the standards mentioned by one of our respondees evenly, we would have to also discount the fine postings of the crew at Sgt Stryker; and our own inimitable (and anonymous) British soldier correspondent in Basra.”
I do indeed discount their reports to some degree, but I would point out the soldiers on active duty are in a “special circumstance” that gives some mitigation to their anonymity. I do not believe Mr. Pax is in a similar special circumstance, at least not anymore.
All I am saying is that I think he ought to come clean about his identity if he expects anyone to take his factual reporting seriously. Why is that so controversial?
If I were either of them, posting fairly anti-Baath sentiments and at least lukewarm to positive statements on the conquest and overthrow by the US/UK forces… I’d keep my head down to.
There are still people being shot in the dead of the night over there you know.
If you were a Baghdad resident who survived the regime all of your life, how long would it be before you believed they really aren’t going to manage to stay underground and wear down the foreigner’s home front patience? Would you be willing to bet your life and that of all of your family on it?
Would you?
Would you be willing to bet your life and that of all of your family on it?
Absolutely not. Hence, I wouldn’t have gotten within miles of blogging – certainly not letting slip real information about my profession, my lifestyle, my family, my residence.
He’s said way too much for his safety, and not nearly enough for his credibility.
I don’t remember him making any particularly anti-government statements before “the balloon went up”. (Good turn of the last century military jargon that) I seem to remember noticing he was quite careful to be innocuous. He only got a bit political after we got into Baghdad. The people left there now don’t have the resources at their disposal to track someone down based on a few odd facts… but a full name is another thing. Then for an intelligence search you use… a phone directory.
Good to see what Dale Amon thinks of, presumably, the actions of the *British* army in Ulster. Just so I know, is this the general “anti-statist” line on Samizdata about *our* army at work in the part of the UK where this foreign libertarian happens to be living?
If not, perhaps some of you squealing [British] patriots could put Dale here right as to what exactly it is he’s been on the ‘recieving end’ whilst in our country? Suspect not, but wait to be be plesantly surprised.
PS Dale if you think you’ve been on the ‘recieving end’ of anything in Belfast, you really ought to get out a bit more.
Dear True Blue
What on Earth are you on about?
Eamon
On the anonymous posting issue, there clearly may bea point when Pax does actually come clean about his id, but he may not feel the time is right and hence suffer a certain degree of skepticism until then. It is his choice. Quite a few folk write for blogs under pen-names, and I have no problem with that. So long as their articles can be checked for accuracy there should be no need to throw rocks.
True Blues comments above are inane.
“Quite a few folk write for blogs under pen-names, and I have no problem with that.”
Including me (sensitive professional position and all that). I do little if any factual reporting though – just linking and commenting. Anonymous comments and analysis can be taken for whatever they are worth at face value. Anonymous witnessing and evidence is famously unreliable, though.
Maybe I’m being slow, but isn’t this – “Perhaps one has a different viewpoint on these matters when one has seen the recieving end with their own eyes. Note my dateline is BELFAST” (DALE AMON) – what True Blue’s likely to be on about?
Dale’s tenses are a little bit woozy, but in the context of this thread, what point_was_he making about ‘dateline Belfast’ other than: ‘British army=bad’?
Regardless of my criticism of Salam Pax’s immature attitude, I think he has every reason to stay anonymous. He is living in a dangerous place, and is relatively famous. That in itself is enough to place his life in danger.
Hey Ron –
I’d like to think that you’re making a joke, but something tells me you aren’t. “Perhaps if you did more to control your tyrants and fanatics”? Has it occurred to you that if they were controllable, they wouldn’t be tyrants and fanatics by definition?
I’d like to see you try to control the person who can have your family slaughtered if he doesn’t like the way you looked at his cat.
Hell, we can’t even control our own politicians we’ve supposedly elected. You’ve gotta love that it’s now legal to arrest a librarian for telling someone that the FBI looked at what books they’ve checked out.
Keep up he good work Dale. Your thoughts on the subject are provoking a very reasonable discussion. Which is one of the (sometime) strengths of this board.
maddog: If I don’t get everyone mad at me at least once in a year, I’m not doing my job 😉
Well said Dale – I will stand by my country till they step out of line, then call them on what they’ve done. I don’t believe in letting the actions of our government and military slide based just on some “patriotic duty” that we should not question their decisions as I’ve been told many times by God-fearing Americans.
The American media has used anonymous sources far less established than Salam. With Salam, you have an entire background pre-dating the war of posts to establish his validity – you have confirmation by several reporters who’ve met Salam stating he is real and authentic. Dale said it beautifully, who are we in our safe country to not only dismiss what he is saying, but insult him for not accepting what the United States and the UK has given them. We don’t know what it’s like over there in their daily routine. We don’t know what it was like over there before the liberation.
When we have Iraqi people saying things were better under Saddam during the last couple years than they are now, it shows that we’re not winning over the hearts of the Iraqi people. It’s easy to say that if the Iraqi people treated our soldiers better, events like this would not happen. I dismiss this argument as being spurious – The Iraqi people would not be acting like this if it was not for the action of our soldiers. We did not go to Iraq to liberate the people who support Saddam, we went to liberate those who want freedom. Those who want freedom are not our enemies, and treating them as we treat those still fighting for Saddam is going to damage our perception.
It’s easy for you to dismiss their positions, and regardless of what facts you put forward perception is what matters to these people. Perception IS reality, for us too. Your views are based on your perceptions of how good our military is, how much you trust President Bush, how much you trust his word about what’s going on over there. They’re no more out of line than you are in dismissing them as being greedy savages. If the Iraqi people who support America and the liberation are truly scared and feel as if this is not working – then we are failing as a nation to win them over. Shame on those of you who say it’s the responsibility of the Iraqi people to pick up the pace, it was our President himself who rejected bringing in any outside organizations such as the UN to help with the re-building process, to help with international police forces. When our President tells us we have enough soldiers to do this, to rebuild Iraq and win over the people, and rejects outside help, WE shoulder the responsibility to get Iraqi on it’s feet. It is our duty as the liberators and now occupying force to rebuild Iraq and win over the hearts of the Iraqi people – something we’re failing at.
Before anyone goes nuts regarding my failing comment – when I say we’re failing, I mean we’re failing at winning over the hearts and minds of the people of Iraq. We can only do it so much, we’re still fighting a war despite our President calling main combat over. The main war was never in question, I laughed at those who said this was going to be a slaughter. The real question was always how will we handle the city fighting post-traditional war.
We need to win over the Iraqi people who do want freedom. Slowly we’re doing this, but not as fast and as well as we can. Let’s face it folks, our boys are trained to kill, and we’re the god damn best at that. But when you interact that mindset with people who want to be supportive and trust our soldiers, it quickly tarnishes the solidarity between our two peoples. In order to get this second phase of the war over, we must have the support of the Iraqi people – we must get them to the point where they WANT to fight along side us against those who still support Saddam, not for money, not for greed, but for the passion of rebuilding their country.
It’s easy to buy people off, but that does not mean we’ve won them over. We must win over the commoners, the non-elite, and get them on our side in more than just superficial ways so that they will help us. Like I said, it’s unfortunate President Bush has rejected the UN in helping us – the one thing the UN is good at is rebuilding nations after the fact. Because we’ve rejected outside help, it is up to our troops and us as citizens to win these people over and get them on our side.
“Like I said, it’s unfortunate President Bush has rejected the UN in helping us – the one thing the UN is good at is rebuilding nations after the fact.”
Like the Palestinians? The UN has, at the very best, a mixed record on this front, and nice solid history of collaborating with the Baathists and diverting oil revenue. No thanks, at least in Iraq.
I am far from convinced that we are losing the “hearts and minds” if the Iraqis. The reports to that effect are mostly “man in the street” interviews by reporters looking for a story about how we are losing the hearts and minds. We can always do better, of course, but until some kind of legitimate popular resistance starts to gel (and I don’t think the current crop of Baathist bitter enders counts), I don’t think there is too much to worry about on that front.
That’s fine R.C. – regardless of their position and capability they are capable of nation building and peace keeping missions. Even our government has acknowledged that’s about the only thing that’s left in the UN that carries any weight. By rejecting them, we burden the responsibility to make sure Iraq stays on the right track. That means, we don’t put the blame on the people of Iraq or on outside factors – we are choosing to make this an exclusive mission lead by our nation, therefore, we accept full responsibility for the problems.
I’m sure you’re far from convinced, let’s face it, the liberal media is out to destroy our President and tarnish everything he’s said. Even though they’ve been the most complacent and subjective in their unquestioned support of the war during the build up and up till the declaration of the war is over. Even independent journalists are echoing the same sentiments. Naturally, there are those who are happy with Iraq and America – but they are few and far between, and when they do pop up they are blasted through-out our television stations as proof of our success. So by rejecting the people who do have issues with our country’s liberation of them, you’re only accepting the sources that fit your pre-conception.
I’m under no illusion that things are getting better, but I’m also under no illusion that we could be doing a better job at winning over the common-street people.
I can’t help but feel shamefully arrogant taking part in this discussion – I hope others feel the same sentiments. It’s easy for us to sit half way across the world in our air-conditionted rooms declaring how the people of Iraq feel about this, or how they should be behaving towards our soldiers. None of us can truly comprehend what they’re going through. Some of us have been close to this scenario, but not from their perspective. Those of us who have served in the 90s during active operations have seen first hand the faces and lives of these people – but I make no attempt to declare I can understand how they perceive our troops or looked at me during my operations.
It’s easy for us to arrogantly dictate their futures as armchair scholars, but let’s step back and realize we simply don’t have a clue what this is like for the Iraqi people. That goes for those of us like myself who are defending them, and those of us who are attacking them as being in the wrong.
“So by rejecting the people who do have issues with our country’s liberation of them, you’re only accepting the sources that fit your pre-conception.”
I don’t think that I am doing this, although everybody filters to some degree. Rather, I am looking for something that is more than anecdotal and not transparently ideological, to indicate where the hearts and minds are going. As far as I can tell, there is bitching everywhere (and why shouldn’t they bitch? their country is a shambles), but outside of Baathist bitter end strongholds I see no evidence of any significant Iraq resentment or resistance.
There just isn’t anything happening that makes me think that any significant group of Iraqis blame us and want us gone. The trouble all comes from Baathists and imported jihadis, as far as I can tell. If we don’t get them under control, eventually we will lose Iraq, and deserve to. But we are a long way from that.