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Hosted By
OK, I'm late to the party on this one, but it seems one of those contentious issues that demands that a self-respecting blogger make their opinion known.
Salam Pax, ur-blogger of Iraq and a man with an invitable backlash coming his way if there ever was one, has drawn the wrath of Lileks for comments he made in an open letter to President Bush in the Guardian. Witness first Salam:
Dear George,
I hate to wake you up from that dream you are having, the one in which you are a superhero bringing democracy and freedom to underdeveloped, oppressed countries. But you really need to check things out in one of the countries you have recently bombed to freedom. Georgie, I am kind of worried that things are going a bit bad in Iraq and you don't seem to care that much. You might want it to appear as if things are going well and sign Iraq off as a job well done, but I am afraid this is not the case.
Listen, habibi, it is not over yet. Let me explain this in simple terms. You have spilled a glass full of tomato juice on an already dirty carpet and now you have to clean up the whole room. Not all of the mess is your fault but you volunteered to clean it up. I bet if someone had explained it to you like that you would have been less hasty going on our Rambo-in-Baghdad trip.
To tell you the truth, I am glad that someone is doing the cleaning up, and thank you for getting rid of that scary guy with the hideous moustache that we had for president. But I have to say that the advertisements you were dropping from your B52s before the bombs fell promised a much more efficient and speedy service. We are a bit disappointed. So would you please, pretty please, with sugar on top, get your act together and stop telling people you have Iraq all figured out when you are giving us the trial-and-error approach?
Anyway, I hope this doesn't disturb you too much. Have a nice stay in London, wave hello to the demonstrators, and give my regards to your spin doctors. I bet they are having a hell of a job making you look good.
Regards,
Salam Pax
The Baghdad Blogger
To which Lileks responded:
Hey, Salam? Fuck you. I know you’re the famous giggly blogger who gave us all a riveting view of the inner circle before the war, and thus know more about the situation than I do. Granted. But there’s a picture on the front page of my local paper today: third Minnesotan killed in Iraq. He died doing what you never had the stones to do: pick up a rifle and face the Ba’athists. You owe him.
Heavyweight metacommentary has subsequently ensued from the likes of Brian Linse ("After reading this offensive piece of shit from James Lileks, I went to my blogroll to de-link him only to realize that I had done so a long time ago.") and Roger Simon ("Salam Pax should be ashamed of himself. What a moral twit! I used to think he was a shill for the Mukhabarat and took a good deal of heat from my fellow bloggers for it. I was probably wrong, but I wasn't wrong about the character of the man.")
I'm with James and Roger on this one. Sometimes attitude and style matters, and this is one of those times. If Salam wants to criticize the Bush team's efforts at reconstruction, good for him, there's plenty to criticize. But his letter quite obviously wasn't meant as constructive criticism; it was meant as a fuck-you to President Bush (and by association, those who support him -- i.e., a large segment of the American public). His letter is almost utterly devoid of any real content other than a knowing sneer: it's a whine, and nothing more.
If you want to point out problems in the reconstruction effort, I'm all for it. I don't even really expect or require conspicuous displays of gratitude from Iraqis towards the U.S., so on that note perhaps I'm less demanding than Roger and James. But let's not pretend that this was a genuine attempt to point out real issues: this was Salam deciding to give Bush the finger, and act like a jerk, and guess what: people are pointing out that he's being a jerk.
This would all be fine and good, but the problem is, most folks who read Salam's comments aren't going to stop to separate his style from his substance, or Salam from Iraqis in general. They're going to hear a rather obnoxious Iraqi voice which doesn't seem to have any recognition of the sacrifices the U.S. has made in this war. They're going to react like Lileks did, and say "fuck you". The difference is, most folks won't be quite as precise in the direction of their response as he was. They're not going to say "Fuck you Salam". They're going to say "Fuck those Iraqis".
So maybe the next time Salam wants to shoot his mouth off, he might want to think about actually, you know, using his newfound status to do his own cause some good, rather than acting like the poster-child for an ungrateful Iraqi public. Show us what's going on for real on the ground, Salam --- that's what you always did best. Give us the facts of what is going wrong, and right, and share your insights on what could be done better.
But wipe that asshole pose from your repertoire, before you do any more damage. And realize that like it or not, you now speak for your whole country --- and what matters is not just what you say, but how you say it.
