Salam Pax is back
May. 9th, 2003 07:12 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rfmcdonaldIraqi Blogger Resurfaces, Says War 'Sucks'
By Jonathan Wright Thu May 8, 2003 01:00 AM ET
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Iraqi blogger survived the U.S. invasion and concluded: 'War sucks big time.'
Salam Pax, pseudonym for an anonymous Iraqi who logged the prelude and start of the invasion but went offline on March 24 when the electricity went down, filed his first post-war report on Wednesday by e-mail to a skeptical fellow blogger.
Anyone who doubted his authenticity and speculated that he was filing from outside Iraq should read his voluminous report of his adventures over the past six weeks, which runs to about 9,800 words (http://dear_raed.blogspot.com/).
Salam Pax, whose name combines the Arabic and Latin words for peace, seems to be relishing the departure of vanished Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein, despite his reservations about the violent methods that brought it about.
'War sucks big time. Don't let yourself ever be talked into having one waged in the name of your freedom. Somehow when the bombs start dropping or you hear the sound of machine guns at the end of your street you don't think about your 'imminent liberation' anymore,' he wrote.
But, enigmatic as ever, he does not have much sympathy for Baghdad taxi drivers nostalgic about Saddam's three decades.
'So, dear Mr. Taxi driver would you like to have your Saddam back? Aren't we just really glad that we can now at least have hope for a new Iraq? Or are we Iraqis just a bunch of impatient fools who do nothing better than grumble and whine? ... End of conversation,' he wrote.
'The truth is, if it weren't for intervention this would never have happened. When we were watching the Saddam statue being pulled down, one of my aunts was saying that she never thought she would see this day during her lifetime,' he added.
Blogger Diana Moon, who had wondered whether Salam Pax was real, said she received an e-mail from Salam Pax's cousin on Tuesday with a satellite phone number to call.
'I called it. Salam's father decided to play grumpy patriarch and told me to call back in 'two minutes', which I did. Salam sounds fine. We discussed as many things as we could in a short amount of time,' she wrote.
On Wednesday, she received his lengthy e-mail, which she arranged to post on his Web site.
By Jonathan Wright Thu May 8, 2003 01:00 AM ET
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Iraqi blogger survived the U.S. invasion and concluded: 'War sucks big time.'
Salam Pax, pseudonym for an anonymous Iraqi who logged the prelude and start of the invasion but went offline on March 24 when the electricity went down, filed his first post-war report on Wednesday by e-mail to a skeptical fellow blogger.
Anyone who doubted his authenticity and speculated that he was filing from outside Iraq should read his voluminous report of his adventures over the past six weeks, which runs to about 9,800 words (http://dear_raed.blogspot.com/).
Salam Pax, whose name combines the Arabic and Latin words for peace, seems to be relishing the departure of vanished Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein, despite his reservations about the violent methods that brought it about.
'War sucks big time. Don't let yourself ever be talked into having one waged in the name of your freedom. Somehow when the bombs start dropping or you hear the sound of machine guns at the end of your street you don't think about your 'imminent liberation' anymore,' he wrote.
But, enigmatic as ever, he does not have much sympathy for Baghdad taxi drivers nostalgic about Saddam's three decades.
'So, dear Mr. Taxi driver would you like to have your Saddam back? Aren't we just really glad that we can now at least have hope for a new Iraq? Or are we Iraqis just a bunch of impatient fools who do nothing better than grumble and whine? ... End of conversation,' he wrote.
'The truth is, if it weren't for intervention this would never have happened. When we were watching the Saddam statue being pulled down, one of my aunts was saying that she never thought she would see this day during her lifetime,' he added.
Blogger Diana Moon, who had wondered whether Salam Pax was real, said she received an e-mail from Salam Pax's cousin on Tuesday with a satellite phone number to call.
'I called it. Salam's father decided to play grumpy patriarch and told me to call back in 'two minutes', which I did. Salam sounds fine. We discussed as many things as we could in a short amount of time,' she wrote.
On Wednesday, she received his lengthy e-mail, which she arranged to post on his Web site.
