This BBC story (apparently ripped off from the NYT; more on that below) is about three Iraqi brothers who actually think the U.S. is doing good work in their country, which has some accusing them of being CIA stooges.
Of course, having two of them invited to a Harvard blogging conference and pressing flesh with Dubya probably didn't help their cred in Baghdad.
An excerpt:
Iraq blog spat leads to web chaos | |
A pro-US weblog by three Iraqi brothers has become the unlikely setting for a huge web spat after conspiracy theorists alleged it was a fake. Iraq the Model, a weblog detailing the more positive aspects of the US-led occupation of the country, is one of the most popular Iraq sites on the web (note: And it's in English too! - Bill D). But some anti-war activists said it was a CIA-sponsored propaganda tool. The brothers strongly denied the claims, but the row has led to severe ructions in the online Iraq community. |
One of the bro's broke from the trio -- I think it was after the other two visited America. Ali's blog is called Free Iraqi (it's also in English).
Now, the NYT story by Sarah Boxer (posted Jan. 18; only free until Monday at midnight!), has some delicious details in it.
For example, the host of the bro's blog is in Abilene, Texas. The company's name? CIATech Solutions (?!?!)
Ali explained ... by pasting in an e-mail message he got from an employee of the company explaining that the C.I.A. in the name is short for Complex Internet Applications and that the company "has nothing to do with the U.S. government."
A question raised about the blog was whether it has been "astroturfed" (a new term on me!). Astroturfing occurs when a supposedly grass-roots operation actually is getting help from a powerful think tank, governmental agency or any outside source with an agenda.
A major source of criticism has been Martini Republic, which links to this article by Anti-War Blog -- which in tern links back to, er, Martini Republic. Here's the link to a Dec. 12 Martini Republic posting on the Fahdil brothers' triumphant American tour.
From the NYT:
Martini Republic pointed out that the pro-war blog was getting lots of attention from papers like The Wall Street Journal and USA Today while antiwar bloggers like Riverbend, who writes Baghdad Burning, had gone unsung. Surely Iraq the Model did not represent the mainstream of Iraqi thinking?
Ali finally got exasperated: "The thing that upset me the most is that if there are some powers that are trying to use us and our writings as a propaganda tool, you and other bloggers as well as some of the media outlets are doing the same with anti-American Iraqi bloggers."
But his "if" seemed to signal that Ali, too, was indeed worried about being used.
That was on Dec. 12. Ali's "Dear John" letter followed on Dec. 19. Then he quietly resurfaced on the Internet as a blogger called Iraqi Liberal and, when that name generated too much online debate about what "liberal" meant, Free Iraqi.
Boxer interviewed Ali over the phone (he's a 34-year-old doctor):
Ali never did expose the people who made him feel that he was on the wrong side, and in fact conceded that he couldn't. As he confided on the phone, "I didn't know who the people were." Instead, he started his own blog. He said he had always wanted to do that anyway.
"Me and my brothers," he said, "we generally agree on Iraq and the future." (He is helping his brother Mohammed, who is running on the Iraqi Pro-Democracy Party ticket in the Jan. 30 election.) But there is one important difference: "My brothers have confidence in the American administration. I have my questions."