Iraqi Bloggers
[posted by Callimachus]
Is it my imagination, or have regular links to Iraqi bloggers largely disappeared from the discourse (by which I mean "shit-fling-fest") of the U.S. blogosphere? I'm thinking of all sides here: There are hundreds of articulate Iraqis publishing online in English on the daily realities of their lives, as there were during and immediately after the war.
If you hate Bush and the war and American things generally, you can read Riverbend. If you believe in post-Saddam Iraq and its chances, you can read Iraq the Model. You used to see those blogs cited often on the U.S. blogs, but now it seems they are almost invisible.
I'm as guilty of it as anyone, so here's a meager attempt to atone. Iraqi Blog Count is devoted to tracking the Iraqi blogs in existence. Its sidebar links to all of them, and if you have some time, take a spin through it. You'll meet all kinds of characters and opinions -- as you would in a random cross-section of any people.
Some are quite cranky, and certainly I don't approve of them all, so the usual caveats apply. But don't let yourself lose touch with these people as you think about where you want the U.S. occupation to go from here.
Among my favorite new finds among the Iraqi writers is Asterism. But also check out this stream-of-consciousness post from the mostly dormant Iraqi Rocker (which Dave Shuler also linked to somewhere).
Don't leave them out of your calculations.
Is it my imagination, or have regular links to Iraqi bloggers largely disappeared from the discourse (by which I mean "shit-fling-fest") of the U.S. blogosphere? I'm thinking of all sides here: There are hundreds of articulate Iraqis publishing online in English on the daily realities of their lives, as there were during and immediately after the war.
If you hate Bush and the war and American things generally, you can read Riverbend. If you believe in post-Saddam Iraq and its chances, you can read Iraq the Model. You used to see those blogs cited often on the U.S. blogs, but now it seems they are almost invisible.
I'm as guilty of it as anyone, so here's a meager attempt to atone. Iraqi Blog Count is devoted to tracking the Iraqi blogs in existence. Its sidebar links to all of them, and if you have some time, take a spin through it. You'll meet all kinds of characters and opinions -- as you would in a random cross-section of any people.
Some are quite cranky, and certainly I don't approve of them all, so the usual caveats apply. But don't let yourself lose touch with these people as you think about where you want the U.S. occupation to go from here.
Among my favorite new finds among the Iraqi writers is Asterism. But also check out this stream-of-consciousness post from the mostly dormant Iraqi Rocker (which Dave Shuler also linked to somewhere).
Don't leave them out of your calculations.
