Would a major Norwegian newspaper print a daily column by Saddam Hussein? To show us what life really is like behind the scenes in a totalitarian state?

Of course not. Hussein's a dictator and a liar, and no self-respecting newspaper would allow itself to be made part of another country's propaganda machine. At least they'd want to filter the dictator's views through a journalist. Right?

So why then is Dagbladet running a diary by professor Shuja al-Ani at the University of Baghdad? Al-Ani uses his diary to present the supposedly ordinary Iraqi's point of view of the conflict. From his entry on Wednesday:

When I left my apartment in the morning, I meat the janitor and his brother who works as a plumber. They came to me and asked questions as if they had been isolated from the world for the last six months. "Will there be a war against us?" "Yes," I said. "Will it be very dangerous this time?" they asked. "This looks like it will be the most dangerous ever," I replied. "Where are we going to go?" asked one. He looked at me as if I could protect him or save him, as a prayer for help.

And then, after reviewing an Iraqi historical novel,

It's as if this is the destiny of the Iraqi people. We are blessed with oil and water, but crushed by wars and worrying.

According to Dagbladet, Al-Ani is a world famous critic of Arabic literature. I'll take their word for that, (though I can't find him on Google under that spelling). The idea of a war diary is great, but how far inside Dagbladet's dusty cellar do you have to live to believe that anyone in Iraq, let alone a prominent academic, is free to say what they really believe? This diary might as well be a communique from the Iraqi Ministry of Culture and Information, specifically designed for the Western press. Misinformation is worse than no information, and publishing this diary as an "authentic" voice from Baghdad is an insult to the free press.

One day there's going to have to be a reckoning of how a large number of Norwegians in 2003 betrayed their own dearest ideals. We'll ask how so many people could get their priorities so wrong, and be so stubbornly naive, about something so important, just like we today ask how people could get communism so wrong in the 70's. (And a part of the answer might be that the same people who got communism wrong in the 70's had become opinion leaders by 2003, but I'm getting ahead of myself by a couple of decades.)

Try THIS site for a more honest and blunt "view from the real streets of Baghdad":

http://dear_raed.blogspot.com/

Salam has been posting for quite a while, demonstrating neither a pro-Saddam nor anti-American view; just his honest opinion of how quite a lot of Iragis feel.

The Tocquevillian led me here. I like this site. I'll return daily.

See also -
http://iraniangirl.blogspot.com/ Notes of an Iranian girl

Very interesting site. I agree, Saddam was a dictator and a liar; but he didn't have Weapons of Mass Destruction. I think the United States should give him his country back and say that we're sorry we killed your sons and caused such a mess. " See ya latter and have a nice life "...or just evacuate all of the civilians and turn Iraq into a field of glass. But wait a minute...What about the Oil ???

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Tocq Magazine TocqLogBlog: Bjørn Stærk blog, February 22, 2003 04:50 AM

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