I always read her blog, and am interested in what she has to say, but seriously, she is very dogmatic. She never does any hand wringing, she has NEVER changed her mind on anything, she never even considers if, in an ideal world, democracy could be a good thing. This is a complete contrast to Iraq, which like America, is full of varying opinions, a lot of it fluid depending on the events of the day. Yet, Riverbend was negative with the arrival of the Americans, negative after the transfer of power to the transitional government, negative after the Americans re-captured Fallujah, negative after the Jan. '05 election (in fact, she was talking about water that day; obviously, she hadn't bothered to vote), negative about the growing violence, negative about the Constitution and election, negative about the government that took forever to be formed, negative when the sectarian strife escalated after the shrine was blown up, negative now after the death of a murderer of Iraqis Zarqawi. So no matter WHAT happens in Iraq, her reaction is always the same. Oh, and her English is American English and impeccable. Why is that? She is as negatively dogmatic as Omar and Mohammed from Iraq the Model were positive (They actually met * in the WH, but as of late, have on occasion been negative, breaking away a bit from their nauseatingly ALWAYS "sunny" posts in the face of violence -- the right wing ceased linking to them once that happened).
THE best Iraqi blogger is Zeyad of www.healingiraq.blogspot.com. He was happy the Americans came, then less happy when soldiers threw his cousin in the river drowning him, then happier with the January '05 elections, then less happy with the results of those elections. 2005 was the year that Zeyad became more pessimistic. With the bombing of the Samarra Shrine this year, he fell into despair. Lucky for him, he has been accepted into a journalism school in NYC (and people all over the world donated to him so he could go), and will be leaving Iraq in a week. I will miss his observations, but am relieved that such a great writer and analyst will survive this war. Here is his post on Zarqawi; some in agreement with Riverbend, but at least he acknowledges that Zarqawi was a bad guy who murdered innocent Iraqis, which is most CERTAINLY true.
His blog:
http://www.healingiraq.blogspot.com/His Zarqawi post on Comment Is Free:
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/zeyad_a/2006/06/zeyad_on_zarqawi.htmlA few excerpts:
Death of a salesman
Don't expect much to change with the slaying of Zarqawi. He amounted to a PR tool - for both sides.
snip
Zarqawi had no respect for the sanctity of human life. He is purported to have beheaded, with his own hands, real people who had families, dreams and whole lives ahead of them. For that, I had no problem smiling ear-to-ear when I looked on his bloody, maimed face. He will not be missed by any Iraqi.
However, it is my opinion, and that of most Iraqis, that Zarqawi was a mere pawn. One that was useful for both the local Iraqi militant groups and for the US military, which painted him as a demigod behind every single bomb that detonates in Iraq from Mosul to Basra.
I'm not going to wax conspiracy theories. The man was dangerous, indeed, but his power stemmed from the fact that the Iraqi insurgency needed a public face for their terror campaign to return to power, and Zarqawi, with his quixotic delusions of crusaders and Zionists under every rock in the Arab world, was more than willing to assume this position. The Iraqi insurgency could easily blame all their atrocities on Zarqawi and the foreign mujahideen, while giving the (false) impression that they are actually a nationalistic force resisting occupation.
The US, on the other hand, also needed a public for its enemy, and in order to lure the Iraqi insurgency into the political process, and not to alienate the Iraqi Sunnis, it had to paint its enemy as mostly a foreign one with limited support from a few radical Iraqis. Zarqawi was all so convenient for the role.
BTW, Riverbend HAS been right about things in the past, so this is why I read her. But this "let's publish her writings in a book" stuff is pushing it for me. She had a POV at the beginning of the war, and it hasn't changed ONE IOTA no matter what the events on the ground. That doesn't strike me as a very insightful person. Simply put, she is a dogmatist, and as a liberal, that makes me skeptical and cautious about her writing.
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