As Iraqis See It. "About a year ago, McClatchy Newspapers set up a blog exclusively for contributions from its Iraqi staff. 'Inside Iraq,' it's called, and several times a week the Iraqi staff members post on it about their experiences and impressions. 'It's an opportunity for Iraqis to talk directly to an American audience,' says Leila Fadel, the current bureau chief. As such, the blog fills a major gap in the coverage." Previously discussed here. [Via disinformation.]
posted by homunculus on Jan 15, 2008 - 10 comments

"Not associated with Blackwater USA." "Blackwater USA is not responsible for this site." "This is an independent site and is not affiliated with Blackwater USA." There's a new trend in the blogosphere, of anonymous people putting significant effort into creating blogs defending military contractor Blackwater USA. Just another bunch of passionate amateur fans showing Old Media how to report a story, or a calculated Astroturf campaign by a well-heeled PR firm? Maybe these guys know.
posted by scalefree on Oct 5, 2007 - 119 comments

[news filter]Iraq veteran wins blog prize "The timing of the award is almost as striking as the writing which it honours. A former American machine gunner's memoir of a year's tour of duty in Iraq based on his blog has just won a major accolade at precisely the moment when the US military high command is clamping down on blogs among the rank and file."
posted by Postroad on May 15, 2007 - 11 comments

Time magazine recently launched a new politics blog, Swampland. The blog is, to this point, most interesting for its confrontations between the commenters and the bloggers. [m.i.]
posted by ibmcginty on Jan 26, 2007 - 26 comments

Over the past few years, as the blogosphere has grown, more and more soldiers' blogs have been gaining fame and notoriety on the web. Many are wonderfully written, others are full of pictures of all different kinds. Most are just blogs that happen to be written by soldiers. But the Army today vowed to more strictly enforce the dissemination of sensitive information online by its soldiers. One soldier has already been disciplined under the new rules. Included in the list of examples given for "sensitive information" was "vulnerabilities." What sort of effect might this have on soldiers' entries in the future, especially those who aren't satisfied with the direction the war in Iraq has taken?
posted by wakko on Aug 30, 2005 - 23 comments

BBC TV's Newsnight programme listed some Iraq-related blogs, including a tragic US soldier's blog [previously discussed here] . Interesting to me were the first-hand Iraqi views of the occupation. In one, a local girl blogs her responses to the WMDs that were never found and to the controversial Marine execution in Fallujah [discussed here], and describes the use of Valium in wartime.

For those of us who wish to hear the views of Iraqis, there's Words from Iraq, which collects posts from a spectrum of English-speaking Iraqi blogs, such as this description of the banality of kidnappings.
posted by iffley on Jan 21, 2005 - 19 comments

The journal of an American soldier. Although it's typically my policy not to reveal the identity of people I know in Iraq, I am making an exception in this case. The journal above belongs to Michael Smith, a LiveJournal friend of mine who died in Iraq on Tuesday when an RPG hit his Humvee. Mike was 24 years old and leaves behind family, friends, and a newlywed wife, who he married in Korea shortly before he deployed to Iraq. As is tradition on LiveJournal, his last journal entry has become a memorial of sorts.
posted by insomnia_lj on Jan 13, 2005 - 75 comments

"Iraqi blogger" indulges in disinformation. "Sam" of http://hammorabi.blogspot.com has graphic pictures on his site of children killed by Zarqawi terrorists in Baghdad on Thursday. Horrible and tragic, indeed. Even more tragic, however, is that a Reuters camera crew filmed their identical twins, who died that same day after a US airstrike in Fallujah. Is "Sam" a victim of US disinformation, or is "Sam" a practicioner? Could "Sam" be an uncle, perhaps?!
posted by insomnia_lj on Oct 2, 2004 - 27 comments

"When two Iraqis sit together to talk then politics will be there."

Quite a powerful weblog post by Baghdad citizen 'Mohammed' who tries to focus on the positive side of things against ever increasing frustration. Just one of a number of Iraqi weblogs that are beginning to pop up now that both the Internet and freedom of speech is available to the commoners.
posted by Jase_B on Jul 13, 2004 - 19 comments

Salam Pax gets a movie deal. The Baghdad Blogger has previously taken his posts to the book format and a company has just bought the rights to make a movie out of it. I can't say there are many blogs that would ever work as a movie, but this is certainly a new milestone for blogging.
posted by mathowie on May 13, 2004 - 11 comments

Nightline: Baghdad blogger, Salam Pax, gives Ted Koeppel an interview and a tour of Baghdad.
posted by yonderboy on Jan 16, 2004 - 6 comments

Freewayblogger.com When you put a sign on the freeway people will read it until someone takes it down.
posted by srboisvert on Nov 24, 2003 - 56 comments

Salam Pax is back. It's been a long wait.
posted by grahamwell on May 7, 2003 - 40 comments

Superseding the mainstream media, or "quirky parasites"? Less of interest here than the IraqFilter context itself - which amounts to the question "Is blogging to Gulf II what TV was to Vietnam and cable was to Gulf I?" - is an established medium caught in the act of visibly sizing up this comer, this new kid on the block, this parvenu we know as "blogging." Is it a valid new medium of reportage, fit to take its place alongside print and broadcast? Or is it merely parasitic, interstitial, even marginal? Inquiring minds want to know. (Note O'Donnell's hedges and his final & bizarrely misplaced condescension: "Maybe Allbritton will start a trend - bloggers no longer dependent on the mainstream for their material." WTF?)
posted by adamgreenfield on Apr 1, 2003 - 12 comments

Great Iraq Conflict Coverage Gallery A link-filled listing of war blogs (dealing with Iraq war), maps, embedded jopurnalists' reports...nice one-stop source.
posted by Postroad on Mar 22, 2003 - 3 comments

Anti-war and the Internet John Perry Barlow of the EFF talks about online activism and anti-war feeling: "Actually I'm discouraged with the role of the Internet in the antiwar movement. Because so far what I see happening is that cyberspace is a great place for everybody to declaim. There are a million virtual streetcorners with a million lonely pamphleteers on them, all of them decrying the war and not actually coming together in any organized fashion to oppose it." Easy to read this as referring to blogs. People shout and scream in their journals, but where is the organised anti-war effort? Is the great hope and potential of the Internet to connect people and create movements floundering when it comes to one of the most serious issues facing us today?
posted by humuhumu on Feb 3, 2003 - 30 comments