Remember the beginning of this year, when Salam Pax was the blogosphere's representative of the oppressed Iraqi people? Here's a guy who everyone, warflogger or peacenik liberal, could agree on. He put a human voice to the tyranny of Saddam's rule. It was heartbreaking to think that he was literally risking his life to tell the world his story. When he went a week without posting, it was as though you were an Iraqi wondering whether Saddam had killed one of your friends. He brought the humanitarian case for the Iraq war into your living room, and the neocons
nodded approvingly.
Well, Salam survived the war and is surviving the occupation. He's a free man, and he no longer needs to worry that his blog will spell his death. He's using this newfound freedom to speak openly to his new leader:
To tell you the truth, I am glad that someone is doing the cleaning up, and thank you for getting rid of that scary guy with the hideous moustache that we had for president. But I have to say that the advertisements you were dropping from your B52s before the bombs fell promised a much more efficient and speedy service.
An inspiring story, right? Mission accomplished, right? Salam lives without fear? Apparently not. Some people, confounded by the drumbeat of tragedy they never expected to come out of America's newest acquisition, think that Salam has too much freedom now. James Lileks puts it eloquently as always (and, as always, gets an Insta-Indeed):
Hey, Salam? Fuck you. I know you're the famous giggly blogger who gave us all a riveting view of the inner circle before the war, and thus know more about the situation than I do. Granted. But there's a picture on the front page of my local paper today: third Minnesotan killed in Iraq. He died doing what you never had the stones to do: pick up a rifle and face the Ba'athists. You owe him.
So it turns out that Salam Pax wasn't a suffering victim cowering beneath Saddam's boot to some people.. he was just a good German all along. The neocons refuse to admit that the war is going badly and deserves to be criticized; they have now chosen to abandon the humanitarian case for war altogether. Fuck the Iraqis, they say; we didn't do this for them.
As you might expect, not everyone who was for the war is so snotty and cocksure. Dan Drezner breaks the ice:
Three Minnestoans dead? I'm sorry. It's a tragedy. I'm betting, however, that to the ordinary Iraqi, the death of three Americans doesn't even compare to the loss of life that's taken place over the past twelve years in Iraq, be it through war, repression, or sanctions. So get a grip, suck it up, and allow an eloquent, reasonably brave Iraqi the opportunity to vent some snark from time to time. He's earned it.
The pro-war coalition is openly crumbling. This is sad confirmation that it's not just the solid liberals who see how badly things are going in the Middle East. Expect this divide to become a lot sharper in the near future, as the neocons start getting punchy in response to criticism from both sides of the aisle.