November 26, 2003
Hooray for Lileks. He done smack down that coward Salam Pax good!
The insufferable Lileks (ex MeFite, incidentally) puffs out his chicken chest from the war zone of Minniesodie and tells you that Salam Pax, who blogged pre-war from Iraq at considerable personal risk, and worked as an interpreter for the occupying forces, (thus marking himself out as a target at considerable personal risk), "hasn't got the stones".
I realise this has gotten a reasonable amount of play around the traps, but does it seem to anyone else that these Paxes and Lynches are discarded post-haste when their usefulness as a club to bash non-supporters of Bush over the head with is at an end?
Weird how I repeated that phrase. Possibly a pome in this.
Gotta love people who sit back in their leather recliners and say, "Hey, those guys who work their asses off and risk their lives really suck, man."
(Mind you, picking on individuals in the US or UK Military just because they were sent to Iraq by their commanding officers is a pretty popular pastime on this here internet. At least, that's what metafilter tells me.)
I'm fully on the "Lileks sucks" bandwagon, as his views on politics or the world or the war turn my stomach, but honestly I'd prefer not to give him any more attention than he deserves (i.e. none).
Thanks for the link to Daniel Drezener's response. What I found most interesting was the comments to his post. I especially enjoyed the "Don't complain, bitch!" responses on both sides. The irony is almost chaffing.
This comment bugged me: Let me be clear, habibi, America has bled for Iraq. We can deal with disagreement and contraversy. In fact we welcome it. But what many of us wont shut up for is ingratitude and condescension.
Ingratitude? WTF? I don't blame any Iraqi for not showing gratitude. The job's not done yet. And anyway, Pax does express gratitude to Bush because he did, at least, remove Hussein from office. People who comment should at least read what they're commenting on.
I actually posted this yesterday, when we had 16 members and the new comments counter hadn't ticked over for three hours. So it was a kind of bait to get something going — Casper the Friendly Troll. I'm betting we're past that stage now.
Yay us!
My thoughts on James Lileks and Glenn Reynolds comments about Salam Pax. I also posted a poll: would James Lileks and Glenn Reynolds fight for Iraqi freedom. These same two guys also attacked the 9/11 families and Reynolds accused them of whining.
A friend of mine that went by the online name Partygirl lost some friends and was in Manhattan on 9/11. Her diary entries from that day can be read here, here and here. There's more if you go through her archives. These posts have been linked all over the internet.
Partygirl wrote a response in my blog to Reynolds and Lileks attacks on the 9/11 families in my blog (i asked her to). This ended up getting posted around the net. Including a thread in Daily Kos. If it wasn't for the "Jersey Girls" we would of never of had a 9/11 Commission Report.
Reading Lilek post again I just can't help think how strange it is. That's not a partisan attack. I really do think it's starange.
The theme of the Democratic primaries was clear: Bush is the problem, not the war. Clarification: the “war.” The “alleged” war. The “war” is a smokescreen to keep us in fear while a few top-hatted plutocrats convene in Texas to complete their grand strategy: we’ll invade Iraq for reasons we know will fall apart, and then we’ll turn the oil revenue over to the people under UN supervision, and the publicity will cause Halliburton stock to fall so we can buy it back at artificially depressed prices. Let’s all do the secret Mason handshake! Right. Paging Oliver Stone: you’re needed to script-doctor the third act, where Karl Rove’s shocktroops put Bill Maher and Howard Stern in a trunk so they don’t blow the whistle on the secret code in the electronic voting machines that returns a 99.9% mandate in the 2004 election.
What the hell is this man talking about? It sounds like ramblings... I don't know what. This is a man that asked for donations so he wouldn't have to mow his own lawn after his wife lost her job.
Money quote:
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.
Lileks quotes Pax writing about a family member killed by Saddam's goons.
“Like all Iraqis, Salam was familiar with the dangers. At least four of his relatives had gone missing. In the past year, for no apparent reason, one of his friends was summarily executed, shot in the head as he sat in his car, and two others were arrested; one was later freed and another, a close friend, has never returned.”
The rug was soaked before we got there, friend. Cut the clever café pose; drop the sneer. That “Rambo” crap is old. Iraq needs grown-ups. Be one.
Now who sounds like Rambo to you.
Another question: why did Lileks leave MeFi. I heard that he was real unpopular on the board.
So Lileks and that guy that writes USS Clueless decide to to take their balls and go home.
A community without a dominant voice will drift and mutate uncontrollably. It's like truck moving down the highway with no-one's hand on the wheel. For a while it will still go straight, but over time it will gradually veer off the road, until it crashes. The overall voice of the community changes but not in a predictable fashion. It's a crap shoot; it's completely random, and the damage is cumulative as the bad drives out the good.
I think that's called democracy. Me thinks these guys are angry because their views are not in the mainstream.
Some people will only consider it a "mainstream" if they're the biggest turd floating in it.
Sadly, Salaam Pax has been on "hiatus" for a along time. I wonder if he'll ever blog again.
Haven't seen Sullivan around in a bit....
He made a fairly public exit, I think, after the whole Sully-f8x thing came to a head. I daresay his blog will still be going.
Ah, yes. Last posted to his blog on 1/11.
I don't think Sully understood that dissent was to be tolerated here.
By order.
Good old sully. i always imagined him and f8x as crazily mismatched room mates.
/sings
One's a republican
the other one's homeless
How will
they ever
get along?
Good times.
they are inseperable due to the crazed weasel sex they enjoy togther...SO HOT!
« Older Sholem aleychem! | Worthwile dilemmas. Newer »
To post comments to a thread you must login or create a profile.
