Iraqi blogger are provoking intrigue and outrage

[ChicanoPwr]

http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/world/2997286

Pro-American Iraqi blog provokes intrigue, outrage
By SARAH BOXER

When I telephoned a man named Ali Fadhil in Baghdad last week, I wondered who might answer. A CIA operative? An American posing as an Iraqi? Someone paid by the Defense Department to support the war? Or simply an Iraqi with some mixed feelings about the American presence in Iraq? Until he picked up the phone, he was just a ghost on the Internet.

The mystery began last month when I went online to see what Iraqis think about the war and the Jan. 30 national election. I stumbled into an ideological snake pit. Out of a list of 28 Iraqi blogs in English at a site called Iraqi Bloggers Central, I clicked on Iraq the Model because it promised three blogging brothers in one, Omar, Mohammed and Ali.

It delivered more than that. The blog, which is quite upbeat about the American presence in Iraq, had provoked a deluge of intrigue and vitriol. People posting messages on an American Web site called Martini Republic accused the three bloggers of working for the CIA, of being American puppets, of not being Iraqis and even of not existing at all.

<snip>

One of the principal bloggers there, Joseph Mailander, had some questions for the Iraqi brothers. He wanted to know whether someone in the U.S. government or close to it had set up the blog. (The Web host, based in Abilene, Texas, is called CIATech Solutions.) And what about the two brothers' tour of the United States? Did the U.S. government "have a shadow role in promoting it?"

[cvoogt]

1. Like pigs for ham sandwiches

hard to believe this would not be a US gubmint PR thing

[Nederland]

2. This was covered by Andrew Sullivan

...awhile back. While is undeniable that these brothers are pro-American, nothing has come of an investigation into their alleged connections to the US military. There web host firm, for example, hosts a large number of leftist sites including many that are anti-war.

[ChicanoPwr]

3. It is interesting

I guess the way things are starting to come out, one can not help but be suspicious of Big Brother. That is the sad thing when our government like to use fear tactics on it's own people.