NEWS FROM BAGDAD

SALAM PAX BACK IN IRAQ WEBLOG

At the beginning of the war, an anonymous Iraqi calling himself
"Salam Pax" was weblogging from Baghdad. The postings stopped for
several weeks, but now he is back online, with a backlog of
street-level stories about the war and its aftermath. "War sucks
big time," he says. "Don't let yourself ever be talked into having
one waged in the name of your freedom. Somehow when the bombs start
dropping or you hear the sound of machine guns at the end of your
street you don't think about your 'imminent liberation' anymore."
On the other hand, he is "really glad that we can now at least have
hope for a new Iraq. ... The truth is, if it weren't for
intervention this would never have happened. When we were watching
the Saddam statue being pulled down, one of my aunts was saying
that she never thought she would see this day during her lifetime."