Baghdad Blogger
Jul. 11th, 2003 12:33 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
plutherusAs I've mentioned a few times before, I'm a big fan of salam_pax, aka "The Baghdad Blogger". Last time I mentioned him, I included a link to a reporter for The Guardian who said he knew what he was, and that he was going to offer him a bi-weekly column for the paper. The first column is now out, and he writes about his experiences in Basra, which is under British control (his home town, Baghdad, is, of course, controlled by the Americans).
An excerpt from the column, discussing the differences between the Americans and the British:
In Baghdad that gun would be pointing either at the car right behind the military vehicle or at the sidewalk, scanning the buildings. But the British guy wasn't pointing at anything, he was just looking around with the gun turned in, at an angle that would have shot him in the foot if it had gone off by accident. You appreciate this only after you have been driving behind an American Humvee and praying that your car doesn't backfire or make strange noises, because the US soldier has that gun pointing right at you.
Actually, the whole article is pretty enlightening, and a good read. (Not really any different than his blog, I suppose.)
Can't tell you if, or how much, he's tailoring his writing for a British audience, but I suspect a bit. I'll be interesting to see his ongoing articles once he's back in Baghdad.
An excerpt from the column, discussing the differences between the Americans and the British:
In Baghdad that gun would be pointing either at the car right behind the military vehicle or at the sidewalk, scanning the buildings. But the British guy wasn't pointing at anything, he was just looking around with the gun turned in, at an angle that would have shot him in the foot if it had gone off by accident. You appreciate this only after you have been driving behind an American Humvee and praying that your car doesn't backfire or make strange noises, because the US soldier has that gun pointing right at you.
Actually, the whole article is pretty enlightening, and a good read. (Not really any different than his blog, I suppose.)
Can't tell you if, or how much, he's tailoring his writing for a British audience, but I suspect a bit. I'll be interesting to see his ongoing articles once he's back in Baghdad.
