Jeff Jarvis at BuzzMachine went to a public interview the other night with Iraqi blogger, Zeyad. Jarvis’ report on the event is a must-read, and could someone please send it to our prime minister.

Zeyad’s blog, Healing Iraq, has covered the war from the beginning, and, as Jarvis notes, “Zeyad was optimistic for Iraq.” Now, not so much. There are number of telling points made, but I thought this was interesting:

When Zeyad pushed for and got an investigation into his cousin’s death (which found the Americans at fault), he said he saw a backlash among his readers. “They accused me of all kinds of things, particularly because I [had been] optimistic. I realized some people were supporting me just because I was saying things they wanted to hear.”

Same as it ever was, eh? All gung-ho in support for the war, but now that things aren’t going well, people like Zeyad get abused. I guess the purple ink has worn off their fingers.
Here’s some other points he makes:

• [He was] asked about the accusation that news media here are not covering enough good news in Iraq. “That what I thought in the beginning,” Zeyad said. “Over the last year, I think they are not covering how bad it is.” What are they missing? “Most of the coverage revolves around attacks on American forces and, of course, I understand that. But they are missing the sectarian violence going on around the country. And it’s also extremely difficult for Western media to get that story.”
• He painted a terrifying picture of life in Baghdad, of “neighborhood shelling neighborhood.” In his Sunni area, “almost every night there is an exchange of mortar shells between neighbors and I haven’t seen that in any Western media. It goes on every night…. Sometimes, it’s just ordinary people from both neighborhoods. Trust is gone.”
• Asked whether this is civil war, he said: “I ask you back: How do you define a civil war? Does what I describe sound like a civil war — neighborhoods fighting each other? Yes, I think that’s a civil war.”

It’s a total indictment of the nonsense we are being fed by our government day after day, and that the media let’s go by without any sustained critique.

PS: Zeyad also recommends this Iraqi blog.

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