Pax is Back!

Salam Pax has returned! Before the Iraq war started, he was the only one posting from Baghdad who wasn't "embedded", didn't have a "minder", wasn't connected with a news organization, didn't seem to have a political agenda, and who speaks Arabic.

Welcome back!

There's been speculation (mostly from Right Blogistan) that Pax is the creature of somebody's imagination. There have been fake blogs before now, and there are others that are suspect. Personally, I think Pax is real. The feeling of reality comes from the utter ordinariness of what he is describing. He doesn't rub elbows with The Great (well, mostly. See the new entry for 26/4.) He isn't really a Witness to History, except in the way that all of us are, and that he's in a place that until recently, was getting bombed. He doesn't have a Recognizable Political Point -- Saddam sucked, war sucks, things are a mess. Nothing that would interest an ideologue. For them, he should presumably sound like Information Minister al-Sahhaf or like Fox News.

Anyway, welcome back! Keep in touch.