Answers and clarifications.

Both Dr. Cole and the guy at Martini republic have responded to my last post (Still not linking to us!) trying to defend their original attack that was directed against us and those who support us.

While many good bloggers have already done a great job in refuting the silly accusations from both, I still feel there are few issues I have to address.

First, Dr Cole tried to twist what he said in a previous post about Fallujah and its role in the large 1920 rebellion, saying that what he meant was that Fallujah has been celebrated by Sunnis Arabs for its role in that revolt. He seems to have forgot what he said in a previous post when he repeated what another professor had said in that Fallujah has been celebrated by Iraqis, not only Sunnis, or maybe he is hoping that we may have forgot that. This is what he said in that post:

Most Americans do not realize that Fallujah is celebrated in Iraqi history and poetry for its defiance of the British in the Great Rebellion of 1920. The 1920 revolution against the British is key to modern Iraqi history. One of the guerrilla groups taking hostages named itself the "1920 Revolution Brigades." Western journalists who don't know Iraqi history have routinely mistranslated the name of this group
So why did he change his statement from "Iraqi history" to "Sunni Arabs"? Because he couldn't admit he was wrong and was hoping that he might get away with it if he twisted it a little.
But even that (Sunnis celebrating Fallujah) is not true at all, as it's not Fallujah that had a role in that fight but Dhari's tribe that live in "Khan Al Nukta" midway between Baghdad and Fallujah, while the major tribe in Fallujah and all "Anbar" was, and still is, "Al Dulaim" tribe which was, as I stated in my previous post, a strong ally for the British and never took part in that revolt and even threatened "Dhari" to leave their province or they would fight him. The other issue is that Sheik "Dari" himself was one of those Shiek tribes that were paid by the British and only joined the revolt after his son killed colonel Lichman when he couldn't stand the outrageous insults Lichman directed to his father.

As for polls, we never said that the vast majority of Iraqis love America, as I don't believe it's true and it's not true that the majority of Iraqis hate America also. However, the same polls that Dr. Cole rely on keep telling us that the majority of Iraqis favor elections and want them without delay, which should mean that the majority of Iraqis want democracy and that is what we say and want. So how can we be outside the main public opinion!? However, this is a highly subjective issue and we can wait for the upcoming elections and see how many Iraqis will vote and what they are going to vote for.

The other terrible misinformation is repeating what he (Dr. Cole) read from another specialist that there was a huge air bombardment of Fallujah to end their revolt. I cannot describe this with anything else than a lie, as all history books that I read about this revolt talked about a large scale air campaign in the middle Euphrates (Samawa, Diwaniyah, and Hilla mainly) and limited logistic support and back up around Baghdad and later in the north, particularly Mosul and Tala'afar. There was no mentioning whatsoever of any raid on Fallujah, and I challenge you and all your informed friends to provide one evidence that support your story!

As for the guys at MR, they kept complaining that "someone presenting himself as Ali posted that he would answer Joseph's questions on the Model blog, but did not address them." Well if you remember me asking you to clarify this domain thing to me, as I really didn't understand what he meant. Still you can look at your own comment section and find the answers, but I will try and answer your sharp questions that I tried to avoid, but what can I say! You got me! Ok let's take a look at those questions:
Were these bloggers prompted by invasion forces to start their blog?

No actually we were prompted by Zeyad and AYS who were prompted by Salam and got help from Jeff Jarvis. You can ask AYS and Zyead and Salam to verify that.

"Who was their contact for their unlikely Abiline, Texas domain host?"
I thought many people have already answered this. Our blogspot.com domain is a free one by google, while the domain iraqthemodel.com was registered by one of our friends, a reader named Jeff Reed who also got the domain for Zeyad, AYS , Alaa, family in Baghdad and Riverbend. So whatever our friend Mr. Reed represents, your friend Riverbend and the anti-American family as well should be on the payroll of his group/organization or whatever you are accusing us or anyone supporting us with. You can mail all these people and check this too. I shouldn't need to tell you that as it was left in your own comment section:

"I saw your post mentioned on Juan Cole's blog and thought I'd add my two cents. I http://ancapistan.typepad.c... speculated once on this subject and received these emails from a person named Jeff Reed of CIATech solutions:[i]Hello,

I was rummaging through the Internet and happened upon your
site and a huge conspiracy theory on the Iraqi bloggers. As
far as I am concerned they are all legit, I have talked with
each of them. In the spirit of democracy and free thinking,
I registered:

THEMESOPOTAMIAN.COM
IRAQTHEMODEL.COM
RIVERBENDBLOG.COM
HEALINGIRAQ.COM
IRAQATAGLANCE.COM
AFAMILYINBAGHDAD.COM

for these bloggers to make it easier for people to get to
their sites. These are forwarded to their respective
Blogspot.com sites. CIATech Solution has nothing to do with
the US Government. It is just a web hosting company that
hosts the domain names.

Regards,

Jeff Reed"
I hope this end this stupid question that is not funny any more.

"Are the brothers now or have they ever been in any kind of American pay (beyond the largesse of their rightwing PayPal contributors)?"

Yes and no. Yes we were promised by "Spirit of America" to pay for the costs of our NGO "Friends of Democracy" and its projects to help build democracy in Iraq, and they said they have sent some money but we haven't got it yet.
Also we get donations from democrats, independent Americans, libertarians and liberals (true liberals) Australians, French, British, Iraqis abroad and from different countries through our pay pal.

"Why are We, the People of the United States, being invited (by our President, no less!) to care so much about what these particular brothers think, when polls out of Iraq indicate that their blog has historically run far, far outside of Iraqi mainstream thinking?"

Did Bush invite you to do that?! If so then I believe you should direct the question to him not me, as I was never invited to meet Bush (neither my brothers knew until they were there) and we don't know why he wanted that, but this is where I agree with you that those who did set up this meeting had their own motives that we don't share with them.

The thing that upset me the most is that if there are some powers that are trying to use us and our writings as propaganda tool, you and other bloggers as well as some of the media outlets are doing the same with anti-American Iraqi bloggers yet still have the nerve not only to criticize all those who support us (who are not exclusively conservatives) but also insult us and apply the worst description to our efforts and hopes in building our country, many times going as far as disfiguring facts and using stupid conspiracy theories.

When are both sides going to realize that it's not only about them! That there are millions of Iraqis, Afghanis, Iranians..Etc who are suffering daily and who are trying to find a solution and a way to achieve their dreams (with the help they are getting from America) and who do not have the slightest interest in supporting any party in America. The world is bigger than you and your partisan conflicts and frankly I'm getting sick of it. Take this crap somewhere else and leave us alone! We have enough problems to deal with and we are not interested in supporting any party anwhere, as simply we cannot afford the time or the effort.


-By Ali.