My girlfriend Emily just pointed out the blog “Where Is Raed?” to me — it’s written by a young Iraqi, apparently well-educated and well-off, in Baghdad. He’s posting missives of what it’s like to be bombed:

there is still nothing happening im baghdad we can only hear distant expolsions and there still is no all clear siren. someone in the BBC said that the state radio has been overtaken by US broadcast, that didn’t happen the 3 state broadcasters still operate.
:: salam 6:40 AM [+] ::
…
air raid sirens in baghdad but the only sounds you can here are the anti-aircraft machine guns. will go now.
:: salam 5:46 AM [+] ::

He’s in favor of getting rid of Saddam Hussein, but apparently isn’t terribly impressed by the mechanism of war to do so:

I think that the coming war is not justified … The excuses for it have been stretched to their limits they will almost snap. A decision has been made sometime ago that “regime change” in Baghdad is needed and excuses for the forceful change have to be made. I do think war could have been avoided, not by running back and forth the last two months, that’s silly. But the whole issue of Iraq should have been dealt with differently since the first day after GW I.

The entities that call themselves “the international community” should have assumed their responsibilities a long time ago, should have thought about what the sanctions they have imposed really meant, should have looked at reports about weapons and human rights abuses a long time before having them thrown in their faces as excuses for war five minutes before midnight.

What is bringing on this rant is the question that has been bugging for days now: how could “support democracy in Iraq” become to mean “bomb the hell out of Iraq”? why did it end up that democracy won’t happen unless we go thru war? Nobody minded an un-democratic Iraq for a very long time, now people have decided to bomb us to democracy? Well, thank you! how thoughtful.

Also, I note that this guy is a fan of my friend Chris Allbritton, the indie-journalist going to Iraq; he quotes approving from Chris’ blog Back To Iraq, and says “is he good or what?”

Here’s my question, though. Is this thing for real — i.e. is he really an Iraqi living in Baghdad? A Google search for his name shows that many folks point to his blog. Does anyone know anything that definitively proves he is who he says he is, and not just a guy in another country, or, like, Jersey City? He certainly seems to have access to Iraqi TV, since he posts pictures of local broadcasts (one of which I’ve posted above). If you go further down this page, he talks about this issue, and says:

there is this whole “authenticity” thing going on concerning this blog. the people who have been reading this blog for a while know that we have been there and done that. and I don’t really want to go into it again.

If it’s real, and he can continue to post during the fighting, it’ll be a fascinating glimpse into what’s going on.