The warblog-O-sphere echo chamber is busy linking to itself in a self-referential circle-post over Jackie Spinner’s Washington Post account of a pro-American Iraqi, humiliated by American troops in a home raid:
On the night of Jan. 5, Imaad and his mother, Um Imaad — both of whom declined to give their full names for fear of retribution — were watching a movie in the living room. As in most other parts of the capital for the past two months, their Adhimiya neighborhood has electricity about two hours a day. So the generators outside were humming at about 9 that night, and the television was turned up so they could hear.
Imaad said they were startled by a loud banging at the door. He went quickly to open it. When he did, Imaad said, there were about a dozen U.S. soldiers standing with their guns pointed at his head.
Imaad and his mother said the soldiers rushed in, ordering them to sit together while they searched the house. "You look poor," Imaad recalled one of the soldiers saying. "Why?"
Imaad answered in English: "I have not been able to find a job, although I’m a graduate of the College of Arts." His heart was pounding, Imaad said. His mother, a chatty widow who adores her son, sat next to him, shaking.
The soldiers went to search his bedroom. He heard laughing, and then they called for him, he said. Imaad went to his room and saw that the soldiers had found several magazines he kept hidden from his mother. They had pictures of girls in swimsuits and erotic poses. Imaad said the soldiers spread the magazines on his bed and put his Koran in the middle.
"This is a good match," Imaad said one of the soldiers told him.
"It was a nightmare," he said. "I will never forget those bad soldiers when they put the Koran among the magazines."
Warbloggers in ideological lockstep mock the Iraqi and the reporter.
- Powerline: "Unintentionally hilarious." Links to Tim Blair and Roger Simon.
- LGF: "Today’s most ridiculous report from Iraq…" Links to Tim Blair.
- Instapundit: Links and quotes Blair.
- Tim Blair: " It’s another My Lai!" Links to LGF.
- Roger Simon: "…exercise in conscious/unconscious self-destruction by the mainstream media." Links to Blair and Jarvis.
- Jarvis: "Blair shreds the assumption and attitude in her writing by using her own reporting to show just how absurd her view is." Links to Blair and Instapundit.
Now, you probably felt a sense of dread and sorrow that yet another Iraqi is going to be gunning for Americans, but that’s why you really need to read the warbloggers because you, outsider that you are, didn’t get the important, hilarious part! See, the reporter is stupid! And biased!
Still, I’m missing something. The reporter is stupid for believing this story and even stupider for writing about it and foreign correspondents are a dying breed in a dying industry and the Iraqi is a hypocrite and violent and not "educated" like Spinner wrote, right? But, didn’t we just see the resistance grow by at least one gun, for whatever reason? That’s not the funny part, right? That wasn’t supposed to happen, was it? What is it the US is trying to accomplish in Iraq, again?
"I used to have a good opinion of the Americans," Imaad said. "But they are the enemy. They are bad."
[ed. – fix error, NYT for WashPost]