For more than a year I’ve been following Back to Iraq blog of young freelance journalist Christopher Allbritton, in Iraq. I found the link on Baghdad Burning. The fact that Iraqi girl put it on her page seemed assuring that this might be balanced reporting. Resume that Christopher put on the site looked even more assuring – “... no bulletproof vest and no embedding—just pure, individual journalism...” – sounds great! Let me bookmark this!

At first it was balanced, however slowly but surely balance started to fade away. No embedding? Forget it... While I am writing this Christopher is embedded... Slowly his posts turned from information to comments, parroting “high stakes” and “price of oil” as reasons for continuation of this bloody war. Apologetic stance on Fallujah, and proposed (now applied) Warsaw ghetto methods in aftermath(?) of obliteration of that city are just few examples of loosing balance. Cynicism towards the readers took place of cynicism towards officials, as John Pilger used to say, about today’s “journalism”.

Following is the comment I wanted to post on Christopher's site, reacting on the post from January, 1 What's up with the elections?, but because of reasons known only to him he blocked me from commenting – that much about his view on freedom of speech. I am posting this in hope that sooner or later he will stumble on it.

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“Some American columnists have said, “tough luck, they had their chance.” That’s certainly true to some degree, but calling rejectionist Sunnis buttheads doesn’t help matters. My main concerns these days is not what’s right or wrong, moral or immoral, but what will keep as many people alive as possible.”

Wow! I am impressed with such altruistic point of view. Written in the same paragraph giving right to utterly cynical comments of “some American columnist”.

Well, in my humble opinion super fast redrawing of “coalition” will save most lives -- even if the rationale for staying i.e. civil war materialize. Civil war is just wishful thinking of US and British administrations, anyway.

Iraqis left to themselves can't kill 100.000 of each other yearly*. Even if they wish to kill each other. They simply don't have the means. In whatever eventual conflict mortar ("artillery of poor") and/or IEDs would be the deadliest weapons. Compare that with whatever rocket or 1000kg bombs Americans are generously delivering whenever any squad feel threatened.

However, “coalition” never cared about lives or benefits of Iraqis, so it would be ridiculous to wait for any move in that direction. The only question is when “coalition” is going to stop to delude itself and to admit that “Grand project” is over. Sooner rather than later they should start communicate with “insurgents” and make orderly (maybe even face saving) redraw. Otherwise, we will witness another Saigon.

In that light all blathering about “elections” are simply pathetic.

On top of that if it is as Mr. Allbritton says that nobody has authority to postpone elections how come that Iraqi "defense minister" says something completely oposite?

*Just as an example -- it now emerged (in UN and Hague Tribunal report) that in Bosnian war (1992-1995) for four very bloody years the total number of casualties is 102.000. It was very brutal and bloody civil war, as we all know. Serbs and Croats had some tanks and artillery (even some rudiments of air-force), Bosnians later were provided even with Stingers (they shot down UN relief plane with it, accidentally). Iraqis don't have those toys (not any more).

Sorry, but only Norwegian media had balls to publish this report (but numbers, thank to Arabs, are understandable). In the mean time other media are still peddling 200.000, 250.000 and 300.000 depend on weather, I guess.

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And for the end a few quotes on journalism, by journalists.

“Never believe governments, not any of them, not a word they say; keep an untrusting eye on all they do.” Martha Gellhorn

“Never believe anything, until it is officially denied” Claude Cockburn

“Genuine objective journalism not only gets the facts right, it gets the meaning of events right. It is compelling not only today, but stands the test of time. It is validated not only by ‘reliable sources’, but by the unfolding of history. It is journalism that ten twenty, fifty years after the fact still holds up a true and intelligent mirror to events.” T.D. Allman