When it comes to issues like the war in Iraq, I try my best to keep an open mind. I may think the war is the right thing to do, but that’s pretty damn easy to say sitting in a warm, safe building in Detroit. Views differ among my colleagues in this office, just as they do in Baghdad, Mosul and Fallujah. That’s why I loathe people like Sarah Boxer.

“While Muqtada Al Sadr is blaming the ‘evil trinity’ (America, Britain, and Israel) for perpetuating the bombings in Karbala, US forces are handing out frozen chickens to poor ladies in SADR city. I recommend freezing a pile of 30 dead rats and sending it to the “holy man” with the dirty teeth.” — Big Pharaoh

Ms. Boxer is a New York Times columnist who recently wrote about a couple men in Baghdad who support the American presence in Iraq and are using their blogs to say so. She approached the story not with an open mind and an eagerness to get at the facts of the story. No, she charged hard into it with skepticism based on conspiracy-theories and her own personal agenda. She has made it very clear in the past that she doesn’t support the war, so I didn’t expect much different from her this time. It’s fine that she doesn’t agree with the Bush administration or its reasons for going to war, but giving credence to far-fetched conspiracy theories hatched out a Dale Gribble-like basement somewhere in the heart of Texas only serves to damage her credibility as a journalist.

The theories I’m talking about are listed throughout her story, but are most prevalent right in the lede:

“When I telephoned a man named Ali Fadhil in Baghdad last week, I wondered who might answer. A C.I.A. operative? An American posing as an Iraqi? Someone paid by the Defense Department to support the war? Or simply an Iraqi with some mixed feelings about the American presence in Iraq? Until he picked up the phone, he was just a ghost on the Internet.”

Who’s to say he isn’t just an Iraqi who supports the American presence in Iraq, (as he says in his blog)? Ms. Boxer seems to think that nobody could be of an opinion that differs from hers without some ulterior motive. That’s insulting to her readers, and especially insulting to the subjects of her piece.

Based on what I see on television and read in newspapers, support for the American “occupation” in Iraq is anything but overwhelming. I can understand where a lot of these people are coming from, it’d freak me out if a bunch of Pagan soldiers, for example, who had a completely different set of values and standards for behavior than we did, came here and started rolling around in tanks. Just as we wouldn’t want someone who doesn’t share our value set occupying our country (even if their intention was noble), I can see how Iraqis would be squeamish about our soldiers being there. That said, I wholeheartedly believe we’re doing the right thing, and when Iraq becomes a stable, Democratic government, all the time, effort and money we put in there will have been worth it.

The three men (one of whom Ms. Boxer talked to, but all three of whom she mentions in her piece) tend to agree. The Fahdi brothers, Omar and Mohammed author Iraq the model, while their other brother, Alli, writes Free Iraq. Both blogs are pro-American (mixed with some skepticism) and offer a view most of us in the West don’t get simply from watching CNN and reading the USA Today. There are other blogs out there that express similar views, such as the one I got the photo (above) from. Big Pharaoh is from Egypt, but his blog takes on much the same tone as the Fahdi brothers.

Ms. Boxer, is the type of wild-eyed nutsack who thinks everyone who doesn’t subscribe to her worldview is obviously stupid, misinformed or on the take. She has the absolute truth, she feels, and anyone who believes anything else is either being lied to, lying to themselves, or lying to themselves. The best part in all this is that Alli has written today that Ms. Boxer’s piece was “irresponsible journalism” and that “she (or the paper) seems to have a certain agenda.” I understand that Ms. Boxer is a columnist, and her job is to espouse her opinion, but to try to do so in such a way as to veil it as the truth is irresponsible and gives all hard-working journalists a bad name.