Pen-Elayne on the Web

Be Not A Raid

It's already Friday the 19th in Iraq, and Riverbend (link at sidebar) is up early blogging about the time she witnessed the occupying power (that's Us) carry out a major raid against a neighborhood grandfather.

Update: Pundit is skeptical; see his comment here as well. Frankly, remembering that this same identity "controversy" arose vis a vis Salam Pax and then quieted down rather quickly when a reporter ID'ed him, I'm inclined to take Riverbend at face value when she claims to be an educated Iraqi woman. It makes me wonder if people's suspicion is directly correlated to their own use of pseudonyms. As I've mentioned in the past, I usually have little patience for folks who hide behind handles without good reason. I consider "being an Iraqi under US occupation" to be a good reason, as well as "being afraid in John Ashcroft's America" and even possibly "not wanting my boss to find out I blog." I don't consider "adopting a fake name for purposes of smear attacks" a good reason. (Note, I don't believe this is what Pundit is doing, but I do think that his or her use of a pseudonym may serve to make him or her more suspicious of others.) But then, I haven't used handles since my old INSIDE JOKE days, when practically all my readers knew I was "Kip M. Ghesin" and "'Kid' Sieve" anyway.