Eamonn Fitzgerald's Rainy Day

The Baghdad Blogger, Salam Pax, is guest-editing the Guardian blog today. He'll also be taking part in an online chat during the afternoon. Check it out.

Salam Pax was The Man at this time last year. Remember? We couldn't get enough of his stuff. Forget the embeds, he was the unfiltered voice of Iraq. Those of us who cherish freedom of expression owe him a great debt. Here, now, for your pleasure, a few excerpts from his blog around this time last year:

Friday, 21 March 2003: "The Iraqi Satellite Channel is not broadcasting anymore. The second youth TV channel (it show Egyptian soaps in the morning and sports afterwards) also stopped transmitting. This leaves two channels: Iraq TV and Shabab (Youth) TV. They are still full of patriotic songs and useless 'news' — they love the French here. We also saw the latest Sahaf show on al-Jazeera and Iraq TV, and the most distressing Minister of the Interior Affair with his guns. Freaks. Hurling abuse at the world is the only thing they have left to them."

Saturday, 22 March 2003: "Half an hour ago the oil-filled trenches were put on fire. First, watching al-Jazeera they said they these were the places that got hit by bombs from an air raid a few minutes earlier, but when I went up to the roof to take a look I saw that there were too many of them — we heard only three explosions. I took pictures of the nearest. My cousin came and told me he saw police cars standing by one and setting it on fire. Now you can see the columns of smoke all over the city.

Sunday, 23 March 2003: "While buying groceries, the woman who sells the vegetables was talking to another about the approach of American armies to Najaf city and about what is happening at Umm Qasar and Basra. If Umm Qasar is so difficult to control what will happen when they get to Baghdad? It will turn uglier and this is very worrying. People (and I bet 'allied forces') were expecting things to be much easier. There are no waving masses of people welcoming the Americans, nor are they surrendering by the thousands. People are doing what all of us are: sitting in their homes hoping that a bomb doesn't fall on them and keeping the doors shut."

Monday, 24 March 2003: "Was watching a report in al-Jazeera a while ago about Mosul and its preparations. The reporter interviewed someone from Fedayeen Saddam. He said that he is in Mosul to 'kill Americans and kill anybody who does not fight the Americans?' — there, in one short sentence, you have the whole situation in Basra, and most probably many Iraqi cities, explained. Fear is deep and trust in the people-from-Foreign is not high."

Yes, indeed, we were living every moment of it with the Baghdad Blogger a year ago. No pictures. No propaganda. Just the words of an eyewitness to war. And all the while, single-handedly, Salam Pax was bringing blogging to the tipping point. Indeed, we are in his debt.

UPDATE: Salam Pax reveals some of his bookmarks: "My personal regular Iraqi blog reads are Baghdad Burning and Healing Iraq. and since I am either too lazy or too busy (depends how you look at it), it is good we have them to tell us about the recent attacks in Baghdad and Basra — Zeyad who writes Healing Iraq is a dentist working in Basra.

If you want to know all about the new Iraqi Blogosphere you could either visit Iraq Blog Count where you will find a very good collection of Iraqi blog links and other Iraq related stuff online, or if you want to have fun why not go check the Iraq Blogosphere Map provided by the The Politburo Diktat. I was creatively renamed Blogdad and I am situated right in the middle where Baghdad should be. Thank you herr Commissar."