Baghdad Burning

As most Western media, from CNN on down, parroted the Bush administration’s talking points on the Iraq War, intellectually curious Americans turned to blogs written by Iraqis who gave first-person accounts of the war. I was riveted by the blogs of a 24-year-old Iraqi woman, an engineer, who posted under the pseudonym Riverbend, “I’m female, Iraqi, and 24. That’s all you need to know. It’s all that matters these days anyway,” she wrote in her first post on Aug. 17, 2003.

From 2003 to 2004, Riverbend wrote prolifically about life under American Occupation. The blogs were compiled into this book… show more.