would soi freely mention his homosexuality. Don't forget in 2002 Saddam was still in power and homosexuality is punishable by death under Islamic law.

No one would dare post that stuff especially pictures</> when the Iraqi police state was in force. It's just more evidence that the whole Salam Pax/ Riverbend thing is a group of lefty reporters who arrived in Baghdad around September 2002 or earlier and have come up with a clever way to spend the many boring hours that preceded the coming conflicts and get their rivate kicks. The Dear Raed is just read! read! jumbled up.

Most rich Iraqis with enough money to have web access, use Arabic characters on Arabic text websites and their proficiency in English is such that they stick to Arabic. Everything about it screams fraud the more one looks into it. That anyone even discovered it an promoted it - is a sign of the self-promotion journalists are so good at. "Riverbend" not only uses Americanized English - "she" also uses excellent grammar and punctuation that would make any editor proud. Heck, when I churn out these posts I use significantly worse punctuation than "riverbend". This is a sign of someone who has either a proofreader, or is trained as a writer.

All the folks who have been questioning the validity were wondering if it really was originating from Iraq. I have no doubt it was originating from Iraq, but by their writing they leave ample trails that point to their American upbringing.

This leaves several possibilities - American human shields which arrived with an agenda or third string reporters with time on their hands and an agenda to promote. I opt in favor of the reporters due to the excellent grammar of "riverbend" and the inconsistent "fake" English flaws of "Salam".

The Raed - riverbend debate could be the same person debating themselves or two reporters in the same office! Their fondness of mentioning the NY Times a lot is blatantly obvious:

The best Iraqi newspaper in english, I actually wish they would have an Arabic edition. Tell you a secret, the NY Times office here makes suer they have a copy of that paper in the office all the time they scooped them a couple of times.