The Real Reason This Blog Started

Anyone with a braincell who reads this thread will see my conversation on Usenet in October with "Diego Gastor" over the bridge was 100% cordial and non-judgemental up until the following comment was made by Troy/Diego "I think river, http://riversbendblog.blogspot.com/ has found herself an American boyfriend because her attitude has taken a 180 deg. turn lately."

I didn't even notice at that stage that he'd put in the S in the link. Here are a few selected highlights from the following dialogue which I 100% encourage anyone following this to read in full whether they suspect I am misrepresenting it or not (if they have an interest in minutae I should qualify. Or insomnia issues. I actually had written in longer detail about this exchange before but in the end didn't post it deciding it took self-obsession to extreme lengths. And anyone who has been following the amount of self-obsession I actually do put in here will doubtless find that a rather frightening concept.)

Me: "Honestly I can't think what you're referring to... Can you provide some quotes to back up your assertion/slur?"

[Troy then posted an entry from the fake site on David Kay. He didn't even pick one which really *did* give a very different message from Riverbend's original even though if I'd followed his fake link I'd have seen plenty.]

Me: what you've cited in no way supports your snide, demeaning and possibly misogynistic claim... So *clearly* does it not support that claim that no honest person could make and stand by that claim. I thus deduce you are not an honest person and are incompetently attempting a dishonest partisan smear of a source you dislike.

[Round of applause please!!! I said this on Oct 10 - 2 full months ago. Man my instincts are psyched!! Woo hoo! Did I call it or what! Thanks for digging up this thread "Charles" you freakin moron!!!... OK sorry self-back-slapping frenzy over]

Troy/Diego: That is a judgement call on my part based on the earlier story about the New Diyala Bridge contract that can not, as yet, be varified as true and the current postings that take on a more trustworthy view. If you are offended, I'll retract it, but I still think she has softened her pro Saddam hardline views.

[NB I still hadn't noted he was was linking to the fake site. I just followed my own link to the original so I hadn't a clue what he was talking about]

[3 days later Troy gets very brazen. He actually points out that there are two separate sites. Only he claims the smear site is the real one. If my site can be credited at all for bringing down the first fake blog, then this was one of Troy's dumbest ever moves. If he hadn't tried to fool me here I wouldn't have got on his case as I did as will be shown... ]

Troy/Diego: I read in another group that there are two "Bagdad Burning" sites. The one talking about the bridge contract is a copycat "fake" spreading Saddam propaganda started Aug. 17, 2003.

[Here fact fans is Troy calling Riverbend's site a fake, and referring to the counterfeit archives. The latest revisionist bullshit theories about it being "all about the bridge" have yet to explain this little elephant in the living room]

Me: Man, my instincts are good! [OK looks like my calling an end to the back-slapping frenzy was premature :)] You have a lot of explaining to do. I think you know full well which of those two sites is a fake. There are two blogs: http://riversbendblog.blogspot.com and http://riverbendblog.blogspot.com (note no "S") Ill refer to them here as river and rivers to save space. River is written by a woman in Iraq and procides a realistic first person, non-US
cheerleading view of life in Iraq. It was first mooted by famed Iraqi blogger Salam Pax, back in March, and the author is a correspondent of his. Rivers on the other hand was set up as a spoiler by some giftless propagandist to smear that woman. It merely plagiarises US govt info and other news articles and passes it off as a woman's blog entry. I wonder is English your first language Diego? I simply cannot imagine anyone fluent in it who would think the Rivers blog was a more realistic account written by an Iraqi woman.

It is easy to fake blog archives. [NB this was kind of a bluff. I'd heard someone else say this elsewhere but hadn't investigated for myself to find out just how easy it actually is] Did you really look at the content of the sites. In fact 98% at a guess of what is written at riversbendblog is plagiarised from other sources - giving a pro-US view. I wonder who is responsible for trying to smear the riverbend blogger with this crap. Any thoughts Diego?

This link shows that after taking a break from Usenet for about a year you returned to every thread in Usenet discussing the riverbendblog with links to the fake riversbendblog. That's 100%, 16 out of the 16 posts you posted this year have been on the subject of the river(s)bend bloggers. You seem to have no other interest. I would suggest Diego that since you have done so much to promote this flagrant fake, whether or not you are directly responsible for it, you should get busy on Usenet and go back to all those newsgroups pointing out what I have pointed out here. If you don't. Maybe I will.

Troy/Diego: I pointed out that the one with an (S) was posting first. If you do not like what it says that is your problem, live with it or make an ass of yourself.
[What is that smell?... Desperation :)]

Me:How can you continue to promote a blog as genuine that claims to be from a resident of Iraq but simply steals every entry from US govt sources or from foreign journalists? Answer: Because you're a dishonest promoter of pro-US propaganda. Are you the originator? Not sure. I'll be interested to see if you point out the source of those faked entries on all the other sites you've been promoting the propaganda blog on. I'll certainly be on hand to correct anyone you may attempt to persuade with this lie elsewhere on Usenet.

Troy/Diego: Explain how you conclude the one that started posting in July was not posting first. I would love to see how you make August be before July. [What a stench!]

Me: The archives are faked. Why are you not interested to discover that the blog you claimed to think was written by an Iraqi was in fact composed of entires written by the US govt and foreign journalists. Why does the discovery that that blog was entirely fraudulent not interest you "Diego"? Is it because you faked the blog yourself to put out vacuous pro-US propaganda?

Troy had no comeback to that. Interestingly though someone called William Boyd, appeared out of nowhere to suggest that Riverbend was "pro-Baath" and then disappeared again. Funny that.

The scariest thing about all this is that it took Troy and his buddies two months to figure out that the person called Brian with the email address suzerainty@hotmail.com who called Troy on his behaviour and threatened to "be on hand to correct anyone you may attempt to persuade with this lie elsewhere" might in some way be related to the Brian who set up a blog at suzerainty.blogspot.com to correct the lies he continued to spread.

Seriously guys. Just how dumb are you, people!

Shortly after this I emailed Riverbend to tell her who I suspected was behind the site. I was in the process of going through each entry and writing in a word document where each item had been stolen from. Then I thought I should check out if blog archives are actually easily faked. So I set up a blog to do just that. Then I thought: why not put that word document into blog entries where you could actually prove to anyone doubtful just how easy faking archives was. Suddenly I thought why not continue to document what the smearblog gets up to and it all spiralled from there...

So there you have it. I'm the kind of person (as Mrs AtBendingTruth is always telling me) who just loves to be right. And this blog is little more than a screaming great neon monument to the fact that 2 months ago when I called Troy "not an honest person... incompetently attempting a dishonest partisan smear of a source you dislike" and said the riverSbend blog was "a spoiler by some giftless propagandist to smear [Riverbend]"...

I WAS RIGHT !!!