Wednesday, August 03, 2005

Stephen Vincent

Steven Vincent, a freelance reporter who also has a blog In the Red Zone, was shot dead in Basra. (Courtesy of reader JK). The BBC carries this report:

A US freelance reporter, Steven Vincent, has been shot dead by unknown gunmen in Basra, southern Iraq, police have said. ... Mr Vincent had been in Basra in recent months working for the Christian Science Monitor and the New York Times. In a recent New York Times article, Mr Vincent wrote that Basra's police force had been infiltrated by Shia militants. He quoted a senior Iraqi police lieutenant saying some officers were behind many of the killings of former Baath party members in Basra. Mr Vincent also criticised the UK forces, who are responsible for security in Basra, for ignoring abuses of power by Shia extremists.

Although every life and loss of life is unique, Mr. Vincent's work shares certain points in common with Michael Tucker (the producer of Gunner Palace, who accompanied his film subjects on patrol for two months) and Michael Yon, who describes himself as "an independent, informed observer chronicling the monumentally important events in the efforts to stabilize Iraq. His dispatches have the benefit of his life experiences without drawbacks based on deadlines or demands of marketplace." In the strange and recursive network of the Internet, Mr. Yon filed this dispatch on Mr. Vincent's death.

On Wednesday, an American freelance journalist was found dead in the southern Iraqi city of Basra, the U.S. Embassy said. Police said Steven Vincent had been shot multiple times after he and his Iraqi translator were abducted at gunpoint hours earlier. I had just contacted Stephen asking when he might come to Mosul. Stephen Vincent was an author and the popular blogger of "In The Red Zone." Stephen had been writing most recently from Basra.

CNN characterized Mr. Vincent and his work in this way:

Vincent was in Basra writing a book about the history of the city. He also maintained a Web blog about life in Iraq, and most recently had an op-ed piece in The New York Times on Sunday. According to the Web site of his publishing company, Vincent's work appeared in The Wall Street Journal, Harper's, The Christian Science Monitor, Art and Auction, and National Review Online, along with other art and political journals. He was a resident of New York for 25 years, the site said.

This is not the place to speculate why this murder occurred, but the tragedy serves to underline the discussion in the previous post which discussed, among other things, the rising tensions between Sunni and Shi'ite in Iraq. It's interesting to note that the BBC linked Mr. Vincent's murder to his interest in the sectarian conflict. It would have been ironic if Vincent had been killed not because he was an American, but because he came too close to a story.

What compelled him to cover a battlefield of the war on terror "traveling without security or official connections, living by his wits," according to the Spence Publishing site? CNN gives the answer in Vincent's own words.

"I stood that morning on the roof of my building in lower Manhattan and watched United Airlines Flight 175 strike the south tower of the World Trade Center," Vincent said in a December 2004 interview with Frontpage Magazine. "At that moment, I realized my country was at war -- because of the 1993 attack on the Trade Center, I figured our enemy was Islamic terrorism -- and I wanted to do my part in the conflict. I'm too old to enlist in the armed services, so I decided to put my writing talents to use."

In that interview Vincent described the weapons with which he intended to fight.

"Words matter. Words convey moral clarity. Without moral clarity, we will not succeed in Iraq. That is why the terms the press uses to cover this conflict are so vital. For example, take the word “guerillas.” As you noted, mainstream media sources like the New York Times often use the terms “insurgents” or “guerillas” to describe the Sunni Triangle gunmen, as if these murderous thugs represented a traditional national liberation movement. But when the Times reports on similar groups of masked reactionary killers operating in Latin American countries, they utilize the phrase “paramilitary death squads.” Same murderers, different designations."

Whether Sunni killed Shi'ite or Shi'ite killed Sunni, Mr. Vincent knew murder when he saw it. It will be interesting to see whether the media will attribute Mr. Vincent's death to "guerillas" or to "paramilitary death squads". But in a sense it will not matter. He was witness to the necessity for honesty and the survival of outrage; conscious of how near death stands to all of us in the workaday world without watchful men ready to give the alarm with just words.

38 Comments:

Blogger Dymphna said...

He was right: in so many ways this is a war of words. That he saw, and acted upon, the necessity to join that war by going to Iraq, speaks volumes for his courage and integrity.

You mention his criticism of the Brits'military. I wonder if the group which claims that the military deliberately targets journalists will jump all over this one.

It bears watching, especially for those like Michael Yon who have answered the same calling.

8/03/2005 03:52:00 AM  
Blogger al fin said...

The entire middle east and muslim world is in a humiliated, angry, and resentful frame of mind. The less constrained will strike out at anyone convenient. This time of turmoil is a time of opportunity, and great danger. Any westerner traveling there travels at his own risk.

Perhaps the burgeoning free Iraqi media can provide arabs and muslims with an alternate, more liberated world view than their former slave chains provided them. Being a slave must have been a perverse comfort to many of them. It will take time and courage for them to adjust.

8/03/2005 04:56:00 AM  
Blogger goesh said...

I guess he had his standards of professional conduct, which it appears prevented him from carrying a revolver/pistol. I am not demeaning him or questioning his memory in any way, but I would rather die fighting than to be slaughtered like that. In that environment, when several men come at you, they are bringing death, nothing more. We are born with the ability to choose. I simply couldn't face the God of my understanging by letting myself be slaughtered without a fight.

8/03/2005 04:57:00 AM  
Blogger Kat said...

I think it would be disengenous not to point out that it was a police car and "five men" who picked him up, shortly after producing a story about the number of radical Shia islamists in the police department and his comments on corruption, etc.

It doesn't take a genius to figure out who killed him, but it may take a genius to figure out how to bring them to justice.

8/03/2005 05:12:00 AM  
Blogger goesh said...

I should have qualified my statement to read, "when several non-western men come for you, they bring death, nothing more."

8/03/2005 06:35:00 AM  
Blogger Doug said...

My Vincent Posts and links are on the previous thread!
As Kat says, it doesn't take a genius.
...and with the Brits/coalition in collusion with the saderites, democracy ain't going to save things til things change.

8/03/2005 06:38:00 AM  
Blogger Donna Pence said...

a brave warrior of real "on the ground news". he will be sorely missed.

8/03/2005 06:42:00 AM  
Blogger Doug said...

...take a genius to figure out that it was his NY Times outing of the Police/Sadr connection that led to his murder.

8/03/2005 06:46:00 AM  
Blogger Doug said...

Papa,
...and worse, we have provided them (Shia) an armed police force!

8/03/2005 06:48:00 AM  
Blogger Doug said...

reg jones said,
"For those who haven't read his blog or his various articles in National Review or the NYT you need to do yourself a favor and honor Steven by going back and reading his work for the past 2 years."
KJL
Has all the links posted at the Corner.

8/03/2005 06:53:00 AM  
Blogger Doug said...

NooYawkah said... Has anyone read Alla's take on what to do about the insurgency?
---
Here it is in a nutshell.
Is it doable?
---
"As I have said long time ago. Secure Baghdad and you have done most of the work of securing the whole country. Baghdad as whole should be turned into a “Green Zone”, just like the area in Baghdad housing the M.N.F command and the main governmental organs."
(and it still leaves Sadr and Basra, and etc.)

8/03/2005 07:04:00 AM  
Blogger Brian said...

This is not really on point but I sense a decided shift in tactics by insurgents in Iraq. They have sharply reduced the attacks on civilians and have increased their attacks on U.S. and Iraqi troops. It is a smart move on their part and is terrible for our soldiers (Marines especially). What I think is most remarkable is the speed with which this shift occurred. I am becoming more convinced that the insurgency is well organized and managed. It does not appear that it is a disparate rabble.

8/03/2005 07:26:00 AM  
Blogger John Aristides said...

re: shame

In the previous post I wrote:

"I believe an unintended consequence of the Al'Qaeda and Baathist atrocities will be the creation of an Iraqi national narrative: the immense heat of the fire will forge a more solid foundation than we ever could have done ourselves. Put another way, our mistakes and Al'Qaeda's depravity may give us a victory that otherwise would have been forever out of our reach."

My reasoning was based on the humiliation of American liberation. Coming through the fire on their own, when even the powerful Americans could not win, will give the Iraqis a story they can all embrace, and be proud of.

8/03/2005 08:57:00 AM  
Blogger Ash said...

"NooYawkah said...

With people like him being cut down, the only sources people will have left will be the MSM, followed by Michael Moore, Sean Penn, etc. for political viewpoints."

How the heck do you separate him from the MSM which published so many of his articles? Don't you see the irony of your statement?

8/03/2005 09:00:00 AM  
Blogger exhelodrvr1 said...

Cruiser,
It is far too soon to call this a shift in tactics; these deaths came in just two incidents, the biggest being an IED. At this point it is still in the "coincidence" realm.

8/03/2005 09:08:00 AM  
Blogger John Aristides said...

re: insurgency

I am cautious about using specific events as determinative metrics by which to judge the strength of the insurgency. It takes but a few men to kill an unarmed and unescorted journalist.

Will we hear from the lights of the media on Vincent's murder? Or will they choose to ignore it as Hollywood ignored another Vincent not too long ago?

I'm not holding my breath. When we desperately need the right words, when the house is surrounded and the situation dire, you can usually find journalists quietly slipping out the back door.

8/03/2005 09:11:00 AM  
Blogger John Aristides said...

Vincent at NRO (and why we will never be a traditional empire, reason #1,222):

"That leaves conservation. Abbas estimated that if Basrans reduce their energy consumption by half, they could enjoy 24-hour electricity. "It would be a hardship, but not impossible." To test his theory, I asked friends if they'd be willing to cut back on their lights, wide-screen TV watching, washing machines and, above all, air conditioning. Without exception the response was no. "Why should we? Iraq sits on a sea of oil," is a typical response, followed by the usual slam against America.

"Well, of course," Abbas replied, when I gave him the results of my poll. "People were deprived of power for so long, they now feel they have a right to as much as possible." Sighing, he added, "Iraqis have no sense of moderation. If you're thirsty, you drink as much as you can, even if you're no longer thirsty. Basrans have gotten used to a certain degree of comfort, and they don't want to let it go." It's not an answer that would satisfy Sheik Baghdali, of course — but then again, for Basrans like him, it's always easier to sit in the dark in an un-air conditioned room and curse America."

Soon, so long and good riddance to that particular problem. America will never be a care-taker for lazy ingrates, and that goes double for at home.

8/03/2005 09:26:00 AM  
Blogger geoffgo said...

Ash,

I don't know if you realize how remarkable your responses actually are.

Firewire fast with your retorts, armed with some facts, some quasi-facts, plus sh*t you make up contemporaneously. It's quite a brilliant mix. You really are far more articulate than most (a vast majority including the tinfoil hat brigade) of the Left, and you are wasting your time here.

Should you choose to optimize this ability to deliver the "exact opposite in real-time," you are offered you 3 choices:
1) Proceed immediately to the DNC and demonstrate your seemingly automatic and instantaneous "intellectual dyslexia." They will hire you in a heartbeat to teach it to others.
2) Or, you can get it refocused on discovering the truth,and not only the exact opposite. (requires long discussions with willing and wise people who take the opposite stance, and keeping an open mind. As smart as you are, when 500 informed folks (strangers) say you're 180 degrees wrong, it should get your full-time attention.
3) Having got the dislexia repaired, you could be great in sales.

8/03/2005 10:27:00 AM  
Blogger Dymphna said...

Waking up to this news this morning (still can't believe I was so early that I posted first on Wretchard. Don't think that's ever happened before)I was stunned.

SV truly saw the fissures in Iraq. As Shakespeare noted, that's why those with real insight are blinded. Or silenced.

His work on Islam's tribalism, the necessity for equality -- or something approaching it -- for women, and his realism about what we were dealing with was more than "They" wanted us to know.

Creepy cynicism in leaving his translator wounded...just a message that they can be precise when they want.

Words Matter

His book title used the term "soul" of Iraq. I wonder if it has a heart?

8/03/2005 11:24:00 AM  
Blogger RattlerGator said...

The temptation, of course, is to say this is an unfortunate tragedy. However, at a moment like this we are reminded of the words of Whittaker Chambers from the foreward of Letter to My Children:
**********************

Crime, violence, infamy are not tragedy. Tragedy occurs when a human soul awakes and seeks, in suffering and pain, to free itself from crime, violence, infamy, even at the cost of life. The struggle is the tragedy – not defeat or death. That is why the spectacle of tragedy has always filled men, not with despair, but with a sense of hope and exaltation.
*******************

So, filled with my own personal sense of hope and exaltation regarding our effort in Iraq: rest in peace, Steven Vincent.

8/03/2005 11:29:00 AM  
Blogger Charles said...

U.S. Laying Groundwork for Iraq Pullout By ROBERT BURNS, AP Military Writer
Wed Aug 3, 9:52 AM ET
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050803/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/iraq_us_pullout

At best, a U.S. drawdown would begin shortly after elections for a new government in Baghdad, scheduled for December. That assumes two other difficult political milestones are achieved first: drafting a constitution by Aug. 15 and holding a national referendum in mid-October to approve the constitution.
/////////////////
I think there must be bottlenecks in constitution drafting set to be completed by Aug 15. Likely the USA is putting the fear into the Iraquis of inaction.

8/03/2005 12:00:00 PM  
Blogger wretchardthecat said...

Trish,

"Mr. Vincent's death, horrible as it was, is one more drop in a big, big bucket of bloody mayhem. His slaughter matters to his friends, his family, and his readers, and obviously to those who went to the trouble of killing him, but beyond that it is a minor footnote in the downward spiral of an erstwhile nation."

That doesn't make it a nothing, any more than it makes a death in the Sudan nothing. Last I heard the number of civilian deaths in Iraq were a small fraction of the daily toll under Saddam.

Maybe this goes to the heart of it. According to a certain point of view, the Sunni are the enemy and Vincent was inconveniently writing about Shi'ites killing Sunnis in Basra. But he made this footnote itself too large. May he not now be a footnote himself.

8/03/2005 02:08:00 PM  
Blogger Pangloss said...

Rest in peace, Stephen Vincent.

And God bless you and yours.

8/03/2005 03:37:00 PM  
Blogger NahnCee said...

Surely there's another word than "tragedy" that can be used for the cold-blooded murder of someone who was writing the truth, and doing it with eloquence and stoic passion. Just like 9/11 was NOT a tragedy, which implies an inavoidable act of God like a tsunami, so too this death of a good man is not a tragedy in the sense that it was an unavoidable act of God.

But a flippant Soprano's "whacking" seems inappropriate, too. I guess I also have a problem calling him a "journalist" since I have been firmly convinced for so long that all "journalists" in Iraq worked for MSM and hired terrorists to set up their ambushes for them.

I think, given the universal reaction to his death, it may be a tipping point of some sort. And that is benediction in and of itself, that this man did not die in vain.

8/03/2005 03:45:00 PM  
Blogger Red River said...

Basra's Serpico.

8/03/2005 03:54:00 PM  
Blogger ledger said...

I have to agree with Kat and Monty. I have read some of Vincent's work and he tends to expose very distasteful corruption which may have done him in (bid rigging, theft of electricity, and the unpleasant fact that Basra police had become corrupt).

As Kat said noted it was a police car that abducted him and his interpreter. "...It doesn't take a genius to figure out who killed him..."

The interpreter may live to tell who did it (but, I am not betting on it). It looks like a classic hit job. As Monty points out the place is being run by the mob. Wretchard has pointed out the killings of many hookers and other Isamo/mob style killings. If one wanted to get the top guy hitting al-Sadr would be the best bet (assuming he truly has infiltrated the police).

If you can't trust the police you can't trust anyone.

8/03/2005 04:01:00 PM  
Blogger John Aristides said...

If the hit was put on Vincent because of something he wrote, his writings will have all the clues we need to determine his killers. While obvious, I mention it as a prelude to the possibility that Iran may be involved (from In the Red Zone):

"Down Basra way, the country most preoccupying the locals is not Amrika, but that brooding, seething, over-cleric'd Mordor to the east, Iran. Whether its supporting religious parties, smuggling oil and gas, sabotaging the energy infrastructure, orchestrating sectarian assassinations or other neighborly deeds, Basrawi detect the stealthy hand of Tehran in nearly every aspect of their lives. "We don't talk about this in public," a professor at Basra U. told me. "Get too explicit and you get 'disappeared.'"

8/03/2005 05:44:00 PM  
Blogger Doug said...

Trish,
Have not checked today, but my antennas went up also when I saw that 6 were killed, and not by an IED.
Hope details come out.

8/03/2005 07:25:00 PM  
Blogger Annoy Mouse said...

Welcome to Mexico. Any one care to hazard a guess as to how many journalists that have been wacked in Mexico in the last few years. We coddle craven murderers in our back yard. |Murderers are our friends. |Get used to making peace with muderers in the Middle East. We as a nation like them, encourage them, and aspire to their ease of evil.

8/03/2005 08:18:00 PM  
Blogger Doug said...

Ak,
Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq,
did I use those letters somewhere.?
(Just Curious Why you asked... in one of the links?)

8/03/2005 08:29:00 PM  
Blogger Doug said...

Trangbang,
Welcome to the first fully multicultural Quagmire.
For the sake of starting the operation, we maintain that we are better than Saddam, but whose to say we're better than any of the present combatants?
...thus better to tend the farm.

8/03/2005 08:33:00 PM  
Blogger Doug said...

...and be thankful we preserved the lives of gems like Sadr.
So compassionate and subtle of us.

8/03/2005 08:34:00 PM  
Blogger Doug said...

I wish Jinn or some other Al Sistani watcher was here.
What's his view on this setup?

8/03/2005 08:36:00 PM  
Blogger Doug said...

Annoy,
What I wonder about is where accident victims will go once they close all the emergency rooms in Southern Calif.
...They just closed another one yesterday.
Something about not being able to make money giving away their services.
Very Compassionate, and completely Multi, however.
...now they just have to get it through my thick skull why increasing the proportion of the population that votes at least 60 percent democrat as fast as possible is in the GOP's interest.
Sometimes my brain is just fluff.

8/03/2005 08:49:00 PM  
Blogger Annoy Mouse said...

Doug,
Give somebody their own separate interests, a vote, and a growing majority and see what happens. I live in SoCa so know that the hospitals are going away. They are being replaced by pay-for-use emergency medical outlets, staffed sometimes by the very local doctors and surgeons that lost their jobs. Times, they are a changin’ and our politicians are struck moribund by social justice beliefs that are neither social nor just.

America the melting pot is becoming America- “seating is limited so sneak in while you can”.

8/03/2005 10:00:00 PM  
Blogger Matthew said...

I met Steven Vincent last November.

Here's a short post I wrote today in his memory.

He risked his life for all of us, and now he's gone. Actually, he did more than risk his life, he pretty much ended up sacrificing it, like a canary in the Basra coal-mine.

We all owe a debt to him.

8/03/2005 10:47:00 PM  
Blogger SF said...

SV's death is indeed tragic: his resume suggests he was a good man, and any time a good person is killed because of stupidity or greed or lust for power or similar evil reasons, it's a tragedy for all of us.

As a former military officer who's supported the U.S. actions in Iraq and 'Stan, let me propose a solution to the problems in Iraq:

Bring our troops home and leave Iraq to the factions.

If your blood pressure just jumped, hold on: Thousands of analysts have said we can't pull out now because that would trigger a hugely bloody civil war between a) Shia, including Iranian agents; b) devout Sunni, who resent their loss of power in a democratic system; c) corrupt police and members of the Iraqi army; d) non-religious Ba'athists, who want to regain their absolute power; and e) whatever few Iraqis may exist who love freedom enough to fight for it.

Yes, it will be incredibly bloody. And there's a good chance the Good Guys (assuming there are any still left alive) will lose.

Yes, their deaths would be tragic too--but worthwhile in the larger, strategic picture. Let me explain:

One of the big--and widely overlooked--lessons of VietNam was that when a powerful ally offers to help defend you, gradually the recipients of the help begin doing less and less. (Human nature, perhaps.) Did any Iraqis notice what happened to the South VietNamese after the U.S. left?

What if the North Vietnamese--instead of being a largely monolithic, uncorrupted, hard-working force--had consisted of many competing factions, all of which were either brutal or corrupt or merely venal. In that case the post-war outcome would probably have been even more of a disaster than it was.

In Iraq, we succeeded in the main goal of the invasion: Saddam is gone, his sons are dead, and we escorted the citizens of Iraq thru their first true elections. (The Kurds in particular seem to be doing pretty well, and won't likely give up their freedoms easily.) We could not be expected to solve every problem between the various factions--indeed, we cannot, no matter how long we stay. So rather than viewing coming home as a loss, a bad thing, look at it as the "ultimate weapon" that we now--reluctantly--choose to use; a weapon powerful enough to destroy an entire nation if its people insist on maintaining their current ways. A weapon that has power precisely because the various factions are so selfish, so viscerally opposed to freedom for all.

Few things more instructive than having to live with the consequences of one's own choices.

Bush should explain the reasons for our proposed use of this weapon in great detail: We did what needed to be done, and now we can't hold their hands forever. It's time for them to either stand up and fight for their own freedom or be defeated by their own fanatical countrymen and corrupt police.

Emphasize that our troops--including the very excellent National Guard--have done everything that was asked of them and more, and we honor and thank them. This is what we should have done with South Vietnam, but it was our first experience with a limited war and we didn't know any better.

The Left will be conflicted: After all, they've been wailing from the outset that we should bring the troops home. When some congressional Dem rises and wails about how awful it is that we'll be abandoning the "poor innocent Iraqis", reply that we gave them every opportunity to rat out the jihadists and corrupt cops and assassins in their midst, and for the most part they declined, so now they're free to bask in the social system they seem to have wanted.

Just rewards, and all that.

When a few on the Left grasp the implications of a pullout, tell them "This is what you've been insisting that we do. Do you now oppose the very thing you so strongly demanded only a few days ago?"

Finally: other nations, other peoples who find their country on the brink of Islamic revolution, will see what happens in post-American-refereed Iraq.

And if they have IQ's above double digits, they won't want that outcome for themselves.

Compare the quality of life in the former South VietNam with life in, say, South Korea. There's no comparison--everywhere freedom exists, life flourishes. And the converse is also true.

Mr. President, it's time to stop being squeamish: Use the ultimate weapon.

--sf

8/03/2005 11:28:00 PM  
Blogger Doug said...

Matthew's link is highly recommended.
This from NY Times Piece he has there also:
---
"He said he fully supported the Iraq war, believing it was part of a much larger campaign being waged by the United States against "Islamo-fascism." But Mr. Vincent said he was also disappointed by the failure of the United States and Great Britain to enforce their visions of democracy here in Iraq, instead allowing religious politicians to seize power across the south."

8/04/2005 03:03:00 AM  

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