21 Aug 2005
I received this as a comment on a post noting Juan Cole’s theories about the murder of Steven Vincent. It’s from Vincent’s wife, and she thinks, well, I’ll let you read for yourself. I’m posting it here in its entirety, and it’s worth every bit. All emphasis is mine:
I thought you might like to see the email I sent Juan Cole in response to his August 8th post about my husband. Sorry if it runs a little long -“Was American journalist Steve Vincent killed in Basra as part of an honor killing? He was romantically involved with his Iraqi interpreter, who was shot 4 times. If her clan thought she was shaming them by appearing to be having an affair outside wedlock with an American male, they might well have decided to end it. In Mediterranean culture, a man’s honor tends to be wrought up with his ability to protect his womenfolk from seduction by strange men. Where a woman of the family sleeps around, it brings enormous shame on her father, brothers and cousins, and it is not unknown for them to kill her. These sentiments and this sort of behavior tend to be rural and to hold among the uneducated, but are not unknown in urban areas. Vincent did not know anything serious about Middle Eastern culture and was aggressive about criticizing what he could see of it on the surface, and if he was behaving in the way the Telegraph article describes, he was acting in an extremely dangerous manner.”
Mr. Cole –
(I refuse to call you professor, because that would ennoble you. And please change the name of your blog to “Uninformed Comment”, because that is precisely what the above paragraph is.)
I would like to refute this shameful post against a dead man who can no longer defend himself against your scurrilous accusations, a dead man who also happened to be my husband. Steven Vincent and I were together for 23 years, married for 13 of them, and I think I know him a wee bit better than you do.
For starters, Steven and Nour were not “romantically involved”. If you knew anything at all about the Middle East, as you seem to think you do, then you would know that there is no physical way that he and she could have ever been alone together. Nour (who always made sure to get home before dark, so they were never together at night) could not go to his room; he could not go to her house; there was no hot-sheet motel for them to go to for a couple of hours. They met in public, they went about together in public, they parted in public. They were never alone. She would not let him touch her arm, pay her a compliment, buy her a banana on the street, hyper-aware of how such gestures might be interpreted by the misogynistic cretins who surrounded her daily. So for you brazenly claim that she was “sleeping around,” when there is no earthly way you could possibly know that, suggests to me that you are quite the misogynist as well. Cheap shot, Mr. Cole, against a remarkable woman who does not in any wise deserve it.
This is not to say that Steven did not love Nour – he did. And he was quite upfront about it to me. But it was not sexual love – he loved her for her courage, her bravery, her indomitable spirit in the face of the Muslim thugs who have oppressed their women for years. To him she represented a free and democratic Iraq, and all of the hopes he had for that still-elusive creature. And he loved her for the help she gave him – endangering herself by affiliating with him because she wanted the truth to come out about what was happening in her native city of Basra and the surrounding area. Perhaps you are unaware of the fact that it is possible to love someone in a strictly platonic way, but I assure you, it can happen – even between men and women.
And yes, he was planning to to convert to Islam and marry Nour, but only to take her out of the country to England, where she had a standing job offer, set her up with the friends she had over there, divorce her, and come back to New York. He had gotten her family’s permission to do so (thereby debunking the “honor killing” theory), but more importantly, he had gotten mine. He called one night to say that it had been intimated to him that Nour’s life was essentially going to be worthless after he left; since he was an honorable man (a breed you might want to familiarize yourself with), he then asked what I thought he might do to help her. I told him to get her out of the country and bring her here to New York. However, the only way she could have left Iraq was with a family member or husband. Since her family had no intention of going anywhere, Steven was her only recourse, and it would have been perfectly legal for him to convert, marry her, then take her out of Iraq to give her a chance at a real life. (Now that that avenue is closed to her, I have made inquiries to the State Department about the possibility of my sponsoring her in America. Do you perhaps labor under the misapprehension I am such a spineless cuckold that I would put myself out thusly for the woman you believe my husband was traducing me with? If so, I’m guessing you don’t know much about the Sicilian female temperament.)
As to your claim that “In Mediterranean culture, a man’s honor tends to be wrought up with his ability to protect his womenfolk from seduction by strange men”, it may perhaps have escaped your notice that Iraq does not abut, in any way, shape or form, the Mediterranean Sea. Italy is a Mediterranean culture, as are Spain, Greece, Southern France. In none of them is “honor killing” an accepted form of “protecting womanhood”. As to the southerly lands like Morocco and Algeria, they are not, in the general scheme of things, considered Mediterranean cultures – they are considered Arabic, a whole different beast. For you to seemingly be unaware of this, and then to say that my husband “did not know anything serious about Middle Eastern culture” again begs the question, just where do you get off? If you cannot differentiate between Mediterranean and Middle Eastern cultures, how is it you feel qualified to pontificate so pompously?
How often have you been to the Middle East, Mr. Cole? In 2000 Steven and I spent almost a month in Iran on vacation. In 2003 we spent 10 days over Christmas in Jordan. In the last 2 years he had made not one, not two, but three trips to Iraq, and at the time of his death had about 7 months of daily living there under his belt. Can you offer comparables?
How much Arabic do you speak, Mr. Cole? Steven had been learning Arabic for the last two years, and was able to converse simply but effectively with the people he came into contact with. He had many expatriate friends in the Muslim world from whom he was always learning. As I sit here writing this at what was his desk, I can look at the literally dozens of books he devoured about Islam and the Middle East – each one thick with Post-It notes and personal observations he made in the pages – as he sought to comprehend and absorb the complexities of the culture and the religion he felt, and cared, so deeply about. If you would like a list of them, please email me back and I will be happy to send you a comprehensive accounting.
Yes, Steven was aggressive in criticizing what he saw around him and did not like. It’s called courage, and it happens to be a tradition in the history of this country. Without this tradition there would have been no Revolutionary War, no Civil War, no civil rights movement, no a lot of things that America can be proud of. He had made many friends in Iraq, and was afraid for them if the religious fundamentalists were given the country to run under shari’a. You may dismiss that as naive, simplistic, foolish, but I say to you, as you sit safely in your ivory tower in Michigan with nothing threatening your comfy, tenured existence, that you should be ashamed at the depths to which you have sunk by libeling Steven and Nour. They were on the front lines, risking all, in an attempt to call attention to the growing storm threatening to overwhelm a fragile and fledgling experiment in democracy, trying to get the world to see that all was not right in Iraq. And for their efforts, Steven is dead and Nour is recuperating with three bullet wound in her back. Yes, that’s right – the “honorable” men who abducted them, after binding them, holding them captive and beating them, set them free, told them to run – and then shot them both in the back. I’ve seen the autopsy report.
You did not know him – you did not have that honor, and you will never have the chance, thanks to the murderous goons for whom you have appointed yourself an apologist. He was a brilliant, erudite, witty, charming, kind, generous, silly, funny, decent, honorable and complex man, who loved a good cigar, Bombay Sapphire gin martinis, Marvel Silver Age comic books, Frank Sinatra, opera and grossing me out with bathroom humor. And if he was acting in a dangerous manner, he had a very good excuse – he was utterly exhausted. He had been in Basra for 3 months under incredibly stressful conditions, working every day, and towards the end enduring heat of 135 degrees, often without air conditioning, which could not have helped his mental condition or judgment. He was yearning to come home, as his emails to me made crystal clear. But on August 2nd, two days before my birthday, he made the fatal mistake of walking one block – one – from his hotel to the money exchange, rather than take a cab, and now will never come back to me. I got a bouquet of flowers from him on August 4th, which he had ordered before he died, and the card said he was sorry to miss my birthday, but the flowers would stand in his stead until he made it home. They are drying now in the kitchen, the final gift from my soulmate.
I did not see your blog until tonight. I was busy doing other things – fighting the government to get Steven’s body returned from Basra days after I was told he would be sent home, planning the funeral, buying a cemetery plot, choosing the clothes to bury him in, writing the prayer card, fending off the media, dealing with his aging parents, waking and then burying him – but I could not let the calumnies you posted so freely against two total strangers go unchallenged.
You strike me as a typical professor – self-opinionated, arrogant, so sure of the rightness of your position that you won’t even begin to consider someone else’s. I would suggest that you ought to be ashamed of yourself for your breathtaking presumption in eviscerating Steven in death and disparaging Nour in life, but, like any typical professor, I have no doubt that you are utterly shameless.
Sincerely,
Lisa Ramaci-Vincent
Donations can be made to Spirit of America in honor of Steven Vincent by following the link on this page.
UPDATE: I posted a few thoughts on this here.
UPDATE 2: Juan Cole replied. Well, he really only reposted his original article and then told us about how he was right all along, but that’s probably as close to a reply as Mrs. Ramaci-Vincent is going to get. Links and more here.
UPDATE 3: If you haven’t read Steven Vincent’s book IN THE RED ZONE: A Journey into the Soul of Iraq, you probably should.
August 21st, 2005 at 7:38 pm
Prof. Cole has been neutered.
August 22nd, 2005 at 2:38 am
WOW, That woman has ole man Cole over the fire. HOOYAH!
August 22nd, 2005 at 8:58 am
Cole will dismiss it. He’s far too intelligent to worry about things like truth, honour and integrity. Note he won’t allow comments etc – what is he worried about – that he might ahve to jsutify his inane and often wrong scribblings? What worries me more is that HIS is the main blog mentioned in MS Encarta under the article on blogging…how many people or kids worldwide are going to look at his blog now thanks to the free advertising by MS?
August 22nd, 2005 at 8:59 am
Sorry about the spelling; broken arm and I’m typing with the left hand!
August 22nd, 2005 at 6:55 pm
Bravo Lisa! I salute your courage and support of Steven. He was damn lucky to have you and must know from wherever he is that you continue to support him even now. The word that comes to mind is extraordinary. It is clear that you will continue his legacy with your intelligence and clarity about Iraqi’s fledgling democracy. Please let me know if you plan to form a group to aid Nour. I would be happy to help in any way I can. With great warmth and admiration, Deborah Ripley
August 22nd, 2005 at 8:19 pm
What a lady!!! E-roses to her and the memory of her wonderful journalist husband.
August 22nd, 2005 at 8:35 pm
thanks for printing this. i had heard some rumor that vincent and nour were having an affair — i didnt realize this had originated from juan cole. i have also heard speculation along these lines from a MSM reporter i know. i will forward this to him to straighten him out.
August 22nd, 2005 at 8:44 pm
In all fairness, I do not believe that the rumors of romance between Ms. Weidi and Mr. Vincent originated with Juan Cole. I think Cole just took the rumor and ran with it. And as we can see, the rumor was, in fact, true in a sense. But it was used to smear Steven Vincent when the truth of the matter reflects very well on him.
August 22nd, 2005 at 8:48 pm
GOOD for you, Lisa! Cole shames himself and others, in whose name he purports to write. Every line of your cluebat is laden with truth, congruent with reality… but Cole is too heavily invested in HIS supreme, perfect vision to allow facts to upset him!
August 22nd, 2005 at 8:48 pm
The women I know who spend all day watching Oprah and shopping for shoes (or those singing kumbuya in a ditch in texas) can’t hold a candle to this Sicilian. The term is coined: Islamapologist.
August 22nd, 2005 at 8:58 pm
Dear Mrs. Ramaci-Vincent, I am a university professor (formerly at an Ivy, now a university a bit less presumptuous), and I agree with you. Cole is an a**hole and is a disgrace to the teaching occupation. I hope you get the opportunity to meet him in person one day – and do great harm to him where it matters.
August 22nd, 2005 at 9:04 pm
Great job, Lisa. I have made a donation in Steven’s honor.
August 22nd, 2005 at 9:31 pm
That was truly amazing, Mrs. Vincent. May God comfort you in your grief.
August 22nd, 2005 at 9:32 pm
I hope someone makes sure this letter falls into the hands of the Dean of Faculty where this libelous jerk plies his trade.
August 22nd, 2005 at 9:50 pm
Better yet, put this guy’s tripe in the local press, for all the Iraqi expatriates to see. And then listen to the crickets as the ACLUeless and CAIRless cavalry doesn’t come riding to back them up.
August 22nd, 2005 at 10:08 pm
Thank you Lisa. And thanks to Steven. As someone who spent quite a bit of time in Iraq, I looked forward to his clear-eyed, very on the mark, letters. It was a great loss. Professor Cole should be ashamed – I have read a few of his posts and they are so uninformed, I shake my head. Hear is a guy professing to be some expert on the Middle East, and I from his postings – I wonder when he was there last. You did an outstaning job of putting him in his place. Condolences to you.
August 22nd, 2005 at 11:05 pm
Thank you for highlighting this and giving Lisa Ramaci-Vincent another voice. I feel overwhelmingly sad for her, but I feel more sad that the world has lost a man like Steve Vincent. He clearly understood the meaning of dedication, principle, truth and honor, concepts Mr. Cole will never grasp. He was also married to a great woman.
August 22nd, 2005 at 11:14 pm
While Mr. Cole just might be among the mob that believes ‘the moral authority of a parent who buries a child is absolute’… when the parents are anti-Bush, I somehow don’t believe that Mr. Cole will likewise be one who hold that a wife who buries her husband is due the same consideration when she responds to his libel as she appropriately did. Maybe if *she* learned arabic Mr. Cole would deign to listen to her?
August 22nd, 2005 at 11:16 pm
remarkable response to Cole, Lisa. All New Yorkers will miss him
August 22nd, 2005 at 11:51 pm
Gee whillikers. All Juan Cole did was ask a question. ‘Was American journalist Steve Vincent killed in Basra as part of an honor killing?’ He didn’t say it was true, he just aked the question. Oh wait, he did make a statement — he said that Steve Vincent was ‘romantically involved’ with Nour. I wonder how he ever got the idea that Vincent might be romantically involved with THE WOMAN HE WAS PLANNING TO MARRY? I’m having a little trouble seeing why so many commentators think Cole was out of line. Is asking questions considered rude over here in Murdoc country?
August 22nd, 2005 at 11:53 pm
I came upon Steve Vincent’s blog ‘In the Red Zone’ about two weeks before his murder. I made a point of reading every bit of it, and read his last letter within hours of its posting. A few days later, I saw a note in some news link about a journalist killed in Basra, and I just knew it had to be him. I think because his postings were addressed to Lisa in the form of a letter, I immediately thought of her (and pictured the worst). And then I read the screed from that ‘professor’, and I thought: how craven, how bigoted. What a nasty smell his words left behind. All I can say is: I admire you, Lisa: for standing up under the most awful blow that life can land, and for the complete rhetorical flaying of that excreable, loathsome Juan Cole.
August 22nd, 2005 at 11:57 pm
William: You really think that all Juan Cole was doing was asking a question? Honestly? Well, then good for you. ‘In Murdoc country’, though, the good professor seemed to be doing much more than simply asking a question. In any event, it’s Mrs. Vincent that you should be addressing your remarks to. She’s the one who apparently considered Cole’s remarks ‘rude’. Are you suggesting that she just misunderstood Cole’s question?
August 23rd, 2005 at 12:07 am
Dear Mrs. Vincent, Thank you for sharing your husband with us. What you wrote is so deeply touching, words elude me. I have never despised Juan Cole so much as I do after reding your letter. Maggie
August 23rd, 2005 at 12:12 am
Remarkable. I’m glad to see that this is going to get maximum play. R.I.P., Steven.
August 23rd, 2005 at 12:40 am
Condolonces Mrs. Vincent. Rest in peace, Steven Vincent. Honor defended. God Bless.
August 23rd, 2005 at 1:14 am
Wow! As the previous post said ‘Honor defended.’
August 23rd, 2005 at 1:40 am
Juan Cole doesn’t appear to have sufficient courage to allow comments on his blog. Now we know why.
August 23rd, 2005 at 1:53 am
Hey, William Slattery, when did you stop beating your wife? Don’t get upset; I’m only asking a question! Get it now, pinhead?
August 23rd, 2005 at 2:21 am
WOW! Now *THAT* is a woman! AND a lady! I bow to you, m’amn! That was VERY well done from start to finish. If Cole had any shred of honor, he would apologize to you publicly and commit seppuku immediately thereafter. Orion PS: and if he had any style, he’d do it on pay-per-view with the proceeds going to offset your funeral costs.
August 23rd, 2005 at 2:32 am
Hmmm…One may very well wonder if William Slattery was actually stoned on Methamphetamines while he wrote this post? After all, it was 11:51PM – quite late! when he posted it, and it IS within the realm of speculation that the only way he was able to stay up that late was with the aid of illegal stimulants like Meth which are so prevalant these days. Or, do you suppose that it is even remotely possible that he stumbled upon Murdoc Country while cruising the web for illegal kiddie-porn? Now, I’m not saying that he WAS, but can’t you just imagine some sick pervert looking for Kids’ TV shows like The A-Team so that he can lure them into inappropriate chat rooms and stumbling here? I can imagine that sick pervert we’re supposing exists making a post defending Cole. Of course, it would be wrong to suggest that William Slattery is actually a child-molestor, or a methamphetamine user – but I’m sure it’s fine to just ask the questions in a friendly, just wondering sort of fashion. After all, I’m not saying any of it is true, I’m just asking the question. William – as you can tell, one can ‘infer’ all sorts of very mistaken ideas from minimal data. One can then run wild with them and create some very, very nasty posts from those. Which seems to be what Cole did. Imagine if I wrote a blog with a large readership and posted the above comment – people skimming the article, or even reading casually are going to walk away with about three things: William Slattery, Methamphetamine, and Child-Molestor. Probably not the grouping you want associating in people’s minds and not even close to accurate. Or, as Don Porter put it, even a single simple question can be nasty, depending upon how it’s phrased: Yes or No, William – are you STONED ON METH RIGHT NOW? Orion
August 23rd, 2005 at 2:39 am
William, Mrs. Vincent is also rather upset (and understandably so) that Cole is so dismissive of Steven’s knowledge of the Middle East and basically accuses Steven of failing to understand what kind of danger he was in or why. All this, of course, without ever knowing or even meeting the man. Because, you see, Cole is the expert, so we should just shut up and let him tell us how it is.
August 23rd, 2005 at 8:00 am
Lisa; My most sincere condolences for your, and our loss, and my utmost respect for the woman who Steve deemed ‘the one for him’. I’m no wordsmith, but I’ll try to convey a feeling I had reading your message to that ‘man’. History tends to be smoothed out and cleaned up a bit in the telling. There’s always ’stuff’ that gets lost along the way that provides fuel for re-examining events down the road. History will tell people how Steve was a reporter who died in Iraq, murdered by terrorist thugs, a brave man doing courageous things in a dangerous place. Will it also tell of the obstacles he faced? The black mindset of deceit and murder? Probably, these are threats faced by good men everywhere, when good men rise above themselves and answer to a higher cause, an ideal greater than themselves. But will it tell of how these good men, who willingly put themselves in harms way, must also contend with the shackles, balls, and chains that are thrust upon them by the careless words of much lesser men who could never stand alongside them and not be found lacking. Lesser men who’s foolish, selfish, and self-promoting words are unfettered by notions of truth and honesty, words that spring from a poisoned well, irresponsible words that make the task of a man like Steve so much more unforgivably difficult for the additional obstacles put in his way. Yet it is exactly this struggling against dishonesty, this standing up to evil while at the same time struggling against moral cowardice and lack of integrity, this pushing back falsehood while straining against the clutch of it’s abettors, that make the struggle of good men heroic. Honor and respect are the rightful due of men like Steve, and he has all of mine, as do all those who can stand beside him and not disappear in his shadow. The rest, well, they are relegated to that shadow, left to reside in that pathetic little world, wondering why they cast none, despite their reassurances to themselves that their cowardice is something grand. This ‘man’ will never answer to you, unfortunately that’s not the way things tend to work out in the real world. But someday, answer he will, and on that day will he be able to hold his head up, or will he hang his head, finally out of words?
August 23rd, 2005 at 9:11 am
Steven Vincent’s reporting from Iraq was among the very best, and considering he did not have the resources of the mainstream, Fat Pampered Press, the Nabobs of Negativity, his reporting ascends to primacy. During his reporting, this correspondent sent Steven brief, encouraging, and appreciative emails thanking him for his straightforward commentary. He graciously replied to each. Each time you read Steven’s reporting, you sensed his striving for accuracy because he never wrote to an audience or viewpoint and you could disagree with his conclusions with the utmost respect becasue you knew he earned those conclusions. He opened minds. The news of his death struck hard because it is precisely Steven’s courage and quest for the truth which is so critical to success in Iraq. It’s so so disheartening to see a good man lost thus; but his spirit will live on. That anyone would take such a cheap shot at this man only proves that when people have an agenda, and closed minds, nothing stands in their way. R.I.P. to Steven, and peace to his equally courageous wife Lisa. Dick Sheppard Jersey City, NJ
August 23rd, 2005 at 10:32 am
My heart goes out to Lisa. This was horrible enough for her without Mr. Cole adding more damage to the already wounded. Happily, Lisa knows the truth, which is really all that matters anyway… and she did a great job of rebutting this trashy blogging.
August 23rd, 2005 at 10:42 am
As someone mentioned the original report that Cole got it from was in the uk telegraph (a conservative paper). I also heard it on the BBC. The BBC apparently got the info from british forces in Basra.
August 23rd, 2005 at 10:45 am
Attend, students: THERE is a Lady. Capital ‘L’. May her grief be short and her honor rewarded.
August 23rd, 2005 at 10:47 am
Kol HaKavod and very best wishes to you, ma’am. A powerful and necessary message; may it be read and felt by many. I’ll say it again. Honor defended. Aaron
August 23rd, 2005 at 10:58 am
Even the people investigating Vincent’s murder say that the honor killing bit is only a ‘possibility’ and a ‘theory,’ and they admit that they have no evidence that supports this scenario. Mrs. Vincent has only confirmed what Steven Vincent himself wrote about in his book: his conduct towards his translator was honorable, because Nour insisted that their conduct not arouse suspicions among anyone else in Basra. It’s not their fault that Vincent happened to have a female translator whom he was close to, and it’s not their fault that they were seen walking around Basra in broad daylight and were the subject of gossipy folk who had nothing better to do. C’mon, people, stop listening to conspiracy theories and heed Mrs. Vincent’s words above.
August 23rd, 2005 at 10:59 am
WHY ARE RIGHT WING NUTS AFRAID OF THE ‘DIALOGUE’? WHY CAN’T YOU ENGAGE OUR HONEST, PENETRATING, AND COMPLETELY GUILELESS QUESTIONS? /sarcasm. The Left today is beneath my contempt and increasingly beneath the notice of the electorate.
August 23rd, 2005 at 11:03 am
HE got burned. But I have to say that Algeria, Morocco and the North African countries are not Arabic, we are Berber and we are Mediterreanian. We are not Middle EAstern. Just because you slap a crecent and star on somebody’s flag and force them to speak Arabic does not make them an Arab. WE’re Berbers we always have been and we have been part of the MEditerranian for centuries, since before HAnnibal. And only the most extreme ‘Arabs’ here practice the heathen ‘honor’ killing he is talking about.
August 23rd, 2005 at 11:09 am
Juan Cole is not an expert. His work is riddled with inaccuracies like this. Cole didn’t even know Jenin happened after 9/11 until is was pointed out to him. Cole is simply an apologist for terrorists and tyrants. That’s how he got his job, and that’s what he’s paid to do.
August 23rd, 2005 at 11:18 am
I, too, fell for the story in the Telegraph and so I posted on Vincent’s death as a metaphorical Romeo and Juliet. Cannot tell you how glad I was to find your correction via Mrs. Vincent. Thank you very much. I have notified the poster at Winds of Change who originally wrote on this story. She’ll be glad to see the whole thing; it was frustrating to be left with just Wan Cole and the British press. Here’s what I posted last night– http://gatesofvienna.blogspot.com/2005/08/tis-not-so-deep-as-well-nor-so-wide-as.html (tried to make it a link but it didn’t work)… My closing remarks are these: ‘It is good to have the full story, or at least as much of it as the remaining person knows. And while this is not Romeo and Juliet — as I’d first surmised after reading the British press — Mr. Vincent’s story is no less Shakespearean for that. It is one of the tragic histories and his behavior was truly of heroic proportions. Mr. Vincent died for his friend. He was not Romeo but Mercutio, a loyal, courageous friend. Tragedy consists of this: the fatal consequences of heroic behavior.’
August 23rd, 2005 at 11:24 am
William: Please. Some questions are more than questions–especially when those asking the question pile supposition, innuendo, and blatantly false facts (if I am of Italian descent, are Iraqis my Mediterranean brothers?)on top of the initial query. Any reasonable reader could assume that after 150 words, the question becomes an accusation. The fact that Cole never mentions or weighs the possibility of a strictly professional relationship is telling. Also, he mentions that Mr. Vincent does not possess ’serious’ knowledge concerning the Iraqi culture. Would you need ’serious’ knowledge to understand the cultural taboos on men/women relationships in that culture? I doubt it. As his wife points out, Mr. Vincent heard, read about, and witnessed this culture every day. This was nothing more than a hit piece disguised as intellectual curiosity. I acknowledge I could be incorrect, but I also sense a bit of jealousy by Mr. Cole–a need to tear down someone who literally put his life on the line and by any definition, is a hero. May God Bless the Vincent family and Nour; they need our best wishes, not scurrilous ‘questions.’
August 23rd, 2005 at 11:36 am
Umm. Check out Nick’s post above. I’ll rehash for the hysterical on this board: Cole was commenting on a story in the London Telegraph. They did the original reporting. You might want to direct all your vitriol and self-satisfied chest pounding at them. Lisa Vincent might want to send them an email as well. Couldn’t be that Cole’s anti-war stance has anything to do with all this outrage, could it? Nahh. I’m sure you’re all just objective, politically neutral observers, right?
August 23rd, 2005 at 11:37 am
Ms. Vincent is sadly misnformed (or perhaps on the payroll of PNAC and Karl Rove) and her attempt to shut down debate is pathetic. It is quite remarkable that the unstated purpose of this war brings forth an oil war masquerading as an endless crusade against ‘terrorism.’ It is sick how you warmonger chickenhawks keep sending our children to die. As Norman Mailer pointed out, Americanism as an ideology can be seen in the light of the apparent fabrications which lead to the police state which has come to pass. The pro-Sharon neoconservative cabal leads our attention to a McCarthyism which threatens everything we hold dear. Our only hope is to stop neo-fascists (such as Ms. Vicent and her Zionist paymasters) by using (to quote Malcome X) ‘any means possible.’ We will do anything we can to shut this site down, so you can stop spreading neocon lies.
August 23rd, 2005 at 12:00 pm
To Lisa: My heart goes out to you and I trust that you can dismiss the increasing number of islamapologist comments on this thread. Your husband was a hero in his life and death. You are one too.
August 23rd, 2005 at 12:08 pm
Infoshop: I can hardly believe my eyes here. Compare the first sentence of your comment with your last. Ms. Vincent defends her husband with great passion and you accuse her of trying to ’shut down debate’ and call it ‘pathetic.’ Since when is carrying the debate forward the same as shutting it down? Then you state your own intention to shut this site down if you possibly can. It seems that disagreeing with you is justifcation for misrepresenting their views and then silencing them. That is truly pathetic.
August 23rd, 2005 at 12:13 pm
Bryan, I’ve just read through all the posts and I’ll agree with you that most are comprised of the not-so-politically-neutral. It did take a letter from a wife to spur the onslaught of comments. Had their been no letter, would this huge list of comments came to pass? I think not. But on the other side, having this letter bring our attention to the issue, would you not agree that Cole took liberties with his interpretation of the article originally written? Cole blatantly states the relationship between the interpreter and Vincent was romantic in nature when that isn’t listed anywhere in the Telegraph article. One investigator claims a ’straight-line connection that people have drawn between Steven Vincent criticising the Iraq police and therefore being murdered.’ And if we read on the case is described as ‘complex’ which would mean, I’m assuming here, there isn’t one solitary issue at the root of Mr. Vincent’s death. I’m not trying to establish an opinion as I don’t know other that what I’ve read, the same as all other posters who are sharing their opinions here. But I do think that Mr. Cole focusing on the ‘romantic’ involvement issue, which tears at the character of a dead man who was someone working toward the greater good is extremely insensitive. Hence the backlash. But then again, we can all say anything we want on a blog because odds are we will never meet. And opinion and the media to distribute it are a dangerous thing. If we just ignored the crap we didn’t agree with, were would we be? I’d guess more segmented than we all already are. Having served my country in Iraq back in 2003, I can only now truly appreciate the freedoms most take for granted as most have never in their lives had to sacrifice anything. Mr. Vincent was a man who sacrificed. Sacrificed time with family, time at home, creature comforts we all enjoy where as Mr. Cole wouldn’t understand this. Enough rambling.
August 23rd, 2005 at 12:14 pm
Infoshop: You are a tool. Here is my proof: ‘her attempt to shut down debate is pathetic’ followed by ‘We will do anything we can to shut this site down’
August 23rd, 2005 at 12:28 pm
Ms. Vincent is sadly misnformed (or perhaps on the payroll of PNAC and Karl Rove)’ Will someone PLEASE tell me where I can add my name to the payroll list from Mr. Rove these leftists keep screaming about? I’ve got a big mortgage and anything would help! Also, Infosnot and his ilk don’t know how to deal with a proper dressing down, so they resort to the standard screed of conspiricy theories, secret handshakes, and the ever popular ‘murdering innocent children’. I would love to see an honest rebuttal citing valid sources that can prove their accusations. Until that happens, we can easily dismiss their arguments as tabloid trash, worthy of publishing on page 2 of the Sun, just below Bennifer’s Ultrasound pictures.
August 23rd, 2005 at 12:34 pm
Wow, that Infoshop post was quite convincing.
August 23rd, 2005 at 12:35 pm
Just a question? What a rube or just a jackass. Only a series of LOADED QUESTIONS, the Loaded Question being a fairly classic fallacy. Hey losers, have you stopped beating your wives yet? Sheesh
August 23rd, 2005 at 12:40 pm
It is sick how you warmonger chickenhawks keep sending our children to die.’ Nice try, Infoshop. But we’re not children. Could one say that it is sick how you infantilize grown adults?
August 23rd, 2005 at 12:42 pm
From Ms. Ramaci-Vincent’s letter: ‘And yes, he was planning to to convert to Islam and marry Nour, but only to take her out of the country to England, where she had a standing job offer, set her up with the friends she had over there, divorce her, and come back to New York. He had gotten her family’s permission to do so (thereby debunking the ‘honor killing’ theory), but more importantly, he had gotten mine.’ None of which, it should be noted, would mean a thing to any other Islamofascists in Basra (not necessarily related to Nour) who may have gotten wind of Mr. Vincent’s plans and decided to take shari’a into their own hands. So this may not have been an honor killing in the traditional sense, but it still smells a lot like one. Another thought: Did Mr. Vincent intend to remain a Muslim after divorcing Nour? If his plan was to convert back out of Islam once Nour was safely in London, that is what is known as apostasy, which in itself is grounds for execution under strict shari’a. In other words, he could have been marked for death, not because of his plan to marry Nour per se, but rather because the specifics of his plan would have made him an apostate himself, and also made a mockery of shari’a. Of course, all of this says much more about the savagery of the Islamofascist outlook on Islam and shari’a than it does about the circumstances of Mr. Vincent’s death. If cultural sensitivity means bowing to the practice of killing people who convert OR marry out of a religion, then cultural sensitivity itself is just as evil as that practice is.
August 23rd, 2005 at 12:57 pm
Infoshop: Let’s see if we got it all: Karl Rove & PNAC–check. Oil War & crusade–check. Norman Mailer–check. Police state–check. Sharon–check. McCarthy–check. Neo-fascists–check. Neoconservativ cabal–check. Zionist paymasters–check. That has to be some kind of record: 11 left wing talking points in 7 sentences. If you’re not a talking head for MoveOn, you should be. Your contempt for those who disagree with you is sad; unfortunately for you, this number includes the millions of living Iraqis who want a free and prosperous Iraq. This number WOULD include those burned in acid, those sent through a woodchipper, and the estimated million young men sent to their deaths in Saddam’s wars over the years. But like Steve Vincent, their voice will never be heard again. Consistent with your concise ‘praise’ of the First Amendment in your last sentence, you would shut down their voices as well because their opinions differ from your own.
August 23rd, 2005 at 1:10 pm
Uh, guys, I think infoshop is a parody. He hit every point in an over-the-top way. What’s sad is that I’m not 100% sure.
August 23rd, 2005 at 1:19 pm
After reading Infoshop’s comment twice, I still wasn’t sure whether it was satire. I couldn’t decide whether to be amused or disgusted. So, unfortunately, I clicked on the Infoshop link. I felt like one those people in the movie ‘Time Bandits’ who makes the mistake of touching the smoldering chunk of concentrated evil. I have yet to understand how things that call themselves human can live permanently submerged in toxic sludge.
August 23rd, 2005 at 1:26 pm
I’m just some random who stumbled upon this page by mistake. People like Juan Cole have no right speaking in public. By this one page I can tell he sits around fantasizing more than researching. He’s been nipped in the bud as far as my friends family and all are concerned.
August 23rd, 2005 at 1:32 pm
oil war; crusade; warmonger chickenhawks; pro-Sharon neoconservative cabal; McCarthyism; neo-fascists; Zionist paymasters; neocon lies Wow, I don’t think I have ever read so many empty catch phrases in one post. I am waiting for the follow-up post on Ms. Vincent’s inability to appreciate the class struggle inherent in the Marxist dialectic because her neo-bourgeois, capitalist, materialism has blinded her to the truth.
August 23rd, 2005 at 1:44 pm
Juan Cole, professor emeritus of the Dan Rather Fake but Accurate School.
August 23rd, 2005 at 1:51 pm
Infoshop’: You sniveling little twit. I just love the way you liberal moonbats bitch about ‘censorship’ and ’shutting down debate’ whenever someone counters your agitprop with facts and opinions of their own. Hate to burst your bubble sweetpea, but the 1st Amendment is not exclusive to the leftist fringe. And as for your views of the war on terrorism: We all know how difficult it is for you socialist ‘activists’ with your post-election trauma and the weekly trips to your therapist, but the rest of America is getting sick and tired of your pissing, moaning, and imbecilic regurgitations ie: ‘Bush Lied’. If you removed your head from your ass and stopped fawning over bin Laden and repulsive simps like Michael Moore, you might get that clue you so desperately need. Hell, if all we wanted was ‘oil’ we could have bombed the Middle East back to the Stone Age, which would only set them back about 2 weeks, and simply TAKEN every single oil well in the region. Meanwhile, we’re paying about 3 bucks a pop at the pump. You’ve conveniently forgotten about the 3000 Americans who were slaughtered on September 11th 2001. That was a Pearl Harbor of the 21st Century, and all you can do is spew Norman Mailer quotes. Included in the war on terror equation is Afghanistan, the success of which is virtually ignored by the leftist media. We kicked the crap out of the Taliban. That success is reflected in the fact that bin Laden and whatever little band of thugs he still has, are scurrying like cockroaches back and forth across the mountainous region between Pakistan and Afghanistan hiding in caves to avoid detection. As for Iraq: Saddam Hussein filled hundreds of mass graves with men, women and children, and slaughtered 5000 Kurds with ‘non-existent’ chemical weapons. He thumbed his nose at the pusillanimous UN for 12 years, while he continued to research, develop, and hide the evidence of his WMD program. In addition, Iraqi intelligence met with al Qadea operatives and he provided them with training camps in Northern Iraq. ‘About the oil’, my ass. Let me give you first hand experience as to how the war is going: We are kicking the shit out of the terrorists to the extent that they are getting desperate, and it shows. The Iraqis are starting to wake up and realize that the future of their country depends on how much they assist in their own reconstruction and protection. We are getting an increasing number of people who walk up to American troops and literally take them to weapons caches and terrorist hiding places. If you’ve been paying attention, you’ll note the numerous press reports of captures/kills of high ranking Zarqawi Lieutenants. The Afghan and Iraqi people are constructing fledgling democracies, can vote, run for office, and speak freely for the first time in their existence. Nothing threatens Islamofascists more than a democracy. Oh, and this little gem of yours is a real side-splitter: ‘It is sick how you warmonger chickenhawks keep sending our children to die. As Norman Mailer pointed out, Americanism as an ideology can be seen in the light of the apparent fabrications which lead to the police state which has come to pass.’ I’m no ‘chickenhawk’, toots. I’ve served in 2 wars and a so-called ‘peace keeping mission’; Desert Storm, Operation Iraqi Freedom, and a stint in Clinton’s wag-the-dog tactic in Bosnia. We’re fighting Islamofascist thugs who would gladly subject the entire planet (including you) to their oppressive theocracy. Before you hit the sack tonight you should get down on your knees and give thanks to whatever God you pray that we are out front making sure that doesn’t happen. You can thank Bubba Clinton for giving al Qaida the green light. His total indifference to the terrorist attacks on his watch; the first attack on the World Trade center, Khobar Towers, and the embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania went without retribution. He and algore (one word) were too busy using the Oval Office as their personal conduit for unethical, immoral and illegal activities. His Chinese/Indonesian friends Charlie Trie, John Huang, and James Riady bought the 1996 ‘election’ in exchange for information on, among other items, classified satellite technology, He illegally obtained FBI files on political adversaries, and fired the Travel Office and threatened them with surveillance if they talked. Oh, wait, he did have a response–he bombed Kosovo and an aspirin factory in Iraq. Abetted by lap-dog Janet Reno’s obstruction of justice, Clinton flushed the integrity of the Office as well as national security down the toilet, and not a peep out of you liberal shitbags. Dedicated, brave Soldiers of the United States Army are fighting and sacrificing their lives in Iraq and Afghanistan so that ingrates like you won’t have to worry about another 3000 deaths on this soil. You lefties are comprised of pseudo-anarchists, nihilists, and spineless MoveOn.org sycophants who would never let the facts get in the way of a good Bush bashing. The adults, thank God, are still in charge of the country. You ought to follow the lead, remove the nose rings and grow up. Sergeant First Class Cheryl McElroy US ARMY
August 23rd, 2005 at 1:51 pm
Ya know, this ‘Professor’ Cole disgusts me to no end. How dare he ruminate about, demeaning this man who died trying to make Iraq, and by extension, the entire Islamic world, a better place! I sincerely hope he’s not black *chuckle*, because I’d be even more embarrased than I am having to acknowledge that he’s a ‘fellow’ American if he were also a ‘Brotha’.
August 23rd, 2005 at 2:03 pm
I’m wondering if ‘infoshop’ is a bot of some kind, posting that inane drivel automatically. Hoping it’s a parody. BTW – I, too, am waiting for my check from Grand Poobah Karl.
August 23rd, 2005 at 2:22 pm
Infoshop is not a parody. You can check out their site if you don’t believe me (and if you have a strong stomach). Or maybe I’m wrong, and the whole site is a parody, and my sense of humor just isn’t sharp enough to pick up on it. On the other hand, maybe it’s all part of Karl Rove’s master plan, a site designed to nudge the left along in the wrong direction, like lemmings over a cliff.
August 23rd, 2005 at 2:34 pm
I’m having a little trouble seeing why so many commentators think Cole was out of line. Is asking questions considered rude over here in Murdoc country?’ I am so sick of this retort – ‘What?? I’m just askin a question!!’ Ok, here’s a question for you – ‘Does William Slattery REALLY molest small boys, or is the sex consensual?’ I know this won’t offend you, since it is after all, ‘just a question’.
August 23rd, 2005 at 2:35 pm
I’m just some random who stumbled upon this page by mistake. People like Juan Cole have no right speaking in public. By this one page I can tell he sits around fantasizing more than researching.’ Actually he has every right to do so – which is why this country is so great. Of course, what would make it even better is if he was only speaking to an empty room becuase everyone recognized what a complete moron he is. Remember, we all defend out fundemental freedons on the frontier of scum. As such, we must defend the scum as be love and praise those freedoms. Fortunately those freedoms also permit us to label the scum as ’scum’.
August 23rd, 2005 at 2:38 pm
It’s pretty clear that Cole is not part of mainstream American thought. Most of us don’t reflexively blame our country for all that is wrong in the world. On the other hand, maybe I’m just too old-fashioned. I’m pretty sure that converting to Islam to take a second wife and flying her away to another country is outside the mainstream, too. One guy commented on this last night, posing it as a question, and got slammed by some subsequent posters. I wonder when those clever fellows are planning to convert, and save an islamic damsel in distress? Mr. Vincent did not deserve to die. And he did not deserve to be sullied after passing by the likes of Juan Cole.
August 23rd, 2005 at 2:45 pm
Ms. Ramaci-Vincent, I’m sorry for your loss. It’s everyone’s loss, but you bear the worst. Mr. Slattery: Juan Cole did far more than raise questions, he suggested that Vincent deserved what happened to him. No decent human being would even raise the questions because any decent human being would recognize that the answers are irrelevant.
August 23rd, 2005 at 2:53 pm
I’ve briefly read some of the comments here on this thread. My sympathies go out to Mrs. Vincent r/t her loss. I’m also aware of Juan Cole and his apologist attitude. Mr. Cole has definately taken his comments and his reputation to a new low. He lacks credibility regarding Iraq and he conveniently avoids any mentions of Saddam’s torture to his own citizens. I will not go into this further as SFC McElroy US ARMY has done this for me. Juan Cole: Shame on yourself. Infoshop: You and your followers are a joke.
August 23rd, 2005 at 3:04 pm
As Norman Mailer pointed out, Americanism as an ideology can be seen in the light of the apparent fabrications which lead to the police state which has come to pass. As many have pointed put, Norman Mailer is a raging a**hole.
August 23rd, 2005 at 3:14 pm
If Juan Cole responds to Ms. Ramaci-Vincent’s letter with anything other than an abject apology, then she let him off far too gently. Likewise, if he fails to respond at all.
August 23rd, 2005 at 4:03 pm
No point attacking infoshop, there, as I’m sure it’s too late. The implacable agents of the police state have doubtless already tossed him into the Norman Mailer Memorial Plastic Shredder.
August 23rd, 2005 at 4:09 pm
‘The implacable agents of the police state have doubtless already tossed him into the Norman Mailer Memorial Plastic Shredder.’ We should be so lucky.
August 23rd, 2005 at 4:09 pm
Juan Cole is a coward – not only afraid of the truth, but afraid of being exposed as a moral and intellectual midget. Thankfully, we have Ms. Ramaci-Vincent to provide more evidence to the case. He will respond and he will not address her, he will not answer for his falsehoods and mistakes, but certainly he will put her down, just like he did her husband. In the end, Juan is much like those who killed Stephen in the first place.
August 23rd, 2005 at 4:26 pm
Oh, and SFC McElroy: please swing by http://www.kimdutoit.com to receive your OAK (Order of the Ass-Kicker), First Class. Mrs. Vincent gets the civilian equivalent.
August 23rd, 2005 at 6:47 pm
Infoshop, words fail me, so this one’s for you http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v475/delftsman3/wigglebutt.gif Childish, I know; but that seems about the highest level you have achieved to date.
August 23rd, 2005 at 8:02 pm
Someone needs to print this letter and pass it out to Cole’s students. Anyone live in Michigan?
August 23rd, 2005 at 8:14 pm
SFC McElroy, M A G N I F I C E N T ! ! Perhaps the best thing I’ve read all day after Lisa Ramaci-Vincent’s letter. Thank you, for saying what needed to be said, and so much better than I could have said it. And an even bigger Thank You, Sergeant, for your service.
August 23rd, 2005 at 9:34 pm
Hm. She says they were not ‘romantically involved’ but that he was in love with her and was converting to Islam and planning to marry her. This sounds very much like ‘romantically involved’, and moreover, would not have to be conducted in private at all. She argues that Iraq is not part of Mediterranean culture. To a large degree, it does belong to that culture – that it does not currently border the sea itself is a quirk of history. It has been governed by the Romans, the Egyptians, the Turks… and at various times in history, has governed those regions. More to the point, the statement ‘a man’s honor tends to be wrought up with his ability to protect his womenfolk from seduction by strange men’ is true in Iraq. Which was Cole’s main point, and completely ignored. I will leave Cole to defend his own qualifications, but I rather suspect they exceed beginner’s Arabic and less than a year in the region.
August 23rd, 2005 at 9:50 pm
>>Hm. She says they were not ‘romantically involved’ but that he was in love with her and was converting to Islam and planning to marry her. This sounds very much like ‘romantically involved’<< Well, she DIDN’T say ‘he was in love with her’, though did she? She said he loved her. There’s a difference. I happen to love my two brothers. Does that sound to you like ‘romantically involved’? And, though you don’t mention it, she also explained the reason behind the Islamic conversion and the marriage. Seemed pretty clear to me. I’ll agree that Cole’s qualifications are nothing to sneeze at. That’s not the same as saying that Steven Vincent didn’t know anything about the culture he dove into. If you’ve read his writing you’ll realize that he understood quite a bit.
August 23rd, 2005 at 10:17 pm
Hmm, Your husband tells you he ‘loves’ a woman he’s working closely with in a very dangerous situation, where emotions are heightened. The plan is concocted that he will marry her to get her out of the country. Strictly platonic! Means nothing! He will of course divorce her right away. Aw, come on. I’d tell him to quit fooling himself and just go marry her. It’s the pretense that it’s somehow a different kind of love, something pure that he could walk away from — oh, come on. Human nature is pretty predictable.
August 23rd, 2005 at 10:27 pm
>Hm. She says they were not ‘romantically involved’ but that he was in love with her and was converting to Islam and planning to marry her. This sounds very much like ‘romantically involved’, and moreover, would not have to be conducted in private at all.She argues that Iraq is not part of Mediterranean culture. To a large degree, it does belong to that culture – that it does not currently border the sea itself is a quirk of history. It has been governed by the Romans, the Egyptians, the Turks… and at various times in history, has governed those regions.More to the point, the statement ‘a man’s honor tends to be wrought up with his ability to protect his womenfolk from seduction by strange men’ is true in Iraq. Which was Cole’s main point, and completely ignored.I will leave Cole to defend his own qualifications, but I rather suspect they exceed beginner’s Arabic and less than a year in the region.< Perhaps, but that does not afford him the right to belittle someone else for not knowing as much as he claims to. If he really wants to make pronouncements about what’s happening in Iraq today, let him descend into the same muck and mire that Steven was slogging through, rather than pass his august judgment from the bland safety of the Great Lakes region. As for defending himself to me, to date the pusillimous professor has not had the guts to take keyboard in hand and respond to my email, which I sent to him personally. Had he 1/100th the courage my husband had, perhaps he would, but I have no plans to hold my breath. Blue is not my color. And whatever Cole’s qualifications, they do not seem to include really important virtues, such as decency, humanity, kindness, compassion and charity. But I suppose, given your seemingly limited comprehension level, that you failed to note that as well.
August 23rd, 2005 at 10:44 pm
Everything else has been stated above already but I just would like to re-emphasis, Lisa Ramaci-Vincent and SFC McElroy, you are two very awesome women!!!
August 23rd, 2005 at 11:20 pm
Juno goes all cynical on us, saying Hmmmm….Vincent told his wife he wanted to get this Iraqi woman out of the country….. wanted to fake-marry her to do that….and hmmmm. who’s kidding who here…human nature and all. Can Juno explain why a man would tell his wife IN ADVANCE the details of a scheme to marry a local woman in order to get her out of a country? Why not just present the cuckolded wifey back in the US with a fait accompli and tell her to start divorce proceedings? Like, you know, Jennifer and Brad? After all, this isn’t like a college girl sending last year’s boyfriend a letter saying she had met someone new, and fatuously opining ‘I know you would like him’. This is serious stuff here, life and death stuff. The translator would likely have been KILLED, Juno, after Vincent left Iraq, just as she was ALMOST killed, having been SHOT numerous times, for working with Vincent while he was there. And EVEN IF the execrable Cole’s innuendos are based on fact, he seems to imply that ‘religious’ Iraqis understandably killed an infidel for consorting with a Muslim woman. Can you imagine Cole saying it was understandable that Emmett Till was killed for allegedly ogling a white woman? NOT IN A MILLION YEARS! Here’s a clue, Juno: deep down, just like Cole, you’re shallow. You utterly ignore all the counter-evidence Vincent’s widow produced, and offer off-the-cuff cynicism of the cheapest kind — the kind that offers NO SUPPORTING EVIDENCE. I would say you have the reasoning power of a cherrystone clam — but that would be giving tasty bivalves a bad name. p.s. the USS Cole was NOT named after Juan Cole. Just in case you wondered.
August 23rd, 2005 at 11:50 pm
If it hasn’t already been said: PWNED!
August 24th, 2005 at 12:23 am
Actually Juan Cole is an expert on Middle Eastern culture, and so am I. I didn’t take the same courses that he did, but I did sleep in the same Holiday Inn.
August 24th, 2005 at 9:25 am
As someone who was there so to speak. It was an ‘open-secret’ of the relationship for some time. I do believe that they may well have been in love but regardless there was a long-term relationship that was well known amongst those of us there. I make no judgement on if this was right or wrong but please consider how one lives out there, it is very different from life back home. I think many who are placed in this environment would find that their actions are prehaps not what they would do ‘back home’. Steve though was one of the ‘good ones’ and I for one miss him.
August 24th, 2005 at 10:31 am
It seems that Cole forgot about that lesser known classic blunder: ‘Never go in against a Sicilian, when *death* is on the line.’
August 24th, 2005 at 12:28 pm
:-) Funny, because, of course, the most famous classic blunder is ‘Never get involved in a land war in Asia.’
August 24th, 2005 at 12:50 pm
>As someone who was there so to speak.< I'm a friend of Steve and Lisa's. I'd like to ask you, John, were you there or not, 'so to speak'? Are you a journalist? Did you hang out with Steve? Did he confide in you? I'd like to know more about this. >It was an ‘open-secret’ of the relationship for some time. I do believe that they may well have been in love but regardless there was a long-term relationship that was well known amongst those of us there.< Again, be more specific. When were you there and why? Also, we all knew that Steve and Noor had a ‘relationship,’ but we called it for what Steve and Lisa told us what it was – a deep, deep friendship, that began in early 2004 when he first met Noor in Basra. Steve told me a few weeks before he was killed about a female reporter from a newspaper that was in Basra. They had tea a couple of times in her room at night – with the door open, both of them fully clothed and seated on opposite ends of the room – but the hotel staff was scandalized and believed they were having an affair. That’s how these things are seen in that part of the world. Those of us who know Steve and Lisa know how committed they were to each other, and how incredibly strong their marriage was. We would kid them about how no one would ever just say Steve or Lisa, it was always StevenLisa – one word. The last thing Steve said to me before he left was, ‘Take care of Lisa.’ So I really think you should be more careful in what you’re saying, because those of us who knew Steve know the truth. You’re dealing in rumor and speculation, which is another story altogether.
August 24th, 2005 at 12:56 pm
The beginning of my post above should have started: >As someone who was there so to speak.< I am a friend of Steve and Lisa’s, and I’d like you to be a bit more specific. Were you there or not? Did you hang out with Steve? Did he confide in you? Please provide us with more information – Steve never mentioned your name in any of the emails he sent around, and he usually talked about other Westerners in Basra, because there were so few of them. Not sure why that didn’t take, maybe the post was too long. Sorry.
August 24th, 2005 at 2:11 pm
The last thing I want to do is get into an argument with you or anyone else. As for why I was there, I’d rather not get into that in a public forum due to the nature of my work. I rather think my employer would frown on that. Suffice it to say I was there and will be returning in the future. I don’t believe my underlying message was received correctly and if that was due to my clumsiness I apologize. I was trying to communicate that regardless of what happened over there it is not fair to judge Steve’s or others actions through a US or European perspective, it requires an Iraqi perspective which is a world away from what we know here.
August 24th, 2005 at 2:33 pm
there are many in this country who have become so educated that they have forgotten some key American qualities. one is that most of us believe that there are more important things in life than self-preservation. juan is obviously one of those ‘many.’
August 24th, 2005 at 3:25 pm
I hope this doesn’t sound snide, because I absolutely don’t intend it to. Put it down to me being a dumb blonde, if you like, but… If Steve was married to Lisa, how could he marry Noor to get her out of the country. Was Lisa amendable to giving him a short divorce in order for him to do that? And don’t the immigration people keep tabs on ‘marriages of convenience’ done to bring people or keep people in the country? I was under the impression that happens here in the US. Don’t they do that in England as well?
August 24th, 2005 at 3:47 pm
{{{ ‘It was an ‘open-secret’ of the relationship for some time. I do believe that they may well have been in love but regardless there was a long-term relationship that was well known amongst those of us there.’ }}} My friend, if what you were trying to say is that Vincent was a good man, then maybe preambling it with this wasn’t the *best* way, n’est pas? I understand the point you’re trying to make, but let me put it another way: Deskmerc (see deskmerc.com), a man, is my best friend and has been for 10 years, and it is and always has been strictly platonic (I’m a woman). I love him. A lot. And yes, if his life was in danger and he needed me to marry him to get him out of a country where he was being threatened, I’d expect my husband to understand that I’m not about to let him die due to a soap-opera quibble over what ‘love’ means. I wouldn’t really give a good goddamn what anyone else thought about the ‘propriety’ of that choice, because so long as it isn’t YOUR butt on the line, it really isn’t your bidniz. Whatever personal agreement Lisa and Steven came to over this is between them and has NO BEARING WHATSOEVER on the tragedy of his assassination, and should not have been invoked by Cole in an attempt to somehow suggest justification for murder. I’ve known plenty of lesser men who’ve carried on ‘open-secrets’ of the kind a few people here have implied was going on between Steven and Nour, and I can only shake my head. The kinds of guys who screw around on their wives in an ‘open marriage’ are not made of the same mettle that Steve was, and it is cruel to insinuate that Lisa is pathetically self-deluded when, if anything, her words indicate a remarkable clarity of thought and levelheaded righteous indignation. Speaking of the differences between this culture and that; it’s sad that we’re so cynical about love and commitment that, even in the face of Lisa’s explanation – with full knowledge of her grief – we still feel entitled to make these kinds of callous innuendos. Lisa, my dear, I apologize on behalf of them all. How awful for you that your private relationship with your husband has become a public spectacle in the wake of his assassination.
August 24th, 2005 at 4:39 pm
I’m really sorry for Vincent’s wife but wow! Vincent was going to divorce her, change religion, marry another woman and she thinks this was all platonic? They say the wife is the last to know, sadly.
August 24th, 2005 at 5:02 pm
You and I A moment of happiness, you and I sitting on the verandah, apparently two, but one in soul, you and I. We feel the flowing water of life here, you and I, with the garden’s beauty and the birds singing. The stars will be watching us, and we will show them what it means to be a thin crescent moon. You and I unselfed, will be together, indifferent to idle speculation, you and I. The parrots of heaven will be cracking sugar as we laugh together, you and I. And what is even more amazing is that while here together, you and I are at this very moment in Iraq and Khorasan, In one form upon this earth, and in another form in a timeless sweet land. Rumi, 12th century poet
August 24th, 2005 at 6:52 pm
Err, don’t people here know that Muslims living in Islamic countries are allowed more than one wife? Al Saud was rather famous for it. No divorcing of Lisa needed. Yours, Wince
August 24th, 2005 at 7:05 pm
Wince, was that a joke?
August 24th, 2005 at 8:19 pm
Indeed, Wince. Marrying a close friend to get them out of such a jam is not uncommon, nor is marrying people just to get the immigration status. At least eight percent of all US K1 fiance Visas are not real marriages, and that’s a lot of people. As far as I can tell, under article 8.2, Section 2, of the English Immigration Act of 1988, Nooriya would be allowed into England as Vincent’s second wife as long as Lisa hadn’t been previously allowed in, which is a restriction to prevent the formation of polygamous households in the UK. But then nobody cared whether England officially recognized the marriage once it got her out of Iraq. As for the strange claim that he wouldn’t be able to renounce his conversion to Islam without committing apostacy, I’m sure the situation would nag at him about as much as the inflation pressure of his spare tire. As for Iraq being a Mediterranean culture, you’d think some remote association with the Mediterranean Sea would be required, unless you think the Assyrians, Babylonians, and Arabs from Arabia got to skip that step, somewhere, somehow… To put it in perspective, Birmingham and London are closer to the Med than Basra, so why don’t we just call them Meditarranean too?
August 24th, 2005 at 8:32 pm
Actually Juan Cole is an expert on Middle Eastern culture, and so am I. I didn’t take the same courses that he did, but I did sleep in the same Holiday Inn.’ OMG!!! That was funny!!!! Good one dude!
August 24th, 2005 at 9:23 pm
George Turner, Was Vincent a UK citizen?
August 24th, 2005 at 10:28 pm
I hope not, GT, as that immigration laws apply to foreigners. Funny, that.
August 24th, 2005 at 11:27 pm
So then why would marrying her make any difference to enter the UK? You don’t need to be married to land in London. And since Vincent is not a UK citizen Mour would not get work papers from marrying him. Nour did not need to marry Vincent to enter the UK.
August 25th, 2005 at 12:44 am
And as we all know, Muslim countries’ emigration laws and procedures are based entirely on British immigration laws… *cough*
August 25th, 2005 at 2:20 am
You’ll be glad to know that Juan Cole has responded to Lisa’s statement (24 August ‘Informed Comment’ entry, reproduced below): Steven Vincent Case I am reposting here with commentary my comments of 8 August about Colin Freeman’s story in the Telegraph concerning the murder of art journalist Steven Vincent in Basra. Below, I also reprint part of the Freeman article. I am clarifying my remarks because Vincent’s widow is circulating a misleading characterization of them. I understand the grief of a bereaved widow, and I am not interested in arguing with her. But Vincent does not get a pass on being criticized simply because he is dead (the entire historical profession would collapse in this case). Most of her beefs seem to me to have to do with Mr. Freeman’s article, which I referred to as part of the ‘news consolidation’ aspect of this blog. A recent, informed discussion of the case by David Enders, who is in Basra, makes many of the same points as I did. The wingnuts are going crazy over this contretemps, which is what is really interesting. I think it is because Vincent is a symbol for the pro-War American Right. He was inspired to his journalism in Iraq by September 11. That was his first mistake. The poor Iraqis had nothing to do with September 11. He was a defender of the Bush administration policies in Iraq, and he was killed in the course of reporting on Shiite religious parties’ and militias’ influence in Basra. But that influence was a direct result of Coalition policies! The Bush administration appointed the leader of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI, a pro-Iranian Shiite party) to the Interim Governing Council, in July of 2003. The Bush administration decided to allow the Badr Corps militia (SCIRI’s paramilitary) to operate as long as its members did not carry heavy weapons in public. How can the US Right then complain that SCIRI is taking over Basra? They already certified the legitimacy of SCIRI and the Badr Corps (both of which fielded candidates in the Jan. 30 elections, winning 9 of 11 provinces with substantial Shiite populations)! I think Vincent is such a controversial figure because he and his death can be read on the left as symbols for the failures of Bush administration policies in Iraq. For the Right, he is a sort of martyr, now beatified and beyond criticism. So here is the commentary: Was American journalist Steve Vincent killed in Basra as part of an honor killing? He was romantically involved with his Iraqi interpreter, who was shot 4 times. Note that I did not say, as Mrs. Vincent assumes, that he was sleeping with his interpreter, Nur al-Khal. That he was romantically involved with her is obvious from his blog, where he calls her ‘Leyla’. I don’t have any interest in their personal lives per se, but this relationship may have had something to do with his death and so is fair game for mention. ‘If her clan thought she was shaming them by appearing to be having an affair outside wedlock with an American male, they might well have decided to end it. In Mediterranean culture, a man’s honor tends to be wrought up with his ability to protect his womenfolk from seduction by strange men. Where a woman of the family sleeps around, it brings enormous shame on her father, brothers and cousins, and it is not unknown for them to kill her. These sentiments and this sort of behavior tend to be rural and to hold among the uneducated, but are not unknown in urban areas. Everything I have said here is true. Clueless Americans don’t understand the principle of gender segregation for the most part, and if they do understand it they are horrified by it. But in large swathes of the world, it just is not considered right for a male to be in the company of an unrelated female. It isn’t just a matter of sleeping around, as my wingnut correspondents assume. It is being alone in the company of an unrelated man or woman, and having that be known publicly. Male honor is invested in the protection of the virginity of female relatives, and a conviction that something improper may have occurred would be enough in some instances to cause a vendetta. It is not just a Muslim thing. Many Orthodox Jews and Middle Eastern and Balkan Christians feel the same way. Clueless Americans don’t understand gender segregation, and they don’t understand clan honor as practiced in most Arab societies. We American men aren’t dishonored in particular if our sisters sleep around, though I suppose in high school it can’t be pleasant for a guy to have everyone taunt him that his sister is a slut. But in Arab culture, a brother can’t show his face in public if his sister is known to be a slut. He is enraged by this loss of honor, and sometimes he will kill her to wipe out the shame. And, by the way, her father and male first cousins are also shamed, and might conspire in taking action to restore their honor. It is in fact an extension of a general Greater Mediterranean (please read Fernand Braudel) ethos of honor and honor killings. Mostly we in the West know about the issue of furious husbands killing their wives for sleeping around. In many Mediterranean and Mediterranean-influenced societies (e.g. Latin America), such a ‘crime of honor’ was not even typically punished by the courts in the past. The reason the husband behaves this way is not just, as many Americans imagine, insane jealousy. It is because he believes his honor has been irretrievably damaged. There is a large literature on honor killings. Look up the phrase at amazon.com if you want to dip into it. The whole system of clans, clan honor, and the investment of male honor in the protection of the chastity of females may be horrific. But it is the norm in much of the world (it operates to some extent in parts of Africa, in South Asia and in Central Asia, as well). Not understanding and respecting it can get you killed when you are out there. By the way, the US military in Iraq understands all this perfectly well, and has forbidden troops from fraternizing with Iraqi women, and has punished some who did. That is, if you asked a US officer in Iraq about this issue, he will tell you the same thing I have. So how can I be criticized for articulating it? Finally, the politics of honor and the body of the woman has been inscribed on nationalist politics in the Middle East for decades. Colonialism and foreign conquest has been spoken of as a kind of rape. Having foreign troops in one’s country fooling around with its women is seen as symbolic of the humiliation of imperial subjection. This theme is central to the novel Midaq Alley, by Nobel prize winning novelist Naguib Mahfouz. In the novel, a young Egyptian man kills his girlfriend for consorting with Western troops in Cairo during World War II. The incident is a symbol of Egyptian resentment at having been recolonized by Churchill during the war. Vincent, as an American male going about in public and private with an unrelated Iraqi woman, put himself in the position of being seen as symbolizing this joint sexual and colonial humiliation. It may well have been part of the reason he was killed. Some correspondents have said it was odd that Vincent was killed but Ms. al-Khal survived. Uh, you can’t shoot someone 4 times without intending to kill the person. Her survival is welcome and piece of good fortune, but the intent of the shooters is obvious. Vincent did not know anything serious about Middle Eastern culture There are kinds of knowing. Vincent could not read a book about the Middle East written by a Middle Easterner in Arabic. He did not understand Shiite religious law. He saw the surface of things because he was there. He did not know their depths. How many of us would accept an art critic’s claim to be an expert on French politics and culture when he could not read French literature and had only been in France off and on for 18 months? When the person could not read President Chirac’s speeches in the original when reprinted in the press, could not read French literature or legal writings, and the extent of his knowledge of Catholicism was that he had attended some masses at the Notre Dame? Of course if he was in Paris when a riot occurred, he could describe what he saw, and could interview English-speaking French or use an interpreter to interview some rioters and politicians. He could write knowledgeably about the riot, and could add to our knowledge. But he wouldn’t be a France expert. and was aggressive about criticizing what he could see of it on the surface, Read his blog. ‘ and if he was behaving in the way the Telegraph article describes, he was acting in an extremely dangerous manner. ‘ I.e. he was egregiously breaking the rules of gender segregation and female honor. He should have had a male interpreter. His death was most unfortunate, and I felt it. He was a colleague of sorts. But he behaved foolishly and frankly ignorantly. ——- The Telegraph * Murder of US reporter in Iraq may be linked to marriage pledge By Colin Freeman (Filed: 07/08/2005) British officials hunting the killers of an American journalist in Basra are investigating the possibility that he may have been targeted over his relationship with his Iraqi translator, whom he had pledged to marry. Investigators believe that Steven Vincent, a freelance reporter who was abducted and shot last Tuesday, may have angered local religious hardliners with his conduct. The interpreter, Nour Weidi, who was shot four times in the attack, has told investigators from her hospital bed that Mr Vincent planned to marry her so she could settle in the United States. The investigation is being led by Iraqi police, with British and US officials playing a strong supervisory role. Speculation over the murder initially focused on the possibility that Mr Vincent was killed after writing articles alleging that Basra’s police had been infiltrated by Shia death squads. The pair were abducted soon after midnight in central Basra. Mr Vincent’s body was later found nearby with multiple bullet wounds. The murder was unusual in that was no attempt was made by his attackers to hold him hostage or make political capital out of his nationality. No group has claimed responsibility, suggesting that terrorist involvement is unlikely, say investigators. Staff at the Basra hotel where Mr Vincent had lived for three months say the couple’s relationship had drawn disapproval and warnings of retribution. But investigators have not commented publicly on whether they think the relationship was sexual, and believe that the case has hidden complexities. ‘There is a straight-line connection that people have drawn between Steven Vincent criticising the Iraq police and therefore being murdered,’ said one investigator. ‘But from the evidence so far, including accounts we have had from the Iraqi interpreter, that is not the immediate conclusion we are drawing. It appears to be quite a complex case. ‘There is the possibility that this was an attempted ‘honour killing’, related in some way to the relationship he had with his interpreter. But it does not fit the pattern of honour killings as it is usually the woman who dies.’ Mr Vincent, 49, a former art critic who turned to journalism after witnessing the September 11 attacks, had been married to his American wife for 13 years. She is understood to have been aware of his plans to marry Ms Weidi for visa purposes. Police are now examining Mr Vincent’s articles and weblog to trace people he interviewed and wrote about. He was not afraid to voice pro-US views or get into rows with locals. In one weblog entry, he describes a heated exchange with an Iraqi who looked disapprovingly at his translator because she was not wearing a headscarf. He seemed relaxed about his personal security. He had no bodyguards, travelled in taxis and made no secret of his disapproval of local Iran-backed Shia militias. In an opinion piece published in the New York Times the day before his murder, he alleged the existence of a ‘death car’, a white Toyota full of off-duty police who killed political opponents. He also claimed to have received death threats and to have unearthed political scandals.’
August 25th, 2005 at 3:50 am
To all the people who argued about the possible marriage or otherwise. A few years ago a close friend and former teacher of mine from a top UK university, after being out of touch for some time, informed me of a serious problem that was taking place. A brilliant graduate teacher from a country outside the EU was about to have her contract terminated by another university, which were doing their best to get rid of her. With her contract, her residency permit would also be terminated, and she would be deported to her native country. Her position there, for personal rather than political reasons, was so bad that if that happened she would commit suicide, and, my former teacher said, he could not blame her. I know the man: he was and is the ultimate in honour and honesty. I also knew the lady a little. My reaction was immediate. The day was Thursday, and her residence permit would espire on Sunday. I told him: get in touch with her; get a date at the registrar; I will marry her and take her to the Italian consulate, where I will put matters in motion to make her an Italian citizen. As an Italian citizen, nobody will be able to touch her. After a decent interval, there will be a quiet divorce. Fortunately, it came to nothing, because her employers could not find anyone of her calibre and gave in at the last minute. But it happens, folks, it happens. My own father did the same for a stateless Czechoslovak refugee during the cold war, so that I have a legal half-sister whom I never met. Marriage is one way in which an honourable and brave man can take a woman out of a hellhole and to safety. Pity Mr.Vincent could not manage to do it fast enough.
August 25th, 2005 at 5:41 am
Clueless Americans don’t understand gender segregation’ LOL. People understand its evils all too well. But to understand is not to love, or to excuse. Unless, it would seem, you are Cole. Why is Cole upset anyway? Surely he understands the culture of the Internet, a culture of free exchange of opinions and ideas? If not, he only has himself to blame for bringing this unprecedented criticism by a -gasp- woman on himself. Just how badly does Cole envy segregated societies (actually societies with segregation imposed on them by men)?
August 25th, 2005 at 5:48 am
Juan Cole is willfully myopic. The Telegraph article on which he commented states that it was unclear whether or not Steven Vincent’s murder was an honor killing and that his wife was ‘understood to have been aware of his plans to marry Ms Weidi for visa purposes.’ Despite reading this, he states unequivocally that Mr Vincent ‘was romantically involved with his Iraqi interpreter’ and goes on to conclude that ‘Vincent did not know anything serious about Middle Eastern culture.’ Lisa Ramaci-Vincent’s reply fleshes out her husband’s integrity, passion for learning about his subject and caring about the people he encountered. I am anxious to read Steven Vincent’s work, since he seemed to be trying to understand and report what was happening in Iraq and the Middle East with the sensibilities of someone who values individuals. Apparently, he was disgusted by corruption and the oppression of women enough to shed light on it and help one woman get out from under it. The sincerity and depth of the good will possible from such a point of view is impossible to the scholar who pretends the choice not to approach a subject from this ‘western’ viewpoint makes his analyses more objective. Vincent’s form of scholarship requires moral evaluation but that does not disqualify it from describing the truth. Meanwhile, the vaunted expert (tenured at U of Michigan and president-elect of the Middle East Studies Association) who shot his mouth off about Mr Vincent, responds to his widow’s comments by insulting her husband’s scholarship further. It is hard not to be offended when he uses the term ‘clueless Americans’ twice to emphasize how little we understand about Arab societies, pours several paragraphs worth of his knowledge on us. Then, he tries to put over the idea that one would have to soak up as many reams of books on the subject as he has before understanding the subject. ‘There are kinds of knowing,’ he writes smugly. Indeed, there are. Mr Vincent offers true understanding of the issues and lives at stake in Iraq and beyond. Juan Cole leaves one wanting for that sort of truly deep understanding. This quote from Steven Vincent’s blog (July 26) sums up the issue nicely: ‘And there it was, the familiar Cultural-Values-Are-Relative argument, surprising though it was to hear it from a military man. But that, too, I realized, was part of American Naivet+
August 25th, 2005 at 6:44 am
Seems Cole is set on his ‘honor killing’ speculation. And that he either can’t read plain English, or didn’t bother to actually read Mrs. Ramaci-Vincent’s email: ‘And yes, he was planning to to convert to Islam and marry Nour…. He had gotten her family’s permission to do so….’ With her family having given permission, whence, then, comes Cole’s ‘honor killing’? Likewise, from both the email and Steve’s reports, we’ve seen the extremes to which Steve and Nour went to avoid ever being in private with each other, so where did Cole get that they associated ‘in private’? Maybe it’s that, like many experts, Cole cannot admit that the culture on which he is an expert is profoundly unworthy of admiration in many respects, so he must find someone to blame in order to avoid addressing that little problem. Or maybe it’s that he’s such a primitivist at heart that he can’t refrain from sitting up in his tree flinging shit at anything in sight.
August 25th, 2005 at 9:05 am
Cole was apologizing yet again for a culture that is now being civilized as a result of 9-11.
August 25th, 2005 at 1:49 pm
Most of you posters don’t seem to understand Cole is the only one not judging here. What was his judgement, that in situ the man’s actions were foolish and going to get him killed? From everything I’ve seen and heard, they were. He’s not defending anyone, nor his he apologizing or promoting the culture that did it. He didn’t call the woman a slut, just that her actions could very easily be interpreted as promiscuous/offensive to male sensibilites (weren’t they, for right or wrong?) He is simply calling a spade a spade. Not every sees things in a ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ mindset, judging other cultures based on little to no experience with them…
August 25th, 2005 at 1:56 pm
>>Most of you posters don’t seem to understand Cole is the only one not judging here.< < ?!?!?!?!?!?!? His whole post is one big long passing of judgement on Vincent and clueless Americans. http://www.murdoconline.net/archives/5dollarrule.html
August 25th, 2005 at 2:10 pm
As Norman Mailer pointed out, Americanism as an ideology can be seen in the light of the apparent fabrications which lead to the police state which has come to pass.’ That gibbering sentence is a really good illustration of why no one reads Mailer’s work anymore. Here is a much better quote from a much better author: ‘Fascism is forever descending on America, yet somehow always lands in Europe.’
August 25th, 2005 at 2:14 pm
That was Tom Wolfe, by the way.
August 25th, 2005 at 2:16 pm
August 25th, 2005 at 5:10 pm
The biggest irony here regarding all of those heaping scorn on Juan Cole (the grieving widow excepted)is that it can be argued that Mr. Vincent shared the same sympathy and ideology regarding the Shia south as Mr. Cole. In fact, it is Cole, a leading expert for decades on the Shia, who has been instrumental in informing people on the dangers of Iraq, with a Shai dominated govt, creating an Islamic state with sharia laws. It is Mr. Cole to whom many people turn to learn specifics regarding what Shia faction is aligned with what militia, the history of Sadr and his father, the views, role and power of Sistani, who has what connections to Iran, what rights are going to be potentially lost, etc. I would think Mr. Vincent would very much have enjoyed meeting Mr. Cole as they shared so many interests. And, if Mr. Vincent was the serious student of Shias, southern Iraq, ect., well then he must have had at least one Juan Cole book on his shelf. Mrs. Vincent has my sincere condolences. And, as a grieving widow it must have really hurt to read speculation regarding whether her husband was physically intimate with another woman. But, when you consider the public way in which he was attempting to get this woman out of the country – asking her family to marry her, stating he was going to convert to Islam – well, you can see where The Telegraph, that Cole was quoting, assumed they were really an ‘item.’ There is one thing that sounds especially odd here, though. I wasn’t aware that a woman couldn’t leave Iraq without a male family member or a husband. There are numerous examples of Iraqi women coming to the US to speak recently where they were not accompanied by a male relative/husband. Could it be that the woman’s family forbid it? That they are part of the very conservative southern Shias who are trying to force Sharia law and Wahhabi type social mores onto the citizenry? If she was someone so dedicated to preventing the fundies from taking over, what made her decide to leave for a job in London? Could she have been threatened? And, did she think if she just left without family permission and blessing her family would be threatened? If so, it seems likely that the murder of Mr. Vincent could very well be related to the honor code thing. I mean, even though he appeared to have asked for her hand, this must have really put the family in a spot if they are part of the very traditional, sharia law advocate group. Even though Vincent stated his aim was to convert, well, he was not a muslim. And worse, he was an American. So, even if the nuclear family did not participate in the shootings, it is easily within the realm of possibilities that a local hardcore militia did it. How about the group that recently reacted with extreme violence against a mixed sexes picnic at the university in Basra?
August 25th, 2005 at 5:24 pm
I understand Lisa’s indignation, and I’m surprised by the language Cole uses in describing Peter’s relationship with Nour, but as part of a rational, balanced dialogue we’ve got to note that attacking Cole on his expertise is going to look silly. The guy speaks and reads fluent Arabic, Persian, and Urdu. He writes in those languages, and according to the bio online, he’s spent years and years in the Middle East (even as a child). So let’s attack him on his choice of words, but the guy is one of the leading experts on the Middle East and his blog has won all kinds of awards from even mainstream orgs. My sympathies for the widow, but I’m not going to join her in attacking Cole’s credentials. — Peter
August 25th, 2005 at 6:25 pm
My sympathies for the widow, but I’m not going to join her in attacking Cole’s credentials.’ Huh? You mean the prefesser isn’t a snooty, know-it-all, blame-America-first, French-sounding, ivy-tower, terrorist-loving mysogynist? Didn’t you read the emotional outpouring of righteous indignation from Murdoc, Andy Sullivan, et. al.?? They can’t be just angry because it fits their anti-professional worldview and assumptions, right? :)
August 25th, 2005 at 6:25 pm
This is a tender thing to ask but I can’t be the only one wondering. Why didn’t Nour just leave? Vincent must have had contacts. I mean people are going back and forth from Jordan all the time. How about Kuwait? Not that the ride to Jordan isn’t dangerous but she would have had to take it at some point and it would probably be easier not doing it with an American. As someone said above, Iraq is still suppose to be working under the interim laws. While it might be turning really strict in the south, you can still cross the national border without a male relative can’t you? Why would you put your family through that if you’re just gonna get a quickie divorce anyway? If Vincent just wanted to help a friend get out, well why didn’t he just do it? I mean, did he really need to convert to Islam, get married and personally escort her to London? And, like, can a married American who marries an Iraqi in Iraq get a divorce in London anyway?? Here in Arizona we’re having some issues with polygamist cults on the Utah border. Now, if I resented the way a friend was being treated and I wanted to get her out, I don’t think I would like try and infiltrate the group, pretend I was a polygamist and marry her just to get her out of there. (Not that my wife is as open as Mrs. Vincent.) I think I would just try and help her sneak away.
August 25th, 2005 at 6:51 pm
Hey courage is one thing but what do you call it when someone yells ‘integration now’ in a 1950s kkk ralley? Good thing Bush took August off. Remember his reaction when those contractors went for a joy ride thru downtown Falluja without letting the Marines know their plans? whoowee
August 25th, 2005 at 7:00 pm
bayheim: Which ‘emotional outpouring of righteous indignation from Murdoc’ are you referring to? Which attacks on Cole’s credentials have I made? In fact, I’ve repeatedly pointed out that the esteemed Professor is, indeed, knowledgeable about the Middle East and that the rumors didn’t originate with him. It’s what he’s doing with that knowledge and those rumors that I don’t agree with. Better look around a bit before flying off the handle. Or are you just angry because it fits your worldview and assumptions? :]
August 25th, 2005 at 7:12 pm
bayheim: And though I haven’t read Andrew Sullivan in over year (I think) I wandered over to see what ‘emotional outpouring of righteous indignation’ was to be found. I half-hoped that I might be able to mock it a bit for kicks. Instead, I find that the only mention of this whole incident (at least since Lisa Ramaci-Vincent made her letter public) is a one sentence link to someone’s post on the subject and a mention of credibility. So the ‘emotional outpouring of righteous indignation from Murdoc, Andy Sullivan, et. al.??’ consists of something written by Al. I don’t have the URL of Al’s blog. Please post it here so we can check out his emotional outpouring. I’m not sure, but doesn’t this make you an idiot? Now, now. Don’t get mad…I’m only asking a question.
August 25th, 2005 at 8:12 pm
I’m not sure, but doesn’t this make you an idiot?’ Name calling. The first refuge of the willfully ignorant. I was just poking fun, Jesus. But, since you care so much: Upon closer examination, I’m suprised to discover you personally have only accused Cole of ’smearing’ Vincent, so perhaps its not fair to say you are too worked up about the matter. But, its pretty obvious your ‘what more needs to be said’ presentation of a very emotionally charged letter indicates your own opinions of the situation. Include that with the company you keep (the majority of your commenters & the some of the people who’ve linked to you) & your response to my first post with insults (you should really fix the link, btw, it would be more effective if the picture wasn’t a mile down the page past the ads b/c you don’t know how frames work), and maybe you can see the difficulty I had in making a distinction between your particular brand of oversimplification. You’ve got me there chief. But, let’s look at another case: Andrew Sullivan a.k.a. the paragon of dilittantism. He knows virtually nothing of the subject, every prediction he’s made about the course of the war from start to finish has been wrong, and its never struck him that there might be real-world consequences to playing pundit (for other people, of course). His response, while brief, was the same yarn he always has: experts don’t know anything, other cultures are inferior, etc. I would say my words were a pretty fair characterization for him. So, let me rephrase that, I had misspoken: ‘Didn’t you read the emotional outpouring of righteous indignation from [the majority of the posters on the blog 'Murdoconline' but excluding Murdoc himself, whose indignation is not blinded by emotion but rather perhaps based on jingoism & cynicism], Andy Sullivan, et. al.?? They [of course, excluding Murdoc again but not his fans or blog neighborhood] can’t be just angry because it fits their anti-professional worldview and assumptions, right? :)’
August 25th, 2005 at 8:29 pm
bayheim: Oh, I’m certainly worked up about the matter. But I have done nothing like you accused me of doing. Your comment in question had one (count ‘em) point: That I, Andrew Sullivan, et. al. was/am guilty of ‘emotional outpouring of righteous indignation’. The two named bloggers are guilty of nothing of the sort. That weakens your case considerably, doesn’t it? And yes, I’m aware of Sullivan and his history. That’s exactly why I haven’t read him in over a year. And regarding the ‘majority of the posters on the blog ‘Murdoconline” you’ve got it wrong. There is one (count ‘em) poster on Murdoc Online. That would be Murdoc. There are countless commenters, however. A fine distinction, some may say. But it is absolute. The downside of an open comments policy (like on this site) is that all sorts can speak their mind. Other than commercial spam, I have deleted exactly three comments in the two years I’ve had them for violating my ‘policy’, and the most recent was about six months ago. This means that all types can say all sorts of things. That doesn’t mean it’s what the site stands for. This isn’t a bulletin board or a moblog. It’s a blog with an open comments section. If I only allowed comments that were in line with the sentiment of my site, do you think yours would still be up? How about Juan Cole’s comments section, BTW? What’s up with that? And, yes, I realize the adstrips mess things up at times. I don’t like it much. But if I wanted frames I’d use frames. Finally, calm down, there. I didn’t call ANYONE a name. I was just asking a question. Which I noticed you failed to answer.
August 25th, 2005 at 9:04 pm
Commenters, posters. The distinction is trivial to me. Every blog has its regulars, whether they ‘post’ or ‘comment’. Reading over the comments, its pretty obvious the demographic being attracted: Anti-intellectual, overly-emotional, jingoistic, bucolic, two-dimensional thinkers. I don’t see how my original characterization is off, I’d like to think its obvious but I guess not. As to the rest of your response…did you even read what I wrote just now? I don’t feel like repeating myself; I’ve already said my piece. But, let’s get back on track. Perhaps it would help if I give you some perspective: Juan Cole is essentially a doctor of history (hence the title). Doctors, whatever their profession, are charged with holding a dispassionate stance on things – lab-coat doctors are often stereotyped as being indifferent to human suffering, but really its just that they intentionally distance themselves from their subjects. Dr. Cole isn’t ’smearing’ anyone, he’s putting together several sources of information to account for Vincent’s murder, and making some connections to what he knows. That he appears callous in doing so is directly connected to the fact that he’s supposed to be: that’s what historians do. I don’t mean to disparage his widow (and I am sure Cole isn’t either, based on his response) but most of her statements are colored by the heat of the moment, and many of them are mischaracterizations, and some are just wrong. She just lost her husband; she’s not one to be argued with. Those who jump on her bandwagon (especially you), though, should realize as I first noted, Cole isn’t saying that Vincent’s death was ‘good’ & he isn’t trying to defend the killers. He is noting Vincent’s actions up until his death put him at terrific, and somewhat needless, mortal danger. You call that courage because of the sociopolitical context. I call it lunacy, needlessly dangerous lunacy. But then again, we probably have an identical disagreement about the whole adventure in Iraq, so I guess everything is nice and symmetrical. I just hope to God the macrocosm doesn’t share the same fate…
August 25th, 2005 at 9:48 pm
++Commenters, posters. The distinction is trivial to me. Every blog has its regulars, whether they ‘post’ or ‘comment’.++ Are you kidding? I can’t help it if it’s trivial to you. I suspected it was, which is why I wrote ‘a fine distinction, some may say’.
August 25th, 2005 at 10:21 pm
Regarding Cole being a dispassionate historian doing what he’s supposed to do blah blah blah.’ Now isn’t that the pot calling the kettle black? If you see it that way, if you can’t see the distinctions between Cole and other pundits that’s, as they say, your problem amigo. Consider which is more important distinction to make: the task of the historical profession, or the difference between a poster and a commenter on a blog… P.S. once again, I will reiterate that I already addressed the you/andrew sullivan tangent. I lead you to my posts, but I guess ‘aint no one can make you read them!
August 25th, 2005 at 10:44 pm
I, too, am delighted to know that Juan Cole has responded to Lisa’s statement ++I understand the grief of a bereaved widow, and I am not interested in arguing with her. Isn’t that just great? He feels compelled to call her husband an ignorant man who got what was coming to him, but doesn’t feel like arguing with her. How convenient. ++But Vincent does not get a pass on being criticized simply because he is dead (the entire historical profession would collapse in this case). Yet if historians stayed busy slandering the dead only a week or two after the fact, while lacking any facts, people’s favorite sport would be hunting historians with hounds. Come to think of it, it does sound like fun. ++A recent, informed discussion of the case by David Enders, who is in Basra, makes many of the same points as I did. Well isn’t that just great. We all know how worldly wise 24 year-olds are. Whatever his opinions on how married forty-somethings act, I’d take them as gospel. ++The wingnuts are going crazy over this contretemps, which is what is really interesting. I think it is because Vincent is a symbol for the pro-War American Right. +++ I think it’s because a breathless ninny feels compelled not only to slander a brave writer, but has to insult the writer’s intelligence, along with the writer’s wife’s while he’s at it. ++He was inspired to his journalism in Iraq by September 11. That was his first mistake. It may have been a mistake, but still not on the level of Mr. and Mrs. Cole’s tragic mistake with birth control. ++The poor Iraqis had nothing to do with September 11. And the poor Germans had nothing to do with Pearl Harbor. Yet both were under the thumb of National Socialists, and both enjoyed the support of Nazi apologists. ++He was a defender of the Bush administration policies in Iraq, and he was killed in the course of reporting on Shiite religious parties’ and militias’ influence in Basra. But that influence was a direct result of Coalition policies! Well of course. Everyone knows that Bush had far greater influence over Shi’ite religious beliefs than every leader since Ali. In fact, al-Sadr is just a Bush sock puppet, unless of course al-Sadr opposes Bush, in which case he’s just one of Bush’s many Play-Do creations. This view could be summed up as Cole’s circular ‘Mr. Potato Head’ theory of the Middle East. Still, Vincent was a defender of our policies, or more properly an advocate for a change in Iraq’s policies, which I suppose makes him just like every soldier over there. By extension, Cole’s reasoning would also explain the deaths of any US soldier at the hands of assassins, indicating that Casey Sheehan was a dumbass, while his mother is ‘wise’. ++So here is the commentary — Was American journalist Steve Vincent killed in Basra as part of an honor killing? He was romantically involved with his Iraqi interpreter, who was shot 4 times. Note that I did not say, as Mrs. Vincent assumes, that he was sleeping with his interpreter, Nur al-Khal. That he was romantically involved with her is obvious from his blog, where he calls her ‘Leyla’. I don’t have any interest in their personal lives per se, but this relationship may have had something to do with his death and so is fair game for mention. Oh, and I’m romantically involved with every woman who puts me on a first name basis– So if I call Juan Cole ‘Juan’, does that mean he’s romantically involved with me? Yikes!!! ++’If her clan thought she was shaming them by appearing to be having an affair outside wedlock with an American male, they might well have decided to end it. In Mediterranean culture, a man’s honor tends to be wrought up with his ability to protect his womenfolk from seduction by strange men. Again, for those like Cole who are goegraphically challenged, Basra is further from the Mediterranean than Birmingham, and the population of Basra doesn’t have ancestors who’ve ever lived on the Mediterranean. That’s what passes for insightful knowledge among people who only spent six years in the Middle East, as compared to people who only spent two years, which apparently rates one a fool. By then by that scorecard, Muhammed down at the Quicky Mart knows five times more about the Middle East than Cole, which isn’t really surprising. ++Where a woman of the family sleeps around, it brings enormous shame on her father, brothers and cousins, and it is not unknown for them to kill her. These sentiments and this sort of behavior tend to be rural and to hold among the uneducated, but are not unknown in urban areas. And where an academic whores himself for hits, it brings enormous shame on his teachers, colleagues, students, and family, but unfortunately for us, it’s rare for them to kill him. These mindless bleatings and sadly unforgiveable behavior tend to be confined to the ignorant, arrogant, and dimwitted desk barnacles of academia, but are not unknown amongst people who can hold real jobs. One clue to stupidity is thinking a PhD in the study of someone else makes an expert. For example, show me a male professor of feminist studies and I’ll show you a professor who in actuality knows less about his subject, his specialty, his raison d’etre, than OVER HALF the people on the planet. At least Juan Cole, in his specialty, is only guaranteed to be more ignorant than a billion other people, but his recent postings indicate that this estimate is far, far too generous. More to the point, hearing Juan Cole bleat about male honor does make for sidesplitting hilarity.
August 25th, 2005 at 11:24 pm
bayheim: I responded to your obvious misunderstanding of what I was saying (and even of what Sullivan was saying) and then, since you extended that misunderstanding to include commenters, I responded to that as well. If I didn’t read your comments what do you think I was responding to? You can all of a sudden pretend it’s a tangent if you’d like, but despite your request to get back on track, I must once again remind you that the track you’re on doesn’t exist as I didn’t say what you said I did. Since you carry on as if Cole’s place in the world is what you and I are discussing, I did mention Cole a bit and made pretty clear what I think of what he’s doing with his knowledge, but that’s neither here nor there. If you’d like to go on and on about Cole and how what he’s doing is so vital, you’re welcome to. As we’ve established, MO has an open comments section and I only delete truly hateful stuff. But unless something piques my interest I’m don’t really care to get into that discussion. I believe I’ve been more than fair about the way I’ve referred to him since I posted the letter, and while I’ve got my doubts about his motivations I’m not questioning his knowledge or his expertise in matters Middle Eastern.
August 25th, 2005 at 11:47 pm
Murdoc…you just said: ‘….I’ve got my doubts about his motivations’ And that’s what I’ve been speaking to this whole time, you just haven’t been listening. That’s the main attraction for me. I never said ‘you are assailing his knowledge / expertise’, but you seem to think I did. I’m telling you you’re wrong about his >motivations<, and your ‘commenters’ and the other bloggers I’ve read today aren’t even THINKING when they react. They just react, knee-jerk style.
August 26th, 2005 at 1:48 am
++They just react, knee-jerk style Oh, and like putting on a clown suit, marching under Iraqi flags with a Bush picture labeled ‘Hitler’, at a rally sponsored by Kim Il Jung’s chief American supporter, and staging an innovative ’shit in’ on the sidewalk i
August 26th, 2005 at 3:20 am
++ George Turner At least the nutjobs who are closer to me ideologically aren’t getting us bogged down in a ‘war’ we cannot win, at the cost of much blood and treasure. They are harmless loons, you are less so.
August 26th, 2005 at 8:37 am
Uh, bayheim: Yes, I’ve been listening. I just think it’s a load of hooey, is all.
August 26th, 2005 at 12:33 pm
I’m sure there are a million Vietnamese boat people, and a couple million more Veitnamese refugees, who will be delighted to hear that, Bayheim. Whether it’s North Korean madness, totalitarian communism, Ba’ath National Socialism, fundamentalist theocracy, or rule by genocidal tweenage thugs, one group comes out of the woodwork to offer their wholehearted support, while blaming the eventual result on the US.
August 26th, 2005 at 1:26 pm
Juan Cole is not alone. Lisa Ramaci-Vincent ripped one of my readers.
August 26th, 2005 at 1:29 pm
An since this site doesn’t like links, here’s the URL: http://blogdayafternoon.com/articles/05/08/22/4902753/index.html
August 26th, 2005 at 2:46 pm
Oookay, bayheim, you obviously aren’t paying proper attention. The telegraph article never mentions the word romance. In fact, if you read the article, there is more evidence against the idea of romance than for it. Now, since I’m unsure if you are aware of the definition of romance let me show it to you. Romance (n.) – A love affair. Now, unless one is describing objects other than humans one really really doesn’t tend to use word placement like that unless they intend to infer a sexual relationship. Cause y’know, I love my family and friends but I don’t exactly have a romance with them. So, immediately Monsieur Cole has implied that their relationship was based at least in part on sex. The article itself does not support that idea. Especially given the fact that it later says that this wasn’t like any other honor killing they’d seen. Wow, what a surprise. He then writes the following: ‘In Mediterranean culture, a man’s honor tends to be wrought up with his ability to protect his womenfolk from seduction by strange men.’ which when applied to Iraq is moral and cultural relativism at it’s finest. The correct statement for what he is talking about in Iraq and with honor killings in general would be ‘In various parts of islamic and hindu culture, as well as some palestinian christians, a man’s honor tends to be wrought up with his ability to control access to and behavior of his womenfolk, who otherwise have virtually no rights of their own.’ So far as I know those are the only areas in which honor killings and maimings occurr(maimings tend to happen more often with Hindus though.) However, as noted by the police this doesn’t have the marks of your typical honor killing either, and so for Cole to imply that as the main reason for his death is just as much of an indication of his leanings as his use of the word romantic. The idea behind his post was quite probably meant to cast doubt on Vincent’s character, not to wonder about the specifics of the murder.
August 26th, 2005 at 7:50 pm
My condolences to any who are berieved over the death of Mr. Vincent. To the others who are trashing Mr. Cole on a ‘moral’ high ground, your morals don’t seem all that enviable to me. Just hearing that the two were betrothed means that they were romantically involved. If not, what’s wrong with guy/guy mariage or girl/girl mariage. Interesting how it’s a good thing to have a marriage of convenience in this case, but not for others who may need health insurance benefits to save their life. Personally, I’ve been quite libertarian on my view of marriage for most of my life. I don’t think the state should have anything to say about it. To me it is strickly a religious freedom that should be based on one’s faith. (Obviously betrothed also has some meaning in Shiite think, which I don’t pretend to understand but for now I accept Cole’s thesis since no one has disputed it.) As for the converting to Islam, I was raised to believe that the Ten Commandments aren’t something that you make statues of and put everywhere (the Commandments themselves forbid this), they are Gods laws. Was the plan to keep his fingers crossed while converting and hope God wasn’t looking? Was it a true catharsis? Please don’t read this post as an attack on Mr. Vincent’s character. I did not know him and would not do that. From everything I have read he was living in very dangerous circumstances and trying to do the right thing. The thing is that doing the right thing is not always possible. Personally, I sin quite a bit (its not illegal) but I don’t try to justify it by saying I was answering a higher moral calling.
August 26th, 2005 at 8:34 pm
Steve, +++Just hearing that the two were betrothed means that they were romantically involved. I think you left the logic out of that statement. What part of ‘marriage of convenience’ didn’t you get?
August 26th, 2005 at 9:40 pm
Oh, I get it, it’s all about the sexual relations.
August 26th, 2005 at 10:57 pm
++George Turner Sir I am at my wits end with you. It’s obvious from your flawed understanding of military history you have no concept of who we on the Left are or what we stand for, beyond right-wing delusions of ’surrenderists’ and ‘peaceniks’ and so on.
August 26th, 2005 at 11:18 pm
So, immediately Monsieur Cole has implied that their relationship was based at least in part on sex.’ What’s that? An assumption? Guess who you just made an ass of? You & also you. Romance =! sex. Read Vincent’s blog. If he didn’t have a romantic relationship with ‘Leyla’ (sp?) he most certainly had an intimate, loving relationship. So, in a sense it doesn’t even matter what you or Dr. Cole or even Vincent & Leyla thought about their relationship. In terms of perception, it was exactly as Cole describes, esp. if the man is asking the family’s blessing to marry. Word on the street was, they wanted to marry each other. Hmm…. Now, with regards to your accusations of ‘cultural relativism’, Dr. Cole is guilty on all counts, and proudly so. He’s got something you don’t training. He’s a professional historian; his job is to understand how people think IN OTHER CULTURES. Not think about them one-dimensionally through our own perceptions and definitions. Objectively, your definition of ‘rights’ clearly supports your interpretation, to you. But, not to an Iraqi (or for that matter, really any member of Western Civilization before the 20th century). To them, things we consider distasteful or wrong are not, and likewise for us. Bin Laden thinks Americans are immoral because they are addicted to stimulation – auditory and visual. Are you going to say he is wrong and we are right, just….because? The definitions are in many ways arbitrary. In a minor and trivial example, one might argue that the American female needs to be ‘liberated’ from having to wear a top, that she is being oppressed if she cannot do so. Of course this person would just as readily say to you they are right as you might to them. The task of the historian is to understand what people are thinking within their own cultural framework, and develop a cause-and-effect relationship along those lines. Could Vincent’s death be caused by his suicidal attempt to court and abscond with an Iraqi woman? Possibly. Did that come from his desire to do good? Of course. If so, was his death the result of poor decisions based on naive interpretations on his part in a very dangerous part of the world? Yes. Dr. Cole’s argument in a nutshell.
August 27th, 2005 at 2:34 am
++George Turner +++Sir I am at my wits end with you. It’s obvious from your flawed understanding of military history you have no concept of who we on the Left are or what we stand for, beyond right-wing delusions of ’surrenderists’ and ‘peaceniks’ and so
August 27th, 2005 at 4:34 am
Bayheim: Your defense of your colleague and his moral relativism was quite impassioned, suitably adoring and ultimately vacuous. I believe a quote by Theodore Roosevelt is applicable: ‘To educate a man in mind and not in morals is to educate a menace to society.’ Likewise your your critique of the ‘failures in Iraq’ and the rationale for the fall of the Soviet Empire were similary insipid and fanciful. What is especially amusing is your hubris in declaring there is a better way, ‘your way’. That was only topped by your assertion to George Turner that he had ‘no concept of who we on the Left are or what we stand for’. I dare say you are more well known for what you stand against. ‘It is not the critic who counts, not the man who points out how the strong man stumbled, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena; whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again; who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, and spends himself in a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows in the end the triumph of high achievement; and who, at worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.’ Theodore Roosevelt
August 27th, 2005 at 2:41 pm
George Turner: It pains me to see you know nothing of political movements beyond an ignorant sense of party affiliation. I was done with lame arguments like ‘but but FDR started WWII & he was a Demmicrat!’ in about 10th grade (co-incidentally, I was also suprised to discover people still arguing that blacks should vote Republican because Abraham Lincoln was Republican, a belief I’m sure you share with your fellow classmates). ++’Now why would I have my doubts about leftist dabblers?’ Ha. Mussolini and Hitler leftists. Ha. I suppose you consider Tojo & Franco a leftist too? And the authoritarian Religious Right? And anarchists? How simple your world must be! Kinda like ‘GI Joe’ right? You have on the right, ALL THE GOOD GUYS, and on the left, ALL THE BAD GUYS. It’s too bad all this ‘liberal tinkering’ didn’t start in the early 1800s, it starts with the European Enlightenment. The belief in a government based on a rational understand of humanity – something our own country was founded on and continuous trial and error has developed. Early American utopian experiments were attempts to take this one step further, again to ask as our founding fathers did ‘Isn’t there a better way?’ (sound familiar?). Of course, it would be nice to simply categorize all the positive accomplishments (advocacy of racial and gender equality) as ‘your side’ and all the negative results (class intolerance) as ‘my side’, but such categorizations betray a simple mind. I have nothing in common politically and philosophically with Marx & Engels beyond a desire to improve the lot of my fellow man, if possible. Of course, your simple-minded understanding of the 1800s also betrays how little you know about the context of the Communist Revolution in Russia. Welfare Capitalism in the US spoke directly to the very valid objections communists had to industrial capitalism; I’m very glad we had found a happy medium by the New Deal. If you intend to associate me with everything bad that came out of ‘tinkering’, you should have to award me everything good as well. The fact that even the most bigoted GOPers can’t talk about race or ethnicity as openly as they would like to today warms my heart. Even class as a concept is taboo, which I’m also pretty happy about. ‘Cobra!!!!!’ ++And if our conduct as victors is to run away, leaving tens of millions of people to suffer under another genocidal or tyrannical regime, what’s the point? Hold on a second, let me finish my tofu before you put those words in my mouth. I don’t seem to have mentioned, endorsed or pontificated on pulling out early (unfortunately neither did your father), and in my opinion we can’t. Thank you for pounding the square peg I actually said into the round hole you made up – finally found a good use for your thick head! ++And here I thought the failure was Woodrow Wilson’s, possibly the most racist President ever to hold office this century. Let me guess, you also think that he has anything in common with me because of party affiliation. World must be nice when everything is just so gosh darn simple! And just for the sake of historical sobriety, how exactly was it WW’s fault? His advocacy of US participation abroad? His support for an international peace-keeping entity? The decisions of European allies to extract their pound of flesh from the conquered? ++So your way wasn’t the Democrat way? LOL I didn’t even read that yet when I said ‘Let me guess, you also think that he has anything in common with me because of party affiliation.’ 1 second HAHAHAHAHAH HAHAHAHAHA ok I’m done. Here’s a link to a website describing some major party realignments of the 20th century. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Realigning_election I’m sure your teacher hasn’t covered that yet, or you just didn’t pay attention last semester, so maybe you should spend some time with da book learning before you form some opinions….or were you just trying to impress me with your silly fantasies about static party makeup? Guilt by association is it? Hah. ++Vietnam, etc. It’s amazing how revealing your post is about your own tinfoil hat worldview. Here, let me give you some observations: ‘congressman who were in a hurry to leave’ odd, you only seem to be referring to Kennedy in the rest of the passage, ex. ‘he stopped them’, ‘push through a measure’ as if he had some great power over America. Quite a powerful man, so powerful you used the plural past tense ‘were’ instead of ‘was’ when you refer to him as the ‘congressman’. The Dark Lord Kennedy, so powerful he requires a plural verb!! Kennedy is a douche, but so are all politicians. He’s just a skilled douche who ends up more on my side than yours. . Not only that, but you didn’t even talk about the VW itself (other than to mention how its fate was SEALED by the Great Kennedy, who were also forging the One Ring of Power). Now, I honestly can tell you I don’t know much about Sen. Kennedy’s singlehandedly losing us the war, nor do I care. I’m a big picture kinda guy, and here’s my big pic of that war: clusterfuck from start to finish. We didn’t understand the context of Ho Chi Min’s political movement, we didn’t pay attention to the French experience, nor did we care whatever asshole we put in power in South Vietnam, so long as he was ‘our asshole’. Johnson escalated things on false premises with the Gulf of Tonkin incident, and the US media kept lying to the American people about our glorious victory….right before the Tet offensive. To draw some historical connections, this was not unlike the ‘clap louder!’ British press during WWI, a war they would have lost had it not been for the American entry. I recommend ‘The Fog of War’ as a good intro to what went wrong, although ‘A Bright Shining Lie’ is good, and even the ‘Battle of Algiers’ for a good parallel. ++’Well congratulations, because only three of the twenty-some reasons for war cited by congress…’ OH SNAP, how did you know I was a member of congress, and completely based my opinion of the validity of the war on official US reasons? I mean, it’s not like I’m actually a normal citizen who was told that Iraq not only HAD WMDs, but that those WMD’s were being funneled to Al Qaeda and who knows who else, and that we have to protect ourselves and our regional allies from said WMD’s. I mean, it’s not like the POTUS went on TV saying that if Saddam doesn’t disarm we would invade… It’s not like Colin Powell went to the UN with MAPS detailing said WMD…. It’s not like I’m holding in my hand right now an magazine I picked up at the drug store from 2003 SHOWING ME where ‘Saddam’s WMD’ were in Iraq and that we had to stop him before it was too late (and what I could do to protect my family from said WMD!) How did you know! ++The Center for Budgetary Strategic Policy Analysis, prior to 9/11, estimated we were spending about $50 billion a year keeping Saddam bottled up, were he was free to kill tens and thousands of his own people to generate propaganda fodder for the region’s news networks. Twelve years of that comes to $600 billion, which only bought us nightly demonization on those regional newscasts. We’re currently reaping the results of twelve-years of such political indoctrination spread throughout the region, and Osama bin Laden said our sanctions were his chief recruiting tool. Sanctions were a disaster. They only strengthened Saddam because they forced his people to become ever more dependent on him, and promoted nationalist solidarity. I could have told you that in 1991 – it’s almost as if…history was repeating itself….and I had mentioned something earlier about the importance of winning the peace? But again, you and your black and white world. There are only two sides to every coin right!? On a completely unrelated note, how’s Castro holding up? ;0) ++To stop the looting we’d have had to send in what, three million soldiers? No, we’d just have to have prepared for the vacuum of local law enforcement, and at the very least protected major municipal and cultural buildings. The clowns in charge of this war were literally surprised when they didn’t recieve rose petals. You realise the whole ‘pulling the statue down’ was staged? They actually had to bus in people to do it – everyone else was probably too weak from a decade of starvation. Since we are on the topic of mendacious guilt by association, who decided to stop in Kuwait again…? Who told the Kurds to rise up against Saddam and then fucked them over (hope they don’t hold a grudge!)? ++The sanitation had already collapsed, in case you hadn’t read any ‘left-wing’ humanitarian outcries in the years preceding the war. I did, in fact, and that was another reason I thought sanctions were a terrible idea. Too bad we just made it worse. ++The electrical system was already shot, and much of it still is. That would probably have been when we bombed the fuck out of the electrical & telecom grid (twice) ++which is why our contractors were largely stumped about how to expand it. You know, when they aren’t shot, set on fire, beaten with pipes, dragged through the streets and hung from bridges amid cheering crowds. Then they are REALLY stumped. ++which would explain the left’s penchant for supporting regimes whose policies seem to revolve around bullets in the back of the head. I really hate to bring up current events, but ‘we’ aren’t the ones calling for the bullets to be delivered to the back of heads of state on the 700 Club. ++Indeed. I’m sure 400,000 people were dumped in the mass graves by only a couple of Ba’athist party members who’d had a drunken night of bad tequila. Right, and the men, women and children tortured and raped to death while in US custody were only done by a few Private Englands on the night shift. And, you are confusing your set of ‘dirty brown’ stereotypes: that would be the Mexicans who drink tequila. I hope you can pick up my point before I have to use a waterboard: genocides are committed by regular people. Psychologists have been setting up experiments that demonstrate how in one way or another since WWII. Oh, no, I get it. You think it’s just ‘human nature’ to riot (at least, non-white human nature, I’m guessing) and doing anything to stop it is too much effort, but mass genocide is only done by evil people…who coincidentally make up a whole population of a previously non-evil nation. Ahh, America, where you can avoid cognitive dissonance like no other country in the world! ++They may have invented it, but under Saddam they sure gave up practicing it. Who are ‘they’? The Iraqi people? Who specifically are you referring to – Sunnis? Shiites? No wait, let me guess – you still think the Japanese were wholeheartedly in support of the Greater East Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere. It’s easier to use names to label everyone than to understand anyone. ++Under Saddam, Iraq had ‘civilization v1.2 — rule by Arab socialist thug’. We’re running version 14.1 revision B. It was time they upgraded. Do you really hold that genocidal National Socialism or fundamentalist theocracy are superior systems? See previous point. And, as far as your culture/software analogy goes, us anthropologists have been doing that for years. There are some interesting parallels, but I suggest you learn something about memetics or ethnology before you use such retarded versions of it though. ‘It was time they upgraded.’ Haha. That’s almost as funny as the one about Wilson. Comedy gold! ++Ah, let’s keep the same officers in place and let them continue to enforce military rule over the populace. That’ll win us friends. I know the far left has a fondness for military police states, but can’t you put it aside for just a little while? Because, you know, everyone in a given government is a politically homogenous group, who all share the traits/philosophy/disposition of the leaders of such a country. In fact, when fighting such a government’s army, it is wise to fire the lot of them, and let them take home their 1) military training 2) resentment over having no way to provide for family thanks to US 3) weapons Yeah. Real smart. How’s that working out? ++We have an official plan, officially called ‘victory and a free and democratic Iraq. That’s funny, we had that same plan in Vietnam. Of course, it took us about a decade to realize that our definition of ‘freedom’ meant ‘no communists’, whereas the Vietnamese definition was ‘no Western occupier’. What a wacky misunderstanding! On a serious note, I’m of course referring to the actual exit strategy that was supposed to have been put in place in the beginning but never was. ‘When its done’ only works when we have clearly defined objectives, such as ‘Make Germany and Japan surrender unconditionally’. ‘Victory’ is not an objective. ‘Freedom’ and ‘Democracy’ are poorly-defined objectives. See the Vietnam repost. ++ ‘which is a plan that so certainly guarantees defeat that it’s been banned in all games, sports, and competitive activities.’ I’m really not sure what this is supposed to mean? A fixed timetable in sports? Like, inning, quarter & rounds? Or maybe seasons? Last time I checked, ALL professional sports involved fixed ‘timetables’…. ++We’d be better off dumping another $600 billion to ensure Saddam staged more baby funerals while the French raked in all the illegal oil kickbacks in return for overpriced food for the Republican Guard? George H.W. Bush seemed to think so. So did Clinton. Douches, both of em. BTW did I mention Versailles…. ++Following the same timeline, that would’ve taken till 2075. OMG so like, if the Iraqis are the Russians, and the US is the US, then everything will follow the >exactsame’ This war has been a PR disaster from day one, and its outcome will be just like the last time ‘you’ tried this shit. Left half of the country (and we are about half, btw) isn’t in, most of the right ‘in’ only as armchair quarterbacks or Young Republican cheerleaders or both, and the lion is still asleep. I actually was in the process of joining the Army after Sept. 11, but Bush blew it for me with his adventure in Iraq. Call me when its a war we should be fighting. We are waiting. ++So said the Fascist and Communist supporters who wanted the US to disarm during WWII and the cold war. I’m confused – I think you weren’t reading what I wrote in your haste to connect it to a dumbass talking point. This is one of the few sentiments I shared with Ronald Reagan – standing up for yourself is not the same thing as being a jerk, our system of economic and political freedom SELLS ITSELF, and is in fact hindered by major military action. In some ways its very Ghandi-esque. The goal is not to defeat the opposing country, but to convert them to our way of thinking through a competition of ideas – to show them how our economic and political system just >works better<. To get the Iraqis on a helicopter and show them the US countryside. That’s how we won the Cold War (or at least, assisted in helping Russia break apart). ++I believe Ted Kennedy was one of your nutcases, and the Vietnamese still reap the disaster of his policy. Wow. Just. Wow. I had no idea the Dark Lord Kennedy were so powerful – he and he alone governed US policy from beginning to end, despite being a lowly Senator. Indeed he are HE WHO SHOULD NOT BE NAMED. Although I suppose in 20 years you’ll be whining about how Senator Kerry didn’t vote for the 87 billion and thus lost us this war. I hate to say it, but as a student of history it is pretty obvious America is on its way out as the dominant superpower. In about 100 years it won’t matter how Vietnam or Iraq turned out, and your bitterness over US policy in this regard may as well mean as much as who owned the Phillipines in 1905. In the broad scheme of things, we should be grooming our future partners in power through further tinkering and aggressive exportation of what we have found works. Ignorance and simplistic pigeon-holing can stay here with you though.
August 27th, 2005 at 3:06 pm
Judgemental – It’s very fitting your name shows you aren’t making the distinction between supporting one’s own culture and ethnology. You are probably upset Cole doesn’t condemn Vincent’s death – don’t wait around for it. Cole is a social scientist – his job is to study things outside of his own cultural binoculars. His blog has never been the place to use American cultural values to describe or belittle others, nor should it be – there’s plenty of places on the ‘net for that. But of course that goes back to the fundamental misunderstanding about him on this page: he’s neither supporting nor condemning Vincent’s death, that’s not his job. He does argue that it was foolishly arrogant to do what Vincent did, and he has an argument to back that claim up (most importantly the fact tha t Vincent is no longer alive) As far as the rest of your post goes, I’d consider TR a great example of Turner’s ‘tinkering’ (which he attributes fallaciously to just the Left). The taming of big oil and railroads was in large part thanks to TR’s policies, and the ‘Square Deal’ was an intellectual precursor to the ‘New Deal’. Was there a better way than endless worker strikes and strike-breaking violence, he may have asked? Of course there was, and he took action. Now, trying to wrestle someone down with quotes is a nice appeal to authority and all, but surely you must realize there are times when ‘at least we are doing SOMETHING’ is a pretty lame choice. What did the millions of dollars that went into the Los Alamos lab accomplish, c. 1944? While all these brave men were dying on the front, a bunch of military-age young men were fooling around in the desert! Vietnam is perhaps a better example: ‘at least we did something’ did not stop 15 years of national Vietnam Syndrome, nor has it removed that policy stain from our history. Even defenders of the Iraq War accept that Vietnam was a disaster, hence the denial that Iraq is anything like that war. Our soldiers and civilians were being lied to by their leaders, and our leaders thought they were fighting Korea. ‘At least we were doing SOMETHING’ is the battle cry of brave men, but it is also the cry of the simple-minded and the long-defeated.
August 27th, 2005 at 4:54 pm
Bayheim, Vietnam was by no means a disaster, especially after Creighton Abrams replaced Westmoreland, after which our policy and tactics changed so much that you might as well consider it to be two completely different wars going under the same name. The military felt the Vietnamese Army needed two to three more years before their general officers were competent to handle multi-division maneuvers, but they were denied the time they wanted. Even so, the North was so profoundly beaten in 1973 that it took them two years to recover, a defeat that used Americans to support South Vietnamese ground forces. Thanks to opposition to the war, we weren’t willing to crush the 1975 invasion, which was actually quite smaller than the 1973 invasion that was roundly defeated.
August 29th, 2005 at 5:55 pm
They do say the wife is the last to know but this takes the biscuit. Vincent sounds like the lowest kind of snake, although no one deserves to die the way he did.
August 30th, 2005 at 7:49 am
++bayheim ‘At least the nutjobs who are closer to me ideologically aren’t getting us bogged down in a ‘war’ we cannot win, at the cost of much blood and treasure. They are harmless loons, you are less so.’ Bogged down? Obviously you suffer from MSM induce
August 30th, 2005 at 9:59 am
Ms. Vincent pretty effectively eviscerated Cole. (Forget the Mr. stuff, he doesn’t deserve any title of respect.) He’s a professor, huh? Of what? We need a bit of that 60’s student activism to get rid of idiots like Cole.
August 31st, 2005 at 6:20 pm
Bayheim, I would rather quote Teddy Roosevelt than espouse the chimera of Neville Chamberlin, the antithesis of ‘the simple-minded and the long-defeated’. Suave, privileged Neville was highly intelligent, well educated and came within a hair’s breadth of allowing democratic civilization to slide into the abyss. He only remained the anti-thesis of the ‘long defeated’ through the Subsequent leadership of Winston Churchill, and the cost of untold millions of lives. Give me the arrogant, untutered but responsible and decent ‘ruffians that step into the breech and try to ‘do SOMETHING’, rather than the sophisticate nay-sayers dispassionately commenting on the deplorable situation while carnage reigns.
September 1st, 2005 at 11:02 pm
By consciously deciding to participate in a war Vincent allowed himself to become fair game for the other side. His death is much less deplorable than that of an Iraqi civilian killed in a war he did not choose to fight. In his last article in the NYT, Vincent showed the ‘democratizing urge’ for what it was: those chosen by the people of Basra (in the elections held by the American and British occupational forces) should not be allowed to have any say in the matters, because an ignorant ex-art critic does not like their ways! As for the saving a damsel bit, only Vincent wife can be so foolish as to swallow it. There is no restriction whatsoever on a woman wanting to leave Iraq on her own. There is none on any Iraqi or other woman trying to enter England legally unaccompanied by any paper husband. Even if we believe that Vicent’s intention was what his widow says it was, this does not change the perception of those who, for whatever reason, felt enraged by an imperialist American being friendly with an Iraqi woman. When Prof. Cole points this fact out, he is not justifying the act of Vincent killers; he is just showing Vincent’s stupidity to fail to see this simple fact.
September 1st, 2005 at 11:03 pm
By consciously deciding to participate in a war Vincent allowed himself to become fair game for the other side. His death is much less deplorable than that of an Iraqi civilian killed in a war he did not choose to fight. In his last article in the NYT, Vincent showed the ‘democratizing urge’ for what it was: those chosen by the people of Basra (in the elections held by the American and British occupational forces) should not be allowed to have any say in the matters, because an ignorant ex-art critic does not like their ways! As for the ’saving a damsel’ bit, only Vincent’s wife could have been so foolish as to swallow it. There is no restriction whatsoever on a woman wanting to leave Iraq on her own. There is none on any Iraqi or other woman trying to enter England legally unaccompanied by any paper husband. Even if we believe that Vicent’s intention was what his widow says it was, this does not change the perception of those who, for whatever reason, felt enraged by an imperialist American being friendly with an Iraqi woman. When Prof. Cole points this fact out, he is not justifying the act of Vincent’s killers; he is just showing Vincent’s stupidity to fail to see this simple fact.
September 6th, 2005 at 10:44 am
I just started to read the book of Steve Vincent. This book will make history, I believe. Steve decribes things in his book that many will not understand for 10 years. But then they will understand or at least I hope so. It took the world more then 10 years to understand what Hitler was doing with Europe. But finally they understood. France was not capable to save itself from Hitler. The USA took over that job and done it well. I recommend this book to anybody who lives in a democratic country, likes to go out at night and likes the opportunities a democratic country brings. I also recommend this book to the peace activists who have a girlfriend and do not have a problem when a male friend speaks to their girlfriend without asking for permission first. My utmost condolences to his wife and all his friends who supported him. Going from art to war for _your_ cause. What a great Man you are and will always be! My mind is with your cause and will always be.
September 6th, 2005 at 4:42 pm
Let’s call a spade a spade he was not very talented and the fact that he died was partly because he was boning the locals (despite being married) and hello he was in Iraq, what do you expect they will give him necklaces made of flowers?. Dozens of other journalists (real ones even) have been killed in Iraq it is a dangerous place. Next please.
September 7th, 2005 at 11:02 am
[comment deleted]
September 14th, 2005 at 1:13 am
All, My sincere condolences to you Lisa for your loss. But HANG ON A MINUTE other bloggers. You are screaming murder at some one who doesn’t impress me much but who is essentially repeating what other reputable journalists who met Steven and stayed with him in his hotel in Basra have written. Besides, it doesn’t matter if Nour and Steven were having a platonic relationship – I’m afraid to say that such a concept doesn’t exist in Islamic society and the possibility remains that men not necessarily related to Nour have enforced local society codes. But (with all respect Lisa) most people here are writing in support of you rather than the the pursuit of truth. This is noble but not good journalism. Only Steven had the whole picture. And since we are so are a little obessed with credentials on this page (I though the point of blogging was to let ordinairy people speak their minds?) I am a fluent Arabist, I lived in Basra for nearly a year and I knew Nour well. Kitty
September 23rd, 2005 at 9:50 am
Has anyone seen the picture of Steve Vincent wearing a Prophet Ali T-Shirt? Or read his Web log about confronting a Shia in a restaurant who was staring disapprovingly at Noor? Or read his Web log about how he taunted a Basran policeman with homosexual innuendo during a press outing? Whatever you think about his writing and his ideas, there is no doubt that he was personally conducting himself in a dangerous and irresponsible manner. We’ll never know why Vincent was killed. The family and friends would prefer we think he was a noble martyr for his ideas, while the British would prefer we think he was killed because he was an adulterer. Based on everything I’ve heard, I think it was a combination. My guess is that he had bcome a well known character to the radicals for his outrageous public behavior and he had been on their hit list for a long time. I think they let him live awhile because they didn’t want to rock the boat too much by killing an American. The Times article was the last straw and they gave the go ahead to take him out. He had gone from being a minor nuisance to a major one.
August 23rd, 2005 at 6:57 am
Several commenters seem to have missed Juan Cole’s attribution of the report to Britain’s Conservative Telegraph newspaper. He didn’t originate any rumours; he actually followed that report quite closely. You can see the report at link
November 18th, 2005 at 4:54 pm
http://freepages.kconline.com/listrak/pikhe/archives.html fourthhuddlingtheses
December 6th, 2005 at 6:21 pm
The wife ‘refutes’ the fact they weren’t romantically involved because there were no motels for them to go to, etc. Hmmm… seems like plenty of people can get romantically involved without first going to a motel. I really don’t know if they were romantically involved or not — does the wife? Anyway, this thing aboyt no motels is a very weak response, although she comes off very strong, and like a know it all about it. What is so bad about being romantically involved, anyway?