So Sad
Nell e-mails the news that Steven Vincent is dead.
Mr Vincent was abducted with his female Iraqi translator at gun point by men in a police car on Tuesday.
His bullet-riddled body was found on the side of a highway south of the city a few hours later.
He had been writing a book about the city, where insurgents have recently stepped up their attacks.
Vincent was the author of In the Red Zone and proprietor of its associated blog. He was another of the mad dreamers of the last few years who confused hopes with plans, but he stood head and shoulders above his fellows, first for his courage, secondly for his absolute refusal to start moving goalposts. He saw the liberation of Iraq as the great cause of his day. So rather than sit home and talk to anonymous bureaucrats or retype governent press releases, he went to Iraq, twice. His great passion was women’s rights, in the Arab world generally and Iraq in particular. He is dead because he refused to trim his sense of justice to fit the latest fashions in colonial PR – on the ground in Basra, he reported the facts as he found them, blowing the whistle on Allied accomodation to theocracy and the increasing oppression of Iraq’s women.
There are lessons one could draw from Vincent’s death, many of them rueful. The overused word “tragedy” applies. One must contemplate them soon. I am too sad for that right now.
The most recent entry on the site, with condolence messages in the comment thread.
Comment by matthew hogan —
August 3, 2005 @ 8:09 am
Honest guy, deserves his laurels. And he got it right — cultural moral relativism is bs, and Iraq is a mess that our own people dont see or understand. Two out of three, then he goes on to think it’s all ok to be acting in a palce where we are clearly, by his own description, out of our league.
Trackback by Captain's Quarters —
August 3, 2005 @ 8:26 am
Terrorists Murder Author, Blogger Steven Vincent
The BBC reports this morning that author and blogger Steven Vincent was kidnapped and murdered by terrorists near Basra. His female Iraqi translator survived the kidnapping, but the terrorists dumped Vincent’s bullet-ridden body outside of the city wi…
Trackback by Sister Toldjah —
August 3, 2005 @ 8:38 am
Blogger/Journalist Steven Vincent murdered in Iraq
The Associated Press is reporting this morning that Vincent was found shot to death in Basra
Pingback by Noli Irritare Leones » Blog Archive » Blogwatch —
August 3, 2005 @ 10:16 am
[...] nd a librarian superhero. Waiting for Dorothy has photos from BlogHer. Jim Henley on the death of author and blogger Steven Vincent in Iraq. Slate sticks up for thimerosal. [...]
Comment by Nell —
August 3, 2005 @ 10:20 am
Just yesterday morning I had caught up on the last two or three posts on In the Red Zone, and got a bad feeling from several of the anecdotes. The stunning level of ignorance and unseriousness on the part of the U.S. occupation “planners” has robbed Iraqi women in particular of their future, but all Iraqis, really.
Leila (Vincent’s guide) is a brave woman who deserves our prayers and best wishes for complete recovery.
Comment by Diana —
August 3, 2005 @ 10:44 am
14 Marines killed as well. What a horrible day.
Comment by Gary Farber —
August 3, 2005 @ 11:51 am
“Leila (Vincent’s guide) is a brave woman….”
Reported to be his fiance, actually.
It seems to me that “tragedy” should be reserved for events humans have no control over, and that vicious murders are in another category, but that may be my own idiosyncratic usage, perhaps.
Comment by Jim Henley —
August 3, 2005 @ 12:16 pm
Matt, well put. Gary, in the Shakespearean sense, tragedy proceeds from the fatal flaw at the core of one’s greatest virtue, no? In Greek tragedy, the fall proceeds from hubris. I think Vincent’s death is covered either way. Events humans have no control over – e.g. earthquakes – are precisely not “tragic.”
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Where did you hear about the affiancing of Leila, BTW? Would that mean Vincent was going to divorce the American wife to whom all his blog posts/e-mails have been addressed, or convert to Islam and double up?
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Nell, yes, Leila deserves our thoughts, hopes and, where applicable, prayers. On the evidence of Vincent’s writing, she is an admirable woman.
Comment by Doctor Slack —
August 3, 2005 @ 3:20 pm
You have to give the guy some props for at least putting his money, and his body, where his mouth was. A class apart from the average 101st Fighting Keyboarder, it would seem, regardless of what you might think of the quality of his thinking (which in my case isn’t much). That “condolences” thread on his site got disturbing pretty fast, though…
Comment by Jim Henley —
August 3, 2005 @ 5:21 pm
Doc, there was some of that, yes. And also, to be fair too many “serves him rights” from our side. But for the most part, most of both condolence threads were appropriately respectful, focused and vacuous.
Comment by wellbasically —
August 3, 2005 @ 5:49 pm
This guy might have believed all the stuff he wrote, but looking over his output in National Review, he seems to have been attached to one particular power center in Iraq. Maybe the secular-liberal stance of Allawi appealed to Vincent, an obvious liberal. But given that they are all just mafia organizations, with only one real goal (power), it’s hard to believe he got killed over the New York Times.
Comment by Gary Farber —
August 3, 2005 @ 6:20 pm
tragedy
n 1: an event resulting in great loss and misfortune; “the whole city was affected by the irremediable calamity”; “the earthquake was a disaster” [syn: calamity, catastrophe, disaster, cataclysm] 2: drama in which the protagonist is overcome by some superior force or circumstance; excites terror or pity [ant: comedy]
Source: WordNet ® 2.0, © 2003 Princeton University
Um, okay. I won’t fuss.
Trackback by chez Nadezhda —
August 3, 2005 @ 6:37 pm
No words
I saw the news in the wee hours of this morning. I felt like someone had just kicked me in the gut, literally, and it’s taken quite awhile to post this entry.
Within two days of Steven Vincent’s using, perhaps naively, what he called “the world…
Comment by Jim Henley —
August 3, 2005 @ 11:09 pm
Gary, good God, has the culture fallen so far that Princeton University is associated with the misuse of the word “tragedy?” This “WordNet” lists the colloquial, imprecise usage as definition one? Oy.
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American Heritage generously allows the sloppy usage as definition three, which is forgivable if not admirable. I like to think that the OED, which I’m too cheap to pay the sub fee for, would have some kind of demurring notation on it. An event that happens as a result of things outside of human control is called a “disaster” or a “calamity” or “a goddam shame.” The existence of those perfectly good words allows us to reserve “tragedy” for its legitimate meanings.
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You’re pulling my leg about this, aren’t you. I mean, bringing it up in the first place, even though your background makes you a word guy.
Comment by Backword Dave —
August 4, 2005 @ 7:57 pm
Shorter OED 1. a A serious medieval narrative … b In classical and Renaissance drama … [Late Middle English] 2 A genre of drama … [Late Middle English] 3 An unhappy, terrible, or fatal event in life, a calamity, a disaster … [Late Middle English] b Misery, misfortune; esp sorrowful or violent end. Chiefly with poss. [Late Middle English - M18] c A distressing or dreadful tale.
I’m not sure discussing words is appropriate, however.
Trackback by Brad DeLong's Website —
August 7, 2005 @ 10:15 pm
A Bad Week in Iraq
Bad days in Iraq. Twenty marines dead: 14 U.S. Marines Killed in Iraq When Bomb Hits Their Vehicle – New York Times: BAGHDAD, Iraq, Aug. 3 – Fourteen marines were killed early today when their troop carrier struck a gigantic roadside bomb in the wester…