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September 12, 2006
Memory Lapse
Steven Vincent's brutal murder may have been triggered by an Op-Ed he wrote for The New York Times. Why did the paper's editors forget this?
By David Paulin
Steven Vincent, the only American journalist murdered in Iraq, left behind an impressive body of work that is noteworthy for its incisive analysis and moral clarity. His book, “In the Red Zone: A Journey Into the Soul of Iraq,” drew on a number of fine articles, written mainly for conservative magazines such as National Review and FrontPage Magazine.
The quality of Vincent’s work owed much to the fact that he traveled alone, outside the Green Zone. He avoided the mainstream media’s formulaic reporting; it viewed the war, insurgency, and reconstruction through a prism of “mounting” casualties, suicide bombings, and prisoner abuse scandals.
When Vincent was murdered just over one year ago in the southern port city of Basra, the mainstream media responded with extensive coverage. His killing, it was widely noted, may have been in retaliation for an Op-Ed piece that Vincent published, two days earlier, in The New York Times.
Vincent described how the British Army had ignored the infiltration of Basra’s police force by Iranian-backed Shiite militias and political groups, including those loyal to radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. This coincided with a spike in fundamentalist violence in the southern port city.
He noted as well that police vehicles apparently were used to abduct and kill people. Coincidently, two days after that article ran, a vehicle similar to what Vincent had described intercepted the writer and his translator, Nour Itais, off a Basra street. Later, Iraqi police found Vincent’s battered body on the outskirts of town with a gunshot wound to the head. Nour was shot and left for dead; but she survived.
Forgotten by The Times?
The Times’ Op-Ed editors appear to have forgotten that Vincent’s Op-Ed piece may be the thing that got him killed. In an Op-Ed the Times ran on Sept. 6, "Iraq's Endangered Journalists," author Ali Fadhil overlooked Vincent’s death when writing about Iraq’s beleaguered journalists.
You can be sure Times’ Op-Ed editors scrutinized every word of that Op-Ed. Yet Fadhil, an Iraqi physician-turned journalist, wrote something that was obviously false: “As dangerous as Iraq is for foreign reporters, they at least have the advantage of being considered untouchable by the Iraqi police and security forces.”
What about Steven Vincent?
Seraphic Friend David Paulin has written a remarkable article about a remarkable man who should never be forgotten. To read the rest of this important story, please click here.
Posted by Robert J. Avrech at September 12, 2006 04:26 PM
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