Posted on 08/03/2005 5:45:02 AM PDT by robowombat
BAGHDAD, Iraq - An American freelance journalist was found dead in the southern Iraqi city of Basra, the U.S. Embassy said Wednesday.
Police said Steven Vincent had been shot multiple times after he and his Iraqi translator were abducted at gunpoint hours earlier.
"I can confirm to you that officials in Basra have recovered the body of journalist Steven Vincent," said embassy spokesman Pete Mitchell. "The U.S. Embassy is working with British military and local Iraqi officials in Basra to determine who is responsible for the death of this journalist. Our condolences go out to the family."
Iraqi police in Basra said Vincent was abducted along with his female translator at gunpoint Tuesday evening. The translator, Nour Weidi, was seriously wounded.
Vincent and the translator were seized Tuesday afternoon by five gunmen in a police car as they left a currency exchange shop, police Lt. Col. Karim al-Zaidi said.
Vincent's body was discovered on the side of the highway south of Basra later. He had been shot in the head and multiple times in the body, al-Zaidi said.
Police said Vincent, a writer who had been living in New York, had been staying in Basra for several months working on a book about the history of the city.
In an opinion column published July 31 in The New York Times, Vincent wrote that Basra's police force had been heavily infiltrated by members of Shiite political groups, including those loyal to radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr.
Vincent quoted an unidentified Iraqi police lieutenant as saying that some police were behind many of the assassinations of former Baath Party members that have taken place in Basra.
"He told me that there is even a sort of "death car" - a white Toyota Mark II that glides through the city streets, carrying off-duty police officers in the pay of extremist religious groups to their next assignment," he wrote.
Vincent was also critical of the British military, which is responsible for security in Basra, for turning a blind eye to abuses of power by Shiite extremists in the city.
He was the author of "In the Red Zone: A Journey Into the Soul of Iraq," a recently published book that was an account of life in a post-Saddam Iraq.
Vincent's Web site describes him as a freelance investigative journalist and art critic whose work had appeared in major newspapers and magazines including the Wall Street Journal, Harper's, and the Christian Science Monitor.
According to the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists, as of June 28, at least 45 journalists and 20 media support workers have been killed while covering the war in Iraq since March 2003. Insurgent actions are responsible for the bulk of the deaths.
*Sigh*
Rest in peace, Mr. Vincent. And best wishes to the interpreter for a full recovery.
Darwin award.
At least He didn't have to go through the Now-tiresome routine of being videotaped begging for his life & getting shot/beheaded.
Sad, but not unexpected. Frankly I am surprised he lasted as long as he did.
At least He didn't have to go through the Now-tiresome routine of being videotaped begging for his life & getting shot/beheaded.
***
Perhaps that's because these thugs may finally be getting the idea that these videotapes are having the opposite effect of what they intend. We certainly don't get outraged to the point of pressuring our government to grovel for the victim's release (or paying ransom like they do in some countries). Instead, our outrage is directed at the thugs...makes us more resolved to seek them out and destroy them.
It seems he didn't tell the "right story". Had he staged events to make America look bad like other western msm journalists, he would still be alive.
It seems he didn't tell the "right story". Had he staged events to make America look bad like other western msm journalists, he would still be alive.
***
Maybe. Didn't a group of those thugs make off with that anti-American Italian communist journalist (the one who was ransomed by her government and then her speeding car was shot at by the U.S. forces)?
Seems to me these thugs have of late been less than discriminating when it comes to picking their victims.
Free lancer gets fill of free bullets.
What a ruthless society that exists in the Middle East....killing a reporter. A reporter ( a free press) is the back bone of any successful society.
Let's face it. It truly is a seventh century culture in every aspect of the Middle East, isn't it? One more major terrosrist incident in the west and I'm ready to start carpet bombing Demascus and Tehran. They obviously don't understand the concept of open dialogue and the free flow of idea, thought, and information. The wreckless zealotry of these thugs is hard to fathom but, not that hard to deal with. If they don't want ballots, let's give them the bullets they desire.
This fellow was actually a journalist who took the risks and really looked for the story:
Pro-war Iraq journalist Steven Vincent, RIP
Posted by Clay Waters on August 4, 2005 - 11:23.
American freelance journalist Steven Vincent has become the first American journalist to be attacked and killed in the Iraq War.
Unlike many (most?) journos covering the war in Iraq, Vincent supported the invasion, calling it part of a much larger campaign against "Islamo-fascism."
Also, unlike many big-time journalists who report from the relative security of Baghdad's "Green Zone" (without mentioning those security precautions in their filings, leaving a false impression of gritty, down-in-the-trenches reporting), Vincent walked the streets of Basra for months, with a translator and without a bodyguard, gathering material for a book, a follow-up to In the Red Zone: A Journey Into the Soul of Iraq. His reporting from Iraq appeared in the Christian Science Monitor and National Review Online.
NRO's Katherine Lopez had this to say in her tribute: " We would not know about the good that men and women do -- courageous Iraqis, Americans, and other members of the Coalition in this case -- without good men like Steven Vincent willing to find out about it in the first place, on frontlines crawling with evildoers."
Last year Times Watch linked to a Vincent story from Iraq in which he employed his art-critic expertise to show how many Iraqi artists actually favored Saddam Hussein because the dictator kept the commissions rolling: "Because of the despot’s beneficence to artists--advocates of government arts funding, take note--support for the tyrant runs deep there."
Clay Waters's blog | add
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