American journalist found shot dead in Basra

[cal04]

An American journalist has been found shot dead in the southern Iraqi city of Basra, a Western diplomat said on Wednesday.

The diplomat told Reuters the next of kin of Steven Vincent has been notified and an investigation was underway to determine who was behind the death. Vincent had been writing a book about the city.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8804776/


a little more information here
http://www.smh.com.au/news/World/US-journalist-shot-dead-in-Iraq/2005/08/03/1122748686613.html

[MisterP]

1. this is one time to cry wolf (Brigade)

[Erika]

2. Just another Paragraph in Bush's infamy

and legacy.

[ugarte]

3. He just had a piece in the Sunday NY Times

Very good writer, obviously brave. He wrote about cop death squads. I wonder if one got him.

[cal04]

4. I think this is his blog Very sad

In the Red Zone

http://spencepublishing.typepad.com/in_the_red_zone/

[ugarte]

5. Yep, that's the guy

Terrible news. In the Times piece he made the point that Taliban-style private militias and cop death squads run Basra, while British troops look the other way. What a frigging mess. Saddam is looking better every day.

[wellst0nev0ter]

14. Support Your Death Squads

From the article:

"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."

:grr:

[alcibiades_mystery]

7. Holy moly: I just read his piece in the NY Times

Stunning.

[NNN0LHI]

6. The Islamists who police Basra's streets By Steven Vincent

http://www.iht.com/bin/print_ipub.php?file=/articles/2005/07/31/opinion/edvincent.php

The Islamists who police Basra's streets
By Steven Vincent The New York Times
MONDAY, AUGUST 1, 2005


BASRA, Iraq The British call it being "switched on" - a state of high morale and readiness, similar to what Americans think of as "gung-ho" attitude. During the 10 days I recently spent embedded with the British-led multinational force in this southern Iraqi city, I met many switched-on soldiers involved in what the British call "security sector reform." An effort to maintain peace while training Iraqis to handle their own policing and security, security sector reform is fundamental to the British-American exit strategy. As one British officer put it, "The sooner the locals assume their own security, the sooner we go home."

From that perspective, the strategy appears successful. Particularly in terms of the city police officers, who are proving adept at the close-order drills, marksmanship and proper arrest techniques being drilled into them by their foreign instructors. In addition, police salaries are up, the officers have shiny new patrol cars, and many sport snazzy new uniforms. Better yet, many of the new Iraqi officers seem switched-on themselves. "We want to serve our country" is a repeated refrain.

From another view, however, security sector reform is failing the very people it is intended to serve: average Iraqis who simply want to go about their lives. As has been widely reported of late, Basran politics (and everyday life) is increasingly coming under the control of Shiite religious groups, from the relatively mainstream Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq to the bellicose followers of the rebel cleric Moktada al-Sadr. Recruited from the same population of undereducated, underemployed men who swell these organizations' ranks, many of Basra's rank-and-file police officers maintain dual loyalties to mosque and state.

In May, the city's police chief told a British newspaper that half of his 7,000-man force was affiliated with religious parties. This may have been an optimistic estimate: One young Iraqi officer told me that "75 percent of the policemen I know are with Moktada al-Sadr - he is a great man." And unfortunately, the British seem unable or unwilling to do anything about it.

[me b zola]

8. .

[VolcanoJen]

9. CNN just went to Breaking News - London Feed with this story.

A heartbreaking day in Iraq.

[ugarte]

10. What's interesting is that he was a supporter of the war

Sort of a neocon who ended up with doubts,and death.

[1932]

11. My understanding is that the neocons are upset that the british turned

over control of Basra to the Shiite shadow political aparatus that they found there.

Aparently, the Shiites had spent a lot of time over the last decade getting ready for the day that Hussein fell. When the British arrived they found Iraqis already to take over political control of the region and saw no reason to interfere.

Apparently, it pissed off the US because the government that took over is sympathetic to Iran.

So, another way to read this article is not that Vincent is a pro-war neocon who has doubts, but that he's carrying the neocon flag by underminiing the government that took over Basra which happens to be a government the US doesn't want to see there, even though it is more or less Democratic (despite the picture Vincent draws in this story).

[Barrett808]

17. Vincent was the National Review's correspondent

So a certain amount of neo-con boosterism in his writing wasn't surprising.

He recently criticized the use of the terms "insurgent" and "guerrilla" in Iraq reporting, contrasting these usages with "paramilitary death squad" in 1980s "Dirty War" reporting. It is a wicked irony then, that he was apparently executed by official thugs that can be very accurately described as a "paramilitary death squad."

RIP, SV.

[sam sarrha]

12. they are not supposed to leave the hotel.. stories are brought to them..

[Tesla]

13. Sounds like being a reporter is becomming a criminal act

"See ya ,Free Speech"!!

[wicket]

15. Horrible

My thoughts and prayers are with his loved ones. :cry:

[KurtNYC]

16. American (NYTimes) Journalist Found Dead in Iraq

BASRA, Iraq (AP) - An American freelance journalist was found dead in the southern city of Basra with multiple gunshot wounds after being abducted by armed men driving a police car, Iraqi police and the U.S. Embassy said Wednesday.
...
In an opinion column published July 31 in the 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.
...
``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.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,1280,-5187073,00.html

Kind of an odd phrase there: "abducted by armed men driving a police car." They say that 'hell is the impossibility of Reason.'

[Moderator]

18. kick

[DeepModem Mom]

19. LAT: Slain Writer Was Investigating Graft (in Basra - officials involved?)

Slain Writer Was Investigating Graft
American freelancer Steven Vincent was focusing on politics in Basra -- the increasing influence of extremists and alleged corruption.
By Ashraf Khalil and Thomas S. Mulligan, Times Staff Writers


BAGHDAD — Journalist Steven Vincent collected facts for his stories from the streets of Basra, not from official statements. But he knew that the streets of Iraq's second-largest city were becoming increasingly unsafe for him.....Vincent persisted, on a personal mission to uncover the dark political underbelly of Basra. He wrote about it, and some think it may have cost him his life.

The 49-year-old former arts writer was abducted Tuesday night from a downtown Basra street along with Nour al Khal, an Iraqi woman who was his longtime assistant and interpreter. Vincent's body was discovered before dawn, hands bound and shot five times; Khal is being treated for multiple gunshot wounds in a Basra hospital.

Dozens of foreign journalists have been abducted or killed in Iraq since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion to oust President Saddam Hussein. But Vincent's death has new, disturbing implications; he may not have been killed because he was an American or a journalist. He may have been targeted because he was uncovering alleged corruption and influence-peddling in the city's political, security and religious leadership.

Multiple witnesses attest that Vincent and Khal were abducted by men who appeared to be driving police vehicles.

One witness, who refused to give his name, said he recognized one of the abductors as an Interior Ministry employee....


http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-vincent4aug04,0,2667833.story?coll=la-home-headlines#Scene_1

[Benhurst]

20. The price to be paid for bring BushAmerican-style "democracy" to

Iraq.

[mbperrin]

21. This wasn't a member of the "Truth Squad", right?

Nah, didn't think so..

BTW, did those fuckers ever make it out of Tampa?