Prof. Cole, at it again
Juan Cole knows no shame. He blames murdered journalist Steven Vincent for his own murder in Iraq.
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…. 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.
Well, how about his murderers didn’t know anything serious about civilized culture and they were behaving in a way that should bring your condemnation?
Martin Kramer does a wonderful job of cutting the professor down to size and also reveals that the stick up Cole’s rear could well go back to Vincent’s audacity to criticize Cole for the same reason I have criticized him. Vincent said on his blog before his death:
You might want to review your own site and how well it reflects love and concern for the Iraqi people. After all, on “Informed Comment,” pro-liberation Iraqi bloggers are accused of being CIA agents, the elections are practically dismissed as window-dressing and every terrorist–no, I mean guerrilla, as Cole would have it–attack is given marquis billing, as if their psychopathic bloodlust discredits the liberation of 26 million people. Whoops, I mean 23.5 million–because according to Cole’s Wednesday post, 2.5 million Iraqis support the “resistance.”Well, I thank Cole for revealing his gut-level concern for the Iraqi people… My question to the Professor is, which Iraqi people–the fascist thugs he calls the “resistance,” or the police, National Guardsmen, politicians, everyday people and eight million voters who comprise the true Iraqi “resistance”? We await his Informed Comment.
And await and await… [via InstaTotten]
August 9th, 2005 at 9:50 pm
I believe that Steven Vincent was murdered by Iraqi cops who belong to death squads, because he wrote about them.
But you should be mad at the Bush Administration for setting an example encouraging human rights violations, instead of directing your anger at a professor.
http://www.moveleft.com/moveleft_essay_2005_07_04_new_government_in_iraq_is_torturing_prisoners_killing_prisoners.asp
August 9th, 2005 at 11:20 pm
Anger for murder should be directed at the murderers, not the victims, not others, the murderers.
August 9th, 2005 at 11:39 pm
Whoa! Take it easy man! You’re talking about THE 2005 Sandy Koufax Award winner for Best Expert Blog! Have some respect, now. This, after all, is the best the left has to offer (and I don’t plan on letting them forget it). Could I ever go back?
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2005_02/005713.php
August 9th, 2005 at 11:53 pm
Geez, Jeffo, I read the same blub (and for the record I’m not a huge fan of Cole), but I don’t see where he blames Vincent for the murder; he points out that Vincent was acting outside of the cultural norms and possibly could have murdered because of those actions. I don’t know enough about it one way or another to know the truth, but given the huge torrent of hate that flows from the likes of LGF or TownHall each day, to grow indignant at this relatively benign piece of theorizing is mystifying.
August 9th, 2005 at 11:59 pm
And of course if he was acting outside of the cultural norms, he deserved what he got. What utter bullshit! Might as well say islamics are ok to murder anyone who acts outside of sharia law norms. Juan Cole has spawned too many imbeciles who buy this blame the victims crap and make excuses for pondscum islamic criminals.
August 10th, 2005 at 12:06 am
Comparing Juan Cole to the likes of Thomas Sowell, Walter Washington, John Leo, Michael Barone, Diana West, Suzanne Fields, and even David Limbaugh all of whom regularly write rational and non-polemical articles on Townhall.com is a stretch at best.
August 10th, 2005 at 12:19 am
Jeff, there has got to be a history between you two, because your take on his post sure does reveal some deep meaning I sure didn’t get from it, of course I didn’t read the other posts criticizing coles post.
cole mentioned in a matter of fact way the uneducated rural society works over there.
It’s a fact of life there.
Jeez , you right wingers are so thin skinned.
August 10th, 2005 at 8:44 am
Steven’s wife, Lisa, does not believe he was romantically involved with his translator, Nour. She understood Steven was attempting to get Nour into the US. Marrying her could get her that visa. Steven was very much aware of the risks his translator faced by associating with him. Nour had previously been beaten and had her arm broken when she became engaged to a man who did not meet her family’s approval.
When I was 27 I went to work for a man who was 6 years older than I. (I still work for him.) For years, people assumed we were having an affair. We never did. Men are entirely capable of mentoring young women without taking them on as lovers.
I can well imagine that Steven and Nour were under tremendous pressure. Their working relationship must have exuded intensity. Yet, I do believe his wife and her understanding of Steven and Nour’s working relationship. Steven may have loved Nour but not necessarily in the romantic sense. He may have sought to save this young, brilliant, courageous woman from a culture, which would not only repress her but ultimately try to kill her.
I understand Steven’s remarkable wife Lisa is still attempting to procure a visa for Nour. I hope that when this young woman’s wounds are healed that she learns to live by the motto - the best revenge is a life well lived - and I hope she takes up writing with a vengeance.
August 10th, 2005 at 9:22 am
James wrote: “Jeez , you right wingers are so thin skinned.”
Jeff Jarvis is a right-winger? I really do learn something every day. Thanks.
August 10th, 2005 at 9:25 am
PS:
James also wrote: “cole mentioned in a matter of fact way the uneducated rural society works over there.”
I’ve been checking out Cole’s “Informed Comment” for about a year now, and I’ve never seen him mention anything in a “matter of fact way.” One can almost hear him hyperventilating when reading his stuff.
August 10th, 2005 at 9:56 am
Jane, it doesn’t matter if the two of them were having an affair. The important point is that others perceived them to be having one, and that this perception possibly led to a murder. Plus, you’re looking at things through a Western lens. There ARE cultural differences.
Kat: I didn’t see Cole argue he “deserved it.” Perhaps you could point out the exact phrase where he said directly or indirectly that Vincent deserved to be murdered.
You’re also buying into Jeffo’s irrational hatred of Cole; Jeffo’s been pretty outspoken about his feelings for the professor as an anti-war blogger, and this hatred makes him irrational. (Always walk away from an argument that includes the phrase “in other words.”) I’m also guessing Jeffo’s lack of growth in the blogosphere (5,000 visitors a day, Jeff? That’s smaller than the traffic of the Web site of a small daily newspaper!) and Cole’s traffic numbers dwarfing those of Buzzkill make him crazy.
August 10th, 2005 at 10:47 am
George W. Bush has a lot to do with the situation in Iraq.
Analysis of Bush’s mistakes by Al Franken and Paul Krugman is at:
http://www.moveleft.com/moveleft_essay_2004_10_03_al_franken_and_paul_krugman_list_bush_iraq_mistakes.asp
August 10th, 2005 at 11:55 am
A whore for moveleft spamming for business???
August 10th, 2005 at 11:58 am
kat -
Firstly, I’m the Editor of “Move Left.”
Secondly, it’s a blog, not a business.
Thirdly, the article I posted a link to is relevant to this discussion.
August 10th, 2005 at 1:00 pm
I’ve been told that it’s outside the “cultural norm” in some US States for white women to have black partners - would that make murder there in some way understandable?
August 10th, 2005 at 1:30 pm
Eric Jaffa - how about you stop pimping your shit at another’s place.
Picadilly Jim summed it up best, I think.
August 10th, 2005 at 3:31 pm
Piccadilly “Straw Man” Jim — you’re being absurd and irrelevent here. (Kinda like Jeffo, come to think about it.) For starters, you’re arguing a falsehood; secondly, we’re not talking about US states. We’re talking about a different culture, one that apparently you know nothing about.
All Cole did was to posit a theory (and he’s not the only one; Jeffo failed to point out he was just amplifying a theory posited elsewhere, an amazing oversight on Jeffo’s part). Are the killers right for killing? Absolutely not. Did Vincent ask for it? Absolutely not. Could possibly his perceived relationship been a contributory factor in the murder? Sounds like it could be. Explaining how and why something happened isn’t the same as endorsing it. Does a doctor performing an autopsy and recording the cause of death endorse the cause of death? Of course not.
It’s really easy to bash Cole for what he does say. You lose credibility when you bash him for something he clearly didn’t say. Jeffo’s just got a big hardon for Cole and will bash him at every opportunity.
By the way, I am still waiting for someone to specifically point out where Cole said Vincent was “asking for it.” Given your silence on the point and Jeffo’s unwillingness to answer, I declare victory. So there.
August 10th, 2005 at 5:24 pm
Well, Ed, I guess your declaration of victory probably has about as much basis in reality as does Cole’s theory. Insert smiley.
Question his motivation for positing such a theory in the first place. I’m sure it had absolutely Nothing to do with Vincent’s blog words directed at Cole. Aren’t you?
First Cole states as ‘fact’ that they were romantically involved. Basis in reality? Oh, rumors? Next he blathers on about Mediterranean machismo regarding protecting women from ’strange men’, which has nothing in reality to do with Islamofascist sharia law - as if this is simply a boys will be boys ‘regional’ cultural norm. Next he mentions ‘women sleeping around’ - another thinly veiled assumption about that dirty whore Nour. Then he uses these non-facts as support for his ‘theory’ that this was an (understandable don’tcha know) honor killing because Vincent was uninformed and stupid about such things and thereby ‘acted dangerously’.
All of which caused Kramer, Jarvis and other logically thinking humans to conclude, as per Kramer:
“In other words, Vincent got himself killed, out of ignorance. Implication: his journalism [vis a vis Cole in particular] should be dismissed.”
How’s this for an alternate theory? Islamofascist thugs killed Vincent purely because he was 1. an American journalist and blogger in the area who 2. wrote pro-liberation pieces. And the thugs Attempted to murder Nour because she wasn’t a properly burka clad Muslim woman who dared to travel with a man outside the home unaccompanied by her father or a brother, and who Further dared to assist an American in his journalistic efforts. How about it had Nothing to do with Vincent ‘acting dangerously’ related to some pie-in-the-sky assumptions regarding honor killings, which Cole attempts to suggest are understandable within Islam, for: “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.” Not just ’some’ dirty shame, but Enormous Shame on those Islamic menfolk who must, no less, Kill the woman to redeem their honor. It’s only natural. And it’s a cultural norm that poor Vincent just didn’t understand, to his peril.
But wait. If it HAD been an honor killing, why murder Vincent to begin with? Muslim WOMEN are killed for “bringing dishonor”, not their male cohorts.
I’m curious, Ed. Why do you twist yourself into a pretzel in an effort to defend Cole and denigrate Jeff?
In my opinion, anyone who acts as an apologist for, or who attempts to justify Islamofascist thugs in any fashion deserves to be outed. That includes Juan Cole. But I Will give you some measure of ‘victory’, Ed, for acting as an apologist’s apologist. What will be your prize?
August 11th, 2005 at 7:28 am
Eileen, settle down. Here’s what the original Telegraph article said:
> “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,” [said the police inspector.]
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.
August 11th, 2005 at 2:37 pm
Ed Rusch: “It’s really easy to bash Cole for what he does say” Yes, it is.
I don’t know how many journalists have been killed in Iraq and Afghanistan but believe it to well into double figures and most of them were killed for reporting the facts just as Vincent did, in his case making enemies of the thugs who are trying to take over Basra.
There is absolutely no evidence that Vincent was an adulterer, so why does Cole have the gall to repeat that “excuse”. I can understand that certain Iraqi male fundamentalists would presume that any female “immodest” enough to work with Westerners must be sexually immoral, but it’s not something that a responsible academic should give house room to.
First they kill a journalist, then they try to smear his reputation: we can’t stop them doing that but we shouldn’t help them by giving them publicity either.