And Then There were None

American Journalist Killed in Iraq. Not a headline I ever wanted to see. But I saw it today, and then I saw the name.

Steven Vincent.

Damn.

I never met him. Never even emailed him. Too late now.

Journalist? Would he have welcomed that description?

What an unlikely character. A New York art critic on September 11th.

My trips to Iraq were a complicated response to 9/11. As I wrote in my book, I stood that morning on my rooftop on Manhattan?s Lower East Side and watched United Airlines Flight 175 fly into the World Trade Center. That was the initial shock. Afterwards came a sense of mourning as people all over Manhattan created makeshift shrines of candles and plastered bus stops with photocopied images of the ?missing? (for we could not yet admit to ourselves that the 9/11 victims were dead). After that, fear: when was Al Qaeda coming back? What would they do next? The unspoken undercurrent of every conversation in New York in the months following 9/11 was an acknowledgement that we might perish in some terrorist catastrophe. Some people ? including my wife and I ? built bomb-shelter-like refuges in our basements, as if this were the Cuban Missile Crisis all over again.

But you can only experience fear for so long; eventually, you want to fight back. How dare these bearded maniacs threaten all that we value and hold dear! My country was at war, and I wanted to participate in the conflict ? as a patriot, and as someone seeking a way to strike back against the terrorists. But when the United States. invaded Afghanistan, I dithered, unsure of how to make the transition from art journalism to combat journalism. At the same time, though, I felt the pressure of events ? history was in the making, huge forces were locked in life and death issues that would change the course of the world. Who wouldn?t want to be part of that? When my artist friend Steve Mumford left New York for Iraq in April 2003, I knew I had to either act on my ?moral fervor? or regret my timidity for the rest of my life. Fortunately I acted, traveling to Iraq in the fall of 2003, and the winter-spring of 2004.

Some comments from "readers" at Steve's blog today:

This death, and the 1700 plus that precede this horrible night, is but another trophy for Bush. He asked those naughty insurgents to BRING IT ON.

These deaths, the blood, is splattered all over the White House.

To the Vincent family, I am sorry you will have to endure such public pain for such a senseless loss.

Posted by: Pamela | August 3, 2005 03:08 AM

At a time like this I can't help but think about the "pack of lies" that were foisted off on the American people to justify our preemptive invasion of Iraq. Unfortunately, some media colleagues of the late Mr. Vincent were complicit in this deception. With a little luck we may eventually find out the real motivations of those who got us into this mess.
All of us, even those who opposed the war, share the pain and loss of the Vincent Family.

Posted by: Ed | August 3, 2005 10:59 AM

The Left. Hopeless. Shameful. History will record that the U.S. could have saved tremendous loss of life and treasure had we liberated Iraqi with more troops and a proper "after-victory" plan. But the chronicles will also show that America could have saved time, money and--most especially, lives--had the Left contributed its valuable resources to the liberation effort as well. Imagine if feminists, labor leaders, environmentalists, civil rights activists, artists and the media had joined in the struggle instead of sitting on the sidelines--or worse, assisting the fascists? Imagine if the clarion cry of freedom and democracy had arisen from a unified progressive front consisting of conservatives and liberals? Just as we've learned how much succor the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong took from the anti-war protesters of the 1960s, we will someday learn how the parochial, small-minded, narrow-souled opposition to the establishment of democracy in Iraq stiffen the fascist backbone of the "insurgency." But of course, the Michael Moores, Robert Fisks, George Galloways, Ted Kennedys and innumerable Hollywood celebrities and academics of this world will not care--they will always find reporters, voters, fans and tenure committees willing to dull the sting of conscience.

Others may try to redefine him now, make him into something he wasn't. That's why that "journalist" sobriquet troubled me a bit when I first saw it. It seemed like another example of just that...

I "found" Steven Vincent on Chester's blog while I was still in Iraq. I'd also seen him mentioned at Chrenkoff's. But I was truly surprised to find he'd gone back for his third trip to Iraq this past spring, and I linked him when he wrote and did whatever else I could to bring attention to his efforts. He was The Man.

Got this email just last week. It's not the first such, just the latest:

On 7/28/05, xxxxxx xxxxxx@comcast.net wrote:

Professor Reynolds:

Hey, thanks for posting the links for Michael Yon's blog?not sure I would have found it otherwise. It's been very useful to me, and now I'm on the hunt for other in-Iraq bloggers. I seem to recall you posted a 'best of' military bloggers" list a while back, but can't seem to find it with your search tool. Who in-country would you suggest I keep current on?

Many thanks for your assistance?

----- Original Message -----
From: "Glenn Reynolds"
To: "xxxxxx" xxxxxx@comcast.net
Cc: greyhawk@mudvillegazette.com
Sent: Thursday, July 28, 2005 11:44 PM
Subject: Re: recommended warblogs?

I strongly recommend faces from the front: http://facesfromthefront.com . But the go-to milblog guy is Greyhawk of the Mudville Gazette. I'm copying him on this email and I'm sure he can help you.

----- Original Message -----
From: greyhawk@mudvillegazette.com
To: pundit@instapundit.com; "xxxxxx" xxxxxx@comcast.net
Sent: Friday, July 29, 2005 9:07 AM
Subject: Re: recommended warblogs?

Another non-military, independent source here http://spencepublishing.typepad.com/in_the_red_zone/. Steve Vincent isn't embedded with the troops and spends even more time with the locals than Yon.

A couple days later I was surprised to find Steven Vincent's name on his now-infamous NY Times story on Basra. But beyond his blog his most frequent appearances were at National Review - a fact I've yet to see noted in the media coverage of his passing. Now he's a freelance journalist who had a piece in the New York Times.

Here's a screen capture of the site meter for "In The Red Zone" this month

Neither I nor NRO or the NY Times could get his words read by as many people as the bastards who killed him did today.

Here's how he began all his blog posts from Iraq:

Dear Lisa,

For now I'm going to offer you a final quote from Steven Vincent, and another reason that the "journalist" tag didn't seem quite right when I first saw it:

Bloggers. I can't imagine how the liberation of Iraq would have progressed without the hundreds, the thousands, of blogs that cut through the anti-war bias of the MSM. By giving a voice to people and viewpoints which otherwise would have gone silent, bloggers helped articulate the cause of democracy and civil rights that lies at the base of this conflict. Which make me wonder: how would bloggers have affected the course of Vietnam War?

You see, I realized today that outside the "Green Zone", away from the protection of US forces, there was one American journalist in Iraq. He was killed, and then there were none.

Update: Via Kathryn Lopez at NRO, Instead of flowers, his family asks that donations be made in his name to Spirit of America.