Red Zone: A Journey into the Soul of Iraq

In August 2005, journalist/author Steven Vincent was murdered in Basra, Iraq. Tomorrow night, Friday, May 4, at 7 pm central, NOW with David Brancaccio will tell Steve’s story. For background, read this tribute, written a year after his death. You might remember a blogosphere dustup between Vincent’s widow Lisa Ramaci-Vincent and Juan Cole, who wondered, in that 9/11 Truther kind of way, if Vincent had been having an affair with his translator and if his murder was in fact part of an honor killing. Mrs. Vincent’s reply to Cole’s vile allegations was a stunning, and deserved, smackdown.

Vincent’s book In the Red Zone: A Journey into the Soul of Iraq (Spence Publishing Company) is an intensely personal account of Iraq immediately after Operation Iraqi Freedom. He went out and lived among the people, getting to know them and learning their stories of life under Saddam, and life after Saddam. Watch the show, and consider getting the book. Given how malleable the Iraq war narrative has become, this is an invaluable snapshot into life in Iraq that a Green Zone reporter could never give you.

Here’s an excerpt from chapter one:

A terrorist, a president, and a New York artist convinced me to go to Iraq.

The terrorist, of course, was Osama bin Laden. I had heard a sharp, plangent clang that morning, but with an innocence that has become an artifact of another era, thought nothing of it. After all, you hear a lot of strange noises in New York; it wasn’t reasonable to consider this one any different. A few minutes later, I received a phone call from my neighbor Jane, who was standing on the roof of our Lower East Side building. “You should come up and see this,” she said.

…Evil. Before that September morning, I hadn’t though much about it. Evil was something for horror movies—or far-away places like Auschwitz or the Killing Fields. Evil was what happened to other people—and besides, it was a matter of interpretation, historical, cultural, or psychological factors, all very reasonable when you analyze it. But I think differently now. I saw something evil take place before my eyes, on the burning rim of Manhattan. I sensed its hatred of humanity, civilization, prosperity, and self-reliance—anything that helps us to lift ourselves above nothingness and despair. It was not a presence I could define, or prove, or analyze, any more than I could define, prove, or analyze love. I just felt it. Evil was real, palpable, frightening.

But it was not beyond analysis or definition.

… Although it has grown infamous of late, the idea of democratizing the Middle East seized my imagination. What better way to use American power—and ensure our own safety—than with such a grand strategic effort? How better to finish what bin Laden had started than to transform America’s post-9-11 trauma into a secular crusade for freedom and democracy? And the place to start?

One of the key regions of Dar-al-Islam, the veritable crossroads of the Muslim world: Iraq. I cared little about “weapons of mass destruction,” less about Al Qaeda links with Saddam Hussein. Nor, I must admit, did I really concern myself—then—with the tyrant’s genocidal record. No, I envisioned the liberation of that country as a way to cure the Arab stagnation that had increasingly begun to infect the world. A nation’s just wrath, harnessed to a righteous cause, seemed to me the proper way to ensure that the victims of 9-11 “shall not have died in vain.”

… Although I’ll refer to my first trip in this book, it was the second that taught me the most about Iraq, the war, America, and myself. Nor—as Scheherezade would say—is the story over. As I write this, Steve is currently on his fourth trip to Iraq, and I plan to return as well. For me—for our entire generation—this is our moment in history.

But this is the story I have to tell now, a story that bears witness to events that are forming the legacy of America at the dawn of the twenty-first century. I saw much hope, beauty, and grace in Iraq, along with much—too much—that was irrational, brutal, and obscene. I learned some painful lessons: our great nation and its leaders are indeed fallible; good intentions are often not enough; words like “democracy” and “freedom” roll easily off the tongue, but land on the ground of the Middle East with unpredictable results. I still support the war, but I’m more sober in my views than I was
that first morning when I stood on the Iraqi border, looking at the pre-dawn desert landscape, eager, anxious, to participate in the most noble cause I could imagine.

Don’t miss the show tomorrow night.

Trackposted to Right Pundits, Outside the Beltway, Blog @ MoreWhat.com, Perri Nelson’s Website, The Random Yak, guerrilla radio, Adam’s Blog, Stuck On Stupid, Cao’s Blog, The Bullwinkle Blog, Leaning Straight Up, The Amboy Times, Conservative Cat, , Pet’s Garden Blog, Rightlinx, Faultline USA, Allie Is Wired, third world county, stikNstein… has no mercy, The Crazy Rants of Samantha Burns, The World According to Carl, Blue Star Chronicles, Pirate’s Cove, The Pink Flamingo, Planck’s Constant, Dumb Ox Daily News, High Desert Wanderer, Right Voices, The Yankee Sailor, OTB Sports, and Gone Hollywood, thanks to Linkfest Haven Deluxe.