Steven Vincent Murdered

If you haven't ever looked at his blog, In the Red Zone, You ought to today. Steven Vincent, a former food critic, went to Basra, Iraq to report on that part of the world. He recently published articles in the NY Times and Christian Science Monitor. Here's a sample from the last post on his blog, describing an interview with a USAF Captain by Steven and Layla (his translator / girlfriend):

And there it was, the familiar Cultural-Values-Are-Relative argument, surprising though it was to hear it from a military man. But that, too, I realized, was part of American Naiveté: the belief, evidently filtering down from ivy-league academia to Main Street, U.S.A., that our values are no better (and usually worse) than those of foreign nations; that we have no right to judge "the Other;" and that imposing our way of life on the world is the sure path to the bleak morality of Empire (cue the Darth Vader theme).

But Layla would have none of it. "No, believe me!" she exclaimed, sitting forward on her stool. "These religious parties are wrong! Look at them, their corruption, their incompetence, their stupidity! Look at the way they treat women! How can you say you cannot judge them? Why shouldn't your apply your own cultural values?"

It was a moment I wish every muddle-headed college kid and Western-civilization-hating leftist could have witnessed: an Air Force Captain quoting chapter and verse from the new American Gospel of Multiculturalism, only to have a flesh and blood representative of "the Other" declare that he was incorrect, that discriminations and judgment between cultures are possible--necessary--especially when it comes to the absolutely unacceptable way Middle Eastern Arabs treat women. And though Layla would not have pushed the point this far, I couldn't resist. "You know, Captain," I said, "sometimes American values are just--better."

It's unclear whether he was murdered by a religious group or militia who didn't like his reporting, or a group of zealots who didn't like him having an Iraqi girlfriend. Layla was shot also, and is now in hospital in serious condition.

I encourage you to take a little time to look at what he died for.