21 Dec 2004 In the Red Zone: Iraq As You’ve Never Read About It Before

Jeff Harrell has just published an interview that made me want to do something I have never wanted to do before: Go to Iraq (although I would not like to risk my life quite as often as did Steven Vincent, the subject of Harrell’s interview and the author of the new book “In the Red Zone: A Journey Into the Soul of Iraq”).

Although I enjoyed that part of the interview when author Steven Vincent described telling off a reporter from al-Jazeera (which Vincent called “al-Qaeda TV”) in front of a crowd of Iraqis and American GIs, this piece is much deeper than the us-versus-them (whomever “them” may be on any given day) plotline that characterizes so many of our discussions about Iraq. You really get a feel for what Vincent was seeing and feeling as he traveled through Iraq.

There is, for example, Vincent’s view of Islam as he saw it practiced by Iraqis, and how it affected Vincent’s own Christian faith. Or his discussion of the tremendous strictures placed on Iraqi women by their families and culture, told through the story of one particular woman he came to know and admire. Or his very constructive critique of how the western mainstream media is reporting events in Iraq, and how a chance in how reporters use a handful of words could vastly improve the quality of their reporting.

If you click just one link today, make it this one. You won’t be disappointed.