Newsgroup: it.politica.internazionale
Titolo: Risposta a Juan Cole da parte della moglie di Steve Vincent

Per chi non lo sapesse Juan Cole è un professore universitario USA che 
fa opinione tra quelli di sinistra.
La signora risponde alle sue affermazioni sul marito che è morto e non 
può difendersi:
P.S.
Come si chiama uno che accusa un morto che non può difendersi???
http://www.murdoconline.net/archives/002697.html
"It's called courage"
I received this as a comment on a post noting Juan Cole's theories about 
the murder of Steven Vincent. It's from Vincent's wife, and she thinks, 
well, I'll let you read for yourself. I'm posting it here in its 
entirety, and it's worth every bit. All emphasis is mine:
     I thought you might like to see the email I sent Juan Cole in 
response to his August 8th post about my husband. Sorry if it runs a 
little long -
         "Was American journalist Steve Vincent killed in Basra as part 
of an honor killing? 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. 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. These 
sentiments and this sort of behavior tend to be rural and to hold among 
the uneducated, but are not unknown in urban areas. 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."
     Mr. Cole -
     (I refuse to call you professor, because that would ennoble you. 
And please change the name of your blog to "Uninformed Comment", because 
that is precisely what the above paragraph is.)
     I would like to refute this shameful post against a dead man who 
can no longer defend himself against your scurrilous accusations, a dead 
man who also happened to be my husband. Steven Vincent and I were 
together for 23 years, married for 13 of them, and I think I know him a 
wee bit better than you do.
     For starters, Steven and Nour were not "romantically involved". If 
you knew anything at all about the Middle East, as you seem to think you 
do, then you would know that there is no physical way that he and she 
could have ever been alone together. Nour (who always made sure to get 
home before dark, so they were never together at night) could not go to 
his room; he could not go to her house; there was no hot-sheet motel for 
them to go to for a couple of hours. They met in public, they went about 
together in public, they parted in public. They were never alone. She 
would not let him touch her arm, pay her a compliment, buy her a banana 
on the street, hyper-aware of how such gestures might be interpreted by 
the misogynistic cretins who surrounded her daily. So for you brazenly 
claim that she was "sleeping around," when there is no earthly way you 
could possibly know that, suggests to me that you are quite the 
misogynist as well. Cheap shot, Mr. Cole, against a remarkable woman who 
does not in any wise deserve it.
     This is not to say that Steven did not love Nour - he did. And he 
was quite upfront about it to me. But it was not sexual love - he loved 
her for her courage, her bravery, her indomitable spirit in the face of 
the Muslim thugs who have oppressed their women for years. To him she 
represented a free and democratic Iraq, and all of the hopes he had for 
that still-elusive creature. And he loved her for the help she gave him 
- endangering herself by affiliating with him because she wanted the 
truth to come out about what was happening in her native city of Basra 
and the surrounding area. Perhaps you are unaware of the fact that it is 
possible to love someone in a strictly platonic way, but I assure you, 
it can happen - even between men and women.
     And yes, he was planning to to convert to Islam and marry Nour, but 
only to take her out of the country to England, where she had a standing 
job offer, set her up with the friends she had over there, divorce her, 
and come back to New York. He had gotten her family's permission to do 
so (thereby debunking the "honor killing" theory), but more importantly, 
he had gotten mine. He called one night to say that it had been 
intimated to him that Nour's life was essentially going to be worthless 
after he left; since he was an honorable man (a breed you might want to 
familiarize yourself with), he then asked what I thought he might do to 
help her. I told him to get her out of the country and bring her here to 
New York. However, the only way she could have left Iraq was with a 
family member or husband. Since her family had no intention of going 
anywhere, Steven was her only recourse, and it would have been perfectly 
legal for him to convert, marry her, then take her out of Iraq to give 
her a chance at a real life. (Now that that avenue is closed to her, I 
have made inquiries to the State Department about the possibility of my 
sponsoring her in America. Do you perhaps labor under the 
misapprehension I am such a spineless cuckold that I would put myself 
out thusly for the woman you believe my husband was traducing me with? 
If so, I'm guessing you don't know much about the Sicilian female 
temperament.)
     As to your claim that "In Mediterranean culture, a man's honor 
tends to be wrought up with his ability to protect his womenfolk from 
seduction by strange men", it may perhaps have escaped your notice that 
Iraq does not abut, in any way, shape or form, the Mediterranean Sea. 
Italy is a Mediterranean culture, as are Spain, Greece, Southern France. 
In none of them is "honor killing" an accepted form of "protecting 
womanhood". As to the southerly lands like Morocco and Algeria, they are 
not, in the general scheme of things, considered Mediterranean cultures 
- they are considered Arabic, a whole different beast. For you to 
seemingly be unaware of this, and then to say that my husband "did not 
know anything serious about Middle Eastern culture" again begs the 
question, just where do you get off? If you cannot differentiate between 
Mediterranean and Middle Eastern cultures, how is it you feel qualified 
to pontificate so pompously?
     How often have you been to the Middle East, Mr. Cole? In 2000 
Steven and I spent almost a month in Iran on vacation. In 2003 we spent 
10 days over Christmas in Jordan. In the last 2 years he had made not 
one, not two, but three trips to Iraq, and at the time of his death had 
about 7 months of daily living there under his belt. Can you offer 
comparables?
     How much Arabic do you speak, Mr. Cole? Steven had been learning 
Arabic for the last two years, and was able to converse simply but 
effectively with the people he came into contact with. He had many 
expatriate friends in the Muslim world from whom he was always learning. 
As I sit here writing this at what was his desk, I can look at the 
literally dozens of books he devoured about Islam and the Middle East - 
each one thick with Post-It notes and personal observations he made in 
the pages - as he sought to comprehend and absorb the complexities of 
the culture and the religion he felt, and cared, so deeply about. If you 
would like a list of them, please email me back and I will be happy to 
send you a comprehensive accounting.
     Yes, Steven was aggressive in criticizing what he saw around him 
and did not like. It's called courage, and it happens to be a tradition 
in the history of this country. Without this tradition there would have 
been no Revolutionary War, no Civil War, no civil rights movement, no a 
lot of things that America can be proud of. He had made many friends in 
Iraq, and was afraid for them if the religious fundamentalists were 
given the country to run under shari'a. You may dismiss that as naive, 
simplistic, foolish, but I say to you, as you sit safely in your ivory 
tower in Michigan with nothing threatening your comfy, tenured 
existence, that you should be ashamed at the depths to which you have 
sunk by libeling Steven and Nour. They were on the front lines, risking 
all, in an attempt to call attention to the growing storm threatening to 
overwhelm a fragile and fledgling experiment in democracy, trying to get 
the world to see that all was not right in Iraq. And for their efforts, 
Steven is dead and Nour is recuperating with three bullet wound in her 
back. Yes, that's right - the "honorable" men who abducted them, after 
binding them, holding them captive and beating them, set them free, told 
them to run - and then shot them both in the back. I've seen the autopsy 
report.
     You did not know him - you did not have that honor, and you will 
never have the chance, thanks to the murderous goons for whom you have 
appointed yourself an apologist. He was a brilliant, erudite, witty, 
charming, kind, generous, silly, funny, decent, honorable and complex 
man, who loved a good cigar, Bombay Sapphire gin martinis, Marvel Silver 
Age comic books, Frank Sinatra, opera and grossing me out with bathroom 
humor. And if he was acting in a dangerous manner, he had a very good 
excuse - he was utterly exhausted. He had been in Basra for 3 months 
under incredibly stressful conditions, working every day, and towards 
the end enduring heat of 135 degrees, often without air conditioning, 
which could not have helped his mental condition or judgment. He was 
yearning to come home, as his emails to me made crystal clear. But on 
August 2nd, two days before my birthday, he made the fatal mistake of 
walking one block - one - from his hotel to the money exchange, rather 
than take a cab, and now will never come back to me. I got a bouquet of 
flowers from him on August 4th, which he had ordered before he died, and 
the card said he was sorry to miss my birthday, but the flowers would 
stand in his stead until he made it home. They are drying now in the 
kitchen, the final gift from my soulmate.
     I did not see your blog until tonight. I was busy doing other 
things - fighting the government to get Steven's body returned from 
Basra days after I was told he would be sent home, planning the funeral, 
buying a cemetery plot, choosing the clothes to bury him in, writing the 
prayer card, fending off the media, dealing with his aging parents, 
waking and then burying him - but I could not let the calumnies you 
posted so freely against two total strangers go unchallenged.
     You strike me as a typical professor - self-opinionated, arrogant, 
so sure of the rightness of your position that you won't even begin to 
consider someone else's. I would suggest that you ought to be ashamed of 
yourself for your breathtaking presumption in eviscerating Steven in 
death and disparaging Nour in life, but, like any typical professor, I 
have no doubt that you are utterly shameless.
     Sincerely,
     Lisa Ramaci-Vincent

 può difendersi:
Ti piace sguazzare nella fogna, eh?
 Invito tutti ad isolare questo signore.
Plonk!
Am.

Mirco Romanato wrote:

Molto probabile che sia andata così da un ignorante come quel giornalista ci
si può attendere questo ed altro.
-- 
You_fuck_with_the_bull-You_gonna_get_the_horns

 
Ottimo post :)
-Stefano

Invito tutti ad isolare questo signore.
Tipico comportamento fascista :)
Ma d'altronde certe donne hanno diritto di dire la loro, altre, come la
moglie di quel giornalista, invece tale diritto non ce l'hanno per certi
fascisti di questo ng.
-Stefano

 -Stefano
Ma qui non e' piu' questione di parte. E questione di sguazzare nella 
fogna, mettendo alla berlina i morti.
Un'interesse da pervertito, prepolitico...
Am.

Un'interesse da pervertito, prepolitico...
Concordo: Juan Cole e' un pervertito, prepolitico.  E chi nega ad altri
di dirlo, come fa quella donna che ha perso il marito, e' solo un
coglione fascista.
-Stefano

 -Stefano
Dimentichi che Bleah Romanato aveva tirato fuori uno heading 
sull''usare un figlio morto come una clava'.
Non vedi emergere un pattern fognario?
Anche a te piace sguazzare?
Am.

Anche a te piace sguazzare?
No. Mi piace gettare la merda nelle fogne.
-Stefano


Juan Cole metteva alla berlina un morto.
Io ho postato la risposta della signora Vincent per mettere alla berlina 
Juan Cole, che (sfortunatamente) sta benissimo.
Mirco

 -Stefano
E allora fallo invece di sguazzarci regolarmente dentro...
bwaha!
Am.

invece di sguazzarci regolarmente dentro...
...disse la merda fascista... :)
*LOL*
-Stefano

 un figlio morto come una clava'.
I sinistri.
Quando non hanno argomenti iniziano a usare appellativi denigratori come 
  se fossero all'asilo.
"Bleah Romanato" dimostra la tua incapacità di distinguere le persone e 
le loro opinioni.
Indicazione di carenza di oggettività e di autostima.
Mirco

 -Stefano
Perduranti problemi di identita'? Prova il Dr. Riot, che si era gia' 
offerto di curarti, Omissis De Pippis...
Am.

Prova il Dr. Riot, che si era gia' offerto di curarti,
Sai, sono tanti i poveri *FESSI* come te che hanno problemi mentali e si
credono pure dottori (in medicina quanto in economia), caro *FESSO
MONONEURONE* :)
*ROTFL*
-Stefano

 -Stefano
Shhh...
http://www.esercito.difesa.it/root/media/musiche/caserma/silenzio.mp3
Am.

 Shhh...
Te la suoniamo quando mori', stai tranquillo! :)
*LOL*
-Stefano



C'avrei giurato che eri anche necrofilo. Cosi' c'hai tutte le 
caratteristiche del tardo-fascista.
Am.

Cosi' c'hai tutte le caratteristiche del tardo-fascista.
...disse il fascista... :)
-Stefano

 :)
C'ho preso. D'altra parte con  tutti i cadaveri di cui ti sei 
compiaciuto, da Genova alla bambina di Gaza (caso questo che andrebbe 
analizzato anche sotto un altro profilo) non era difficile...
Dr Riot?
Am.

da Genova alla bambina di Gaza
...disse il *FESSO* allucinato... :)
-Stefano