A Journalist's Death in Iraq

There's a lot of interesting blogging, by Martin Kramer, Juan Cole, and others going on about the death of Steven Vincent in Iraq. One version is that he was killed by relatives of his female translator in an honor killing.

He was a journalist, not an Arab-studies scholar, and may have stepped beyond the bounds of Arab propriety. Kramer takes offense at what he sees as Cole's condescending attitude toward Vincent, whose own blog had not shown Cole much respect. Maybe if he'd studied some Orientalists, like Raphael Patai, he'd still be alive. But Patai is anathema to the likes of Cole, even if they sometimes sound very much alike.