In The Red Zone
Steven Vincent
(Reviewer - Rebecca Brown)
2004 Spence Publishing
ISBN: 1890626570

A journey into the soul of Iraq.

In the Red Zone, an American/Armenian journalist recounts his solo expeditions through post-Saddam Iraq. It is a vivid, frank, & searing portrayal of the hearts & minds of the Iraqi people.

An eyewitness of the 9/11 attacks, Steven Vincent flew to Iraq to experience the daily realities of life & death in the crossfire of the war on terror. His report is essential for understanding America's enemies & allies in the critical & confusing struggle against radical Islam.

Steven Vincent journeyed twice to Iraq, paying his own way, traveling without security or official connections, living by his wits. His four months in the war zone included a foray into the infamous Mosque of Ali in Najaf, a confrontation with Ayatollah Sistani's bodyguards, a brush with death in a Karbala bombing, meetings with assorted Western “peace activists”, & run-ins with Iraqi “authorities” who alternately suspect him of being a CIA agent, or a terrorist.

His encounters with doctors & cab drivers, imams & housewives, policemen & poets -— & one unforgettable woman in Basra -— provided him with special insight into what Iraqis think of their liberation, of America, & of the war. He describes a tormented society whose inhabitants -— troubling, infuriating, yet often inspiring -— survived the ghoulish dictatorship of Saddam Hussein only to face the death cult of radical Islam.

The war on terror & the war in Iraq, Vincent concludes, are closely connected. Victory in both conflicts requires that we look with a sympathetic yet unsparing eye at the Iraqi people, & the whole Islamic world.

That having been writ, In The Red Zone is a riveting personal account that gripped me from start to finish. I was amazed, alarmed, angered, moved to deep thoughts, & to tears. Steven Vincent's writing is fluent & thoughtful, evocative & funny, & therein lies the insanity -- the terrible laughter of relief that comes after a suicide bombing, & the incongruity of inane jokes after body parts rain down from the sky. “We have to laugh about our lives, or we'll go mad.” Qasim said. ”(p. 38)

In the Red Zone offers real-life (as opposed to objective journalistic reportage) glimpses of how everyday Iraqis view America & the Coalition soldiers -- “It wasn't our fault this madman[Saddam Hussein] got in here. Thanks for getting rid of him -- now, how soon are you going to repair our house?”. (p. 73). At the same time it highlights the tragic conflict within their own world view: the encounter with an Iraqi policeman which started out respectfully enough until, suddenly before Steven Vincent's eyes, the copper launches into a vitriolic harangue against America & the Zionists, & then ends with an amicable invitation to dine.

No matter your politics or world view, get In The Red Zone with Steven Vincent, & hear the stories about:
 • Saddam's reign of terror that rivaled Stalin & Hitler's: if you were ilk you thrived, if you were not, you & your family were destined for daily intimidation, death & mass graves, even if you were only a woman drawing water from the river, & your relatives forced to pay for the bullets that killed you.
 • attending a huge religious festival where death images are the decorations, & flagellation the merriment.
 • how Iraqi men consider their home & the world outside, democracy, intertwining tribal & religious customs, & the honor code -- Shari'a.
 • how Iraqi women live. Steven Vincent found this saying from The Prophet: “I have not left after me any chance of turmoil more injurious to men than the harm done to me because of women.” A multi-layed musing that has affected the attitude of millions of men, throughout the Muslim world, toward the women in their lives. Notice it says “because of” not “by” -- although that's probably inconsequential in the original language. When I first read that quotation, all I could think about was the little ditty I heard as a child: “Mummy is the root of all evil.” I learnt later it was “money”. Similiar aphorisms by Western philosophers, playwrights & men of the cloth, echoed in my mind.
     Steven Vincent takes us Beneath the Veil, into the shadowy, dangerous & hair-raising women's world in a culture, unrepentently dominated by men. Read it & weep, both tears of compassion & hope, as these courageous heroines work & struggle for emancipation, under very real deadly threats & deeds of “legal” murders: honor killings.

In The Red Zone is an important book for our time, offering clues to the incomprehensible, to Western minds, dichotomy existing in the Middle East. Being right or being happy is simply not in the mindset. It is a book of glimpses & interpretations, comparisons & thoughts, I'll not forget. As I digest all that Steven Vincent wrote, I keep getting images of the Wild, Wild East, & instead of gunslingers & horseback outlaw gangs, in Iraq there are bomb-blowing suicide killers riding pickup trucks. I now view the news of terrorist bombings in Iraq with a broader view: those that are specifically targeted against newly-elected or appointed Iraqi politicians & government workers, are probably simple politically motivated murders, rather than the deaththrows of a mortally wounded regime, perpetrated by men who have nothing to lose, & martyrdom to gain as they lash out at the “invading”, if liberating soldiers of Satan, Westerners.

Outstanding, gripping, & enlightening! Needs to be part of every political science, anthropology & comparative religion course, & a must for anyone wanting to “understand” a little more, the millenia-long inherited conflicts in the Middle East.

It is to be noted: Steven Vincent was abducted & killed near Basra in August 2005. (03/27/05)

Rebecca