This blog is great.

And the blogger -- Steven Vincent -- is dead. Murdered by Shiite gunman dressed as police (and driving a police vehicle), he's the first American journalist to be killed in Iraq. (Links via Glenn Reynolds.)

He deserved to be more than an adorable little rodent in the Ecosystem (which is what his blog says he was). Reading through his blog, I was struck by his honesty, sincerity, and refusal to bow to political ideology:

Adding hypocrisy to chauvenism, the religious parties take the opposite tact in public, policing female behavior with a vigor that makes the Puritans look like jitter-bugging zoot-suiters.  Yesterday, I interviewed a 22 year-old Psych grad from Basra University.  She told me how, as they entered the campus each morning, she and other female students had to pass through a gauntlet of religious militiamen "hired" by the administration for "protection."  The gunsels examined each woman's hejab--no showing of hair, ladies--and the length of their abiyas, staring into their faces for signs of make-up.  (I've also learned that similar guards at a college in Amarra, north of Basra, scrutinize women's feet to insure they are wearing black socks--it's an Iranian thing--inducing many students to paint their feet and ankles black.)  Anyone failing the Islamic Dignity test is sent home, with a stern rebuke to her parents for allowing their daughter to venture out in such a degraded state.

A few months ago, the student continued, a young man and woman were ambling down a narrow path at the university when black-shirted militiamen accosted them, accusing the couple of "unIslamic behavior."  When they protested their innocence, the brave warriors of Allah began beating the woman; when the man tried to defend her, they knocked him to the ground, punching and kicking him into submission.  (Of course, those of us who follow the news remember how Moqtada al-Sadr's men last March attacked a student picnic, because the young men were brazenly intermingling with young women, many of whom were not wearing hejab!)

I asked the student how this oppression made her feel, and she grimaced and curled her fingers into two trembling talons.  "It burns inside," she added.  "We are not free to dress or act as we like.  Meanwhile, the religious parties have banned from our lives music, social interaction, relaxation.  I am depressed all the time."  I then asked her if she ever had "fun" in Basra; her face took on a blank, faraway look.  "No," she whispered, looking at her hands folded in her lap.  "I see on television the lives people live in America.  And I feel my years are being wasted."  Lisa, this is a 22 year old woman in the very bloom of youth! 

But this is what Basra has become in the aftermath of the elections.  These are the unwritten, unlegislated and unchallengeable "social" and "religious" norms that have an iron grip on the city.  And yet back home, you hardy find a public discussion or even acknowledgement of these shackles on human behavior--the Right is too busy congratulating itself on the progress of Iraqi democracy and the Left is obsessed with multimcultural relativism and discrediting Bush.

He said he fully supported the Iraq war, believing it was part of a much larger campaign being waged by the United States against "Islamo-fascism." But Mr. Vincent said he was also disappointed by the failure of the United States and Great Britain to enforce their visions of democracy here in Iraq, instead allowing religious politicians to seize power across the south.

I'm trying. I wish I could do more.

MORE: Jamie Glazov's interview with Steven Vincent is a must read. A central thesis of his well-thought-out philosophy is that Islam has been corrupted by tribalism. Excerpt:

Why is even the thought of a woman’s right to do what she wants with her sexuality and body something that makes Islamists and Arab tribalists start acting like the possessed girl in the Exorcist after holy water is sprinkled on her?

Vincent: Because Islam has been corrupted by tribalism, the tribal view of women predominates. Tribalism is an ethos suited for an agricultural society, where bloodlines, female fecundity and extended families are of supreme importance. It’s not surprising, then, that among many segments of Iraqi/Arab/Muslim society, men consider women as little more than delivery systems for male heirs. They see it as natural, and it suits their patriarchal mindset. As you put it, the mere thought of allowing women control of their sexuality raises for men the terrors of emasculation, confused bloodlines, raising children sired by other men, living perpetually in the dark about the true lineage of their offspring. Next come birth control and the unmentionable: abortion. To the psychology of the patriarch, women’s sexual freedom is an express lane to libertinism, the unraveling of the social fabric and ultimately, sterility and the extinction of the tribe--to say nothing of the loss of masculine privileges.

Malignant narcissists—or, the members of tyrannical death cults—are terrified of the feminine. The ecstasy of death mirrors the bliss of the womb, and the narcissistic warrior’s worst enemy is his secret desire to regress to infantile nonexistence. His moral rigidity, lack of imagination and obsession with physical and religious purity are attempts to suppress this Oedipal desire--think of Mohammad Atta’s burial instructions to wrap up his genitals and allow no women to approach his bier.

The female spirit can dominate, fool or inspire men--many Iraqi women told me they wear hejab to protect men from their own weakness. The more repressive the man, the more he secretly fears the ability of the feminine to undermine his power. To put this in the context of Islam, the only way the religion will grapple with its fantasies of masculine omnipotence is to come to terms with the feminine. As any adolescent male knows—and Islam is an adolescent religion—once you settle into a relationship with a woman, you exchange the excitement of fantasy for the more limited, but more satisfying, realities of maturity and love. But of course, this acceptance of limitation is precisely what the Islamofascist fears and detests.

I can only hope we chose the right enemy.

MORE: Please DONATE HERE in Steven Vincent's memory.

UPDATE (08/04/05): Here's the Philadelphia Inquirer on Steven Vincent's murder:

BAGHDAD - An American journalist who had been examining the rise of Islamic extremism in southern Iraq was found shot to death in the port city of Basra, U.S. and Iraqi officials said yesterday.

Steven Vincent, 49, a freelance reporter from New York whose work was published regularly on the Internet and in several U.S. publications, was shot several times and his body, bound by plastic ties, was dumped on a downtown street early yesterday, Basra Police Lt. Asaad Jassib said.

It was unclear whether the killing was directly connected to Vincent's work, which was highly critical of the increasing Islamic influence in Basra.

On Sunday, Vincent published an opinion piece in the New York Times in which he quoted others accusing Shiite police officers in Basra of revenge killings of members of Saddam Hussein's former Baath Party, which brutally oppressed Shiites for decades. Vincent also criticized the British military for allowing Islamists to control the city. He told other reporters in Basra that he was too frightened to name any of the Islamic militias - such as that of radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr - in his reports.

Kinaan al-Musawi, a spokesman at Sadr's office in Basra, said the cleric's Mahdi Army militia played no role in Vincent's slaying. He said Sadr had made it clear to his followers that journalists were not to be considered targets, even if they wrote critically of his movement.

Vincent told other reporters visiting Basra that he had lived in the city for two months and was writing a book about local history. Unlike most Western correspondents in Iraq, Vincent traveled without bodyguards, and he and his translator frequently took taxis to interviews.

Mehdi Abdul Karim, a receptionist at the Mirbed Hotel, where Vincent lived, said the opinion piece last week imperiled the reporter.

"He wrote an article about radicalism in Basra and how security has been left in the hands of the militias," said Karim, who had befriended Vincent. "This led to his death. He paid with his life for that article."

I suppose it is -- to people who refer to right wing death squads as "insurgents" and "militia."

MORE: Anyone who hasn't read Steven Vincent's New York Times Op-Ed should do so.

And weep.

....one young Iraqi officer told me that "75 percent of the policemen I know are with Moktada al-Sadr - he is a great man." And unfortunately, the British seem unable or unwilling to do anything about it.

The fact that the British are in effect strengthening the hand of Shiite organizations is not lost on Basra's residents.

"No one trusts the police," one Iraqi journalist told me. "If our new ayatollahs snap their fingers, thousands of police will jump."

Am I alone in wondering whether this newly arising Islamofascist state is what Americans fought and died to bring about?

MORE: Michael Yon warned about Iraqi police with guns back in March.

MORE: Glad to see (Via InstaPundit) that Iraq has sent a woman ambassador to Egypt. Plus, she's working for women's rights. That's a hopeful development; I hope it means the mullahs aren't as in charge as we're constantly being told.

(I'm thinking also that maybe Steven Vincent's death should not render every pessimistic thought he had about Basra the one and only standard from which to judge all of Iraq.)

AND MORE: I hope this report proves wrong (or at least exaggerated):

As the deadline for a constitution approaches, the United States and the international community must redouble their efforts to ensure that an Iran-like theocratic state is not established in Iraq.

Current drafts would limit Iraq's international human rights obligations to those that do not contradict Islam or Islamic law. They assert that an undefined version of Islamic law, or sharia , is the main source of law. They make no reference to freedom of religion or belief for every Iraqi, and they provide no guarantee of individual freedom of thought and conscience. One clause in the constitution would forbid any law contrary to sharia, leaving the door open for interpretations by unelected Islamic "experts" to be considered sacrosanct.

UPDATE: Roger L. Simon is also worried about shortcomings in the Iraqi Constitution, and links to The Middle Ground for information on how to help.