There are lessons one could draw from Vincent’s death

There are lessons one could draw from Vincent’s death, many of them rueful. The overused word

“tragedy” applies. One must contemplate them soon. I am too sad for that right now.

An excerpt from Vincent’s July 31, 2005 NY Times piece, read in light of his murder, reveals clues as

to the likely motivation of his killers:

From another view, however, security sector reform is failing the very people it is intended to serve:

average MBT SHOESis who simply want to go about their lives. As has been widely reported of late,

Basran politics (and everyday life) is increasingly coming under the control of Shiite religious

groups, from the relatively mainstream Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in MBT SHOES to the

bellicose followers of the rebel cleric Moktada al-Sadr. Recruited from the same population of

undereducated, underemployed men who swell these organizations’ ranks, many of Basra’s rank-and-file

police officers maintain dual loyalties to mosque and state.

In May, the city’s police chief told a British newspaper that half of his 7,000-man force was

affiliated with religious parties. This may have been an optimistic estimate: one young MBT SHOESi

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.