Juan "unctuous piece excrement" Cole decides to try a modified, limited rowback. It stinks and Lisa Ramaci-Vincent should take a two-iron to his groin.

So here is the commentary:

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.

Note that I did not say, as Mrs. Vincent assumes, that he was sleeping with his interpreter, Nur al-Khal. That he was romantically involved with her is obvious from his blog, where he calls her "Leyla". I don't have any interest in their personal lives per se, but this relationship may have had something to do with his death and so is fair game for mention.

And Mrs. Vincent pointed out that he wasn't romantically involved and that his plan to marry her was part of an effort to get her out of Iraq -- a plan Mrs. Vincent knew about and approved. It was also a plan that Nour's family approved of -- something Cole never acknowledges.

Cole also attempts to cover his foolishness of identifying Iraq as a Mediterranean country.

It is in fact an extension of a general Greater Mediterranean (please read Fernand Braudel) ethos of honor and honor killings. Mostly we in the West know about the issue of furious husbands killing their wives for sleeping around. In many Mediterranean and Mediterranean-influenced societies (e.g. Latin America), such a "crime of honor" was not even typically punished by the courts in the past. The reason the husband behaves this way is not just, as many Americans imagine, insane jealousy. It is because he believes his honor has been irretrievably damaged.

Iraq is apparently part of the "Greater Mediterranean" and is "Mediterranean-influenced" -- like Latin America! When was the last time someone told Cole he was an idiot? If it wasn't five minutes ago, it was far too long ago.

It's also apparent Cole didn't read Mrs. Vincent's letter carefully.

Vincent, as an American male going about in public and private with an unrelated Iraqi woman, put himself in the position of being seen as symbolizing this joint sexual and colonial humiliation. It may well have been part of the reason he was killed.

From Mrs. Vincent's letter:

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.

I could rip the rest of this apart, but Cole isn't worth my time. What a waste of a carbon-based life form.