A Second Iraqi Media Worker Dies for The New York Times

The mainstream media practices its own form of apartheid in Iraq

By David Paulin

It’s an Iraq story that reporters ought to fall over themselves to cover: Iraqis employed by U.S. companies are being sacrificed for the sake of corporate profits. You might call it a sort of corporate apartheid. But you won’t find the Bush administration or Halliburton in this scandal. The culprits are America’s most illustrious media giants – The New York Times, Associated Press, and a number of others. At issue is their practice of “hotel journalism.”

American journalists for much of the war have stayed holed up in hotels and well-guarded homes in the Green Zone. Most write their stories and do phone interviews there. And they communicate with Iraqis whom their companies employ as reporters, translators, and photographers.

Hastily trained, most of these Iraqis lack the professional backgrounds that even a small-town weekly paper in the U.S. would demand. Yet they are shaping our view of the war. These Iraqis, moreover, are dying in large numbers; yet they earn local wages and benefits; and though their compensation is high by local standards, it’s still Third World.

There’s a curious irony here. Liberal papers like The New York Times rail against the economic injustices of outsourcing; yet they demonstrate no such anger over their own employment practices.

Some Iraqi media workers, to be sure, have demonstrated courage and a commitment to a democratic Iraq, and it appears that Hassan was one of them. But others appear to have questionable loyalties or understanding of what constitutes good journalism. One Iraqi AP photographer, Bilal Hussein, is even being held by U.S. military authorities for allegedly having improper ties to terrorists. Oddly, some Iraqi photographers have an uncanny ability to arrive, unimpeded, to cover unfolding terrorist activity or the downing of aircraft. The AP has has vigorously defended Hussein.

Whether exceptional, mediocre, are despicable, all Iraqi media workers have one thing in common. They grew up in a brutal Stalinist dictatorship – one simmering with social tensions and devoid of intellectual freedom and a responsible press.

'Hotel Journalism’

The blogesphere has registered the harshest criticism of “hotel journalism.” But earlier this month, The Times addressed the issue in some unusually frank and circumspect articles regarding the death of one of its media workers. He was the second murder victim in ten months.

Khalid W. Hassan, 23, gave his life on July 13 for the Gray Lady. A Palestinian Sunni, Hassan was driving to work when he was shot to death under circumstances that The Times said were unclear. The well-liked Iraqi interpreter and translator started with the newspaper of record when he was just 19 years old. And on Sept. 19, 2005 a highly respected Iraqi stringer, Fakher Haider, 38, was kidnapped and murdered in the port city of Basra under mysterious circumstances.

The two are among at least 129 Iraqi journalists and media workers who have been murdered or killed in hostilities since the U.S.-led invasion three years ago, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ). In contrast, only two American journalists have died.

Paying tribute to Hassan, Times Executive Editor Bill Keller said Hassan comprised a “large, sometimes unsung” group of media workers who “take enormous risks every day. Without them, Americans’ understanding of what is happening on the ground in Iraq would be much, much poorer.” In a 670-word statement on a Times blog, Baghdad bureau chief John F. Burns tiptoed around the issue of exactly how his paper uses its Iraqi employees. An excerpt:

“Our Iraqi reporters — who do double duty as interpreters when they accompany New York-based correspondents and photographers on assignments — are the bedrock of our enterprise.

“This is not to confirm what some of the more scathing critics of the American media’s performance in Iraq have alleged, which is that American reporters in Baghdad practice a form of “hotel journalism” — meaning that for most of what we write we rely on the reporting of Iraqi staff members who venture beyond our well-guarded compounds, and rarely do so ourselves. There is hardly ever a day when one or more of our American reporters is not out in the city, or on embeds in Baghdad and beyond with American and Iraqi troops, and the results can be measured, on any day, by the authenticity of the reports that appear in the paper.

“But it would be foolish to deny that there are occasions when a sensible calibration of risk deters us from going out on assignment ourselves. Often, those judgments apply in equal measure to our Iraqi reporters, too. But there are other times when an Iraqi, blending into the environment in ways that no foreigner can, feels safe in taking on an assignment that we judge to be too hazardous to undertake ourselves. Our principle is that any Iraqi leaving our compound on assignment — whether reporter, driver or guard — does so only as a “willing partner,” and after a thorough security review of the assignment beforehand."

Burns is one of the most well respected Western journalists in Iraq. But his comments must be considered within the context of who is dying for America’s Fourth Estate. It’s certainly not Americans. Of the two who died, only one was a staff writer – Washington Post columnist Michael Kelly. He died at the start of the war when his Humvee careened off a road after coming under enemy fire. The other was Steven Vincent, a freelancer who was kidnapped and murdered in Basra one year ago.

Dying in Large Numbers

In all, at least 152 journalists and media workers have died: 109 were murdered and 43 killed due to hostilities, according to CPJ. Sixty-four (42 percent) worked for international news organizations – including The New York Times, Associated Press, Reuters, CNN, and McClatchy (formerly Knight Ridder). Iraqis comprised 90 of those whom the CPJ classified as “journalists.”

Some American reporters, to be sure, have faced perilous situations. Following some close calls, Times reporter Dexter Filkins even packed a sidearm for a while, much to the consternation of Baghdad’s upright bureau chief at the time, Susan Sachs.

Burns’ comments to the contrary, the blood Iraqis are spilling for The Times and other news outlets underscores the apartheid-like nature of the mainstream media’s war coverage. AP Managing Editor Mike Silverman summed up things two years ago, telling The Times: “The main obstacle we face is the severe limitation on our movement and our ability to get out and report. It’s very confining for our staff to go into Baghdad and have to spend most of their time on the fifth floor of the Palestine Hotel.”

That’s how Knight Ridder (now McClautchy) has operated too, said its Baghdad bureau chief two years ago. “We’re still spending a lot of time inside the hotel,” noted 25-year-old Hannah Allam, now based in Cairo. “Even if we do go out, we don’t stay in any one place more than 20 minutes; and then we go back to the hotel. But we’re doing a lot of phone interviews. We’re sending our Iraqi staff members out a lot more, to gather information and to conduct interviews.”

Months later, Allam made a splash with a controversial memo addressed to Knight Ridder editors that was widely circulated on the Internet. She attacked a columnist at the St. Paul Pioneer Press – the Knight Ridder paper she worked at not long before Baghdad – who had dared to criticize Knight Ridder’s reporting as being overly negative.

'Outsourcing' the News

The heavy use of non-staff personnel in Iraq is part of a trend in the news business dating to the 1980s. Since then, print and television organizations have increasingly adopted corporate America’s outsourcing model: They’ve closed dozens of foreign bureaus. And to maintain foreign coverage and appearances, they’ve relied on increasing numbers of freelancers, “contract reporters,” and people they hire locally. But while outsourcing may work for corporate America, it’s a miserable model for foreign news gathering.

In Iraq, the system of journalistic apartheid encourages distorted reporting for a number of reasons. Like freelance journalists and temporary media workers everywhere, Iraqi’s media personnel have no real job security. They’re either hired on a temporary basis or work as freelancers, meaning they’re paid for each assignment or story or photograph.They essentially chase a paycheck with every assignment. As a result, they have a built-in incentive to cheat. This may involve hyping a story or photograph to ensure they’re used – and to ensure their services remain in demand.

Cheats have an advantage when working abroad: They face little accountability. Who is going to complain when a story gets a few facts screwed up? And to whom would they complain? A weekly paper in the U.S. is apt to get a complaint for something as minor as a misspelled name.

In the chaos of Iraq, reporters can fabricate quotes, slant coverage, or hype stories – and they’ll probably get away with it. Biased editors tend not to question articles, quotes, and photos that confirm their biases. And well-meaning though inexperienced freelancers and temporary media workers are unlikely to assert themselves in a dispute with an editor. They must think about their next paycheck.

"There's a dramatic relationship between changes in the industry and use of freelancers. It's something that a lot of people are very worried about," observed Josh Friedman, director of the Columbia journalism school’s international program. "If you complain, employers will just drop you and get somebody else."

Friedman was quoted in a recent article about Jill Carroll, the American freelancer who was kidnapped in Baghdad while on assignment for The Christian Science Monitor. The fascinating piece in Radar, an online magazine, echoed the first two posts published by this website, more than one year ago.

Fortunately, some counterbalance has been provided by well-informed bloggers who are scrutinizing the media’s war coverage. Without them, public opinion against the war would probably be even lower that it has been, noted author James Q. Wilson.

High-Risk Job

Of course, the most brutal aspect of Iraq’s journalistic apartheid is that Iraqi media workers are more likely to die than their American counterparts, who have well-paying staff positions and good benefits. There are systemic reasons for this. For one thing, freelancers and temporary workers are compromised due, once again, to a lack of job security and professional standing. They can’t easily turn down too many assignments, especially if other media workers are willing to do them. Obviously, they’ll risk getting replaced. And if they're replaced, it’s unlikely they’ll have the right to appeal the decision to a U.S.-based personnel manager.

The news business is competitive, and news managers are expected to produce. When I had a stint as a wire service reporter in the Caribbean, my bureau chief and news editor suggested that their photographer in Jamaica was a coward. They talked of getting rid of him, complaining he was reluctant to charge into dangerous flare-ups of civil unrest, when armed gangs were shooting it out.

The photographer, a Jamaican father with children, was paid for individual assignments and photos. As a black Jamaican, he could easily be mistaken for a combatant, as opposed to an impartial photojournalist. The editors, single women tenaciously wedded to their careers, nevertheless fretted over the photos they were missing. I knew the photographer, and they were wrong about him. It didn’t matter. The editors had one concern – results.

Interestingly, the photographer was not issued a bullet-proof vest, even though I, as a Jamaica-based contract correspondent, got one. When I pointed this out to the photographer, he laughed nervously.

What kinds of pressures are being put on freelancers and media workers in Iraqi and other high-risk areas? And what responsibilities do media companies have toward them?

“The relationship is informal contract labor,” pointed out McClatchy’s managing editor for international coverage, Mark Seibel. “How far should an international news organization go to help them? There is probably a need to review and go over polices.”

Seibel has lots of experience with informal labor. As a Miami Herald senior editor in the late 1990s, he oversaw the paper’s international edition: Its masthead listed me as its “Caracas correspondent.” A non-staff position, it paid a few hundred dollars per article. It could be a tough way to make a living. Jill Carroll would attest to that. In a colorful piece in American Journalism Review, she described her hardscrabble freelancing days in Baghdad.

Hassan apparently had money problems of his own, despite his prestigious job with The Times. One Times editor said he “spent most of his salary on rent for a cramped apartment for him, his mother and his siblings.” Fortunately, The Times set up a fund for Hassan’s family, noted The Times blog. People wishing to contribute were advised to “please send an email to foreign@nytimes.com with ‘fund for Khalid Hassan’s family’ in the subject line.”

Beyond problems arising from its system of journalistic apartheid, news outlets distort reality by adopting a morally neutral worldview, part of today’s journalistic conceit promulgated by media elites. Speaking years ago at a Columbia University seminar broadcast by PBS, veteran CBS newsman Mike Wallace famously declared that American war correspondents were neutral observers and thus had no obligation to warn U.S. troops of an impending ambush. “No, you don’t have a higher duty. No. No. You’re a reporter,” he declared. The ethical thing to do, as a journalist, would be to film the slaughter. And when criticizing the U.S. military’s detention of Bilal Hussein, the AP photographer, CPJ Executive Director Joel Simon said: “There’s no way to cover an insurgency without having contact with insurgents.”

Steven Vincent, the murdered freelancer, wrote eloquently of how such moral neutrality and equivalency was distorting our picture of Iraq. He preferred words such as “paramilitaries” and "death squads" instead of “insurgents” to define the enemy.

'If it Bleeds, It Leads'

And then there’s the problematic way in which news is defined and presented. Conflict is stressed above all else: “If it bleeds, it leads.” Most Americans get their Iraq news from the AP, and the opening paragraphs of its stories – those which command the most attention – invariably stress the most recent suicide bombing. It’s part of a standard “hard news” formula in which conflict is hyped to the limit. But it’s not a good way to cover a war.

After all, you could write nearly every story the same way out of Venezuela, which has a population of about 27 million people, about the same as Iraq’s. Like Iraq, Venezuela is a chaotic and violent place with reported murders having doubled during eight years of Hugo Chavez. There were 12,557 last year. That’s more than 34 ever day – the equivalent of about one suicide bombing every day in Iraq.

Imagine the kind of stories you’d see out of Venezuela if it were covered like Iraq. Here’s an example:

Venezuela’s Chavez opens food market amid mounting violence, deaths

By The Associated Press
CARACAS – President Hugo Chavez, flanked by Cindy Sheehan and Danny Glover, opened a new government-subsidized food market today amid mounting violence across the country.

Over the last three days, there were more than 150 murders across the South American nation, with most taking place in the grimy hillside slums where Chavez’s support is the strongest.

Chavez drew smiles from Sheehan and Glover when he said President George Bush could “learn a thing or two about eliminating poverty and creating jobs” with the subsidized market.

Meanwhile, much of Caracas was without water due to city-wide outage, the third in as many weeks. Electricity outages occurred in parts of the city, too. These problems have plagued the city, Venezuela’s capital, for years.

Chavez’s critics blame the runaway murder rate on government mismanagement and official corruption, which they contend has led to increased poverty and deteriorating basic services, despite record-high oil profits. But Chavez blames the violence on “oligarchs” whom he says are instigating the violence.

Aside from some artistic license, there’s nothing wrong with the basic facts here; you could put them in any story. Yet in reality it’s not quite so grim in Caracas, where I used to live and still visit: Streets are choked with traffic, people crowd sidewalk cafes, and fashion-conscious women visit beauty parlors. In Iraq, similar examples of normality may be found. When she was Knight Ridder’s bureau chief, Allam said she would unwind by treating herself to a manicure at a local beauty parlor. Hassan, for his part, was recalled as a fun-loving man-about-town who enjoyed his work.

All in all, you might get better news coverage all around if you covered Iraq like Venezuela – and Venezuela like Iraq. Allam, for her part, is sure to find a beauty parlor in Caracas that would suit her.

Additional Reading:

*See Kesher Talk's coverage of a panel discussion in New York, "Fixers on the Front Lines."

Honoring Her Husband’s Pledge: Lisa Ramaci-Vincent Brings Steven Vincent’s Iraqi Translator to America

"...Nour is incredibly happy to be here . She keeps repeating, 'I am safe. I am not afraid'"


UPDATE: See Thomas Lifson's comments on this article at The American Thinker. Also, an expanded version of this article may be found at FrontPage Magazine.


By DAVID PAULIN

The late Steven Vincent’s award-winning Iraq reporting owed much to his Iraqi translator and media assistant – a remarkable young woman named Nour al-Khal.

She was shot and left for dead on August 2, 2005, hours after she and Vincent were kidnapped off a Basra street. They were forced into a car by men wearing police uniforms. Vincent, a freelancer on his third trip to post-Saddam Iraq, was savagely beaten and shot to death. An art critic-turned-war reporter, he was the only American journalist to date who has been murdered in Iraq.

After his earlier trips to Iraq, Vincent published his engrossing book, “In The Red Zone.” One chapter was devoted to Nour, an aspiring poet. Readers knew her only by her first name. A fluent English speaker, she was employed by a large NGO. She also spent long days on reporting outings with Vincent – helping him produce some of the most perceptive reporting of the war. The hard glares the two sometimes attracted were described by Vincent in his characteristic moral clarity: It was what an interracial couple would encounter in the Jim Crow South.

Recounting an FBI report on her husband's kidnapping, Ramaci-Vincent said "the thugs who targeted my husband had no interest whatsoever in Nour. They repeatedly pushed her away, telling her to leave. But she would not abandon Steven. She kept inserting herself into the struggle until they took her as well." She was testifying before a U.S. Senate committee last January on the plight of Iraqi refugees like Nour, who had aligned themsleves with the U.S. military, NGOs or Western news outlets.

Nour was shot three times in the back. Basra’s police turned her over to FBI agents and she was hospitalized in the Green Zone. She was held “incommunicado" for the next three months and “treated as if she were a co-conspirator of the killers," Ramaci-Vincent told the Senate committee. Then authorities "gave her $2,000 and threw her out into Baghdad's Red Zone, alone, where she knew no one, had no family, no job, no resources, no where to turn."

The kidnapping occurred two days after Vincent published an Op-Ed piece in the New York Times, describing how Iraqi police were being infiltrated by Iranian-backed fundamentalists and Shiite militiamen loyal to Moqtada al-Sadr.

Mainstream media outlets have relied heavily on Iraqis to help cover the war in Iraq, and they have died in large numbers. Hastily trained, these Iraqi news assistants, reporters, and photographers have shaped how we view the war. Many of these Iraqis are of course brave and principled people; the late Fakher Haider, 38, a former Iraqi journalist working for the New York Times, is one example. But in more than a few cases, their allegiances and motivations have been called into question.

No such questions were raised about Nour.

She believed in democracy, Vincent wrote, and “the promise of America." And in this sense, Vincent noted she was like many Iraqis. The next-to-the-last chapter of “In The Red Zone” was titled “Nour.”

“Short of destroying my marriage, I thought, I would do anything to help this woman,” Vincent wrote. It was one of several observations and anecdotes contained in the final pages of “In The Red Zone" that eerily foreshadowed the fate awaiting the pair.

Nour recovered from her wounds. But her association with Vincent put her life in jeopardy, and her family wanted nothing to do with her. What became of her? I'd often wondered that, just as I had wondered about the articles and books Vincent might have written had he lived.

Thanks to Nour's help, Vincent brought a moral clarity and depth to his reporting that has been absent from budget-conscious and morally neutral media outlets such as the Associated Press. Many American reporters in Iraq do their reporting from the "Green Zone” – not the "Red Zone" where Vincent and Nour worked.

In Iraq, the mainstream media has treated its Iraqi “local hires” as disposable fodder. It's not how Steven Vincent treated Nour, however. Recently, I received fresh news of Nour in an e-mail that Ramaci-Vincent sent to me and others.

Here is her correspondence:

Just wanted to let you all know that Steven's translator Nour has finally, after 18 months of effort on my part, arrived in New York to begin a new life. She came on Tuesday, June 26 - I did not want to say anything prior to this for fear of jinxing things, but she let me know about a week ahead of time that she was coming.

She will be living with me for the foreseeable future, and I will help her get set up here; tomorrow we go for her Social Security number, Medicare, and a work visa.

She is incredibly happy to be here - she keeps repeating, "I am safe. I am not afraid" in tones of astonishment, as if it has been so long since she has not had to be (afraid), that she no longer remembers what it's like - and this morning she told me that, for the first time in years, she is sleeping well.

Just a few shout-outs, in order of their appearance on the stage:

Dan Murphy, senior Baghdad correspondent for the Christian Science Monitor, the first person to try and help me get her here, way back in 2005.

Michael Rubin, correspondent for American Enterprise Institute, editor of the Middle East Quarterly, who also tried to use his connections to help me bring her over.

Brian Lehrer, talk show host at WNYC, who in December 2006 took my call about the Iraq refugee crisis and my attempts to get Nour here and thus put in motion the series of events that finally led to my being able to bring her to New York.

Senator Edward Kennedy and his assistants Janice Kaguyutan and Todd Kushner - testifying in front of the Senator's Judiciary Committee, led directly to my meeting people who were actually willing and able help me; I thank the Senator for his letters to Commissioner Sauerbrey demanding Nour be granted entry to the US, and also Janice and Todd, whose patience and assistance were invaluable in my reaching this goal.

Wendy Young and Michel Gabaudan at the United Nations High Commission for Refugees, who worked with me to smooth Nour's acceptance into the refugee program, and who got her documentation while she was still in Jordan.

Elissa Mittman, Abigail Price and Lang Ngan of the International Rescue Committee, who knew just who to call and write for information and answers, and just how to reassure me that all would, indeed, be well. Thanks for the bed, she conks out in it like a log!

Chris Cole, who made me the fabulous "Got Nour" T-shirt that I wore when I went to JFK to get her, and which should be appearing on national television some time next week!

And finally last, but certainly not least, my dear friends and colleagues who supported, encouraged, chivvied, bolstered and rallied me this last year-and-a-half, through all the times when I reached yet another dead end and had to try and figure out where to go next.

THANK YOU ALL - FROM BOTH OF US!
_________________

Additional reading and websites:

*Kesher Talk has written at length about Steven, Lisa Ramaci-Vincent, and Nour. Among other coverage, it reported on a panel discussion in New York, "Fixers on the Front Lines," in which Nour participated.

*"Switched off in Basra," Steven Vincent's NYT Op-Ed that may have triggered the abduction days later that left him dead and Nour critically wounded.

*Lisa Ramaci-Vincent, testifying before a U.S. Senate Committee on the plight of Nour and other Iraqi refugees, describes Nour’s efforts to save her husband after the two were kidnapped.

*FrontPage Magazine: Lisa Ramaci-Vincent lashes into Juan Cole after the left-wing university professor offered his theories on Steven Vincent’s relationship with Nour."

A Different Kind of Love Story," a magazine article about Steven Vincent, Lisa Ramaci, and Iraq.

The Big Carnival – “Soldier with a Pen: The Christian Science Monitor’s Other Freelancer: Steven Vincent."

"Band of Brooders": The Belmont Club comments on Steven Vincent's reporting, murder, and odd fact that the New York Times does not seem to want to acknowledge his work.

“Iraq’s Endangered Journalists,” an Op-Ed in The New York Times by a former Iraqi media worker, Ali Fadhil. The piece overlooked Vincent’s murder, promoting an angry letter to The Times from Lisa Ramaci-Vincent.

*The Big Carnival – "Snubbed Again: NYT Article on Iraq’s Rogue Cops Fails to Mention Steven Vincent.

*A petulant letter from a reader identifying himself as Ali Fadhil, written in response to my post, “Steven Vincent: Forgotten by The New York Times.”

*For insight into the mainstream media’s approach to foreign reporting, see my post: “Jill Carroll's kidnapping: A black eye for mainstream media's use of freelancers.” And there's this post, as well: “The Jill Carroll/Jordan Times Connection: It's Worse Than Her Critics Imagine.”

*The Steven Vincent Foundation, established by Lisa Ramaci-Vincent "to assist the families of indigenous journalists in regions of conflict throughout the world who are killed for doing their jobs, and to support the work of female journalists in those regions.

*Steven Vincent's blog, "In The Red Zone," and his book of the same title.

Our Alice in Wonderland Immigration Debate

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales soft-peddles the fact that many street gangs are composed of illegal immigrants. At a Texas police academy, meanwhile, cadets are warned about the problematic aspects of Hispanic culture, amid dollops of political correctness that would please the attorney general.


By David Paulin

“Certain gangs, certain street crews are composed predominantly of people that are here unlawfully, but there are many people here unlawfully who have also made tremendous contributions to our country.” (Emphasis added.)
– Attorney General Alberto Gonzales speaks to a reporter following his May 15, 2007, speech on the Justice Department's anti-gang initiative – a speech that failed to acknowledge that many gangs are comprised of illegal Hispanic immigrants.

“No, no (illegal immigrants are) not more crime prone. In fact, when you look at the national statistics, it’s just amazing. There’s not a single scientific study that shows immigrants are more likely to commit crime than native-born, in fact, or U.S. born.”
–Pia Orrenius, an economist with the Federal Reserve Bank in Dallas, speaks to television channel “11 News” of Houston, October, 2006.


So there you have it. Two comments from two esteemed sources, yet they reach totally different conclusions! One admits there’s a problem but he does so reluctantly. The other says there’s no problem at all. Such is the schizophrenic nature of the national immigration debate being conducted by the nation’s policy makers and intellectual elite – people who share little if any of the consequences of massive levels of illegal immigration that ordinary Americans encounter every day.

Last week, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales outlined a nationwide anti-gang initiative being undertaken by the Justice Department, amid a spike in the rate of violent crime. Yet in his 3,582-word speech, not a single word even hinted at what Gonzales knew all too well – illegal immigrants comprise the ranks of many gangs. It took a reporter from the Austin American-Statesman to pry that admission from Gonzales after his speech at the National Press Club in Washington, DC. Careful not to cause offense to pro-illegal immigrant groups and his own administration, the politically correct attorney general was quick to note that “there are many people here unlawfully who have also made tremendous contributions to our country.” What kinds of contributions? Perhaps Gonzales was referring to the illegal immigrants in Austin who hang out on street corners and at a controversial city-sponsored “day labor site,” or who work in landscaping, construction, and in restaurants around town. I used to work these types of jobs in high school and college; now this is the work Americans won’t do.

Curiously, the politically liberal American-Statesman failed to call attention to Gonzales’s troubling comments. They merited only a few paragraphs in the reporter’s immigration blog, The Borderline. Speaking of Hispanic street gangs, here’s the latest from Texas: Houston’s oldest Latino gang, La Tercera Crips, is threatening to retaliate against the Houston Police Department after one of the city’s officers allegedly shot a gang member in the back, according to Houston’s local television channel, “11 News.” The station’s viewers must be confused. Seven months ago, “11 News” reported that illegal immigrants were actually more law-abiding than native-born Americans, citing statistics from Federal Reserve Bank economist Pia Orrenius. An estimated 400,000 illegal immigrants live in the Houston area.

The station’s no-need-to-worry report followed public outrage over an illegal Mexican immigrant who allegedly murdered a Houston police officer weeks earlier. That report failed to even mention “La Tercera Crips.”

How’s an ordinary American supposed to stay well informed amid such convoluted reporting and the reluctance of public officials to admit the truth? In all likelihood, ordinary Americans are keeping informed by looking at what’s going on around them. Consider what’s happened in Texas and, specifically, in my own neighborhood in Austin, the capital. Now, most of my neighbors are illegal Mexican immigrants.

Spanish only, please.

The transformation happened over the last six or seven years. My street used to be orderly and people were well mannered. Now, some young Hispanic men driving pick-ups regularly screech their tires as they pull into the street, while Mexican music pounds from their speakers. More than a few Hispanic motorists blast their horns when they pull into the parking lot to pick up friends.

A local grocery store puts out ice-cold buckets of beer at 7 a.m. to serve the new market of lower-class Mexican men. Now, grade-school age kids are everywhere, the offspring of illegal immigrants. Graffiti has started to pop up here and there. In the evening, a group of shabbily dressed Mexican men sometimes drinks beer by a nearby curb, leaving a pile of empties on the ground. This is not to say there are not hard-working families here, too. There are. But there also is a low-life element here that the open-borders folks never want to talk about.

A few years ago, illegal immigration and high Hispanic birthrates pushed white “Anglo” Texans into “minority” group status. Now “Anglos” account for 49.8 percent of 20 million Texas residents, with non-whites comprising what the Associated Press called the “majority-minority” population. As a consequence, bilingual signs and bilingual education are now the norm; and the courts and charities provide Spanish-speaking personnel. On Austin’s busy Lamar Boulevard, tiny Mexican flags even fly outside some car dealerships.

In early 2000, I returned to Austin after an absence of several years. Immediately, I was struck by the shabby and obviously uneducated Hispanic men arriving here. I used to visit Miami a lot, and the Hispanic immigrants there – legal and illegal – seemed much better educated and more likely to assimilate and move up the socio-economic ladder.

“What’s going on?” I said to a Venezuelan friend, a Miami investment banker.

He wryly observed, “The fact that the immigrants coming to Miami had to come up with 400 bucks for a plane ticket makes a big difference in the quality of people you get.”

And they keep coming.

Two years ago, I realized a tipping point had been reached when it became more common to have illegal Mexican immigrants jabbering at me (a 6’2’’ gringo) in Spanish: They expected to be spoken to in their own language.

Police Face Problems

What kind of affect has this had on crime? Getting solid answers is problematic. It’s politically incorrect to maintain such databases, and if they do exist, nobody wants to reveal what’s in them. The news media here throws little light on the issue: Race and ethnicity are only relevant when white police officers allegedly abuse their authority when dealing with Hispanics or African-Americans or other members of the “majority-minority.”

Police officials may not publicly admit it, and Attorney General Gonzales may only reluctantly admit it. But if the curriculum in at least one police academy is anything to go by then the reconquista has definitely posed special problems for law enforcement.

Consider a hefty spiral-bound training manual being used in one of the police academies in Austin. Not long ago, I paged through a manual that belongs to an acquaintance attending the academy. Simply put, an incongruous coupling of materials reflected a case of police academy schizophrenia.

Specifically, it seemed that two items did not belong together. One was obviously written by an academic: "Multiculturalism and Human Relations.” It introduced cadets to the ideology of political correctness, warning them against “racist” conduct such as negatively “judging” other cultures or even harboring thoughts to this effect.

Yet in the same manual, another hand-out offered blunt and unflattering real-world insights into some Hispanic cultures, touching on traits such as “machismo” and proclivities toward domestic abuse and clannish behavior. These tidbits were contained in a 67-plus page manual in survival Spanish, a Berlitz-style approach for police officers. It was loaded with quick-and-dirty grammar; cultural insights; Spanish swear words; and “survival phrases” such as "Policia No se Mueva! ("Police! Don't Move!").

The “multicultural” paper warned cadets against racist behavior such as “stereotyping.” On the other hand, the Berlitz-for-cops manual made it clear that officers could very well expect certain types of problematic behavior from some Hispanic cultures; and those were patriarchal cultures for the most part. It explained, for instance, that men from such cultures live by a code of "machismo" and "honor.” They put family and fellow Hispanics above the larger community – and even the rule of law. Presumably, such commentary referred to unassimilated Hispanic males; but perhaps not. In multicultural America, Hispanics are not really expected to assimilate, and that includes learning English.

Arresting a Hispanic male poses special problems, as the Spanish-language manual pointed out:

“When arrested, he may routinely protest verbally or fight back to 'save face' (quedar bien). To be embarrassed in front of others may be more painful than the arrest itself, for most Latinos have great difficulty with feelings of verguenza (shame). Sometimes, a macho attitude may cause a Latino to blame his wife or daughter in the event she is raped or beaten. Some, but by no means all or even a majority, may abuse women physically or verbally. If that is the case, many Latino women may not want to press charges, because the female ideal is to be delicate, sensitive, non aggressive and submissive to the man. The woman may consider it her duty to stand by her man, no matter what happens."

One thing about these Hispanic family values was startling clear: They’re like nothing Americans ever saw in TV sit-coms like “Leave It To Beaver” or “The Cosby Show.”

Interestingly, the multicultural paper’s intended audience appeared to be only white police officers and cadets. Why? Presumably, that’s because multicultural ideology pits “dominant” groups against “victimized” ones. Accordingly, white cadets are presumed to be the only group capable of racism; no matter that they’re now a minority in Texas. They’re expected to adapt to Hispanic values. And new Hispanic immigrants are not expected to assimilate.

Not surprisingly, the multiculturalism hand-out devotes much space to describing the traits of “prejudiced” people. One is ethnocentrism: "the act of regarding one's culture as the center of the universe and hence the basis for all comparisons with other cultures." Another is stereotyping: “a convenient grouping of people of whom one is ignorant.”

According to the multiculturalism hand-out, prejudiced people possess "a self-assured feeling,” believing “they are superior or better than others, which is frequently expressed in inappropriate jokes” and “disparaging remarks” about people they regard as "inferiors” and thus label as “lazy, too aggressive, stupid, tricky, deceitful, clannish, (and) pushy.”

Of course, the point of such lessons is to ensure that officers behave professionally and treat every member of the public with the same level of courtesy and respect. Yet the multicultural paper goes beyond this, stating that officers must not even “privately” judge other cultures in a negative light or even harbor “feelings of superiority.”

And what if the culture in question embraces values and notions of citizenship that are at odds with traditional American values, culture, and concepts of citizenship? The issue isn’t addressed; but it amounts to a white elephant in the room in light of the harsh spotlight the Spanish-language manual puts on some Hispanic cultures – namely (though not always) those with “patriarchal” traditions.

Despite the multicultural hand-out’s warnings about making generalizations about other cultures, the Berlitz-style manual states:

"Regardless of their specific cultural or national background, Latinos will most likely side with each other than an outsider. An individual will assist family members and friends regardless of the consequences, and expect the same in return. A sense of honor is so important in Latino culture, that it may keep an individual from cooperating with the police against a friend or family members, even though he or she may not condone any of the actions."

This can pose special problems for police investigations, as the language manual observed:

"Due to the profound importance of family and community in Hispanic culture, officers need to be aware of common group identification styles. Under questioning, for instance, a Hispanic family member may 'eye-check' family members before coming up with a question, and may follow this action with what seems to be an inappropriate use of the pronoun “we” when the officer expects to hear an “I.” This behavior may seem to be evasive or misleading to some officers, but it often simply reflects the fact that no individual in the family can separate his or her affairs from the family's larger concern."

Obviously police officers should avoid making disparaging remarks about members of the public, including those in their custody. They should treat all people with respect. Yet there is something a bit unsettling in the way the multicultural hand-out tells cadets to avoid regarding themselves as culturally superior to “macho” Hispanic males who immigrate to America illegally and then insist on maintaining their own values and cultures as opposed to assimilating – right down to refusing to learn English. The city of Austin encourages such conduct with its own polices.

In my neighborhood, I come across residents who have been here at least three years. Yet they appear to speak no English, except for a few broken phrases. One of them is “What’s your problem?”

The other day, a young Mexican male uttered that in a somewhat ominous tone when I complained to him about revving up his car’s engine outside my apartment window. No doubt about it. The days of “Leave It to Beaver” and “The Cosby Show” are over in parts of America where major demographic changes have occurred – changes that Congress is poised to make a permanent part of America’s cultural landscape.


UPDATE: VIOLENT CRIME INCREASING

"Crime kept climbing in 2006, a top FBI official said Wednesday (May 31), previewing a report detailing nationwide increases in murders, robberies and other felonies for a second straight year," according to an article by The Associated Press.

It added, "The crime hike marks the latest blow to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, who has targeted neighborhood violence as a top priority. Gonzales took office in early 2005, when violent crime rose by 2.2 percent in the first annual increase since 2001.

"A Justice Department study released earlier this month of 18 cities and suburban regions indicates youth violence, gangs and gun crime largely are to blame for the increasing rates. Gonzales also has promised to help local police combat gangs and guns with $50 million this year and up to $200 million in 2008."

Jamaica to UK: Pay Us Slave Reparations!

Jamaica’s Leaders Urge A Regional Drive to Demand Slave Reparations from Britain

Jamaica’s cash-strapped political leaders see a cash bonanza in their future – an avalanche of slave reparations from Britain. They're beating the drum for a Caribbean-wide reparations effort; and they’re telling ordinary Jamaicans that slavery’s legacy is indeed the source of their troubles.

UPDATE: See Thomas Lifson's comments on this article at The American Thinker.

By David Paulin

The slave reparations movement has brought together a motley bunch over the years, from jive-talking hustlers to erudite professors of everything from black to postcolonial studies. Now, an entire country is angling to cash in on the reparations racket. In Jamaica, political leaders are beating the drum for a local and regional campaign to convince Britain to provide compensation for its role in the transatlantic slave trade. They’re telling Jamaicans that the legacy of slavery is indeed the source of their troubles. A hotbed of leftist politics, the former British colony has a population of 2.7 million that’s of overwhelmingly African descent.

"We owe reparations to ourselves and our ancestors,” Rupert Lewis, a lecturer in government at the University of the West Indies in Jamaica, told a gathering of school children in Kingston, the capital. The occasion was part of activities associated with Jamaica’s commemoration of Britain’s 200-year-old Abolition of the Slave Trade Act adopted March 25, 1807. The case for reparations is being made with lectures and the documentary film “The Empire Pays Back.”

In Jamaica and elsewhere, reparations advocates portray Britain and even Western civilization in the worst possible light. Awkward details that fail to advance their narratives are skipped over or ignored. Professor Lewis, for instance, apparently failed to make an important point to his audience of school kids: Their African ancestors may have owned slaves, and participated in the slave trade.

Jamaica’s call for reparations started making local headlines in early February, when reparations advocates called for a state-backed reparations initiative ahead of bicentennial commemorations over Britain’s abolition of the slave trade. Parliament subsequently took up the issue, holding lengthy discussions on reparations over three consecutive weekly sessions. “Pay Us For Slave Labor," trumpeted a front-page article in The Observer, a popular left-leaning daily in Kingston; it suggested that the reparations quest was morally equivalent to the struggle to end apartheid in South Africa. In the United Nations, Jamaica spearheaded a resolution commemorating the 200-year anniversary of the slave trade’s abolition. Now, a Parlimentary committee is studying the reparations issue, which Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller has backed. The issue has yet to attract media attention outside the Caribbean.

Jamaica promotes itself as a vacation paradise of sunshine and reggae, a place Jamaica-born music legend Bob Marley summed up with his hit song “One Love.” But the overwhelming majority of ordinary Jamaicans have faced a grittier reality over the years -- high unemployment, soaring national debt, and one of the world’s worst murder rates per capita. Many deaths are caused by “tribal” political violence that’s exploited by politicians in the two main political parties, and in particular by those in the People’s National Party, the more left-leaning of the two parties. The violence dates to Prime Minister Michael Manley's failed "democratic socialism" in the early 1970s, when politicians used gangs to rustle up votes. Over the years, Manley’s party has played the race card to win elections against the weaker and whiter Jamaica Labor Party.

What do ordinary middle-class Jamaicans of African origins think? Not surprisingly, many blame unaccountable and elitist political leaders for the country’s mess – not its legacy of slavery and colonialism. They point out that Jamaica’s decline started after it was granted independence in 1962. Part of the problem is a loss of values, many say. They also note that counties such as The Bahamas are doing well, despite legacies of slavery and colonialism under Britain.

While middle-class and pro-American Jamaicans line up at the U.S. Embassy to apply for visas, members of the anti-American elite look for scapegoats for Jamaica’s troubles; and of course the biggest scapegoat of them all is the malevolent United States. Some even claim that Jamaica’s raging HIV/AIDS epidemic was caused by a virus created in the United States by a government lab to control black populations worldwide.

"In the medium term, the goal is to mobilize all those who have been working in the (reparations) field for a long time, and to sensitize those who have dismissed the work of the movement for lack of knowledge," explained Jamaica’s minister of tourism, entertainment and culture, Aloun Assamba, a government spokesperson.

In Jamaica and elsewhere, the reparations movement was energized by the United Nation’s racism conference in Durban, South Africa, in 2001; that was the infamous UNESCO-sponsored event that equated Zionism with racism. It also offered tacit support to the idea of slave reparations.

Curiously, reparations advocates demand reparations only from rich Western nations. Yet they never mourn over the millions of black Africans who disappeared into the Muslim slave trade. Nor do they regularly condemn the slavery that persists in Africa. They’re silent as well about modern forms of slavery such as human trafficking, which even has been a serious problem in Jamaica.

Obviously, slavery does not seem to bother them as much as all their frothing would suggest. Why motivates them? Some are obviously racists. All are unreconstituted leftists: Slave reparations for them are simply a means through which they can achieve the Marxist redistribution of wealth they still dream about. In recent years, though, they’ve adopted a post-modern form of Marxism. Some call it “cultural Marxism.” In its lexicon, the villains are no longer capitalists and the bourgeoisie.

Now the villain is “white male privilege.”

“Africa underpins a modern experience of (white) British privilege,” asserted a positive review of “The Empire Pays Back” in The Guardian of London by Cambridge University senior lecturer Richard Drayton. The documentary was produced by Jamaica-born producer Robert Beckford, a lecturer in African Diaspora Religions and Cultures at England’s University of Birmingham.

Britain’s monstrous historical theft, of course, can be remedied by redistributing wealth from whites to the ancestors of black African slaves. “These (reparations) proposals are not intended to be divisive or confrontational, but rather form part of a process to heal the wounds of the past,” explained Jamaica’s Ambassador to the United Nations, Stafford Neil, during Durban’s racism conference.

No matter that few if any whites are around anymore who have any connection whatsoever to the slave trade; yet they’re cast as oppressors because of their skin color. Reparation advocates also distort the realities of the ancient slave trade, says Ohio State University Professor Robert Davis. “We cannot think of slavery as something that only white people did to black people,” observed the author of “Christian Slaves, Muslim Masters” (Palgrave Macmillan, 2003). The book recounts how Muslim slavers off North Africa’s Barbary Coast enslaved one million or more white Europeans between 1530 and 1780 – a number greater than Africans enslaved during the same period. Why is the enslavement of white Europeans ignored? It fails to fit into the scholarship favored today – that history is all about European conquest and colonization, Davis observed.

Accordingly, Britain gets no credit for leading international efforts to end the profitable transatlantic slave trade – and even using its worships to stop it. Britain is portrayed in the worst light possible. Whatever it did, it was too little, too late. And reparations advocates who claim Britain's prosperity is founded upon slave labor overlook the obvious reasons for that prosperity: Political and economic life are organized around a democracy and free-markets. Dedicated leftist, of course, can be expected to overlook such things. And this includes Jamaica’s leftist rulers who ambivalently embrace free-markets and look for their inspiration to Cuba and Venezuela – two places where you won’t find any of the 2.6 million members of the Jamaican Diaspora living or even receiving any of that high-quality Cuban medical care.

If Jamaica hits the reparations jackpot, it may face a knotty question in respect to individual payouts: Many Jamaicans of African ancestry who have light complexions discriminate against those with darker complexions. This raises the question of whether individuals with darker complexions should receive the biggest payouts. Unfortunately, Jamaica has never attempted to eliminate its version of “Jim Crow” with the kinds of anti-discrimination policies and laws implemented decades ago in the United States.

Interestingly, the newspaper cheering on the reparations campaign often has a poisonous anti-American tone; yet The Observer is published by Gordon "Butch" Stewart – a white Jamaican who heads the Caribbean’s iconic Sandals and Beaches resorts. They depend on American tourism.

How Big A Payment?

The Observer’s article “Pay Us For Slave Labor” quoted New York University sociology Professor Dalton Conley as saying reparations in America would involve “transferring about 13 per cent of white household wealth to blacks,” giving an average two-adult black family about US$35,000. In Parliament, on the other hand, an Opposition member proposed a one-time payout of US$77.4 million for the island’s decaying and poorly performing primary and secondary schools. Jamaica’s Rex Nettleford, the former long-time vice chancellor of the University of the West Indies, favors worldwide reparations along these lines.

During the United Nations General Assembly’s commemoration of the slave trade’s abolition on March 26, Nettleford said in his keynote address that reparations advocates weren't looking for a "handout." He nevertheless urged countries “enriched by the heinous crime of the slave trade” to make “serious investment” in the “countries that suffered, preferably through the education and preparation of their young to enable them to cope with the inheritance of a continuing unjust world.”

Nettleford is a darling of Jamaica’s ruling government and leftist intellectual class. However, popular radio show host Wilmut “Mutty” Perkins lampoons him as a pompous and verbose academic, completely out of touch with ordinary Jamaicans. Few are likely to have grasped his tortured and barely coherent speech in the General Assembly that was riddled with sentences like this:

“What we have learnt from history will have sharpened insights about ourselves in the process of cross-fertilization which is the great art of humankind’s ‘becoming’ out of the dynamism of the synthesizing of contradictions.”

During the nearly two years I lived in a middle-class neighborhood of Kingston, Nettleford was a familiar presence in the news media – ruminating on Washington’s malevolence and the Caribbean’s legacy of slavery and colonialism, which are among the most popular subjects at the University of the West Indies. What I best remember Nettleford for, however, is a comment he made to a well-regarded Jamaican journalist, who subsequently related Nettleford’s off-the-record remark to me: “It’s not that I hate white people, but I love black people.”

While Nettleford blames rich white nations for an “unjust” world, he overlooks the world created in Jamaica by his boosters in the ruling People’s National Party. Since Manley’s era, Jamaica’s political culture has been defined by politically aligned “garrison communities.” Gangland leaders or “dons” maintain Stalinist political conformity, deliver votes to local politicians, and serve as “community leaders.” They also oversee illegal activities such as the booming drug trade.

Six years ago, this Faustian arrangement was put in the public spotlight during the funeral of a “don” known as Willy Haggart. A big and gaudy event in the style of gangland funerals, it was held in the National Arena – traditionally a site for dignified state funerals. However, it was no ordinary gangland funeral: The orange colors of the People’s National Party were on display. And occupying front-row seats were three senior elected officials, the most prominent being Finance Minister Omar Davies and then Transport and Works Minister Peter Phillips, now minister of National Security. They were paying their respects because Haggart was an influential “community leader” in their districts. Davies remains finance minister in a country many outraged Jamaicans have begun to call a "failed state."

Declining Values

Apart from corrupt and irresponsible political leaders, there’s the issue of declining values over the years – what some Jamaicans describe as “downtown” values replacing “uptown” values. Conservatives, for instance, note that most births are now out-of-wedlock, with the rate having increased after Jamaica’s independence. Over the same period, Jamaica’s “dance hall” culture has become increasingly popular with its glorification of criminality, disrespect for women, and homophobia. Recently, a newspaper columnist observed that “the word ‘vulgar’ has all but disappeared from common parlance in Jamaica.” Clergymen complain of the low-life atmosphere at gangland funerals in which young women parade about in skimpy attire as politicians occupy front-row seats.

Most middle-class Jamaicans, who are a conservative bunch in respect to their values, are shocked and upset. But some members of the intellectual elite such as Carolyn Cooper, a lecturer and cultural expert at the University of the West Indies in Jamaica, resolutely defend dancehall’s violence and hate-language. It merely reflects, she wrote, “the struggle of the celebrants in the dance to reclaim their humanity in circumstances of grave economic hardship that force the animal out of its lair.”

The world of Carolyn Cooper and others in Jamaica’s alienated intellectual class is a world apart from ordinary middle-class Jamaicans. Members of the well-connected elite have secure jobs in government, politics, and maybe the private sector. Conversely, members of the middle-class worry about unemployment, violent crime, or whether their remittance checks will arrive on time. Remittances are Jamaica’s No. 2 source of income after tourism.

Most middle-class Jamaicans look to the West for inspiration and identity – not to Africa or Cuba or Venezuela. They prefer Western-style clothing and give their kids English names, while many members of the leftist elite – including Cooper and Nettleford – dress up in African-style garb. And while academics like Cooper and Nettleford regard themselves as former slaves and members of a persecuted racial group, most middle-class Jamaicans regard themselves as individuals.

The blame-it-on-slavery argument becomes even more absurd when Jamaica’s dysfunction is contrasted against the prosperity enjoyed in The Bahamas. A former British colony, it also has a legacy of slavery. Yet it has no crippling debt, no history of serious political violence, and no serious crime. It has one of the region's highest per capita incomes of $19,000 – nearly five times more than Jamaica's. Credit agencies like Standard & Poor’s give The Bahamas stellar marks. There is no Bahamian Diaspora.

Why is The Bahamas a success? Its political leaders and voters look forward, not backward. They unashamedly look to America as an example, and have embraced business-friendly policies and a low-tax free-market philosophy. Recently, the “darker” and more left-leaning ruling party suffered a stunning election defeat, despite having presided over an expanding economy and unprecedented development boom. Good management and honesty in government – not race – were the main issues in the election campaign.

In The Bahamas, the bicentennial of the slave trade's abolition got circumspect coverage in local papers, and it was consigned to the inside pages. In Jamaica, in contrast, The Observer ran a chest-thumping front-page article in which Prime Minister Simpson Miller paid lip service to reparations and told school children to honor their slave ancestors by respecting one another. "My request for honoring them is that for every child that is raped and is left to soak in the rapist's semen and her own blood, you are perpetuating, Mr. Rapist, the action of the slave master."

And so, then, Jamaica’s political leaders have a new scapegoat: Black people are poor because white people are rich. Slave reparations will remedy this. Ultimately, though, it’s an argument that’s likely to produce only more dysfunction in Jamaica, along with a new generation of angry Jamaicans. And this will be a problem for countries to which increasing numbers of Jamaicans will immigrate: Violent gangs with Jamaican origins have over the years established stakes in America, Canada and Britain.

Criminality aside, an odd fact has emerged in respect to Jamaica since the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks. In varying degrees, the overwhelmingly Christian nation has had ties to at least five of six terror plots and attacks with connections to the Caribbean. The deadliest was London’s suicide-bomb attacks nearly two years ago; they killed 52 commuters and wounded about 700. The deadliest bomber of was Jamaica-born Germaine Lindsay, a 19-year-old Muslim convert.

Jamaica’s links to these plots and attacks was first observed by The Big Carnival blog. Later, Diane Abbott, a long-time member of the British Labor Party’s radical fringe, echoed her concerns in a newspaper column that referred to an ongoing trend of young black men converting to Islam and taking up jihad. “These young men obviously need something to believe in. And radical Islam gives them this,” wrote the British-born daughter of Jamaican immigrants in The Observer.

Abbott never considered that these young men might have been primed by the anti-American and anti-Western worldview spewed by the intellectual elite in Jamaica and Britain. Perhaps it’s time that Jamaica's political leaders adopted a forward-looking worldview and lived up to their country’s motto: “Out of Many, One People.”