In The Zone

Be sure to tune in to the Northern Alliance Radio Network this Saturday. Steven Vincent will be joining us in the second hour to talk about his new book, "In The Red Zone: A Journey Into The Soul of Iraq":

In the Red Zone, an American journalist's account of his daring solo expeditions through post-Saddam Iraq, is a vivid, frank, and unforgettable portrayal of the hearts and minds of the Iraqi people. An eyewitness of the 9/11 attacks, Steven Vincent went to Iraq to experience the daily realities of life and death in the crossfire of the war on terror. His report is essential for understanding America's enemies and allies in the critical but 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," and run-ins with Iraqi "authorities" who alternately suspected him of being a CIA agent and a terrorist.

Vincent's encounters with doctors and cab drivers, imams and housewives, politicos and poets-and one unforgettable woman in Basra-provided him with special insight into what Iraqis think of their liberation, of America, and 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 and the war in Iraq, Vincent concludes, are closely connected. Victory in both conflicts requires that we look with a sympathetic but unsparing eye at the Iraqi people and the whole Islamic world.

I cracked In The Red Zone open last night and flew through the first sixty pages. It's an engrossing read as Vincent provides a perspective on Iraq rarely seen in the mainstream media. Vincent was not working for any news organization when he made his two trips to Iraq. He went there on his own and spent his time talking with ordinary Iraqis. He relates their feelings on Saddam, the invasion, America, peace activists, and foreign journalists with understanding and wit. I look forward to polishing off the rest of the book this week and talking with Vincent on Saturday.

You can pick up your copy of In The Red Zone from Spence Publishing at a special discounted rate of only $13.97, which is a heck of a deal.

UPDATE: Vincent has a piece at NRO today on Art & the election:

In truth, anyone who --like me-- has spent time in the company of artists, critics, and dealers knows that, east of Hollywood, a more narrow-minded, parochial, morally myopic lot you're not likely to find. Especially when it comes to politics, where the narcissistically fashionable anti-Bush, anti-Iraq war, anti-American sentiment typical of our "creative class" holds total dominion. Now, if our artists' "activism" produced decent art, we might, I suppose, excuse it as the necessary foibles of a class of people who, like rock-'n'-roll performers, are paid to remain forever adolescent. Unfortunately, given the unrelentingly jejune, cynical, ugly, ill-conceived, and utterly predictable results we see in the galleries, such is not the case.