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Lara Logan, the press, and the Egyptian street — 56 Comments

  1. I think there are two factors at work here:

    First, the casual racism of the liberal mind: “What can you expect from Those People? She should have known better. Asking for it, really. They can’t help themselves.”

    Second, the desire to protect the Official Narrative and President Obama: “If people find out the Egyptian street protesters are a bunch of violent thugs, it contradicts all our rosy stories of triumphant democracy. People might realize President Obama has fucked up again. Throw that stupid bitch under the bus and bury the story.”

  2. Neo, one commenter I read on Nir Rosen said that he was a red diaper baby.[Though born in NYC in 1977, which I find rather young for a red diaper baby.] IIRC, you had a Stalinist uncle. I wonder if there might have been any mutual acquaintances.

  3. Neo,

    Your colleagues Shrink and Doctor Sanity have commented before on the (dare I say it?) depraved and barbaric sexuality of Muslim countries, and I fear we see it here.

    And before the trolls bring their clubs, they should try to refute Shrink. They can’t. They can deny him, they can insult him, they can try to shout him down. But they can’t prove him wrong, because he’s right.

  4. Gringo: well, with six degrees of separation, probably. But I don’t know Rosen at all, and had never even heard of him before yesterday.

    However, I’ve been reading up on him, and it’s quite a story. As I said, I plan to write something pretty soon.

  5. Bright people of junior high age of a certain mentality learn that they can use their wit to make sharp remarks about people. I was one of those junior high smartasses with the sharp tongue and ready wit. The intent is to show how how witty they are. They think that they will be applauded for showing people how witty they are.

    The reality is that their “wit” makes people sad and angry, and instead of being applauded, they are losing friends and making enemies. Usually “witty” people of junior high age learn that lesson the hard way and tone down their “wit.”

    I suspect that Nir Rosen never learned that lesson, until today.

  6. This reminds me a scene in “Cat’s Cradle” when amidst unfolding apocalypse a pair of Americans cry: “We are American citizens!”, as if this can save them from unleashed tornado. Mobs are just as merciless and senseless as erupting volcanoes. News agencies should know better and never send their female reporters in dangerous places.

  7. “What does the incident say about the forces shaping the new Egypt? What does the Egyptian street think about the place of women in that society, and will there be new restrictions on their lives once democracy is instituted–if it ever is instituted? And what about the Arab world in general, and the place of women there?”

    It says nothing good – especially for Egypt, which (barring terrorist incidents) had up until now a very thriving tourist incidents. But still, there are reminiscences here and there from female tourists there who have come away with all kinds of unsavory tales of being groped and threatened. As a Marine, my daughter did a TDY in Egypt for Bright Star 2001 – and she had the heebie jeebies whenever she and the other Marines were outside the port area in Alexandria. And there are all sorts of stories among military women about being hassled by the mutawa, the religious policemen in Saudi Arabia, for instance – some of them amusing, as the women held their own. During the Gulf War I remember hearing about a female Army NCO was harangued and then struck by a mutawa – and she cold-cocked him with the butt of her M-16. In another instance, a whole squad of them flagged down a military van with a single military woman passenger in the back, among a group of male NCOs. They tried to pull the woman out of the van – and the NCOs took them apart. They were military policemen, and the woman was their commanding officer.
    My daughter says she absolutely would not travel anywhere in the Islamic middle east by herself.

  8. I believe it is full responsibility of employers to protect their stuff workers. Logan is another victim of politcorrectness: denial by those who sent her of barbaric nature of Arabs and of special vulnerability of women.

  9. This is regular fare for women in the Muslim-colonized cities of Europe. Gates of Vienna has the whole works about it, if you’re interested in the details. An indigenous woman in a city like Malmé¶ expects to be harassed (at best) if she doesn’t practice preemptive dhimmitude by donning the hijab before stepping into the colonists’ neighborhoods. Thus the cause of Islamic imperialism (instituting de-facto shariah law over infidel countries) is served.

    And of course there are the Marxist justifiers of those rapes as well–of indigenous European women in their own countries, not just of an American blonde reporter operating in Egypt. Do a search for Uni Wikan, a female Scandinavian academic who has written essays justifying the rape of her sisters by the Muslim colonists as being “part of their culture” and therefore deserving of respect, as the most egregious example I have encountered so far in reading GoV.

    Bad enough to be happening in Egypt, it is criminally insane for any non-Muslim state to import this problem. The state should be its nation’s castle, its sanctuary and safe haven where the nation is secure in its existence and confident in being master of their own fate. Multiculturalism is plainly a form of treason.

  10. Sergey: I don’t have the link right now, but I was reading up on Logan, and I don’t think CBS could have stopped her. She was very much a risk-taker.

    I also believe she did have security, although I can’t be sure because CBS hasn’t addressed this. But I think I remember reading that after the earlier attacks, more security was provided all journalists. Security was probably part of her “crew,” although I don’t know. Was it inadequate on the face of it, or did she wander off and get trapped? I would really like more details, but I don’t have them yet, and I don’t know if they’ll ever be released.

  11. My only comment is that it was IMPERATIVE the story came out in order to WARN future journalists who planned on visiting of the risks.

    It would’ve been negligent and abhorrent to supress the story.

  12. Sgt. Mom: I’m very curious to learn who these women were who intervened, however. Or was it really the soldiers who were the effective ones in stopping the attack?

    But if the women did act bravely on her behalf, how did they do this, and who were they? Were they older women, admonishing the men and shaming them as though they were mothers scolding them? Would this even matter to such a marauding crowd?

    It’s very puzzling, and I’d like to know.

  13. Horrible for the woman reporter involved but, from my perspective, a woman who probably thought herself, as a modern, Western woman and a reporter to be virtually inviolable, who believed her own reportage, and the multiculti mantra that all cultures are the same and, as a result, put herself in a much more precarious and dangerous situation then she realized. If she was going to put herself in this position (and her employer should have known better–but I guess it believed its own propaganda, too) she should at least have had several real body guards as a precaution, if only because of the tumultuous, uncertain nature of such a crowd bent on revolution, and perhaps confrontation.

    In fact, had she bothered to check, women are less than second class citizens in Islam and, in particular, there is a profound animosity against “unbeliever” women, who are routinely castigated as “whores” because they do not cover up as Shari’a law requires, and are seen as prey (see http://archive.frontpagemag.com/Printable.aspx?ArtId=6251 and http://archive.frontpagemag.com/readArticle.aspx?ARTID=6161) .

    In Malmo, Sweden–now the “rape capitol” of that unhappy country–Imams have apparently been telling the young male Muslim “immigrants” there–who are responsible for the vast majority of the epidemic of rapes targeting young Christian girls–that as Muslims–“the Best of Peoples” they are entitled to treat unbelievers,called by the Qur’an “the vilest of creatures,” and especially “accursed” unbeliever women–whores all–in any way they want, because such unbeliever women are the natural “war booty” of any Muslim man–a phrase which refers to how Muhammad ruled that Muslims should treat unbeliever women they had captured.

    These were not necessarily crowds of noble democrats.

  14. News agencies should know better and never send their female reporters in dangerous places.

    The problem with that is that women aren’t going to get the plum foreign assignments, since by the nature of the job they tend to be in war zones and the like, and their careers will be stunted as a result. If you’re an ambitious young reporter, it’s probably not going to seem a major risk in comparison to the rewards.

    I believe it is full responsibility of employers to protect their stuff workers.

    By most of the accounts I’ve seen she had plenty of security. But if hundreds of men decide on an assault it’s never going to be any use, unless you have someone prepared to fire randomly into a crowd, which few people are.

  15. The liberals, as always, will glean all the wrong lessons from this episode. They will use this attack as ‘proof positive’ that the Tea Partiers are a violent, sexually deranged MOB of hate speech thugs. Unfortunately, there are some nominal conservatives like Ron Paul giving the libs ammunition to feed this narrative.

    http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/144271-ron-paul-tea-party-similar-to-egypt-protesters-

    I wouldn’t be surprised to hear stories in the coming days or months of female reporters ‘accosted’ by Tea partiers who they cover.

  16. Hong, I think you are not hitting the mark.

    There is no way a story could be written about a reporter covering Tea Partiers similar to what Lara went through.

  17. From reading his posts over the years, I believe that Robert Spencer, of Jihadwatch.com, is a meticulous, fair, and objective researcher, and knows whereof he speaks. He has cited copious evidence from primary Muslim and other sources to back up what he says, and I have never found hm to be wrong, or to twist things to make a case. He is an unflinching and knowledgeable student of and expert on Islam and its Jihad, and has had to take very substantial security precautions because of his outspokenness.

    Here is his take on rape as an instrument of the Jihad (http://www.jihadwatch.org/2004/09/spencer-on-rape-and-jihad.html) .

  18. Any American that travels in the Middle East, Africa, South America and the more exciting parts of Asia should have local escorts and appropriate security when areas are questionable. These places are far from Kansas, and it is easy to become a target if you do not know exactly where you are going, who you are visiting, and what you are doing there. Journalists, regardless of gender, should know this as much as business people. Daniel Pearl’s gruesome end should long be remembered.

  19. I too have also heard stories of Western females hassled by Muslim men not just in the Middle East but in certain Islamicized neighborhoods of London. Apparently, to many of these trolls, walking in western garb unaccompanied by a male escort is construed as a sexual invitation (ie whore)! I would never advise my sister to travel alone in a Muslim country. It would be morally irresponsible not to warn them against it.

    Is it Islamophobic to point out that Islamists are Westernphobic?

  20. In the context of this story, I derived endless amusement from the chagrin of one of my very modern, independent, with it, “feminist” female co-workers, who had gone on a vacation to Morocco, and had a Muslim man there try to buy her from her father for a few head of livestock.

    At least he tried to buy her!

  21. Neo – I’d love to know more about the women – and the soldiers who rescued Ms. Logan – it’s just purely amazing to me that there are actually so few details being put across. These people are supposed to be in the news business, I thought. This happened last Friday! It took four days to appear in the news cycle.

    Wolla – I can top that: when my daughter was in Kuwait with the Marines at the start of the buildup to the Iraq invasion, one of the local civilian contractors that her unit worked with (she was a comm/wire troop) was quite taken with her, she being a tall natural blond. He offered her a a marriage proposal with a dowry of camels – and she thought he was joking, and talked him up to eighty camels, whereupon among much embarrassment she realized he was entirely serious. (80 camels is apparently a substantial dowry offer… although if they were racing or milk camels has an effect on the exchange rage.) Her NCOs kept her away from that particular contractor after that – out of mutual embarrassment more than any particular fear that he would try kidnapping her or something.

  22. When in a bad neighborhood it’s never a good idea to flash a wad of bills. You have a right to do that, but it’s a really bad idea. Sending attractive females in form fitting clothes into the Muslim street is nuts. Everyone knows the Arabs and Muslims see western women as sluts and whores who deserve or even want what they get. As I recall Katie Couric got pushed around as did a woman from CNN.

    I’m guessing the women push for it to advance their careers, but supervisors should just say no. All cultures are not equally pleasant. Shoving an attractive, blond woman in the face of an Arab crowd is like throwing raw meat to a dog. You don’t have to be very smart to predict the outcome.

    It’s not sexism. Sending a Jewish man in is equally stupid.

  23. Pingback:Political Byline » Blog Archive » CBS Reporter supposedly gets raped in Egypt

  24. Mr. Frank,

    As an illustration of your point above, I offer the quotes below from an Australian Imam’s 2006 sermon:

    “…The controversy over Sheik Hilali flared last Thursday when The Australian published excerpts from a sermon he delivered last month in which he likened immodestly dressed women to uncovered meat and suggested rape victims were partly to blame for being attacked.

    In the religious address about adultery to about 500 worshippers in Sydney last month, Sheik Hilali said:

    “If you take out uncovered meat and place it outside on the street, or in the garden or in the park, or in the backyard without a cover, and the cats come and eat it … whose fault is it – the cats or the uncovered meat?
    “The uncovered meat is the problem.”

    The sheik then said: “If the woman was in her room, in her home, in her hijab, no problem would have occurred.”

    He said women could be “weapons” used by Satan to control men.

    “It is said that in the state of zina (adultery), the responsibility falls 90 per cent of the time on thewoman. Why? Because she possesses the weapon of enticement.” …

    (see the full article at http://www.militaryphotos.net/forums/showthread.php?95575-Sheik-Hilali-Australia-s-biggest-scumbag-praises-Iraq-jihadists.)

  25. My wife went on a group trip to Nigeria to discuss the Christian-Muslim problems. When driving from city to city they had a 6’4″ soldier carrying an AK 47 in the front seat of the car for protection. That was in the peaceful part of the country.

    What Lara Logan was thinking is beyond me. All you had to do was spend ten seconds looking at the pictures of the crowds in Tahrir Square to see that there wasn’t a single woman there. They only came out after the demonstrations were over to sweep the streets. I find it hard to believe that any women at all rescued her.

  26. Paul in Boston: I’ve watched the crowds carefully and there have been women there.

    They seem to be vastly outnumbered. And they also are hard to distinguish as women, because they wear black headcoverings and shapeless garments. But they are there.

  27. Horrible for the woman reporter involved but, from my perspective, a woman who probably thought herself, as a modern, Western woman and a reporter to be virtually inviolable, who believed her own reportage, and the multiculti mantra that all cultures are the same and, as a result, put herself in a much more precarious and dangerous situation then she realized.

    She is South African, a serious war reporter (and a good one), and married to an American military contractor.

    She new the risks.

  28. Neo,

    In one picture I saw a young Egyptian woman in western dress. No doubt upper class and well educated.

  29. I note reports that Lara Logan is vowing to be back on the job in a week or so. More guts than brains I say.

  30. Whenever the victim isn’t a “good” victim, the media trots out their privacy rights. Its the same kind of argument abortionists use and the only people accepting it are those wanting a rationale.

  31. If there is any justice N. Rosen will soon be reduced to panhandling for a living. “Formerly respected”? He never should have been respected even before this, he is a deranged far-left propagandist and despite (I assume) a Jewish background is fanatically hostile to Israel. Couldn’t happen to a more deserving guy. And don’t waste any more of your valuable bandwidth on this piece of trash, neo.

    No relation, of course.

  32. Mobs, whatever their composition, are inherently dangerous. Muslim mobs, even more so. That’s the worst of all possible worlds.

    As for Nir Rosen, he’s a putz and a traitor, to boot, for embedding with the Taliban and using his press credentials to get his group of Taliban fighters through police checkpoints. These are people who want to kill American soldiers. Aid and comfort to the enemy in time of war? (declared or not, it’s still a war). Sure looks like it to me.

  33. At the risk of sounding like some sort of Arab street apologist, I will point out we don’t know what happened, as the PTB have scrupulously covered it up.

    Was she sexually assaulted or raped? They are not the same thing. And how badly was she beaten? We don’t know the answers to any of these things.

    So, like I normally do when the press first get involved in sexual assaults or alleged rapes I stand back and let things play out. I’ve seen too many times before where facts were assumed or manufactured to sell papers.

    http://falserapesociety.blogspot.com/p/lamb-to-slaughter-hofstra-false-rape.html

    I link to this not to suggest that she is lying in this case , but because it illustrates how the press (left or right they both love drama) tends to handle these things: irresponsibly.

  34. Re: my above post on this thread, her name is Unni (double-n), not Uni, and here’s the relevant link:

    Norwegian Authorities Still Covering Up Muslim Rapes (July 27, 2006)

    It’s part of the Fjordman Report, by the incomparable essayist Fjordman. The money quote is this:

    Unni Wikan, a professor of social anthropology at the University of Oslo, in 2001 said that “Norwegian women must take their share of responsibility for these rapes” because Muslim men found their manner of dress provocative. The professor’s conclusion was not that Muslim men living in the West needed to adjust to Western norms, but the exact opposite: “Norwegian women must realize that we live in a Multicultural society and adapt themselves to it.”

    Isn’t multiculturalism wonderful? I mean, doesn’t just everybody want to bring those endearing aspects of Bedouin culture to their drab, dull neighborhood?

  35. Ziontruth–That, of course, is the whole “political” point of these rapes–just one of myriad razzias by Muslims (the raids against unbelievers sanctioned and recommended by Muhammad–such raids as in prior centuries spread terror, chaos, and destruction across Europe for more than a thousand years, until Western Christian nations became too strong and Islam too weak) that, taken altogether, constitute the Jihad–razzias that, each in their own special way, are intended to force the unbelievers of the House of War to bow to the will, dominance, practices, norms, and control of Islam and of Muslims, to conform to Shari’a law, or to suffer the consequences.

    For, in our era, we are told by our “leaders” not to fight back, not to take notice of what is happening–for this would be racism, discrimination, and Islamophobia–but are counseled to just lie back and enjoy our violation.

  36. Voice of reason from David Warren:
    “The whole Middle East is dissolving into chaos, with unpredictable, even unimaginable, consequences. Perhaps worse, thanks largely to the same “social media,” in combination with mainstream reporting focused sensationally on spectacle alone, our response dissolves into a similar incoherence.”

  37. Have to agree with the quote attributed to David Warren. Post 9/11 I read a number of books on the historical ME and Islam. I also read Charles Sennott’s (Boston Globe correspondent pre-9/11) book “The Body and the Blood” which pondered what would transpire following the continued exodus of Christians out of the ME. It was published in 2001. His book should be required reading in our schools. We Americans (perhaps even more broadly “Westerners”) can’t imagine life without some measure of “due process”. This lens through which we see is entirely distinct from that of the Arab world. Our press applying our principles could not be more off-kilter in their assessments and ability to relate to that world. They are ignorant of the truth about life as it is lived over there. Most are.

  38. Ah, these “our principles”. This reminds me a phrase from a drama by Bernard Shaw: “Do not judge him too harsh, my Prince. He is a barbarian and thinks that the customs of his tribe are the laws of nature”. With this definition of barbarity, most westerners are barbarians: they fail to understand that their principles are applicable only to the West, and to full extent only to Anglo-Saxon Protestant tribe. Even in Greece, Italy or Spain there are serious problems with their applicability.

  39. Given the ACTUAL rules they follow as to wearing a viel and what you can or cant do when another doesnt, what happened is not surprising.

    if my son asked if we could see aceh in indonesia, my wife and i would have told him no, that was almost the only no we would have given. they follow the more extreme arab versions in that location, and so he and i would be in extra danger (more than we were), and my wife would be in even more, if we did not cover her up.

    just cause the american has been raised to ignore other cultures and not care, they think that others do that too…

    the whole idea of When in Rome, do as the Romans do is lost on them, as they do what they want to do, and wonder why they have life in prison, getting their hands chopped off, being raped by a gang under sharia/dhimmi law, caned for tossing gum on the street, and on it goes…

  40. To look at another aspect of the ME, visit the Rubin Report and find out what is going to happen in Egypt and Bahrain. Short version, say goodbye to Egypt and probably Bahrain.

    My guess is that the Iraqis will request the US retain its troops in the country and that Barack will refuse thereby assuring that that country will fall under Iraniain hegemony. With a little luck he can lose the whole Middle East by election time.

    BTW when I was in Turkey in 1976 the western women who I traveled with all got used to being pinched black and blue by the locals. I was told a western woman in Pakistan would wind up leading an unwanted parade of Pakistani males.

    My guess is that the Middle east with digress backward until the oil gives out, then their modern cities will make outstanding ruins.

  41. When I was a freshman in college (Vanderbilt), my roommate, a liberal gal from Elizabeth, NJ, and with a Jersey accent that could etch glass, struck up a conversation with a young Paki student named Israr. The very next morning, this fellow, to my shock and outrage, had managed to infiltrate our girls-only dorm, and was sitting at the foot of my roommate’s bed, chattily confiding that he was sure we would be willing to relieve him of his virginity!!!

    I mean, WTH? We were trapped beneath our blankets, as we were sleeping in our tee shirts and undies. It was a girls’ dorm, boys Not Allowed (yeah, I’m dating myself).

    So this creep went on about how all the Paki males drool over the prospect of coming to America: “We all heard there are many American blondes who wait at the airport for foreign men to arrive so they can have sex with them,” he assured us. “We all think of the day we can come here.” He also said he was 26, and engaged since boyhood to a girl he’d marry when he returned home to Pakistan.

    We like to NEVER got him outta there. My idiot roommate thought all this was funny and cute.

    Even worse, she ate dinner a week later with Israr’s roommate, Nasir. She hadn’t planned to; she was in the student union and this freak sat next to her and wouldn’t go away. Nasir said he was a gynecologist. He told my roommate that he didn’t wear underwear when he was examining women, so he could better feel his erection. Then, assuming she wanted to have sex with him, he followed her back to her dorm.

    The nice young man there, and All-American, football player, redheaded guy with freckles, got in Nasir’s face and ordered him out of the dorm. Politely but firmly.

    Hero!

    I’ve often said, American women have, by and large, the best men on Earth. 😉

  42. The attack on Lara Logan was cowardly and despicable. The whitewash by CBS only less so. Where was their sensitivity when they aired videos of Americans being killed or wounded in Iraq by IEDs and snipers? You can’t turn off the war porno machine just because you don’t like what it shows about a side you favor.

  43. Bob from VA, you’re reading my mind. We could make up our collective minds to put the stick to them in a big way. Probably the nearest reality is that the fecklessness of the West backs us into a corner where there is no other option.

  44. Question is why Rosen was so hostile to Logan.
    On, I believe, Ace of Spades, it was explained that Logan had some not-terrible things to say about US soldiers in Iraq and the left keeps score about those who fail to keep to the narrative.
    Thus, Logan was on The List for smearing.
    Also, CBS and others are accused of trying to spike the story because it makes zero’s policies look bad. Not sure I follow that, but they would if they thought zero needed the help.

  45. Richard Aubrey:

    Anderson Cooper’s theory is that Rosen’s hostility was due to envy.

    Also, Rosen felt Logan was not with the leftist, anti-US anti-imperialist anti-yada yada yada program.

    Here’s Rosen’s latest; read it if you can stomach it. But I’ll help you out by quoting his own explanation, for what it’s worth:

    I feel I should explain the point I really was trying to make. Had Logan been a non-white, non-famous journalist, this story would have never made it to the news. Ahmed Mahmoud, an Egyptian journalist, was killed in cold blood and nobody ever heard of him. Dozens of other women were harassed and nobody will ever know their names. Credible accounts indicate that the assaults on women took place largely on the Friday of the victory celebration, when millions of non-demonstrators joined the party. Countless women (Egyptian and foreign, journalists and others) have reported being harassed and assaulted in Tahrir Square that Friday, mostly, it seems, by non-revolutionaries…

    Only when pretty white people showed up did Egypt really start to matter, and then, they were preoccupied with the scary Muslim Brotherhood possibly taking over, or what would happen to poor Israel now that there was a “threat” of democracy in Egypt…

    I really have been outraged by Logan’s stories in the past, which I feel have defended American imperial adventures that cost the lives of many thousands of people in the Middle East, glorified American special forces even while they were killing innocent Afghans, and praised Gen. Stanley McChrystal, while condemning her own colleague, Michael Hastings, of Rolling Stone (because he hadn’t served his country, she said). My resentment of Logan was because I felt she was a terrible journalist who supported wars that I had covered.

    But joking about her assault betrayed the very principles that led me to condemn her in the first place. And her destructive reporting has nothing to do with the crime she suffered, nothing at all.

    Et cetera, et cetera, and so forth.

  46. NEO
    Yeah. The left is just a bunch of really good guys who are sickened at the unfairness of everything.
    In actuality, they are a bunch of vicious. lying, hypocritical, cowardly !@#$%^&* who would screw your pet rock should you be silly enough to let them babysit it.
    And feel justified while doing it.
    No sympathy, no empathy, no kindness toward those bastards. They would kill you as soon as look at you if they don’t think you’re on their side.
    I mean, they’d get somebody else to kill you.
    Any questions?
    This guy is not an outlier. He just got busted, is all. The others are the same, but slightly more cautious.

  47. Richard Aubrey: I agree he is no outlier. He seems to be an excellent example of the crusading, earnest, self-righteous, leftist. Everything is interpreted according to the party line in terms of power, oppressor vs. victim groups or classes (not individuals), race, and white vs. brown people.

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