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Achilles’ Heels, or Am I Being a Heel?
[Updated upon considering some comments. Deletions noted by strike-through; italics annotate additions.]
The conservative media space, social and otherwise, is abuzz with another woman of the left speaking truth we wish to hear to the power of Big Media. Lara Logan is a woman of immense physical courage and moral courage. She has spoken hard truths to real power. She is a real, old-fashioned reporter. Kudos to Lara Logan are warranted. And. Lara Logan is human, like all of us, and we may choose to overlook parts of her humanity that complicate our preferred narrative.
At the height of the Arab Spring, the Muslim Brotherhood drove the Egyptian military’s geriatric President Hosni Mubarak from office with massive street protests, as a prelude to parliamentary election victory for the original Islamist movement. Lara Logan led an unarmed reporting team into a large Egyptian public square to capture the people’s story. The crowd of men turned into a mob, gang-raped, and nearly tore her limb-from-limb with their bare hands.
Anyone who paid attention to the news over the past decade probably vaguely recalled this story. If you were not a hardcore leftist or Obama supporter, you likely shook your head at a woman walking uncovered, and at night, into a massive crowd of Muslim men in the Middle East. Listening to the three-hour-long Mike Drop podcast is inspiring and excruciating. It is also expletive-laced, which is why I am not embedding the podcast video.
I did learn, from the long-form interview, of her many years spent in Iraq and Afghanistan. She was very wise to the dangers of war zones. Here is a piece Logan did on Afghanistan in 2008, after spending a month in a small combat outpost. “Reflections from Afghanistan,” is her most recent report, in 2018. No illusions, real reporting with calculated risks.
I listened to the entire podcast and then watched the “60 Minutes” episode where she talked about the sexual attack by the mob. This is worth your watching or re-watching. It, too, is not comfortable viewing.
The two accounts, by the same person of the same event, are separated by seven-plus years. Listen closely, and you will find Lara Logan’s story changed an important detail.
The “60 Minutes” piece did not assign clear blame for the attack on any faction. The narrator said we may never know if the regime directed the attack or if it was just a criminal mob. Left out was the possibility that the mob did not see themselves as criminal. Yet, the report then disclosed the terrible truth that Egyptian women regularly face sexual violence. Indeed Lara Logan says: “I had no idea it was so endemic…” This was an experienced war correspondent, with many years in the region, but she and her US-based team had “no idea” of this particular threat.
Now, years later, Lara Logan either has evidence not introduced or needs to protect herself her psyche by asserting the attackers were agents of the fallen regime. No mention now of the fact that what happened to her was acceptable in the new Muslim Brotherhood regime, which the crowd was celebrating. To be an objective reporter now would mean reporting on her hopeful beliefs putting her into the position she was somehow unaware ordinary Egyptian women feared.
Or, perhaps we are seeing another instance of how our memories change over time. As another author wrote in “Renovating Memories“:
Scientists now tell us that every time we pull a memory out of long-term storage, we then re-write it, and in this rewriting, it may get changed. This may play into some instances of what has come to be known as the Mandela Effect.
It is entirely possible that Logan’s memory now is that the military regime’s internal security service was culpable. This may well be objectively true. It is also, sadly, still true that women are at great danger of sexual violence in Egypt, and other countries in the region, outside of the protection of male relatives, when those male relatives see an attack on their women as a deadly insult to their honor.
Indeed, you will hear that dynamic play out in Logan’s description of the mob’s attack. Her first moment of safety came when the mob surged with her against a group of Egyptian women, covered from head to toe. One of these women wrapped her arms around Lara Logan. A handful of men, who were standing around their women, became her temporary protectors, until the military beat their way through the mob with riot batons and extracted her and her crew.
We have all remarked, or nodded in agreement, on the dangerous naivety of white Western travelers biking or trekking through very bad places. Remember “Young, Blonde, Scandinavian Women Camp in Morocco, With Predictable Results?” What about “In a World with No Evil, You Can Do No Wrong?” We are all quite clear on the lethal self-delusion in these cases.
In the midst of our celebration, it is worth remembering we are all imperfect vessels, with tragic flaws, Achilles heels, blind spots. Lara Logan has spoken truth, or what we want to hear, about major media, so we are avoiding raising the apparent continuing blind spot. Yet, the assignment of definitive blame to the military internal security service is an attack on the legitimacy of the current Egyptian president, who has done more for real reform of Islam, to the eventual benefit of women and religious minorities, than any other majority-Muslim nation’s leader since, perhaps Ataturk.
And. It is entirely plausible that the same security forces that now keep a real reformer alive in the presidency of Egypt also directed the instigation of the attack that conservatives saw as revealing the real nature of the Arab Spring. Now, how you sort through all those cross-cutting pressures in this fallen world? Or is asking these issues terribly impolite, am I being a heel?
Published in Journalism
You’re not being a heel, Clifford, but I’m not sure I agree with your approach to this subject. It is possible that Lara Logan learned about the rape of women after she was attacked. It may have been one of those topics that people don’t discuss, especially when they are embarrassed by the behavior of the mobs. I don’t think we’ll ever know who was behind the attack(s); certainly al Sisi doesn’t want to go there.
Al Sisi has done many good things. But he’s also jailed a huge number of people, journalists, adversaries and possible adversaries. I have mixed impressions of him.
So, as you say, we are all imperfect. I don’t know why her story changed. I don’t know if her memories have become distorted or if she intentionally changing the facts. What I do know is that she gets little if any benefit for attacking the Leftist media in this country, unless she’s trying to get a job with Fox News. Maybe at some point we’ll learn the reasons for the discrepancies between her stories.
She has still earned my respect for outing the media.
It’s a Gordian knot. Solve it as Alexander did.
He may be an SOB, but he’s our SOB. (Frank D. Roosevelt)
Exactly.
In the alternative, solve it as Solomon did.
Good reporters report additional information if they learn it. Truth is always better than fiction when it comes to reporting, even if it’s inconvenient.
Cliff,
This is your naivete talking. You assume that a gang of Muslim men whipped into a frenzy over whatever issue needed to be directed to rape a lone white woman in their midst. They don’t need to be commanded it happens again and again all over the world. This isn’t Islamaphobia this is just reality. Nobody needed to command them to do it. It is what they do.
Sorry Cliff, but we keep projecting our own values where they don’t exist. Women are raped, women are murdered in honor killings, gays are executed, hands are chopped off and Jihadists commit genocide. It’s just another day in the neighborhood. The Egyptian government has nothing to do with it. Sisi has done his best to hold it down. The Arab Spring was exactly allowing the wolf to guard the henhouse. This one incident isn’t all that important to this conclusion, by conservatives or anybody else.
You aren’t being impolite you are being foolish.
Regards,
Jim
Moderator Note:
Code of Conduct.She went into a muslim mob innocent of Islam. She came out still without a clue. She hadn’t read the Koran, they are encouraged to rape non believers, call them pigs, and they do it to their own daughters and wives. [Redacted] In all these years of remaining silent has she still not read the koran? It also happens when the muslims obtain a majority in a country they inhabit.
I don’t get what this post is about. Is it that Laura Logan going against the MSM is as dangerous as reporting during the Arab Spring?
I’m sorry but this is over the line. I know many faithful Muslims and they do not rape, slaughter and maim. This comment repulses me.
Religion aside, it could be something about mobs…
https://www.foxnews.com/us/occupy-protests-plagued-by-reports-of-sex-attacks-violent-crime
@jackhendrix, I posit that raping, slaughtering and maiming are a-okay with (too) many muslims. It ain’t us. It’s them.
I am sorry it repulses you, but the vast majority of muslims are fully aware of what their koran and their iman teaches. They do not denounce it, or decry it, or reform it, the koran is the word of their god via mohamed. If you haven’t read it, take a chance and do. Especially from chapter 87 to the end. All the good stuff from chapter 1 through chapter 86 has been denounced. You will have to find a koran with the chapters in order, as most on the market today, are published with the longest chapter first, and the shortest chapter last, not in chronological order. It is published that way so to be deceptive. If you really want to know more, try:
http://www.citizenwarrior.com/
Let’s be clear, you did not condemn an entire religion for failing to denounce clear crimes against our liberal order. Had you done so, I would not be commenting here. No, you condemned all practitioners of Islam as rapists and murderers.
Your words were “The muslims do what muslims do, rape, slaughter, maim, kill, whatever….. It doesn’t matter the country, or the leadership, if they practice islam, an outsider, especially an outsider, is apt to get raped or killed or both.”
But I’m supposed to read the Koran for proof you’re right? I can’t ask my friends I’ve known for years? My neighbors who watch my kids? My coworkers?
No. In a liberal society we do not essentialize. We do not assign individual behaviors based on group identity.
How can anyone engage the argument that Islam as an institution is failing to police its practitioners when you condemn them all as murdering rapists?
Am I alone in this?!
Feel free to weigh in Clifford, it’s your post. Do you think Muslims are all rapists and murders? That they are uniquely compelled by their religion and culture to commit crimes against humanity?
Don’t believe a single word I say. Read it for yourself.
Take the Pledge
Some people say Islam is a religion of peace and that Islam has been hijacked by extremists, terrorists, and stealth jihadists who twist and distort the peaceful teachings of the Quran and quote it out of context.
Others say that political, supremacist, and even violent teachings are fundamental to Islam, and that people who say otherwise either haven’t read the Quran or are protecting Islam with religious deception (taqiyya).
The general confusion about the nature of Islam makes us collectively unable to make informed decisions. You can help end this confusion by reading the Quran. Stop believing what other people say and find out for yourself.
Take the Pledge: Read the Quran. Then convince everyone you know to read it too. Quoted from the Citizen Warrior.
And to the moderators, what would have been too far for you?
Would comment 8 been okay had the word Muslim been replaced with black?
What about Hispanic?
Would Jew have been too far?
Is Muslim okay since we all know they really do like raping and murdering?
I’ve updated my post with your comments in mind, reflecting an insightful earlier piece on human memory.
Regarding the “Muslims” comments, all around, this is a photograph of Egyptian women in the 1960s, under a militantly secular nationalist ruler:
You may reasonably assume they are Muslim, with Muslim fathers and families.
This famous photograph of women protesting against the new hijab law was taken in Tehran, Iran, on the last day women were free to walk in public without a hijab. Read the linked article. Oh, yes, these are almost certainly all women of the Shia Islamic faith.
So is this brave young woman.
No
I would just like to add that we’ve undoubtedly had our share of gang rapes over the years in our own country.
Excellent update, Clifford.
Clifford, my comment at 15 was intended to solicit your input in what I feel was a conversation getting out of hand. I was (and am) hot about the direction of some of the comments and I did not mean to imply you hold animus towards Muslims. I read and enjoy your work and know you are a reasonable and eminently good person.
I regret my implication you are not and offer my apology.
Horrifying but interesting
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_sexual_assault_in_Egypt
No, you are not alone, but I believe that you are incorrect.
First, I don’t think that Kay condemned Islam for failing to denounce crimes. The problem is far deeper. Islam encourages such crimes. I think that this was Kay’s point
Kay’s criticism is not of “identity.” It is of ideology. The problem is Islam. The problem is also Muslims, to the extent that they follow Islamic teaching.
There appear to be a great many Muslims who do not follow the bad teachings. But it is not clear whether this is out of ignorance of those teaching, or rejection of those teachings out of some other source of morality, or cowardice, or deliberate deception as to the extent of their radicalism. There are reformers, but they tend to be on the fringe and are in danger of their lives.
If you look up the percentage of Muslims polled who support the death penalty for apostasy, you’ll get an idea of the extent of the problem.
Jack, I’m concerned that you’re doing what the Leftists do, which is to deliberately misinterpret a statement, fail to recognize obvious hyperbole, and then argue against the strawman that you have created.
Note that I used the same type of hyperbole by saying “the Leftists” rather than “some Leftists.”
I don’t see how the statement that Muslims do what they do – kill, rape, maim – regardless of country or leadership was obvious hyperbole. Tell me how that comment was actually a thoughtful critique about Islamic teachings?
Further, I made no argument regarding the merits and burned no straw men. Have your conversation about political Islam and it’s effects. The statement was objectively offensive. Surely you can debate the topic without unecessary offense.
Im a stakeholder here too – a reason why I use my true name. The conversations we hold here are meant to transcend the normal muck of internet discourse.
Oh, and a leftist would have attacked the speaker not the speech. I did no such thing.
I really like her. I’ve met her in person a few times. Her producer, Richard Butler, lived with me and my roommate in Afghanistan in 2011 for about five months, and I also met him a few times in Iraq in 2005. Richard produced a story about L/3/25th Marines in Iraq. I can’t remember if that was for 60 Minutes, I think not. I think he moved to 60 Minutes later and produced a story about five sets of brothers in 1/23rd Marines.
Then she came to our battalion’s Marine Corps Ball in 2011. No pictures that time. Then I met her again when our kids by coincidence went to the same summer camp in the Texas Hill Country.
I really like her. She has a very magnetic personality and is as charming as you can imagine her to be.
Here we are in Afghanistan:
And again in Texas. I get fatter, but she gets thinner. I can’t say enough good things about her.
Armstrong & Getty had a good interview with her as well, talking about the current state of reporting: https://www.spreaker.com/user/agshow/022019-extra-large-laralogan?utm_medium=widget&utm_source=user%3A9808728&utm_term=episode_title.
It’s like the statement “Nazis kill Jews.” Not all Nazis did so, but the bad conduct was done by Nazis, based on Nazi ideology, and at least implicitly supported by the bulk of Nazis.
Obviously, Kay didn’t mean that all Muslims kill, rape, or maim. That would be a ludicrous and counterfactual claim. You can assume that she meant it literally, but I think that this is a misinterpretation, and so obvious a misinterpretation that it seems ideologically motivated (perhaps it was not — I just say that it seems so). I think that when interpreting Kay’s comment, she should be given the benefit of the doubt, and you should therefore identify what she said as hyperbole.
I apologize to the extent that I’m overly sensitive on this issue. It is a very common tactic of the Left, and they sometimes drive me batty.
As an interesting counter to the “I know some very nice Muslims” argument, you might want to watch the Amazon series The Man in the High Castle. It’s an entertaining historical fiction, set in the early 1960s in which the Germans and Japanese won WWII. The thing that I find interesting is the leading American Nazi character, who I find to have many admirable qualities and views (such as being strongly pro-family). I’d probably like him perfectly well, at a backyard barbecue or over a beer. But he’s a friggin’ Nazi, for crying out loud. The fact that he’s a charming fellow doesn’t demonstrate that his ideology is anything short of evil.